Documentary
Documentary adjective - Restricted to or based on fact.
Usage example: a documentary film about the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor
True and documentary are semantically related. In some cases you can use "True" instead an adjective "Documentary".
True
True adjective - Restricted to or based on fact.
Usage example: that news story is completely true, for the station released a list of its sources to back it up
Documentary and true are semantically related. Sometimes you can use "Documentary" instead an adjective "True".
Mutual synonyms
Both words in one sentence
- Willing Suspension of Disbelief isn't necessary for a documentary filmmaker, because by its very nature a documentary is assumed to be true and uses no actors or sets.
- Normally, a documentary is supposed to be a movie or TV show about something true: it "documents" something that really happened.
Source: Documentary of Lies - Documentary (and Nonfiction in general): "A true story", no "based on" — something like the Snopes.com page above, only told with interviews, Stock Footage, and narration.
Source: Based on a True Story
Cite this Source
True and Documentary. (2016). Retrieved 2026, August 14, from https://thesaurus.plus/related/documentary/true
Documentary & True. N.p., 2016. Web. 14 Aug. 2026. <https://thesaurus.plus/related/documentary/true>.
True or Documentary. 2016. Accessed August 14, 2026. https://thesaurus.plus/related/documentary/true.
Google Ngram Viewer shows how "documentary" and "true" have occurred on timeline