Are documentaries movies?

I’ve been seeing more docs in movie theaters lately. I don’t mean there are more, overall (there are not); I just personally have seen a few more than usual on the big screen.

Partly this is because I went to some film fests — True/False, SXSW, and next weekend I’m going to DC/DOX — and also because I just hosted Q&As for three docs currently in theaters — We Are Pat, Underland, and Time and Water.

Those experiences, combined with all my recent obsessions: the nature of cinematic attention in an infinite content world, social media, marketing, how to understand audience expectations, the future of documentary — and having just dropped a trailer (700k+ organic, not-purchased views) for my own film going into theaters July 29 (opening wider in August)1 —

all of this makes me wonder…

The question makes me laugh. But what do I even mean by asking it? Or, what would be at stake in trying to answer it?

Well, as someone releasing a doc theatrically, what I’m truly asking myself right now is why would someone go OUT TO THE MOVIES to see Wild Inside (or any other doc)?

Are documentaries even movies?

On the one hand, it’s a linguistic question. When someone says in the comments of my trailer, “This would make such a good movie!” I might joke about how they literally just watched a movie trailer, ha ha ha — but actually, we all know what they mean, which is that docs are not movies. We (mostly) do not turn to docs and movies for the same purpose, they (mostly) do not do the same things.

Another clue is that many people find the idea of rating documentaries distasteful, while they happily rate MOVIES all day long. Viewers and critics tend to judge the subject matter of a doc rather than the movie itself, and criticism can feel mean-spirited because documentaries are usually viewed NOT as movies, but as important social goods made by well-intentioned people doing difficult work for very little money.

Asking “are documentaries movies?” might also be a way of answering a question that’s been nagging at me pretty much every day since I saw this stat:

Overall movie theater attendance is down more than 50% since 2018, and ticket sales for documentaries are down more than 90%.

Granted, as the above stat acknowledges, all movies are having a tougher time at the movies… but a 90% drop???

If “documentary” is a genre, it is amongst the genres that are doing the absolute worst in theaters. Documentary currently is the opposite of horror when it comes to genres that people will leave their house, buy tickets, and stand in line for in 2026.

And I totally get it! Most people — including me — go to the movies to be transported out of their real lives. They want an escape from reality, not to be confronted with even more reality, especially when so many docs are super f*cking depressing.2

But escapism and entertainment isn’t the only thing we want at the movies. We also want events to attend with friends that feel meaningful and interesting. We want to learn new things and be part of cultural discourse. Docs can definitely form the basis of incredibly rewarding event screenings.

Essayist Philip Lopate once asked: “Why can’t nonfiction be nonfiction? Why does it have to tart itself up and be something else?”

Good question. Because the more I think about it, the less interested I am in proving that documentaries are movies. I’m more interested in figuring out what documentaries are.

After all…

Maybe docs aren’t movies.

If that’s true, then as someone releasing a documentary in theaters this summer, I don’t find that depressing. I find it clarifying.

Because it means the challenge isn’t convincing audiences that Wild Inside is somehow secretly going to give you what a fiction film would. The challenge is understanding what people come to nonfiction for in the first place, and doing the best I can possibly do at delivering that, IN A MOVIE THEATER, knowing that almost all doc lovers are loving and watching docs at home.

For decades, documentary filmmakers have borrowed the language of fiction prestige. We praise docs for being cinematic. We celebrate them when they feel like thrillers, mysteries, comedies, adventures. And all of that is fine. It’s cool! I like it!! Go forth with all the sweeping drone shots and the cool music!!! Make more cinematic docs!

But as Lopate points out, nonfiction already has something fiction doesn’t. It’s real, or it’s true, it’s set in the real world, it has real world consequences. That sounds obvious, but it’s the entire reason the form exists. It’s important to remember people turn to docs for that reason, and I don’t think it’s because sometimes it “feels like fiction.”

So maybe the future of theatrical documentary is about learning how to build theatrical experiences around the thing that only nonfiction can provide. What is that thing? How can we define it and see it clearly, not as some lesser cousin of fiction but as its own, distinct, nonfiction thing?

This is what I’m trying to learn right now. I’ll let you know how it goes!