I recently watched, and fell in love with, the documentary Secret Mall Apartment. I loved the subjectivity and liminality of it all, I loved the conjecture as to whether it was art, and not just illegality dressed up as culture. And if you also enjoyed it, and want other documentaries that scratch a similar itch??? Boy do I have a pile of documentaries for you. The first, and most obvious comparison I would make would be Banksy’s Please Exit Through the Gift Shop. It’s the grandaddy of them all in this list, and he won an Oscar for best documentary as result… even though the secretive artist didn’t come and pick it up himself.
Street Art & Graffiti Culture
“Beautiful Losers” (2008) Documents the 1990s DIY art movement that emerged from skateboarding, punk, and hip-hop cultures. Features artists like Shepard Fairey (OBEY), Barry McGee, and Margaret Kilgallen. It captures that raw, pre-Instagram era when street art was genuinely countercultural rather than commodified.
“Style Wars” (1983) The definitive documentary on early NYC graffiti and hip-hop culture. It’s gritty, authentic, and captures the tension between artists, authorities, and the public. Essential viewing for understanding the roots of street art before it became “cool.”
“Bomb It” (2007) A global tour of graffiti and street art culture, visiting cities from Tokyo to São Paulo. Shows how this art form manifests differently across cultures while maintaining a universal spirit of rebellion and public space reclamation.
Performative Pranks & Culture Jamming
“The Yes Men Fix the World” (2009) Follows activist-pranksters who impersonate corporate spokespeople to expose wrongdoing. They’ve posed as Dow Chemical executives, delivered fake apologies for the Bhopal disaster, and generally used performance art as activism. Brilliant and hilarious.
“The Institute” (2013) Documents the Jejune Institute, an elaborate alternate reality game/art project in San Francisco that turned the city into an interactive playground. Thousands of people participated without fully understanding what it was—echoes of “Secret Mall Apartment” in its guerrilla approach to public space.
“Marwencol” (2010) After a brutal assault leaves him with brain damage, Mark Hogancamp creates an elaborate 1/6-scale WWII-era Belgian town in his yard, populated with dolls representing people in his life. It’s technically art therapy but becomes genuinely compelling art. Different tone than Secret Mall Apartment and Giftshop, but similarly explores outsider creativity.
Subversive & Boundary-Pushing Artists
“Cutie and the Boxer” (2013) Follows aging Japanese boxer-turned-artist Ushio Shinohara and his wife Noriko, 40 years into their chaotic marriage. Ushio creates “boxing paintings” by punching canvases while wearing paint-soaked gloves. It’s about art, ego, partnership, and what gets sacrificed for creative vision.
“Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present” (2012) Documents Abramović’s 2010 MoMA retrospective where she sat silently across from strangers for hours. Performance art at its most distilled. While more “establishment” than our primary examples, it shows art that challenges conventional boundaries.
“Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry” (2012) The Chinese dissident artist who uses his work to challenge authoritarianism. He’s been arrested, beaten, and had his passport confiscated, but continues creating provocative installations and social media campaigns. Art as resistance.
Urban Exploration & Hidden Worlds
“Dark Days” (2000) Stunning black-and-white documentary about people living in abandoned NYC subway tunnels. Not strictly about artists, but captures the same fascination with hidden urban spaces and alternative ways of existing within cities.
“Mole Man” (2017) About a man who spent 50+ years digging tunnels under his property, creating an elaborate underground world. Outsider art meets obsessive compulsion meets genuine engineering achievement.
“Herb & Dorothy” (2008) A postal worker and librarian amassed one of the most important contemporary art collections in America while living in a rent-controlled NYC apartment. Shows that engagement with art doesn’t require wealth—just passion and commitment.
Hoaxes, Cons & Art-World Commentary
“Catfish” (2010) Starts as a documentary about an online relationship, becomes a story about identity, deception, and reality in the digital age. The twist genuinely surprised audiences. Raises questions about authenticity similar to “Exit Through the Gift Shop.”
“F for Fake” (1973) Orson Welles’ playful documentary about art forger Elmyr de Hory and fake biographer Clifford Irving. It’s a film about fakery that may itself be fake. Meta, confusing, brilliant—decades ahead of its time.
“Beltracchi: The Art of Forgery” (2014) Wolfgang Beltracchi forged works by Max Ernst, Heinrich Campendonk, and others, fooling experts and selling them for millions. The doc explores how he did it and questions what makes art “authentic” anyway.
Cult Favorites & Oddities
“Crumb” (1994) Terry Zwigoff’s intimate, disturbing portrait of underground cartoonist Robert Crumb and his deeply dysfunctional family. Raw, unflinching, and shows the darkness that can fuel creativity.
“My Kid Could Paint That” (2007) Four-year-old Marla Olmstead becomes an abstract art sensation selling paintings for thousands. Then questions arise: Is she really painting them, or is her father? Explores authenticity, exploitation, and the art market’s absurdities.
“Leaning Into the Wind” (2017) Follows environmental artist Andy Goldsworthy as he creates ephemeral sculptures from natural materials. While less subversive than Secret Mall Apartment and Giftshop, it shares the spirit of creating art in unexpected places and contexts.
Contemporary & Recent
“Banksy Does New York” (2014) When Banksy announced a month-long “residency” in NYC with a new piece appearing daily, chaos ensued. This crowd-sourced documentary captures the scavenger hunt, the street art tourism, and the commodification of rebellion.
“OBEY Giant” (2017) Biography of Shepard Fairey (the Obama “Hope” poster guy), from guerrilla sticker campaigns to mainstream success. Chronicles the journey from street art rebel to establishment figure—with all the complications that entails.
“Kusama: Infinity” (2018) Yayoi Kusama’s story—from struggling artist in 1960s NYC to becoming the world’s top-selling living female artist at 90. Her infinity rooms and polka dot obsessions now draw Instagram crowds, but the documentary shows the decades of marginalization that preceded fame.
