[HN Gopher] Ask HN: What are some of the best documentaries you'...
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Ask HN: What are some of the best documentaries you've seen?
This questions has been asked before [0][1][2], but I'm thinking
that in the last 4 years something new and exciting has been
created or discovered. If you could describe in a couple of words
why you mentioned what you mentioned, that would be fantastic.
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18085765 [1]:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18537512 [2]:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18271167
Author : rasulkireev
Score : 436 points
Date : 2022-09-11 14:15 UTC (8 hours ago)
| RajT88 wrote:
| Genghis Blues I don't think has been mentioned yet.
| samwillis wrote:
| Gary Hustwits design trilogy:
|
| Helvetica - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helvetica_(film)
|
| "about typography and graphic design, centered on the eponymous
| typeface."
|
| Objectified - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectified
|
| "examining the role of everyday non-living objects, and the
| people who design them, in our daily lives."
|
| Urbanized - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanized
|
| "discusses how cities are designed, and it features interviews
| with urban planners and architects"
|
| They are beautifully made films, and he interviews some of the
| most influential designers of the last century.
|
| It funny how many times I've told people to watch Helvetica and
| they have just looked at me and asked how there could be a film
| about a "font". It's so much more, the films really cover design
| methodology and how it influences our every day lives.
| filmgirlcw wrote:
| These are some of my favorites. I have Helvetica and
| Objectified posters in my house.
| samwillis wrote:
| Yes, same here. I have the objectified poser above my desk.
| samstave wrote:
| How dare you objectify a poser!
| jimmySixDOF wrote:
| Of you like the Helvetica story then try the excellent episode
| "Jonathan Hoefler: Typeface Design" on the Netflix documentary
| series Abstract: The Art of Design
| retSava wrote:
| "S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine"
|
| It's a great documentary in its own way. It circles around the
| S21 Tuol Sleng prison/interrogation center/extermination center
| where a small cadre of Khmer Rouge soldiers were responsible for,
| mostly using torture, extracting a confession out of the
| prisoner. The names given during torture were picked up, and the
| cycle repeats. Entire generations of families went out this way.
|
| Horrible, horrible event in history, and a chilling place to
| visit (I did a decade ago).
|
| This documentary allows plenty of room for the
| guards/soldiers/torturers themselves to describe the events from
| their side. Which they do.
|
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0368954/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuol_Sleng_Genocide_Museum
| liampulles wrote:
| I really enjoyed The Endurance (2000), which is about the famed
| Shackleton expedition. Really shows how a man's steadfast
| leadership, experience, and fortitude can save even the most dire
| of circumstances. Great narration by Liam Neeson too.
| F00Fbug wrote:
| Tims Vermeer
|
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3089388/
| febed wrote:
| ,,Death of Yugoslavia" - about the fall of Yugoslavia and the
| subsequent genocide was pretty riveting. It had interviews of
| many of the key figures including Slobodan Milosevic.
| NicoleJO wrote:
| I'm currently obsessed with documentaries about uncontacted
| tribes.
| frowin wrote:
| trolling or are there actual documentaries? Maybe depends on
| definition of "uncontacted"?
| eterps wrote:
| Could you recommend some?
| NicoleJO wrote:
| Sure. I recommend starting with this one and then letting
| your curiosity lead to others.
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XYbR6eYrVbQ
|
| My head hasn't been right since. I'm seriously questioning
| everything I've learned!
| joegahona wrote:
| Anyone into music production would love "Tom Dowd & the Language
| of Music": https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0343107/
|
| It covers all the obvious stuff about Dowd's music-production
| career, but also gets into his work on the Manhattan project.
| dieselgate wrote:
| It's a pretty dark documentary but I came across a British doc
| about addiction and it's the single film that's stuck with me the
| most. A ~London based photographer and journalist covered
| addiction but decided he wasn't "close enough to the story" to
| really understand the subjects. He starts doing heroin and the
| documentary is about his unsuccessful journey to get clean
| (across like a decade) - it's powerful and deeply scary and sad.
| But suppose it's great journalism.
|
| Good luck to y'all
|
| Edit: timelines
| ghilston wrote:
| What's the name...?
| dieselgate wrote:
| Was surprised to find it but it has the title "Channel 4 -
| Cold Turkey - Heroin addiction documentary 2001" on youtube
| 0x45696e6172 wrote:
| I enjoyed Branching Paths, which gave provides a unique window
| into the Japanese indie game developer scene -- If you liked
| Indie Game: The Movie 2012 and are interested in Japanese media,
| then watch at least the trailer:
|
| https://store.steampowered.com/app/494680/Branching_Paths/
| cimi_ wrote:
| Brian Cox was mentioned in one of the replies, but without any
| context so I'll add some here.
|
| The stories he tells are beautifully constructed and he addresses
| fundamental questions like why are we here? Why is the universe
| the way it is? How can a handful of natural forces produce the
| stunning diversity we see on our planet?
|
| He does this by travelling to visually stunning places that are
| somehow connected to the story (e.g aurora in Iceland, ancient
| astronomic clock in Peru etc).
|
| My favourite is this:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonders_of_the_Universe But all of
| them are worth watching.
| antod wrote:
| I would love to watch Brian Cox be a bit more in depth and
| faster moving with less of the go somewhere exotic and
| spectacular for a reason which only adds a little bit
| tangentially to the material.
|
| Sure it looks goods, and is good the first few sidetracks, but
| after a while I found myself thinking "get on with it" and that
| he could've told us so much more stuff in that time. I'm 100%
| sure he could do amazing material that was a bit more
| challenging for the viewer. It would probably have a smaller
| audience, but they could save money on all the exotic location
| shoots to make up for that.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Here's one you don't have yet, and for a change with a
| documentary, it's actually funny:
|
| "Exporting Raymond"
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1356763/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0
|
| Phil Rosenthal, the creator of _Everybody Loves Raymond_ went to
| Russia, to help start a Russian TV version of his series. They
| got the scripts, but they completely recast it with Russian
| actors and changed a few situations. "What's funny about a guy
| who's nobody, and lives with his parents?" they asked.
|
| We had Phil and his producer at Google for a Q&A after the
| screening.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoGwRYUeo1E
| jimjimjim wrote:
| As a rule, BBC documentaries, and dare I say it, documentaries
| from the UK seem to be much much better than US documentaries. US
| doc Red Flags: They have hired actors to dramatically recreate
| scenes. Have script writers for lines for historical figures. And
| worst of all, mention the words mystery, lost, sharks, nazi,
| aliens.
