The year 1976 marked a milestone in the chronicles of film-theory studies. In that year, the University of California Press published a hefty anthology entitled Movies and Methods, which introduced some of the emerging field’s most respected intellectuals of the time. The protagonist of this chapter and the editor of Movies and Methods, Bill Nichols (1942–), achieved in 1976 another noteworthy accomplishment that significantly bolstered his academic success. That winter, he authored an article for Screen magazine entitled “Documentary Theory and Practice.” Within its pages, Nichols introduced a novel Documentary definiens. The chapter retraces Nichols’s line of argumentation from the opening section of the article, pointing to the feebleness of his historical observations. Later I take note of his preliminary definition of Documentary “as a genre alongside narrative.” In the final section of the chapter, I delve deep into his definiens, stating that “We need, then, to examine the formal structure of documentary film, the codes and units which are involved, in order to re-see documentary … as a semiotic system which generates meaning …”.