Michael Francis Moore (born April 23, 1954) is an American filmmaker, author and left-wing activist. His works frequently address the topics of globalization and capitalism. Moore won the 2002 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for Bowling for Columbine, which examined the causes of the Columbine High School massacre and the overall gun culture of the United States. He also directed and produced Fahrenheit 9/11, a critical look at the presidency of George W. Bush and the War on Terror, which earned $119,194,771 to become the highest-grossing documentary at the American box office of all time. The film also won the Palme d'Or at the 2004 Cannes film festival, and was subject to intense controversy. His documentary Sicko, which examines health care in the United States, is one of the top ten highest-grossing documentaries . In September 2008, he released his first free movie on the internet, Slacker Uprising, which documented his personal quest to encourage more Americans to vote in presidential elections. He has also written and starred in the TV shows TV Nation, a satirical news-magazine television series, and The Awful Truth, a satirical show. In 2018, he released his latest film, Fahrenheit 11/9, a documentary about the 2016 United States presidential election and the subsequent presidency of Donald Trump. He was executive producer of Planet of the Humans (2019), a documentary about the environmental movement. Moore's works criticize topics such as globalization, large corporations, assault weapon ownership, Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Donald Trump, the Iraq War, the American health care system and capitalism overall. In 2005, Time named Moore one of the world's 100 most influential people. Critics have labeled Moore himself as a propagandist, and his films as propaganda. Early life Michael Francis Moore was born outside Flint, Michigan, and raised in Davison by parents Helene Veronica (née Wall) (1921–2002), a secretary, and Francis Richard "Frank" Moore, (1921–2014) an automotive assembly-line worker. At that time, the city of Flint was home to many General Motors factories, where his parents and grandfather worked. His uncle LaVerne was one of the founders of the United Automobile Workers labor union and participated in the Flint sit-down strike. Moore was brought up in a traditional Catholic home, and has Irish, and smaller amounts of Scottish and English, ancestry. Some of his ancestors were Quakers. He attended parochial St. John's Elementary School for primary school and later attended