10 Controversial Documentaries Since 2000 That Shouldn't Be Ignored

9. Bowling For Columbine

The film which won its firebrand director, Michael Moore, an Oscar for Best Documentary Feature, Bowling for Columbine is the definitive text on the case against gun ownership in America. Most famous for its harrowing video-footage of the Columbine High School massacre - in which two disillusioned teenagers opened fire on fellow students before taking their own lives - Bowling for Columbine is unflinching in its approach. Full of inspired set-pieces - Moore taking two victims of the massacre to Kmart, where the bullets still lodged in their bodies were purchased, to ask for a refund - Bowling is as satirical and humourous as it is disturbing and difficult. Indeed, the film was so powerful that, on Moore's third visit to Kmart, the company announced that it would stop it's sale of ammunition altogether. Always a partisan, Moore is never anything less than full on, something which works for the most part but can become uncomfortable at times, as when Moore is badgering former actor and former NRA President, Charlton Heston, a morally dubious man, yes, but nevertheless a sick, old man who doesn't really know what's going on. That issue aside, Bowling for Columbine is a stark rebuttal of America's obsession with guns, one which sadly still feels prescient.