Movies Like This Is Not a Film
If you loved This Is Not a Film's Documentary storytelling, these films deliver a similar experience — carefully selected for tone, themes, and emotional depth. Each pick includes where to watch it right now.
★ Top Picks
Fuck
A documentary on the expletive's origin, why it offends some people so deeply, and what can be gained from its use.
Public Speaking
Martin Scorsese’s portrait of writer and social commentator Fran Lebowitz, celebrated for her sharp wit and observations on modern life. Filmed at New York’s Waverly Inn and intercut with archival footage and interviews, the documentary captures Lebowitz’s distinctive worldview through her spontaneous monologues and public appearances.
Birth of the Living Dead
A behind the scenes look into George Romero's groundbreaking horror classic Night of the Living Dead.
Evil Influencer: The Jodi Hildebrandt Story
Unravel the case of Utah therapist Jodi Hildebrandt, whose child abuse arrest with parenting YouTuber Ruby Franke exposed a twisted tale of manipulation.
Lionel Messi: Destiny
Behind-the-scenes documentary about how Lionel Messi succeeded in lifting the World Cup – the only trophy to have eluded him in an incredible career.
Heart of a Dog
Lyrical and powerfully personal essay film that reflects on the deaths of her husband Lou Reed, her mother, her beloved dog, and such diverse subjects as family memories, surveillance, and Buddhist teachings.
Listen to Me Marlon
With exclusive access to his extraordinary unseen and unheard personal archive including hundreds of hours of audio recorded over the course of his life, this is the definitive Marlon Brando cinema documentary. Charting his exceptional career as an actor and his extraordinary life away from the stage and screen with Brando himself as your guide, the film will fully explore the complexities of the man by telling the story uniquely from Marlon's perspective, entirely in his own voice. No talking heads, no interviewees, just Brando on Brando and life.
Louis Theroux: Twilight of the Porn Stars
In 1997, Louis Theroux made a documentary about the world of male porn performers in Los Angeles. 15 years later, he returns to find a business struggling with the deluge of free porn on the internet. Louis revisits some of the original programme's contributors as well as meeting the latest crop of porn performers dreaming of porn stardom.
More Movies Like This Is Not a Film
Elstree 1976
A documentary about ten very different lives connected by having appeared onscreen wearing masks or helmets in Star Wars.
Avatar: The Deep Dive - A Special Edition of 20/20
An inside look at one of the most anticipated movie sequels ever with James Cameron and cast.
Wormwood
In this genre-bending tale, Errol Morris explores the mysterious death of a U.S. scientist entangled in a secret Cold War program known as MK-Ultra.
Ex Libris: The New York Public Library
A documentary about how a dominant cultural and demographic institution both sustains their traditional activities and adapts to the digital revolution.
American Pie: Revealed
Documentary about the making of American Pie (1999), American Pie 2 (2001) and American Wedding (2003).
High School
Documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman takes us inside Northeast High School as a fly on the wall to observe the teachers and how they interact with the students.
Trainwreck: The Real Project X
A night of drunken chaos rocks a quiet Dutch town in this shocking documentary about a teen's birthday invite that accidentally went viral on Facebook.
One Soldier's Story: The Journey of American Sniper
Join director Clint Eastwood and his creative team, along with Bradley Cooper and Sienna Miller, as they overcome enormous creative and logistic obstacles to make a film that brings the truth of Navy SEAL Chris Kyle's story to the screen.
McQueen
Alexander McQueen's rags-to-riches story is a modern-day fairy tale, laced with the gothic. Mirroring the savage beauty, boldness and vivacity of his design, this documentary is an intimate revelation of McQueen's own world, both tortured and inspired, which celebrates a radical and mesmerizing genius of profound influence.
Cameraperson
As a visually radical memoir, CAMERAPERSON draws on the remarkable footage that filmmaker Kirsten Johnson has shot and reframes it in ways that illuminate moments and situations that have personally affected her. What emerges is an elegant meditation on the relationship between truth and the camera frame, as Johnson transforms scenes that have been presented on Festival screens as one kind of truth into another kind of story—one about personal journey, craft, and direct human connection.
Seduced and Abandoned
SEDUCED AND ABANDONED combines acting legend Alec Baldwin with director James Toback as they lead us on a troublesome and often hilarious journey of raising financing for their next feature film. Moving from director to financier to star actor, the two players provide us with a unique look behind the curtain at the world's biggest and most glamourous film festival, shining a light on the bitter-sweet relationship filmmakers have with Cannes and the film business. Featuring insights from directors Martin Scorsese, 'Bernando Bertolucci' and Roman Polanski; actors Ryan Gosling and Jessica Chastain and a host of film distribution luminaries.
Why These Movies Are Similar
These recommendations share core qualities with This Is Not a Film (2011): Documentary themes, similar narrative structure, and comparable emotional depth. NoBadPicks uses a combination of TMDB collaborative filtering, genre matching, and AI analysis to surface films most likely to resonate with fans of This Is Not a Film.
See full details for This Is Not a Film (2011)