Documentary Now! 4th Edition is an Incredible Companion to Beloved Show

A comedic companion volume extends a long-running, fictional news-magazine premise by presenting itself as a multi-generational “60 Minutes”-style program. The book updates an earlier companion with a new introduction while preserving original material, and it includes promotional pull quotes from notable figures. It serves as a strong companion for viewers seeking more seasons, emphasizing that the parody understands documentary form and content deeply. The writing imitates filmmakers, journalists, and celebrities through convincing fake essays attributed to major literary and film voices. The result is a collection that reflects documentary art through comedy without mocking non-fiction filmmaking.

"The 2015-2022 IFC series “Documentary Now!” remains one of the funniest things that's ever been on television. One of the show's conceits is that it's actually been running much longer than the four seasons we got in the real world, presenting itself as a “60 Minutes”-esque news magazine show that's been on for generations. In keeping with that premise, McSweeney's has released a “4 th edition” companion book to the series, “updating” the 1975 original companion with a new introduction (to join the original one by Burt Lancaster) by our very own Matt Zoller Seitz, which is a comedic work of art."

"It's certainly a wonderful companion to people who miss this show and long for a fifth season of a show that's more than just an easy parody of non-fiction filmmaking. It's a program that understands the filmmaking it's mimicking on a bone-deep level, not just mocking classics like “Grey Gardens” or “The Thin Blue Line” but recreating why those movies work in terms of both form and content. This book reminds one not just how funny “Documentary Now!” was but how incredibly intelligent it was, never punching down on non-fiction filmmaking, but reflecting its art through comedy."

"It contains so much clever writing that mimics filmmakers, journalists, and celebrities. For example, the introduction by Helen Mirren was written by Seth Meyers, but the book itself remains so faithful to its vision that it includes fake essays by Peter Bogdanovich, David Foster Wallace, Tom Wolfe, Joan Didion, and many more, and they all read like the genuine thing. Bogdanovich writes about “Kunuk the Hunter,” “When you're shooting a fictional picture, you're telling a story. When you're shooting a doc, you”"

Read at Roger Ebert