Fictional novels and movies about documentary filmmaking?

March 18, 2025 11:00 AM

I'm looking for novels and films that prominently feature a documentary filmmaker making their film. The more central the doc is to the fictional narrative, the better!

- Novels: for example, is there a novel structured around a documentarian's pursuit of their subject, the making of their film? (I thought there'd be millions, but all I keep finding is "House of Leaves," and I'm looking for more traditional narratives.)

- Films: the same, but also, if there are dramatic mockumentaries out there, rather than comedy or horror mockumentaries, that would be interesting.

posted by Beardman to Media & Arts (14 answers total)

Noah Baumbach's While We're Young
posted by Chenko at 11:33 AM on March 18

Cinema Verite
Just realized you’re looking for fictional, though..
posted by dianeF at 11:36 AM on March 18

The Blair Witch Project?
posted by papayaninja at 11:40 AM on March 18 [1 favorite]

You want Incident at Loch Ness, Herzog's venture into this genre. It's amazing, enjoy!
posted by mygothlaundry at 12:16 PM on March 18

Maybe My Year of Meats by Ruth Ozeki?
posted by wabisabijane at 12:20 PM on March 18 [1 favorite]

The Last Broadcast.
posted by SPrintF at 12:22 PM on March 18

William Gibson's Pattern Recognition centres around photo stills that appear to be from a film that no one can put a date to. A second documentary on WW2 archaeology also features throughout with the two films colliding later in the book.

A google scholar citation search of Pattern Recognition looks worthwhile using: "documentary" novel|fiction|literature
posted by unearthed at 12:30 PM on March 18

It’s not a mockumentary, but in It Should Happen to You (1954), Jack Lemmon plays a documentarian, and you see some of his work in the movie. His occupation is relatively central to the plot.
posted by alligatorpear at 1:10 PM on March 18

Trollhunter is a Norwegian film about some students hoping to film evidence of a bear poacher, but upon encountering the suspect hunter, learn that he is actually hunting trolls as part of Norway's wildlife management efforts. Trolls have a sort of dedicated reservation, but they get culled for conservation and safety reasons. The student documentarians don't believe him at first, but he agrees to let them follow, and the result is a found-footage pseudo-documentary. (As you suspect is the norm for this sort of pseudodoc, this is comedy/horror.)

Her is a pretty good movie about people who can't connect with other humans without the use of technology as a kind of social prosthesis. The main character has a neighbor who keeps making films as a crutch for connecting to her mother. It's a small bit.
posted by Sunburnt at 1:16 PM on March 18 [1 favorite]

I found this list: www.visibleevidence.org/article/documentary-filmmakers-as-protagonists-in-films/

American Beauty (1999), Dir. Sam Mendes

Benny’s Video (1992), Dir. Michael Haneke

Best in Show (2000), Dir. Christopher Guest

Blair Witch Project (1999), Dir. Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sanchez

Camera Buff (1979), Dir. Krzysztof Kieślowski

Cannibal Holocaust (1985), Ruggero Deodato

Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), Dir. Woody Allen

Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999), Dir. Michael Patrick Jann

Dumb Money (2023), Dir. Craig Gillespie

Eighth Grade (2018), Bo Burnham

Even the rain/Tambien La Lluvia (2010), Icíar Bollaín

Her (2014), Dir. Spike Jonze

Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1990), Dir. John McNaughton

Hi Mom (1970), Dir. Brian De Palma

I Am A Sex Addict (2005), Dir. Caveh Zahedi

I Don’t Hate Las Vegas Any More (1994), Dir. Caveh Zahedi

In Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005), Dir. Miranda July

In the Shadow of Women (2015), Dir. Philippe Garrel

Incident at Loch Ness (2004) The fiction/doc with a fabulous bonus with Herzog and Penn

Les Rendez-vous d’Anna (1978), Dir. Chantal Akerman

Lisbon Story (1994), Dir. Wim Wenders

Man Bites Dog (1992), Dirs. Rémy Belvaux, André Bonzel, Benoît Poelvoorde

Man of Marble (1977), Dir. Andrezj Wajda

Medium Cool (1969), Dir. Haskell Wexler

Nightcrawler (2014), Dir. Dan Gilroy

Nope (2023), Dir. Jordan Peele

Real Life (1979), Dir. Albert Brooks

Rent (2005), Dir. Chris Columbus

Sex Lies and Videotape (1989), Dir. Steven Soderbergh

Storytelling (2001), Dir. Todd Solondz

Taxi (2015), Dir. Jafar Panahi

The Film with No Name (1988), Dir. Srdjan Karonovic

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004), Dir. Wes Anderson

The Passenger (1975), Dir. Michelangelo Antonioni

The Watermelon Woman (1997), Dir. Cheryl Dunye

This is Spinal Tap (1984), Dir. Rob Reiner

Troll Hunter/Trolljegeren (2010), Dir. André Øverdal

Valu (The Wild Bull) (2008), Dir. Umesh Kulkarni

Waiting for Guffman (1996), Dir. Christopher Guest

While We’re Young (2014), Dir. Noah Baumbach
posted by plant or animal at 1:29 PM on March 18

Spike Jonze's Adaptation (2002) is partly this. It's the story of how the movie's screenwriter, Charlie Kaufman, attempts to adapt Susan Orlean's non-fiction book The Orchid Thief to film. Kaufman finishes his script (at last) and both stories -- that of the tortured screenwriter, and of the writer and the orchid thief, make it to the screen. Screenwriters have issues, too, apparently.
posted by lhauser at 5:27 PM on March 18

is there a novel structured around a documentarian's pursuit of their subject, the making of their film?

Yeah, I just re-read one: Watching TV With The Red Chinese by Luke Whisnant, from 1992.Three Chinese students move in near the author, in Cleveland, and a friend of his makes a film about them. In 2012, Shimon Dotan made the novel into a movie which I haven't seen.
posted by Rash at 11:00 AM on March 19

I deleted my comment because you actually referenced that book in your questions and I totally missed it.
posted by Snowishberlin at 3:26 PM on March 19

World of Wonders by Robertson Davies

One of my favorite novels.
posted by perhapses at 7:14 PM on March 19