| ckw wrote:
| Short documentary (Leaving The Earth) by Errol Morris about
| United Airlines Flight 232. If you haven't heard of that, don't
| google-- watch the documentary.
|
| I like it because it's the perfect rendition by two master
| storytellers (Errol Morris and Denny Fitch) of perhaps the
| greatest clutch performance in human history.
|
| on YouTube: https://youtu.be/nf33RDu_D6M
| Someone987 wrote:
| Some of my favourites that I did not find mentioned here, the
| topics might not be that interesting but I appreciate these
| documentaries for the very "real" human interactions in them. (I
| am not sure how to word it better:
|
| Japan: A Story of Love and Hate -
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1401179/ Following a japanase
| salaryman throughout his every day life
|
| Empire of Dust - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2148945/ Chinese
| company is building railways in Democratic Republic Kongo,
| documentary follows the chinese head of Logistics and his
| "partner" who is an congolese that speaks fluent mandarin
|
| I'm new here -
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7573428/?ref_=nm_knf_t4 African
| buisnessmen trying to make buisness in china
|
| Invisible - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0468496/ Very personal
| and intimate documentary of the everyday life of a group of
| heroin users in Sofia Bulgaria
|
| Pakistan's Hidden Shame - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4173938/
| From IMDB: A look into the sexual abuse suffered by the children
| living in the North-Western city of Peshawar in Pakistan.
|
| A tough watch, comparably tough to An Act of Killing. I cried
|
| Also I can recommended everything by Louis Theroux and to some
| degree Channel 5, if that qualifies as a documentary. I'd say
| that kind of content are more reportages, if I were to make a
| distinction
| nowandlater wrote:
| Pretty good ones:
|
| Hearts and Minds (great Vietnam War documentary) -
| https://play.hbomax.com/feature/urn:hbo:feature:GXk3jwwTEBZ4...
|
| My Best Fiend (Klaus Kinski biography/documentary by Werner
| Herzog) - https://watch.plex.tv/movie/my-best-
| fiend?autoplay=1&utm_con...
| hermitcrab wrote:
| "Fog of war" about the life of Robert McNamara. He is quite
| candid about some of the mistakes he made.
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| Yeah, this is a very well filmed documentary. The combination
| of the Phillip Glass score and some camera techniques that make
| the interview feel very in person and vivid definitely work.
| It's a fascinating and surprisingly frank look at someone that
| helped shape the last century, including making decisions that
| resulted in the deaths of 100's of thousands of people.
| rado wrote:
| Also "The Unknown Known"
| AmateurAlert wrote:
| The contrast between the two is very interesting.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| Also anything by:
|
| Werner Hertzog
|
| Adam Curtis
|
| Brian Cox (the physicist)
| BigHatLogan wrote:
| A little late to the thread, but two come to mind:
|
| Hoop Dreams (1994) - Explores inner-city poverty through the eyes
| of two young boys in Chicago who want to use basketball as a way
| to escape their environment. I haven't seen it in a long time,
| but my biggest takeaway from it is how narrow the bridge to
| "success" can be for some. If you grow up in a well-to-do upper
| middle class environment, you can make a shocking number of
| youthful mistakes, yet still get saved by your parents, school,
| society. Others really only have one or two chances to make
| things work.
|
| The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness (2013) - A must-watch if you're
| an admirer of Hayao Miyazaki movies. Goes into his creative
| processes; how he thinks about his work, the world at-large,
| etc.; and his long-standing friendship with his producer, Toshio
| Suzuki.
| AceyMan wrote:
| "Searching for Sugar Man" (2012) took the Oscar that year and for
| good reason.
|
| If you like cultural/arts/music stuff, just go watch it.
|
| protip: don't read up on it before since nearly any write-up may
| include spoilers. Not even the liner notes on whatever streaming
| platform you find it. Just hit play.
| emvein wrote:
| Einstein's Big Idea - E = mc2 - very inspiring and interesting
| documentary about MC2 formula and root of each element of
| equation. Even if you don't understand (like) physics this series
| explains Einstein and its discovery in cinematic way.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROC8zSiw1x4
|
| The Men Who Built America - pictured in the same way as
| documentary mentioned above. Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Carnegie,
| Astor, Ford and Morgan. Their names are part of history and
| synonymous with the American dream. These men transformed every
| industry they touched: oil, rail, steel, shipping, automobiles,
| and finance.
| walthamstow wrote:
| One could also read Jane Meyer's Dark Money to find out how
| those men also transformed politics, even decades after they
| died.
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| "The Alchemists of Sound", a BBC documentary about the history of
| the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, who were most famous for producing
| the Doctor Who theme tune, but were enormously influential in the
| world of early electronic music.
| suranyami wrote:
| "Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth"
|
| Mind-boggling series on the role of myths throughout history and
| today. Not at all what I was expecting, and made my head spin on
| many occasions.
| agent86 wrote:
| Resolved - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resolved_(film)
|
| - Follows a high school debate team that eschewed the normal
| speed and pitch common in debate and instead argued against the
| structure of debate on the whole.
|
| Class Action Park -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_Action_Park
|
| - Covers the history of Action Park, and amusement park which was
| located in Vernon Township, New Jersey and was infamous for its
| poor safety record.
|
| The Last Dance -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Dance_(miniseries)
|
| - Chronicles the career of basketball great Michael Jordan
|
| The Captain -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Captain_(miniseries)
|
| - Chronicles the career of baseball great Derek Jeter
|
| Andre the Giant -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9_the_Giant_(film)
|
| - Examines the life and career of professional wrestler Andre the
| Giant
|
| 6 Days to Air: The Making of South Park -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6_Days_to_Air
|
| - Follows Trey Parker and Matt Stone as they produce an episode
| of the adult cartoon series South Park in the 6 days before it is
| due to air.
|
| The Alzheimers Project - https://www.hbo.com/the-alzheimer-s-
| project
|
| - A bit aged, but a multi-part series covering Alzheimers disease
| and its impact on those affected by it and their families.
|
| Alive Day Memories - Home From Iraq -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alive_Day_Memories
|
| - Interviews with Iraq War veterans about the days they should
| have died, but didn't.
