The concepts of nonfiction and non-narrative are central to documentary films. Nonfiction films present presumed factual descriptions of actual events, persons, or places, rather than their fictional, or invented, re-creation. Non-narrative films are organized in a variety of ways that de-emphasize stories and narratives while employing other forms such as lists, repetitions, or contrasts as the organizational structure.

The formal strategies used in documentary film—documentary organizations—show or describe experiences according to a certain arrangement, logic, or order that is different from that of fictional narrative organizations. While narrative film relies on specific patterns to shape the material realities of life into imaginative histories, documentary film employs strategies and forms that resemble scientific and educational methods.

Cumulative organizations present a series of images or sounds that accumulate over the duration of the film. Contrastive organizations present a series of images or sounds that contrast or are in opposition to provide different points of view on a subject. Developmental organizations present people, places, things, and experiences through a specific pattern of development that is non-narrative.

Similar to the use of narrators and narration in a fiction film, documentary films employ rhetorical positions that shape the film according to certain beliefs and perspectives. These positions are designed to explore, analyze, or debate a subject. Explorative positions announce or suggest that the film’s driving perspective is a scientific search into particular social, psychological, or physical phenomena. Interrogative or analytical positions rhetorically structure a movie in a way that identifies the subject as being under investigation – either through an implicit or explicit question-and-answer format or by other, more subtle, techniques. Persuasive positions articulate a perspective that expresses a personal or social position using emotions or beliefs and aim to persuade viewers to feel and see in a certain way. Reflexive and performative positions call attention to the filmmaking process or perspective of the filmmaker in determining or shaping the documentary material being presented. Often this means calling attention to the making of the documentary or the process of watching a film itself.