Frazer Pennebaker said in an email his father died on Thursday at his Long Island home from natural causes.

He was a pioneer who helped popularise the naturistic style known as cinema verite and made such influential movies as Don't Look Back and The War Room.

Subjects of his films included Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, the Kennedys and Jane Fonda.

Pennebaker was an assistant early in his career on the movie Primary, a 1960 release about John F. Kennedy's run for president that helped invent the modern political documentary.

Don't Look Back, a chronicle of Dylan made in 1965, is considered the first major rock documentary.

Australian Associated Press