Mockumentary

A mockumentary or mocumentary (a portmanteau of mock documentary) is a comedic, often parodic fiction film presented as a documentary film.

Mockumentaries are often presented as historical documentaries with b-roll and talking heads discussing past events or as cinema verite pieces following people as they go through various events. Examples of this type of satire date back at least to the 1950s (a very early example was a short piece on the "Swiss Spaghetti Harvest" that appeared as an April fool's joke on the British television program Panorama in 1957), though the term "mockumentary" is thought to have first appeared in the mid-1980s when This is Spinal Tap director Rob Reiner used it in interviews to describe that film.

The false documentary form has also been used for some dramatic productions (and precursors to this approach date back to the radio days and Orson Welles' The War of the Worlds), but these are not technically mockumentaries in the satirical sense.

Example of mockumentaries

• Best in Show, (improvised) story of some contestants at a national dog show
• Big Tuna, mockumentary about Max Tuna Schreiber, who was the first candid camera film-maker in Israel.
• Bob Roberts, a Tim Robbins satiric film about a right wing folksinger's crooked election campaign.
• The Canadian Conspiracy, about a supposed Canadian plan to subvert the United States by taking over its media.
• Dark Side of the Moon tries to portray the moon landings as a creation in a movie lot by Stanley Kubrick.
• Forgotten Silver by Costa Botes and Peter Jackson, parody of a historical documentary about a "forgotten" filmmaker.
• Hard Core Logo, following in the tradition of This Is Spinal Tap, this film traces the final tour of an overaged punk band, and serves as a model for the death of "true" punk rock.
• HBO Special about the making of an HBO Special
• Man Bites Dog, black comedy/satire in which a film crew follows a serial killer documenting his crimes
• A Mighty Wind, (improvised) story about a group of folk musicians who reunite to pay tribute to their producer
• The Office, a British TV comedy which apparently uses a fly-on-the-wall technique in a stationery supply company in Slough
• Operation Good Guys, a British TV comedy focusing on a group of Undercover Policemen
• Otaku no Video, an anime film by GAINAX featuring live-action news segments of events past the film's 1985 release date.
• People Like Us, a British radio and TV comedy, featuring an inept interviewer (played by Chris Langham), who interviews people in various jobs
• The Rutles, parody telling of the Beatles story, while also parodying documentary makers themselves
• This Is Spinal Tap, follows a British rock band on tour long past their salad days.
• Sweet and Lowdown, faux documentary about a jazz guitarist.
• Take the Money and Run, Woody Allen film chronicling the mis-adventures of a bankrobber.
• Trailer Park Boys, a Canadian TV comedy focusing on the misadventures of ex-cons living in a trailer park near Halifax, Nova Scotia.
• Waiting for Guffman, (improvised) story of a small Missouri town's celebration of its sesquicentennial
• Zelig, Woody Allen movie telling of a chameleon-like individual who blended in wherever he went.

Dramatic films using a false-documentary format include:

• The Blair Witch Project, a horror film in the form of a documentary about a vanished film crew
• The Last Broadcast, another horror film in the form of a documentary about a vanished film crew
• Special Bulletin, a 1983 TV movie commenting on the nuclear arms race, which is presented as a mock-TV news broadcast involving a terrorists with a homemade nuclear bomb.
• The War Game, a fictional, worst-case-scenario docu-drama about nuclear war and its aftermath in and around a typical English city

See also false document.