|
| Assume the Position with Mr. Wuhl -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assume_the_Position_with_Mr._W...
|
| - Talks about facts and myths of American history in a comedic
| view
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| I really enjoyed "Commanding Heights" (PBS?). Its more of a
| series, but in documentary style.
| jimjimjim wrote:
| Pain, Pus & Poison (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3738656/)
| cambo wrote:
| "A Walk to Beautiful"
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Walk_to_Beautiful - Story of post
| pregnancy medical care for the women of Ethiopia who thanks to
| famine are too small to healthily have babies, and the stigma of
| the conditions they endure.
| sidcool wrote:
| The World at War
| nl wrote:
| Icarus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icarus_(2017_film)
|
| It's a really odd documentary because it is two films in one. It
| starts off as the filmmakers attempt to dope himself as a cyclist
| and document that. As part of that process he seeks out coaching
| on how to dope better, meets some Russian coaches who tell him
| about their experiences doping Russian athletes for the winter
| Olympics. That in tern leads to a documentary about the
| investigation into that doping.
| [deleted]
| suranyami wrote:
| "How We Got to Now" tv series
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3106210/
|
| Fascinating look into ideas that transformed our society, like
| glass, time keeping, sanitation, etc. takes seemingly mundane
| topics and explores what a mess things were like before them.
| blueatlas wrote:
| Command and Control
|
| Details the events of the 1980 deadly and nearly disastrous
| accident at the Titan II nuclear missile complex in Damascus,
| Arkansas.
|
| https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/command-an...
|
| Maybe a little older than 4 years, but posting because it's
| really well done.
| dwt204 wrote:
| Any of Wiseman's documentaries are good but Basic Training, Meat
| and Blind are good ones to start with if you are not familiar
| with his work
| anonu wrote:
| Most Ken Burns stuff... Especially the ww2 one. Also, released in
| the last year, the Beatles: get back documentary is fascinating
| to watch the creative process and dedication to the task, if
| you're so dedicated to sit for all 8 hours of it.
| gandalfgreybeer wrote:
| I honestly want to watch the Beatles doc but haven't committed
| to the time yet though. My mother and her friends who were
| Beatles fans in their peak seemed to have enjoyed it.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I'm 60, so this movie actually was quite enjoyable, for me:
| https://newwavedaretobedifferent.com
|
| It's about a plucky little New York radio station that debuted a
| lot of the major acts of the 1980s.
|
| Probably, a lot of folks hereabouts would not share my enjoyment.
| bluishgreen wrote:
| Earth story
|
| Based on a book of the same name. It finally clicked for me what
| a dynamic living thing a rock is. Beautiful narration.
| Recommended
| 0xDEFACED wrote:
| It's 10 years old, but I didn't see "The House I Live In" in any
| of the previous threads. Its an amazing look at the history of
| The War on Drugs, and its impact on the criminal justice system
| and human rights in the United States.
|
| https://imdb.com/title/tt2125653/
| geraldcombs wrote:
| "Abstract: The Art of Design," a series that profiled a notable
| designer in each episode. It's a bit uneven, and some of the
| episodes spent too much playing up how clever and amazing the
| designer is instead of their work, but on the whole it provided
| an interesting glimpse into the design process in various fields.
| I particularly liked the typography episode with Jonathan
| Hoefler.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| _F for Fake_ by Orson Welles. Documentaries on art forgers (not
| 'how this art forger was caught!' which is of secondary
| importance) all tend to be interesting, but this is transcendent.
|
| _The Pervert 's Guide to Ideology' by Slavoj zizek/Sophie
| Fiennes.
|
| _Hypernormalization* is an Adam Curtis doc so you'll love or hate
| it, but I think it's his best one.
| biztos wrote:
| _The Price of Everything_
|
| It's about how the global art world interacts with the bottomless
| well of cash that has been gushing into it during the last few
| decades, with a focus on one older artist who is quite successful
| but not by those standards.
|
| Before anybody gets too depressed about it I would add that the
| kids are alright: the generations who witnessed the _arrival_ of
| this stinking freight of mammon find it a lot more offensive than
| the people who just grew up in its shadow. The art world is
| thriving like never before, and I emphatically include the broke-
| ass majority of it in that statement.
|
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7475540/
|
| Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mbqcY9g5CM
| therealdavesky wrote:
| The Grateful Dead Movie, don't know if it's online. A in-depth
| look at GD shows mid-70's, near their creative peak. Lots of
| backstage footage, fan interviews, and some pretty neat
| animation.
| konfusinomicon wrote:
| in the same realm is Festival Express. what an epic journey it
| must have been
| swat535 wrote:
| I am going to post some of my favorites ones that are not
| commonly mentioned in these threads:
|
| * The Corporation (2003)
|
| * For Sama (2019) [WARNING: GRAPHIC!]
|
| * Tickled (2016)
|
| * Of Fathers and Sons (2017) [WARNING: GRAPHIC!]
| tristanstr wrote:
| Soul in the hole.
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soul_in_the_Hole
|
| It's a great story about a young baseball prodigy and his coach
| who tries to steer him away from the street.
| christoph wrote:
| Surprised nobody else posted this one - "Meet the Stans" a great
| four part travel documentary about Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
| Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtxJN3o5kkY
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFVcQ7ZxC1o
| kundiis wrote:
| I saw a lot of them, but below seems not only eye-opening but
| also educational to increase awareness on several areas of life.
|
| 1. An Inconvenient Truth - About global warming 2. Seaspiracy -
| Impact to oceans and climate due to (over)fishing 3. Blackfish -
| following the controversial captivity of killer whales(orcas),
| and its dangers for both humans and whales. 4. Sicko -
| investigating healthcare and insurance on USA 5. The social
| dilemma - Impact on humans by using online social networks 6.
| Jiro dreams of Sushi - Man's lifelong practice to perfect the art
| of Sushi making
| booleanbetrayal wrote:
| The Power of Nightmares (BBC / Adam Curtis)
| [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0430484/] -
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yK3wz-OyR1U
| dayofthedaleks wrote:
| Adam Curtis is great, but his stuff is better described as
| commentary. He basically does James Burke's 'Connections' [0]
| as polemic. Can't get enough personally.
|
| [0] Burke's 'Connections' and 'Day the Universe Changed' are
| definitely worthy of mention on this post.
