Guardian Ranks Cinema's 20 Best Making-of Documentaries

The Guardian has published a ranked list of the 20 best making-of documentaries in cinema history, published on 1 October 2026, spanning subjects from "tropical disasters and doomed sci-fi epics to bribing Orson Welles and fending off a puma."

The list, which the paper describes as cinema's "most revealing glimpses behind the scenes," rates the documentaries that captured film productions at their most chaotic and candid.

Among the entries highlighted is the making-of documentary accompanying George A. Romero's 1979 satirical zombie horror Dawn of the Dead. The Guardian calls the behind-the-scenes footage from the production "the highlight of this aficionados-only affair," noting that the documentary follows the film "all the way through to distribution."

The production's setting proves as striking as its subject. Director George A. Romero, makeup artist Tom Savini and, in the paper's words, "the occasional zombie actor shoot the breeze in the deserted shopping mall that provides the movie with its incongruous central location."

The Dawn of the Dead documentary stands as a record of a landmark of American independent horror, filmed when Romero's film transformed a Pennsylvania shopping mall into a satire of consumer culture. Savini, whose practical effects defined the era's gore aesthetic, appears alongside Romero in candid conversation on the empty concourses.

The Guardian's full ranking, which promises accounts of on-set catastrophe, abandoned epics and encounters with wildlife, is available on the paper's film section. Its scope extends well beyond horror: the teaser invokes episodes as varied as alleged bribery involving Orson Welles and a crew member warding off a puma.

For readers of Arts & Voices, the list offers a curated entry point into a documentary subgenre that treats film production itself as drama — one where budgets collapse, weather turns, and directors explain themselves in real time.