The most controversial documentary movies

D’Souza is a conservative rabble-rouser and generally an all-around clown. He is the rare documentarian to win Worst Picture at the Razzies. We won’t mention any of his “documentaries” by name because he doesn’t deserve the press. Needless to say, he makes the kind of shoddy, problematic trash that definitely, and rightfully sparks controversy.

Michael Moore is a rabble-rouser as well, one with a liberal bent. While he’s no D’Souza, even if your politics lean to the left, Moore can sometimes be frustrating. “Bowling for Columbine” won him an Oscar, which led to a controversial speech, but it is not without its controversy. Gun control is, of course, controversial as is. Still, the actual violence depicted in the film is uncomfortable at times, and he also probably went a little hard at Charlton Heston, who was dealing with the onset of dementia at the time.

One more Moore film. You make a documentary about 9/11, and it’s going to cause controversy. Moore, though, can be a bit heavy handed, of course, and in making a movie about a tragic event, perhaps he did a little Oliver Stone’s “JFK” style of conspiracy theorizing himself as well.

Mike Lindell made a documentary to try and help get the 2020 Presidential election overturned. You know, the one where Joe Biden demonstrably and definitively defeated Donald Trump. Lindell is a Trump acolyte, though, one who made a documentary that even YouTube and Vimeo wouldn’t allow on their platforms. Also, Lindell is the My Pillow guy, which is very funny, even if he also makes idiotic trash documentaries that are easily debunked.

“Citizenfour” won Best Documentary Feature at the Oscars, but it is about Edward Snowden. That is naturally going to cause controversy. On top of that, Glenn Greenwald is prominently involved, and he’s a polarizing figure in his own right.

Andy Kaufman, while a key comedy figure, seemed like a lot to deal with at his best. At his worst, he was obnoxious and abusive and made life and work difficult for everybody. Jim Carrey starred as Kaufman in the acclaimed biopic “Man in the Moon,” but years later, behind-the-scenes footage of that movie was combined with modern interviews to create the documentary “Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond.” You see, art ended up imitating life, as Carrey was method in portraying Kaufman, which meant he, too, made things difficult for everybody around him. Carrey says that Universal buried the footage for years so that people wouldn’t think he was an “a**hole.” Well, if you watch “Jim & Andy,” that fear seems well-founded.

Another Best Documentary Feature winner at the Oscars, so clearly, being controversial is not a death knell. “The Act of Killing” is about a 1960s genocide in Indonesia, so clearly, it is not a pleasant watch. The film was controversial with the Indonesian government of the time. Still, co-director Joshua Oppenheimer also stirred up fervor on the awards trail by demanding the governments of the U.S. and the U.K. acknowledge their roles in the mass killings as well.

Can a snuff film have societal value? Weird question, to be sure, but one that “The Bridge” effectively leaves you to ask. It’s a movie about the Golden Gate Bridge, but through the prism of it as a frequent sight of suicides. Cameras were set up to capture some of these suicides, which, no matter how you slice it can’t really be considered socially or ethically acceptable. “The Bridge” definitely receives more ardor than acclaim as a documentary.

Yes, “The Cove” won Best Documentary Feature. Fisher Stevens was there! “The Cove” is environmentalist, but does it play fair? Some have criticized its heavy-handed lack of neutrality, as well as its use of surreptitious filming practices.

Has any documentary risen and fallen in favor quite like “Super Size Me?” At the time, this “expose” of fast food by the increasingly-tedious Morgan Spurlock seemed like a spark to a flame. However, if you watch “Super Size Me” these days, your main takeaway might be, “OK yeah, and what’s your point?” It also is clear that Spurlock had his thumb, if not his whole hand, on the scales in terms of hitting home with the points he wanted to make seemingly before he even started working on the movie.

Truly, one of the most disturbing documentaries you could ever watch, and that level of discomfort is always going to cause controversy. The film is shot, cinema-verite style, at the Bridgewater State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. The criminals are disturbing in many instances, but so is the way they are treated by the hospital. Just an unpleasant experience altogether.

As a work of documentary “Nanook of the North” is controversial because so much of it turned out to be staged. It is also, however, controversial as a work of cultural insensitivity. Telling the story of the life of an Inuit man and his family in the Canadian Arctic, there is a degree of patronizing contextualization on display throughout the film.

SeaWorld, and its orca stars, were indelible to the cultural output for decades. Then “Blackfish” came out. To many, it was a stirring work of animal activism with any controversy pointed at SeaWorld. SeaWorld, though, declared “Blackfish” inaccurate, and some trainers in the film did say that things they said were manipulated or cut out to fit the filmmakers’ agenda.

If you make a documentary about Scientology, you must expect a maelstrom in its wake. This is born out of the disdain for the Church of Scientology that many have, but also how Scientology tends to circle the wagons when pressed upon. “Going Clear,” as a result, developed intense reactions in both directions.