| DoubleDerper wrote:
| ^^^ Thank you! ^^^ Came here to reccommend Connections by
| James Burke and glad to see someone else has mentioned it.
| It's a masterpiece of popular science production made better
| with the grainy film patina of the 70s and 80s.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XetplHcM7aQ
| asdfqwertzxcv wrote:
| Fires of Kuwait - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tUzkF_Dp8M
|
| A first hand account of the firefighters who were sent to cap the
| oil wells that Saddam set on fire during his attempt to invade
| the country.
|
| Senna https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aPLOQeSHrM The story of
| famed F1 driver. I'm not a racing fan but this one was amazing.
|
| Apollo 11 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Co8Z8BQgWc Completely
| new footage was found of the complete Apollo 11 mission. The best
| doc of the space race, by far.
| biztos wrote:
| For a poetic treatment of the fires of Kuwait, see _Lessons of
| Darkness_ by Werner Herzog:
|
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104706/
|
| Trailer: https://youtu.be/vMIM-ma2juo
| ghosty141 wrote:
| Ive got that one on my watchlist, as well as Baraka once I
| find somebody with an 8k setup.
| asdfqwertzxcv wrote:
| Yep, love it, too. But definitely more of an acquired taste.
| itronitron wrote:
| +1 on Fires of Kuwait, I saw that in a theater in the `90's and
| I've never forgotten the shot that starts at 2:28 in the YT
| video although it is minor in comparison to more recent footage
| (from Beirut and Ukraine for example).
| cheeko1234 wrote:
| I would also recommend Moon Machines[0] for an amazing in-depth
| experience of the Apollo program:
|
| Part 1: The Saturn V Rocket
|
| Part 2: The Command Module
|
| Part 3: The Navigation Computer
|
| Part 4: The Lunar Module
|
| Part 5: The Space Suit
|
| Part 6: The Lunar Rover
|
| Available on vimeo[1] and youtube.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_Machines
|
| [1] https://vimeo.com/673970849
| swalberg wrote:
| If you like documentaries about the space race, the Washington
| Post has a fantastic podcast series called "Moonrise"
| (https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/).
| Rodeoclash wrote:
| I would also recommend Senna. I don't care for F1 or racing at
| all but I couldn't stop watching because it was so gripping.
| hprotagonist wrote:
| Into Great Silence.
|
| 9 months in a carthusian monestary, filmed solo.
| christophilus wrote:
| It's quite the experience. The interview with the blind monk
| really got me. I spent most of the documentary feeling sorry
| for him, and he flipped that on its head.
| schu wrote:
| Generation Wealth:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Wealth
| anfractuosity wrote:
| I really enjoyed the The Bit Player (2018) about Claude Shannon,
| it uses an actor to play Shannon.
|
| I thought More Than Robots (2022) seemed really cool too, about
| teams of teenagers building robots for a competition.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsIo57pH-pA - is an interesting
| short documentary on the making of neon signs.
|
| Birdmen: The Original Dream of Human Flight (2012) was pretty
| fascinating on the history of wingsuit flying
|
| And also Jiro Dreams of Sushi.
| agotterer wrote:
| Countdown: Inspiration4 Mission to Space (2021)
|
| A 5 part Netflix docuseries detailing the background and story of
| the Inspiration4 mission. I thought it was literally
| inspirational.
|
| The Imagineering Story (2019)
|
| A Disney docuseries focused on Walt Disney Imagineering and the
| history and creation of the Disney theme parks and attractions
| around the world. After watching this I had a whole new respect
| for Disney.
| asiachick wrote:
| Rize (2005)
|
| https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0436724/
|
| About a certain dance culture that was popular back then. I also
| found it interesting to see a slice of life from south central
| Los Angeles
| midasuni wrote:
| W1A, an honest look at the inner workings of the BBC
| dzink wrote:
| I define best as one I've been most surprised by with insightful
| learnings that have helped elsewhere (even if the topic wasn't
| initially exciting).
|
| - The Crimson Wing - i don't suspect you're into flamingos, I'm
| not either, by far. Yet this documentary has the most gorgeous
| cinematography I have every seen in a movie and equally artfully
| done soundtrack that triggers perfect flow and creative lines of
| thought/programming any time I listen to it. So watch it not for
| the content but for the vibe (great if you have kids too).
|
| - The lost pirate kingdom (https://m.imdb.com/title/tt14057360/)
| Not into pirates either, but this documentary goes into how the
| democracy of piracy eventually spilled into the US constitution.
| When the British empire realized they couldn't pay a navy to
| dominate the earths oceans, they commissioned mercenaries to do
| the attacks on Spain for them in exchange for the loot. The
| mercenaries recruited by giving a equal share to all participants
| on a ship (equity), which incentivized better than pay as well.
| They then self organized in cities and eventually migrated to US
| territory which eventually had its own revolution for
| independence.
|
| - For All Mankind (not documentary, but alternate history based
| on more real NASA and JPL situations than any other i've seen)
|
| I found these because we watched every documentary about space,
| nature, and history we could find with the kids so we could
| "travel" with our minds when we weren't allowed to do it in
| person during the pandemic.
| Overtonwindow wrote:
| I worked on food safety policy fir years, and "Our Daily
| Bread"[1] rocked my world. It profoundly changed how I thought
| about food policy, its transportation, handling, and overall
| safety from farm to fork.
|
| As a kid, the nova documentary on Andrew Wiles[2] solving
| Fermat's last theorem not only inspired me to study science, but
| I too wept with joy..
|
| Honorable mention: "The KGB, the Computer and Me" about my
| childhood hero Clifford Stoll [3]
|
| 1} https://youtu.be/zG7q1NQJz7E
|
| 2} https://youtu.be/6ymTZEeTjI8
|
| 3} https://youtu.be/4gHNVNRQTJg
| [deleted]
| jimjimjim wrote:
| For reasons of being very accessible and well told: Jeremy
| Clarkson: Greatest Raid of All Time
| (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0996628/)
| mavbo wrote:
| Happy People: A Year in the Taiga by Dmitry Vasyukov. The English
| narration was written/voiced by Werner Herzog and matches the
| tone of the documentary perfectly. If you've ever had any
| interest in homesteading, or just getting away from it all, I
| would highly recommend it.
| nkurz wrote:
| I watched this, and enjoyed it, but was later surprised to
| learn that Herzog had started with a completed documentary but
| made major changes to the narrative---for the worse! There are
| few scenes that he edited to tell a different story than they
| did in the original, seemingly with minimal concern for truth.
