Documentary film describes a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for

the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record. A "documentary film" was originally a movie shot on film stockthe only medium availablebut now includes video and digital productions that can be either direct-to-video or made for a television program. "Documentary" has been described as a "filmmaking practice, a cinematic tradition, and mode of audience reception" that is continually evolving and is without clear boundaries

Box office analysts have noted that this film genre has become increasingly successful in theatrical release with films such as Fahrenheit 9/11, Super Size Me, Earth, March of the Penguins, and An Inconvenient Truth among the most prominent examples. Compared to dramatic narrative films, documentaries typically have far lower budgets which makes them attractive to film companies because even a limited theatrical release can be highly profitable.

Michael Francis Moore (born April 23, 1954) is an American filmmaker, author and liberal political commentator. He is the director and producer of Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11, Sicko, and Capitalism: A Love Story, four of the top ten highest-grossing documentaries of all time. In September 2008, he released his first free movie on the Internet, Slacker Uprising, documenting his personal crusade to encourage more Americans to vote in presidential elections. Moore criticizes globalization, large corporations, assault weapon ownership, U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, the Iraq War, and the American health care system in his written and cinematic works.

Sir David Frederick Attenborough (born 8 May 1926 in London, England) is a broadcaster and naturalist. His career as the respected face and voice of natural history programmers has endured for more than 50 years. He is best known for writing and presenting the nine Life series, in conjunction with the BBC Natural History Unit, which collectively form a comprehensive survey of all life on the planet. He is also a former senior manager at the BBC, having served as controller of BBC Two and director of programming for BBC Television in the 1960s and 1970s . Alongside the "Life" series, Attenborough has continued to work on other television documentaries, mainly in the natural history genre. He wrote and presented a series on man's influence on the natural history of the Mediterranean basin, The First Eden, in 1987. Two years later, he demonstrated his passion for fossils in Lost Worlds Vanished Lives. Attenborough narrated every episode of Wildlife on One, a BBC One wildlife series which ran for nearly more than 250 episodes between 1977 and 2005. At its peak, it drew a weekly audience of eight to ten million, and the 1987 episode "Meerkats United" was voted the best wildlife documentary of all time by BBC viewers. He has also narrated over 50 episodes of Natural World, BBC Two's flagship wildlife series. (Its forerunner, The World About Us, was created by Attenborough in 1969, as a vehicle for colour television. In 1997, he narrated the BBC Wildlife Specials, each focussing on a charismatic species, and screened to mark the Natural History Unit's 40th anniversary. As a writer and narrator, he continued to collaborate with the BBC Natural History Unit in the new millennium. Alastair Fothergill, a senior producer with whom Attenborough had worked on The Trials of Life and Life in the Freezer, was making The Blue Planet (2001), the Unit's first comprehensive series on marine life. He decided not to use an on-screen presenter due to difficulties in speaking to camera through diving apparatus, but asked Attenborough to narrate the films. The same team reunited for Planet Earth (2006), the biggest nature documentary ever made for television, and the first BBC wildlife series to be shot in high definition. In 2009, Attenborough wrote and narrated Life, a ten-part series focussing on extraordinary animal behaviour, and narrated Nature's Great Events, which showed how seasonal changes trigger major natural spectacles. By the turn of the millennium, Attenborough's authored documentaries were adopting a more overtly environmentalist stance. In State of the Planet (2000), he used the latest scientific evidence and interviews with leading scientists and conservationists to assess the impact of man's activities on the natural world. He later turned to the issues of global warming (The Truth about Climate Change, 2006) and human population growth (How Many People Can Live on Planet Earth?, 2009). He also contributed a programme which highlighted the plight of endangered species to the BBC's Saving Planet Earth project in 2007, the 50th anniversary of the Natural History Unit.

