Documentary
A series that revolves around non-news reporting of nonfiction subjects.
The format can be either feature one long film in each episode like Frontline or multiple shorter segments like 60 Minutes.
Many of the documentaries are known to break several Omnipresent Tropes which exist in other genres due to nature of the documentaries.
Types of Documentary include:
- The TV Documentary.
- The Nature Documentary.
- The Documentary of Lies.
- The Speculative Documentary
- The Docu Soap
Works of fiction or comedy sometimes use a style that imitates or parodies the Documentary:
- The Documentary Episode.
- The Faux Documentary.
- The "Faux To" Guide.
- The Mockumentary.
The Mondo Movie is an intesting type of Exploitation Film that can be a hybrid of the serious types (the original Mondo Cane) or be totally fake (Faces of Death).
Compare and contrast News Broadcast.
A list of tropes that are commonly found in, or specific to, documentaries:
- The Ken Burns Effect
- Manipulative Editing
- Ridiculously Cute Critter
- Shoot the Money
- Stock Footage
- Strawman Political
- Talking Heads
- The Dark Side of Chocolate: About the widespread but strangely unknown-to-the-public use of child slaves in the cocoa industry.
- Earthlings: About the horrific treatment of animals in the food industry, puppy mills, etc...
- The Fog of War: About former Secretary of Defence Robert Macnamara.
- Food Inc.
- Forks Over Knives
- Grizzly Man
- Paint Drying: Although the work of a Trolling Creator protesting the cost of getting a film reviewed by the British Board of Film Classification, it was officially classified as a documentary.
- Reclaiming the Blade: On medieval European swordmanship.
- Super Size Me: One man's attempt to eat McDonald's, and only McDonald's, for 30 days in a row.
- Winnebago Man: Explores the phenomenon of viral videos, in particular that of one man's profanity-laden out-takes.
For more documentaries, see Category:Documentary.