| It really hurt my image of Herzog.
|
| So I'd second the recommendation, but add that if you get a
| chance, you should try to view Vasyukov's original as well.
| Herzog's version might be a bit snappier, but I don't think
| it's actually better. The original is available in four parts
| on Youtube. Here's part one:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbhPIK-oBvA
| tristanstr wrote:
| Soul in the hole is great
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soul_in_the_Hole
| drcongo wrote:
| I made a list on Letterboxd:
| https://letterboxd.com/drcongo/list/hactar-documentary-film-...
| ljf wrote:
| 'Bitter Lake' and 'Hypernormalisation' - both by Adam Curtis, and
| both blew me away.
|
| Loved 'Cave of Forgotten Dreams' by Werner Herzog
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Did you see the latter with the 3D glasses?
| ljf wrote:
| No, I didn't know that was an option! Would loved to have,
| would have been brilliant in a cinema - I just happened to
| find it one night when my wife was out and I wanted to watch
| something different. Beautiful - always loved Herzog but sent
| me on a mission to watch more of his work.
| IYasha wrote:
| These are just what came to my crumbled mind: "Music is my drug"
| - about the roots and impacts of trance and electronic dance
| music fS6vRNnt21w "Land of the rising sound" - falls into same
| category JcbpRMZIQ8g "The Lie That Helped Build Nintendo | IGN
| Inside Stories" SKgL8u4CPJ8 "This Mysterious Computer Could Prove
| Time Travel Exists | Nostalgia Nerd" nEDgG5MKndo
| rasulkireev wrote:
| I'll start. My favorite is Cosmos, starring Neil deGrasse Tyson.
| Another favorite of mine is the BBC's Planet Earth series.
| gandalfgreybeer wrote:
| I don't know what the popular opinion is on this one, but it
| felt like there was something missing in his version. I enjoyed
| it, but Sagan's original series, strikes a different chord.
|
| I don't think it's nostalgia too since I was too young to catch
| the original series.
| rasulkireev wrote:
| That is so fascinating. I almost never see the Tyson Cosmos
| recommended. But see Sagan's everywhere. And somehow still
| didn't watch it.
| 4m1rk wrote:
| I might be wrong but I hesitate watching old science
| documentaries, because science usually gets outdated.
| szx wrote:
| Honeyland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeyland
|
| There's this Godard quote which sums this one up for me: "All
| great fiction films tend towards documentary, just as all great
| documentaries tend towards fiction." (I think the director
| mentioned it in an interview too?)
| culi wrote:
| I watched this and I felt like I kept coming back to it in my
| head and learning more and more for months afterwards. It was
| commissioned by the Macedonian government to document the
| disappearing traditional beekeeping practices in that area.
| They didn't mean to make a story out of anything. They would
| just go and film every regular day of Hatidze's life, but an
| incredible story unfolded anyways.
|
| There's so much to take from this. One of those pieces that I
| just have to get my friends to watch so we could discuss
| because just describing it won't do it justice
| Simon_O_Rourke wrote:
| Hang Up Your Brightest Colours - by Kenneth Griffith, a great
| documentary about the Irish rebellion against British rule -
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwNJ3aFZg44
|
| The Civil War - by Ken Burns. One of his best and thoroughly well
| paced - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7HmBmWz9mI
|
| Looking for Fidel - by Oliver Stone. Well worth watching -
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTObNESnogQ
| japhyr wrote:
| The Alpinist
|
| If you enjoyed Free Solo, you really should check out The
| Alpinist. It's a documentary about Marc-Andre Leclerc; Alex
| Honnold thinks of Marc-Andre the way most of us think about Alex
| Honnold.
| randlet wrote:
| +1 great Doc
| celim307 wrote:
| Target shoots first
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f4IaB-eB6lQ
|
| Nothing huge at stake, but a good slice of life
| celim307 wrote:
| It's about a young professional working in the mail to order
| music business
| Snacklive wrote:
| Free Solo, It's the documentary of Alex Honnold in his
| preparation and eventual accomplishment of climbing the "El
| Capitan" without ropes
|
| That thing it's awesome, you know the guy ends up ok, but the
| journey made my hands sweat like crazy
| anjbe wrote:
| _Oxyana_ , a look into the effects opiates have had on the small
| town of Oceania, West Virginia.
|
| Happens to be one of the only movies I own through a DRM-free
| digital download purchase, sold through Vimeo. I wish I could buy
| all my movies this way. Of course, it's also available through
| the usual DRM-encumbered sources too (Blu-Ray, Amazon Prime).
| throwawaymaths wrote:
| For people on this site:
|
| - jiro dreams of sushi
|
| (Process excellence)
|
| - my architect
|
| (Building beautiful things and the sometimes broken people who
| build them)
|
| - downfall
|
| (What happens when a company loses its engineering culture)
|
| - the inventor: out for blood
|
| (What happens if you don't know how to quit faking it)
| doopy1 wrote:
| One of my favorites is Vigilante Vigilante:
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1651151/
| CalRobert wrote:
| Cadillac Desert, about the construction (and some unethical
| manoeuvrer) of California's water infrastructure.
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadillac_Desert_(film)
| ghostpepper wrote:
| If you like exploring outer space:
|
| Apollo 11 (2019). A feature-length documentary telling the story
| of the first people to land on the moon, told entirely without
| narration, using gloriously high definition archival footage.
|
| If you like that and want more NASA history, I also loved When We
| Left Earth (2008), which is a six-part series covering the
| history of NASA's manned spaceflight programs: Mercury, Gemini,
| Apollo, and then on to the space shuttle, ISS, etc.
|
| If you like exploring our planet:
|
| The Rescue (2021). The story of the kids soccer team who was
| trapped in a flooded cave in Thailand for nearly three weeks in
| 2018 and the huge international effort that ultimately saw them
| rescued safely by hobbyist cave divers after the Thai navy seals
| decided it was too dangerous to attempt.
| jjj123 wrote:
| This isn't quite what you're asking for, but Paris Is Burning is
| the best documentary I've ever seen. It's about the drag ball
| scene in New York in the 80s, and watching it now is fascinating
| to see how such a niche culture was 40 years ahead of its time
| and has become dominant in 2022. On top of that, it's just a
| great portrayal of a few fascinating characters.
