The 15 Best Mockumentaries, Ranked

The art of the documentary aims to reveal some kind of hidden truth to its audience. And this desire for being earnest makes the genre ripe for comedic material. Enter the mockumentary, an often comedic riff on the documentary, primarily through outlandish characters that are larger than life and oddly specific topics that are almost too weird to be true. If documentaries are seen as documents of truth, then mockumentaries are a mirror reflecting back at the audience, revealing just how easy it is to fabricate reality. They aren't always funny though, especially when looking at films such as "Punishment Park" and "Man Bites Dog," where the films' realities are bleak and provide a harrowing look at the capabilities of human cruelty.

Filmmaker Christopher Guest made a career for himself out of the mockumentary, and quite a few of his works appear on this list. He truly understood how to create a hilarious, yet earnest, mockumentary that was just nice enough to its characters so it avoid being mean-spirited. His work helped inspire a movement of filmmaking that mocked our reality and exposed the ridiculous nature of being human. Alongside the work of Guest, we've compiled and ranked the top 15 mockumentaries out there.

"Hard Core Logo" is the first of many movie mockumentaries on the list. While the subjects of this list span a wide range of humanity, musicians are often the topic of the comedic subgenre. Here, director Bruce McDonald looks at the world of punk rock and follows the fictional Canadian hardcore band Hard Core Logo as they get back together for an anti-gun tour. Why guns? Because leader Joe Dick's (Hugh Dillon) mentor and rock legend Bucky Haight (Julian Richings) was shot. Supposedly. It's already off to a wild start. As is common for reunions, emotions run high as the bandmates come back together on their drive across Canada. Also, the band and the crew do acid together, which in reality would be a big ethical violation, but here it's pitch-perfect. It's outlandish and actually quite dark as it looks at Joe's struggle with mental illness. The film is also a loose adaptation of a Canadian novel of the same name, but McDonald takes it a step further by make himself a character and turning the story into a mock music documentary.

Do you remember that strange period of time when Joaquin Phoenix said he was quitting acting to pursue a rap career? Who could forget that absolutely bizarre interview on "The Late Show With David Letterman" in 2009? Well, the joke was on all of us because it was all an intricate hoax for his mockumentary "I'm Still Here," directed by his brother-in-law Casey Affleck. It was a shocking look at the level of fabrication behind celebrities. 

It's also downright impressive that Phoenix was both able to keep up the joke for so long and that he was able to make it so convincing. Phoenix even did a cringe-worthy rap set in Miami in the name of comedic filmmaking. It's like "Borat" (which we'll get to later), but without a terrible accent and wig to hide behind. Instead, Phoenix grew out his hair and looked like an absolute train wreck. And honestly, it's a massive power move.

Rusty Cundieff is known for his 1995 horror film "Tales From the Hood," but before that, he directed the mockumentary "Fear of a Black Hat" in 1993. This is another mockumentary about music, this time about rappers in the early 90s hip-hop scene. Kasi Lemmons is our filmmaker, writing her thesis about hip-hop music. She decides to follow the rap group N.W.H. (a riff on the real rap group N.W.A.) to study their process, their lives, and their relationship with music. But they aren't just any group. For every performance, they wear ridiculous hats as what they call political commentary about their slave ancestors and how they worked in the hot sun. But political commentary doesn't necessarily match their lyrics, which are poking fun at critiques of rap music being vulgar. Their lyrics are vulgar to the extreme, but again they claim it's a political statement. Cundieff's "Fear of a Black Hat" is to hip-hop what "This is Spinal Tap" is to rock 'n' roll.

Just like the world of music, beauty pageants are another strange ritual just begging to be satirized. Michael Patrick Jann's 1999 film "Drop Dead Gorgeous" does just that but with a dark twist. The mockumentary opens following contestants at the regional American Teen Princess Pageant in Minnesota. Contestants, played by Kirsten Dunst, Denise Richards, Amy Adams, and Brittany Murphy, talk to the camera about their excitement to win the pageant. And of course, there are ridiculous dynamics unfolding between the pageant moms and organizers alike. It wouldn't be a movie about beauty pageants without helicopter stage moms obsessed with their kids. 

But everything takes a strange turn when contestants start to die in freak accidents. This is mockumentary meets dark and outlandish comedy as it takes an already ridiculous tradition even further to the extreme. With each strange accident involving explosions of swan floats or falling stage lights, "Drop Dead Gorgeous" just gets weirder and funnier. Jann knew how to make this funny and took it to the next level to create something incredible.

Released in 1992, "Man Bites Dog" is another early mockumentary — and it's a rather harrowing one. Two filmmakers follow serial killer Ben (Benoît Poelvoorde) and film his heinous crimes without intervening. While watching and becoming complicit in his crimes, they also listen to his musings about life and the best methods for murdering victims. He's almost amused by his crimes, constantly bragging about his skills. But then the crew shows the excruciating details of his murders, making "Man Bites Dog" feel like a snuff film. It feels forbidden and taboo, a step further into the world of true crime as the crew finds themselves sucked into Ben's murderous tendencies. It's not only a terrifying look at the mind of a sociopath, but it also critiques documentarians who become too personally involved in their work. As soon as they step into the world of Ben as active participants, there's no turning back for their morals or their attempt to depict the truth about serial killers.

Sacha Baron Cohen's "Borat" series straddles the line with mockumentary because all of his interview subjects are real people. Cohen's Borat is a character, but the people in the scenarios he films don't know that. He takes advantage of ignorance — and politicians — to reveal the ridiculous truth about the American people. And in the second "Borat" film, Cohen brought in Maria Bakalova to play his daughter, which only amplifies the comedy and the absolutely bizarre situations they find themselves in. This is where the infamous Rudy Giuliani scene came from as he solicits sex from Bakalova. That's what makes these films so important. Say what you will about the character himself and Cohen's methods, but something about it feels dangerous. We're in on the secret and that facade could be shattered at any moment. This is improv to the extreme, off the cuff and unplanned. It's a terrifying prospect especially as he interacts with the more conservative groups found in the US.

But that doesn't mean "Borat" wasn't met with its fair share of controversy and lawsuits about how Cohen portrayed them without their consent, including a group of fraternity brothers whose drunken antics were rather embarrassing to say the least.

Mockumentary? More than rockumentary. In his 1984 cult classic "The is Spinal Tap," Rob Reiner plays documentarian Marty DiBergi who follows the British metal band Spinal Tap. They're also known as England's loudest band. Michael McKean and Christopher Guest star as childhood friends David St. Hubbins and Nigel Tufnel, respectively, and are not always the most clever, to put it lightly. They write "11" on their amps to make it seem like they're getting louder. But, as is often seen in the film, Marty questions their rationale. DiBergi the fictional filmmaker is his own character, which isn't often seen in mockumentaries. The filmmakers are mostly nameless and barely shown. But here, Reiner makes the filmmaker more of a character to provide a foil to the absolute foolishness of this group of musicians who write songs such as "Sex Farm." It's a hilarious look into the world of rock 'n' roll and pokes fun at the rockstars we idolized then, and now. In the book "American Hardcore: A Tribal History," Glen Danzig of The Misfits said he watched the film and thought, "Hey, that's my old band."