The article examines the specificfeatures of such genre of screen documentary as a collective portrait. The author offers the typology of the works of this genre, defining 2 types of structuring in the collective portrait - discrete and interconnect. The thematic vector of the work is determined by the overall attribution of the characters, such as their occupation, place of their residence, their age, etc. A significant role in the collective portrait plays the screen image of historical and social time.