| andreybutov wrote:
| Pianomania
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pianomania
|
| If you enjoy watching people who are really, really good at what
| they do, this one is for you.
| awelm wrote:
| "Triumph of the Nerds"
|
| Discusses the history of computing and the rise and fall of tech
| companies as the industry changed. It's old but worth it imo
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNVbmzVCyLU
| eterps wrote:
| I loved seeing that one in the past, it's so inspiring.
| Gl4d1us wrote:
| gday2020 wrote:
| Dominion: https://youtu.be/LQRAfJyEsko
|
| It's about the cruelty that happens in the animal industry.
| Minks, dogs, gooses, cows, pigs, horses, camels and a lot more.
| Watching that has changed my life quite a bit.
| bhedgeoser wrote:
| If this documentary changed your life, you might like this
| video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LY0_5Sk5GYs
| roboticmind wrote:
| How is that relevant?
|
| Are you saying that because cruel things happen in the wild
| we should be fine doing cruel things? I doubt we would accept
| someone justifying other acts by showing how it occurs in the
| wild such as stealing all the way to something extreme like
| cannibalism.
| bhedgeoser wrote:
| You're making a lot of assumptions.
| eartheaterrr wrote:
| I made the same "assumptions", along with another
| commenter. So maybe you should clarify your post.
| gday2020 wrote:
| Could you elaborate on that? I don't get it.
|
| What animals do in the wild is vastly different from what we
| do to animals.
| eartheaterrr wrote:
| Agreed - this is a great documentary. When considering the
| scale and brutality of the meat industry, it opened my eyes
| that this is probably the greatest crime humanity has ever
| committed.
|
| Not just for the animals, but for the PTSD endured by the
| workers in this industry as well.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Fantastic Fungi
|
| https://fantasticfungi.com/
|
| https://www.netflix.com/us/title/81183477
| BlameKaneda wrote:
| _Dear Zachary_ was written, directed, produced, and edited by one
| guy (Kurt Kuenne) and its budget was incredibly low even for
| indie film standards.
|
| However, I can think of very few documentaries that come close to
| what it achieved and how it made me _feel_ when watching it. Kurt
| put every fiber of his being into making it, and it shows.
| However, it 's not an easy watch and I'd be hesitant to watch it
| again all the way through.
|
| If you decide to check it out, please do _not_ read up anything
| about it. Don 't go onto Wikipedia or its IMDB page, don't search
| for reviews on it. Don't search for it at all. Just watch it.
|
| Edit: You can watch it here, for free: https://pluto.tv/en/on-
| demand/movies/dear-zachary-a-letter-t...
| wildekek wrote:
| > not an easy watch
|
| Quite the understatement. Just thinking about this documentary
| makes me sick.
| rgaino wrote:
| Incredible film, top of my list too.
| orasis wrote:
| That is an extremely difficult film. For me it was on par with
| watching Schindler's List.
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| Iraq in Fragments
|
| Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiu8cXhjpX4 Film:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCf-rMTmFRM
|
| In the wake of the invasion of Iraq, this filmmaker went there
| solo with little more than a prosumer quality dv camera. He
| filmed his subjects daily life, staying long enough that
| eventually everyone around him would drop their guard and behave
| more naturally despite the camera. For the final edit of the film
| he focused on the experiences of three young men, sunni, shia,
| and kurd, to paint a larger picture about the multiple directions
| Iraq is pulled in.
| EwanG wrote:
| For a newer series I think you can do well with America Outdoors
| with Baratunde Thurston - https://www.pbs.org/show/america-
| outdoors-baratunde-thurston...
|
| Documents a fair bit about the outdoors in several areas, but
| also the people who live and enjoy them, and some of the more
| salient social issues around them
| jasondigitized wrote:
| Steely Dan - Aja - Classic Albums Documentary -
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sdMV9TzMkc
|
| The process they went through to create the album with rotating
| musicians and bands is fascinating and should be inspirational
| for people who create software.
| eigenvalue wrote:
| Love this one, seen it multiple times. It's fun how they break
| down the songs at the mixer and isolate different parts
| (especially the high pitched "Peg!" vocals).
| kc10 wrote:
| World War II in Color
| prepend wrote:
| I recommend Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control by Errol Morris. It's
| a series of interviews with passionate geniuses in various areas,
| including a naked mole rat scientist.
|
| I watched it in the 90s and gave me awareness that there's people
| who have very deep interest in a subject and achieve fulfillment
| in studying and working in an area.
|
| Morris directed many other good documentaries- Thin Blue Line,
| Fog of War- but I think FCOoC is his best.
|
| Also Herzog's Fitzcarraldo (there's a documentary and a fictional
| portrays) is interesting to show how someone can work on a
| seemingly pointless and impossible task. This was helpful in
| programming as frequently areas of interest seem so confusing to
| people outside my mind.
| PsylentKnight wrote:
| The Up Series[0]. It's a series that follows a group from
| children from age 7 through old age, and it's still going (in
| theory - the creator died last year). Seeing entire lives
| compressed into a few hours was very impactful to me.
|
| [0]: https://www.amazon.com/The-Up-Series/dp/B074MGWDPF
| asdfqwertzxcv wrote:
| Can't upvote this enough. It's fascinating what happens to each
| of the kids as some of them drop out of the series and then
| come back later. I hope it lives on past Michael Apted's death
| in 2021.
| moviewise wrote:
| Steve Jobs: One Last Thing (2011)
|
| Woody Allen (2012)
|
| SlingShot (2014)
|
| With Great Power: The Stan Lee Story (2010)
|
| Breaking the Maya Code (2008)
|
| Note by Note: The Making of Steinway L1037 (2007)
|
| From:
|
| Six Films That Leave You Better Off
|
| https://moviewise.substack.com/p/six-films-that-leave-you-be...
| lhnz wrote:
| The Barkley Marathons: The Race That Eats Its Young (2014)
|
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2400291/
|
| It's heartfelt, yet comic. It's very enjoyable to watch with
| somebody else, because it is absurd and funny but also touching.
| 70jS8h5L wrote:
| I love documentaries, and these are my favourites. All very worth
| a watch.