Ross James Kemp (born 21 July 1964) is a BAFTA award-winning British actor, author and journalist, who rose to prominence in the role of Grant Mitchell in the BBC soap opera, EastEnders. Since 2006, Kemp has received international recognition as an investigative journalist for his critically acclaimed and award-winning documentary series Ross Kemp on Gangs. Ross Kemp on Gangs The award-winning TV series Ross Kemp on Gangs, in which Kemp interviewed gang members around the world, was first broadcast in 2006. The first series featured gangs and police corruption in Brazil, Mori gangs in New Zealand, neo-Nazi skinheads in California, gangsters in London, and teenagers from Blaenau Gwent. The second series featured "MS13" from El Salvador, neo-Nazis in Russia, football hooligans in Poland, American "Bloods" and "Crips" gangs in St. Louis, and the Numbers gang in South Africa. In May 2007, Ross Kemp on Gangs was awarded a BAFTA award for factual programming. . The show returned in September 2008 for four more episodes, starting in the Los Angeles district of Compton. A famously hazardous scene was filmed in Compton when gangland junior Matt 'Malicious' Ward misfired his gun in a rival gang's neighbourhood. Ross Kemp in Afghanistan On 21 January 2008, Sky broadcast the first episode of a five-part series Ross Kemp in Afghanistan, which entails Kemp following the 1st Battalion of the British Army's Royal Anglian Regiment during their deployment to Afghanistan's Helmand Province from March to August 2007. In preparation for the assignment, Kemp had to participate in military training for personal defence, including use of the SA80 assault rifle. Kemp has a personal interest in the Royal Anglians, as he is from their recruiting area, and his father served with one of the predecessor regiments of the 1st Battalion, the Royal Norfolk Regiment, in Cyprus.

Louis Sebastian Theroux (born 20 May 1970) is an English broadcaster best known for his Gonzo style journalism on the television series Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends and When Louis Met.... .His career started off in journalism and bears influences of notable writers in his family such as his father, Paul Theroux and brother Marcel Theroux. He currently works with BBC producing his documentaries and popular TV series.

Super Size Me is a 2004 American documentary film directed by and starring Morgan Spurlock, an American independent filmmaker. Spurlock's film follows a 30-day period from February 1 to March 2, 2003 during which he eats only McDonald's food. The film documents this lifestyle's drastic effects on Spurlock's physical and psychological well-being, and explores the fast food industry's corporate influence, including how it encourages poor nutrition for its own profit. Spurlock dined at McDonald's restaurants three times per day, eating every item on the chain's menu. Spurlock consumed an average of 5,000 kcal (the equivalent of 9.26 Big Macs) per day during the experiment. As a result, the then-32-year-old Spurlock gained 24 lbs. (11.1 kg), and experienced mood swings, sexual dysfunction, and fat accumulation in his liver. It took Spurlock fourteen months to lose the weight gained from his experiment with a special vegan detox diet supervised by his future wife, who was a chef specializing in vegan dishes and gourmet. The reason for Spurlock's investigation was the increasing spread of obesity throughout U.S. society, which the Surgeon General has declared "epidemic," and the corresponding lawsuit brought against McDonald's on behalf of two overweight girls, who, it was alleged, became obese as a result of eating McDonald's food.

Sky Sports News is a 24-hour sports news channel in the United Kingdom. It is run by BSkyB whose sports channels include Sky Sports 1, 2, 3 and 4, as well as Sky Sports HD1, HD2, HD3 and HD4. The channel focuses predominantly on football (especially during the AugustMay season) but reports on a wide range of sports; even sports to which Sky do not possess broadcasting rights (such as Formula One and Baseball) receive limited coverage. The programming is presented by two reporters in the studio who read the news or introduce short clips featuring highlights and interviews covering a variety of topics. Tabs at the bottom of the screen give unrelated information on a wide range of sports, while a sidebar also shows unrelated league tables or other information. The content of the main studio feed generally repeats depending on the amount of news at a given time, varying from 20 minutes to an hour.

BBC News is the department of the BBC responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs. The department is the world's largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, as well as online news coverage. The service maintains 44 foreign news bureaux and has correspondents in almost all the world's 240 countries. Since 2004 the Director of BBC News has been Helen Boaden.