Documentary

Definitions

1. A film, TV program, publication etc. which presents a social, political, scientific or historical subject in a factual or informative manner.
   countable, uncountable
2. Own or relative to the document.
3. Such works collectively, as a genre.
   uncountable
4. Said of an audiovisual piece, done with the intention to reflect some appearance of the reality.

Equivalents

Examples

“Fifteen documentaries are in sharp-elbowed competition to be among the five Oscar nominees.”

“If you watched Victoria Beckham’s lavishly produced Netflix documentary last⟳ October, you might have⟳ wondered why it didn’t even glance⟳ on the biggest elephant in Brand Beckham’s room[…]. But most big documentaries these days aren’t documentaries any more in the way previous practitioners of the craft might have⟳ understood the word. As her husband’s was before it, Victoria’s doc was a self-commissioned advertorial on which the subject also served as executive producer.”

“Such sequences draw⟳ attention to the affective appeals that environmental documentary typically makes, precisely by absenting those appeals.”

CEFR level