|
| - The Crash Reel
|
| - McConkey
|
| - Buck
|
| - Apollo 11
|
| - Carts of Darkness
|
| - The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia
|
| - Samsara
|
| - Baraka
|
| - Brooklyn Castle
|
| - Spellbound
|
| - Drew: The Man Behind the Poster
|
| - Crumb
|
| - The Jinx
|
| - The Art of Flight
|
| - King of Kong
|
| - Indie Game: The Movie
|
| - Capturing the Friedmans
|
| - OJ: Made in America
|
| - The Barkley Marathons
|
| - The Seven Five
|
| - Murderball
|
| - Unbranded
|
| - Gringo: The Dangerous Life of John McAfee
|
| - Big River Man
|
| - Hoop Dreams
|
| - Word Wars
|
| - Free Solo
|
| - Long Shot
|
| - Meru
|
| - Being Elmo
|
| - All This Mayhem
|
| - Jiro Dreams of Sushi
|
| - The Cove
|
| - Project Nim
|
| - Alone in the Wilderness
|
| - Behind the Curve
|
| - The Dawn Wall
|
| - Grizzly Man
|
| - 13th
|
| - Winnebago Man
|
| - Man vs Snake: The Long and Twisted Tale of Nibbler
|
| - Get Me Roger Stone
|
| - Icarus
|
| - 13th
|
| - Koyaanisqatsi
|
| - The Thin Blue Line
|
| - An Inconvenient Truth
|
| - Oklahoma City
|
| - Virunga
|
| - The Staircase
|
| - Evil Genius
|
| - Undefeated
|
| - Betting on zero
| tra3 wrote:
| Appreciate the list very much. Do you think you could share the
| ones to start with and why you liked them?
| Overtonwindow wrote:
| Get me Roger Stone was brilliant, I never quite understood what
| a political provocateur was until I watched that. Now it's
| amazing to spot them throughout the political universe.
| [deleted]
| toomanyrichies wrote:
| "Dig!", the documentary about a band named the Brian Jonestown
| Massacre. Introduced me to psychedelic rock, and lead singer
| Anton Newcombe is the prototypical mad musical genius. I got the
| impression that he and his lead guitarist Matt Hollywood had kind
| of a modern-day Mozart/Salieri relationship, and tambourinist
| Joel Gion adds such a funny dynamic to the group.
| e12e wrote:
| You might enjoy the 2005 documentary about Roky Erickson:
| "You're gonna miss me":
|
| https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0791268/
| gandalfgreybeer wrote:
| I haven't checked the previous links but just going off the top
| of my head:
|
| - Jiro Dreams of Sushi, I watch it every now and then to inspire
| me about my craft. I want to go to Japan to try his food in the
| future.
|
| - Icarus, I suggest you go into this blind without knowing what
| it's about.
|
| - The Barkley Marathons, this sort of got me into running.
|
| Edit: I just went into the older discussions about how there's a
| dark side to Jiro Dreams of Sushi. And honestly, as an Asian (not
| Asian American), I think the difference in reception is a
| cultural thing.
| rasulkireev wrote:
| I'm so intrigued about Icarus. Interesting why people recommend
| to watch without reading, but I'll do exactly that. Thanks
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| Icarus and Barkley Marathons are great
| muzani wrote:
| Icarus, 2017, distributed by Netflix?
| _fat_santa wrote:
| Icarus is possibly one of the most impactful documentaries of
| our generation. One of the few docs ive seen where direct and
| harsh action was taken in response to what the documentary
| showed.
| westhom wrote:
| Another vote for Icarus, and also a vote for not reading
| anything about it.
| michaelwww wrote:
| 5 years old - https://www.alphagomovie.com/
|
| It's extremely well done and shows how Google beat the best Go
| player with AI to the surprise of everyone, especially those
| native to Asia, where Go is part of spiritual ideas and
| practices. They were certain the machine would fail and when it
| won with moves of sublime beauty the entire Go community was
| stunned and humbled. The movie says it was China's "Sputnik
| moment"
| [deleted]
| hnrodey wrote:
| https://www.amazon.com/McConkey-Robert-Bruce/dp/B00M0CNDOQ
| tracerbulletx wrote:
| The Seven Five (2015) - Pretty wild documentary about a corrupt
| NYPD cop.
| ultrasandwich wrote:
| "Ring of Fire, an Indonesian Odyssey" is at the top of my list.
| An incredible journey spanning 10 years. Allegedly bankrolled by
| Ringo Starr who was captivated by the premise, and had faith in
| the brothers who set out to trace the steps of naturalist Alfred
| Russell Wallace.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_of_Fire:_An_Indonesian_...
| samstave wrote:
| "The devil we know" <--- about Teflon's history and how bad it is
| for the planet...
| thegabez wrote:
| TIME: The Kalief Browder Story
|
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6133034/
| febeling wrote:
| From Shock to Awe (2019).
|
| Follows the journey of two US veterans with PTSD and substance
| abuse problems into healing, using Ayahuasca. These people are
| first unable to perform daily errands, and in the end are
| transformed with stable loving relationships and aspirations to
| help and shape society.
| hardwaregeek wrote:
| I saw Seeking Asian Female for a class and couldn't get it out of
| my head. It's a documentary about this older man who has a
| pretty...egregious Asian fetish. He finds this woman in China who
| he flies over to the US with the intent of marrying her ASAP. At
| this point most people have a preconceived notion of where the
| story is going, but I'll just say it ends up being a lot more
| complicated. There's a really nice reflexive quality, as
| filmmaker is an Asian woman herself, albeit Asian-American.
| Because of this, she ends up playing a role that goes beyond
| filmmaker, and part of the movie is her reflecting on this
| transgression.
| JeremyReimer wrote:
| In a similar vein, I watched My Thai Bride on a recommendation
| from a friend, and it also stuck in my head for a long time.
| It's about an older British man who flies to Thailand in search
| of a wife, but it handles the entire situation with honesty and
| sensitivity. It sounds weird, but I learned a lot about
| geopolitical forces from this film.
| rurban wrote:
| From the last four years: (I'm a professional critic, thus watch
| almost everything)
|
| 1. Gunda. A mother pig.
|
| 2. An insignificant man. Politics in India.
|
| 3. Mr Bachmann and his class. A teacher.
|
| 4. Icarus. The doping scandal.
|
| All time:
|
| https://letterboxd.com/rurban/films/ratings/genre/documentar...
|
| Gunda, The real dirt on Farmer Joe, Models (Seidl), Warheads
| (Karmakar), The Land of the Enlightened, Close-Up (Kiarostami),
| The Wild Parrots of Telegraf Hill, ...
