# The 29 Best Art Documentaries of All Time

> Forgers, street artists, cave painters and billion-dollar auction rooms share this list. A few are pranks, a few are portraits, and at least one may not be entirely true.

*By YPB Team · Published October 27, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/the-29-best-art-documentaries-of-all-time*

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## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **Made You Look** — score 1000/1000
   2020 film on the Knoedler Gallery forgery scandal and its fake Abstract Expressionist paintings.
2. **The Lost Leonardo** — score 1000/1000
   2021 investigation into the Salvator Mundi, sold as a Leonardo for a record 450 million dollars.
3. **Faces Places** — score 826/1000
   Agnès Varda and JR's Oscar-nominated 2017 road trip pasting giant portraits across rural France.
4. **National Gallery** — score 826/1000
   Frederick Wiseman's 2014 observational film inside London's National Gallery.
5. **Anselm** — score 753/1000
   Wim Wenders's 2023 3D portrait of German painter and sculptor Anselm Kiefer.
6. **Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present** — score 753/1000
   2012 documentary on Abramović's landmark MoMA retrospective and performance.
7. **The Price of Everything** — score 668/1000
   Nathaniel Kahn's 2018 HBO look at money, collectors and artists in the contemporary art market.
8. **Bill Cunningham New York** — score 668/1000
   2010 portrait of the New York Times street-fashion photographer on his bicycle rounds.
9. **F for Fake** — score 565/1000
   Orson Welles's 1973 essay film on art forger Elmyr de Hory and the nature of authorship.
10. **Finding Vivian Maier** — score 565/1000
   Oscar-nominated 2013 film about a nanny whose hidden street photographs were found after her death.
11. **The Mystery of Picasso** — score 565/1000
   Henri-Georges Clouzot's 1956 film capturing Picasso painting in real time through translucent canvas.
12. **Waste Land** — score 565/1000
   Oscar-nominated 2010 film about Vik Muniz making art with pickers at a Rio landfill.
13. **Rivers and Tides** — score 565/1000
   Thomas Riedelsheimer's 2001 film on Andy Goldsworthy's ephemeral sculptures made from nature.
14. **My Kid Could Paint That** — score 565/1000
   Amir Bar-Lev's 2007 film on the controversy over four-year-old painter Marla Olmstead.
15. **Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child** — score 565/1000
   Tamra Davis's 2010 portrait of Basquiat built around her own interviews with the painter.
16. **Exit Through the Gift Shop** — score 439/1000
   Banksy's 2010 Oscar-nominated film about a shopkeeper who becomes a street-art sensation.
17. **Cave of Forgotten Dreams** — score 439/1000
   Werner Herzog's 2010 3D journey into the Chauvet cave and its 30,000-year-old paintings.
18. **Crumb** — score 439/1000
   Terry Zwigoff's 1994 portrait of underground cartoonist Robert Crumb and his family.
19. **Herb & Dorothy** — score 439/1000
   2008 story of a postal clerk and a librarian who built a world-class minimalist art collection.
20. **Who the #$&% Is Jackson Pollock?** — score 439/1000
   2006 film about a truck driver who may have bought a real Pollock at a thrift store.
21. **Maurizio Cattelan: Be Right Back** — score 439/1000
   Maura Axelrod's 2016 film on the prankster Italian artist behind the banana taped to a wall.
22. **Cutie and the Boxer** — score 0/1000
   Oscar-nominated 2013 film about the marriage of painters Ushio and Noriko Shinohara.
23. **Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry** — score 0/1000
   Alison Klayman's 2012 film following the Chinese artist and dissident over three years.
24. **Tim's Vermeer** — score 0/1000
   Penn and Teller's 2013 film about an inventor trying to paint a Vermeer using optical tools.
25. **Gerhard Richter Painting** — score 0/1000
   Corinna Belz's 2011 film watching Richter make his abstract squeegee paintings.
26. **The Art of the Steal** — score 0/1000
   2009 film about the battle over the Barnes Foundation's art collection and its move to Philadelphia.
27. **Kusama: Infinity** — score 0/1000
   Heather Lenz's 2018 film tracing Yayoi Kusama's path from rural Japan to art-world fame.
28. **David Lynch: The Art Life** — score 0/1000
   2016 film in which David Lynch recounts his early life as a painter before filmmaking.
29. **Beltracchi: The Art of Forgery** — score 0/1000
   2014 documentary on Wolfgang Beltracchi, the forger who fooled the art market for decades.

Tags: movies, artists, art, documentary