List Rules Any documentary about food, nutrition, cooking, or eating
List of the best food documentaries, as ranked by documentary and food fans. Documentaries often take people inside a world that would otherwise be unavailable to the viewer. These films can sometimes be disturbing because they can show a darker side of an industry or world that we never thought about before. That’s what makes food documentaries so fascinating and tough to take all at once. Everybody eats and, for many, food is an entire lifestyle. So films that take a sneak peek into the behind the scenes world of the food industry are often some of the most thought provoking movies becausethey touch what we care about most.
What are the best food documentaries to watch? This list offers a wide selection of movies made about many different aspects of the food industry. Movies like Super Size Me and Fat Head take polar opposite views on the fast food industry. Some of the films on this list discuss the process of making food, while others explore the exploitation of foreign farmers.
The movies on this list are perfect for any documentary or food enthusiast. Whether you want a lighthearted look at the food industry or something a bit deeper, this list has everything.
list ordered by
1
54 11
Food, Inc. How much do we know about the food we buy at our local supermarkets and serve to our families? Though our food appears the same as ever — a tomato still looks like a tomato — it has been ...more
2
51 18
Super Size Me Supersize She is a 2005 television documentary focused on British professional female bodybuilder Joanna Thomas. The title was a take-off on the success of the film Super Size Me. The one-hour ...more
3
27 10
Forks over Knives Forks Over Knives is a 2011 American documentary film directed by American independent filmmaker Lee Fulkerson that advocates a low-fat whole-food, plant-based diet as a means of combating a ...more
4
27 12
Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead is a 2010 documentary film written and directed by Joe Cross and Kurt Engfehr.
5
18 7
Food Matters Food Matters is a 2008 documentary film about nutrition. The film presents the thesis that a selective diet can play a key role in treating a range of health conditions such as diabetes, cancer, ...more
6
14 5
King CornMichael Pollan, Curt Ellis King Corn is a documentary film released in October 2007 that follows college friends Ian Cheney and Curtis Ellis as they move from Boston to Greene, Iowa to grow and farm an acre of corn. In ...more
7
12 9
The Future of Food The Future of Food is a 2004 American documentary film which describes an investigation into unlabeled, patented, genetically engineered foods that have been sold in grocery stores in the United ...more
8
8 5
Blue Gold: World Water Wars Blue Gold: World Water Wars is a 2008 documentary film by Sam Bozzo, based on the book Blue Gold: The Fight to Stop the Corporate Theft of the World’s Water by Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke. It ...more
9
11 9
Fat Head Fat Head is a 2009 American documentary film directed by and starring Tom Naughton. The film seeks to refute both the documentary Super Size Me and the lipid hypothesis, a theory of nutrition ...more
10
9 7
Our Daily Bread Our Daily Bread is a 2005 documentary film directed, co-produced, and with cinematography by Nikolaus Geyrhalter. The script was co-written by Wolfgang Widerhofer and Nikolaus Geyrhalter. The ...more
11
6 4
The Gerson Miracle The Gerson Miracle examines many of the elements of the Gerson Therapy, explaining why we are so ill and how we have in our grasp the power to recover our health without expensive, toxic or ...more
12
9 8
EarthlingsJoaquin Phoenix Earthlings is a 2005 American documentary film about humanity's use of other animals as pets, food, clothing, entertainment, and for scientific research. The film is narrated by Joaquin Phoenix, ...more
13
6 6
The Price of Sugar The Price of Sugar is a 2007 Uncommon Productions film directed by Bill Haney and produced by Haney and Eric Grunebaum about exploitation of Haitian immigrants in the Dominican Republic involved ...more
14
6 7
Life and DebtZiggy Marley Life and Debt is a 2001 American documentary film directed by Stephanie Black. It examines the economic and social situation in Jamaica, and specifically the impact thereon of the International ...more
15
5 6
Killer At LargeArnold Schwarzenegger, Bill Clinton, Ralph Nader Obesity is fast becoming the single greatest killer of Americans, causing some experts to claim that we are on the cusp of an evolutionary disaster.Former Surgeon General Richard Carmona says, ...more
16
5 6
The GardenDaryl Hannah, Danny Glover, Joan Baez The Garden is a 2008 American documentary film directed by Scott Hamilton Kennedy. It tells the story of the now demolished South Central Farm; a community garden and urban farm located in Los ...more
17
4 5
Garlic Is as Good as Ten MothersHarrod Blank, Antzonini Del Puerto, Mary T. Brown Garlic Is As Good As Ten Mothers is a documentary film about garlic directed by Les Blank. In 2004, the film was selected for preservation in the United States’ National Film Registry by the ...more
18
4 5
The Gleaners and I The Gleaners and I is a 2000 French documentary film by Agnès Varda that features various kinds of gleaning. It was entered into competition at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival, and later ...more
19
4 5
All in This TeaWerner Herzog, James Norwood Pratt, Gaetano Kazuo Maida All in This Tea is a 2007 documentary film co-directed by Les Blank and Gina Leibrecht, about Chinese tea. It follows the American tea connoisseur David Lee Hoffman as he travels to remote ...more
20
4 5
The Real Dirt on Farmer John The Real Dirt on Farmer John is a 2005 documentary film directed by Taggart Siegel about the life of Midwestern farmer John Peterson, operator of Angelic Organics. It tells the history of the ...more