| fauria wrote:
| Espana, la Primera Globalizacion (Spain, the First
| Globalization): https://m.imdb.com/title/tt14011090/reviews
|
| I found it to be a great documentary where 39 historians from
| multiple countries narrate the history of the Spanish empire from
| their points of view.
| TomGullen wrote:
| I loved Koyaanisqatsi, trailer here:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PirH8PADDgQ Not your typical
| documentary.
|
| Anything by Werner Herzog is incredible as well, I find his
| approach extremely sympathetic and respectful to the subjects but
| without sacrificing detail (EG Grizzly Man)
|
| Not strictly a documentary, but Threads by the BBC is a
| researched film depicting life in the UK if every city was hit by
| a nuke and it was incredibly disturbing and informative:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threads_(1984_film)
|
| Carl Sagan's Cosmos has to be one of the most charming and moving
| documentaries I've ever watched - arguably a little out of date
| now but it reached a place the subsequent Cosmos series just
| couldn't reach.
|
| MayDay! Air crash investigations are all amazing documentaries
| that manage to balance pretty intense technical information with
| real life suffering very skilfully and they are incredibly
| engaging.
| kbos87 wrote:
| I see a bunch of outdoor related docs here, I'll throw a couple
| more favorites on the pile...
|
| - "The Alpinist" - The story of Marc Andre Leclerc, a young
| Canadian soloist ice climber
|
| - "This Mountain Life" - a series of short stories on alpine
| adventure mixed with some fantastic cinematography
| moviewise wrote:
| Addicted to Life (Nuit de la Glisse) (2014) is a documentary
| written and directed by Thierry Donard about men around the
| world who seek extreme athletic challenges.
|
| https://moviewise.wordpress.com/2021/05/31/addicted-to-life/
| PKop wrote:
| Inside Job (2010) - documentary about the 2008 financial crisis
| and policies leading up to that years before. Sort of like the
| documentary version of The Big Short. Narrated by Matt Damon.
| Interesting and informative about the catalysts for the crisis.
|
| Full movie on YouTube:
|
| https://youtu.be/T2IaJwkqgPk
| signalblur wrote:
| I really enjoyed The Phenomenon if you're into UFO's -
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onEXmLX2ZZQ
|
| Also this reddit post has a bunch of old UFO documentaries going
| back to the 50's before there was so much "Alien" and modern
| Scifi out for those that are interested in the topic. Really
| interesting:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOVHS/comments/nwxot9/ufovhs_colle...
| denvaar wrote:
| "Streetwise" by Martin Bell follows the lives of a few homeless
| youths on the streets of Seattle in the 80s (I think it was the
| 80s, at least). I heard about it via a song by The Avalanches
| that sampled part of the film. Just pretty interesting to see how
| some people's lives are. I also think it's interesting to get a
| raw look at how people talked, behaved, dressed, etc in the past.
|
| Also enjoyed "Man on Wire". First saw it when I was in high
| school and just remembered feeling really inspired by it. To have
| a goal and overcome the odds to try and achieve it, etc.
| Uptrenda wrote:
| Netflix has a series called 'dirty money' that covers all kinds
| of interesting businesses that are highly unethical or straight
| up illegal. I think many of you would find it interesting. It's
| not really focused strictly on finance but more the outcomes of
| pursuing profit at all costs.
| pyjarrett wrote:
| "Stripped". It's about the comic book industry. It's also one of
| the few times that Bill Watterson, creator of Calvin and Hobbes,
| has been recorded.
|
| This resonated with me due to the pressure on cartoonists to
| constantly produce.
| kamphey wrote:
| Wordplay
|
| A wonderful doc about puzzles, and those who make puzzles. A joy
| for all ages.
| Ocha wrote:
| "Absolute Zero"
|
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007v5rl
| stoeckley wrote:
| I thought "World War II in Color" was a pretty nice series for
| getting a full understanding of the war across the world.
| bsuvc wrote:
| I really enjoyed Indy Neidell's "The Great War", which is a week-
| by-week history of World War I on YouTube.
| https://youtube.com/c/TheGreatWarSeries
|
| He is also doing the same thing for World War II:
| https://youtube.com/c/WorldWarTwo
|
| It took me a couple of episodes to get used to his style, but
| after that, it really grew on me and I really looked forward to
| watching each episode.
| beefman wrote:
| Top 5
|
| 1. First Contact (1982) - Possibly the best documentary ever made
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085544/
|
| 2. Rivers and Tides (2001) - Beautiful meditation on the art of
| Andy Goldsworthy, with music by Fred Frith
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0307385/
|
| 3. This is the Last Dam Run of Likker I'll Ever Make (2002) - The
| story of Popcorn Sutton
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glQjCKAI4gA
|
| 4. Alone in the Wilderness (2004) - Mostly original footage and
| commentary by Richard Proenneke
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0437806/
|
| 5. Apollo 11 (2019) - Narration-free documentary on the first
| moon landing https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8760684/
|
| Bonus picks:
|
| Pirates of Silicon Valley (1999) is a dramatization but an
| incredibly accurate one https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0168122/
|
| If mockumentaries count, everything by Christopher Guest is
| obligatory. There's also this short gem on the Centrifuge Brain
| Project https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVeHxUVkW4w
|
| Grizzly Man (2005) is not a mockumentary, but like most Herzog
| documentaries, it's not exactly straight
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0427312/
|
| Finally, I'm a huge fan of first-nuclear-era documentaries made
| by the U.S. government, e.g.
|
| Army Nuclear Power Program (1963)
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPWDMHH4rY4
|
| SNAP 8 Reactor (1963) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82nCRWawfhQ
|
| SNAPSHOT (1964) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9jI1Hdl5Yw
|
| Remote Maintanence of Molten Salt Reactors (?)
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHT-w2x6dDg
|
| and many more.
| docotronic84 wrote:
| O.J. Made in America - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5275892/
| nabaraz wrote:
| Trillion dollar bet - talks about history of Black Scholes model
| used to price options
|
| https://documentaryheaven.com/the-midas-formula-trillion-dol...
| greenie_beans wrote:
| vernon, florida. paradise lost
| rm_-rf_slash wrote:
| The "Engineering an Empire" series from the History Channel (back
| when they did real history).
|
| Nice to see extensively detailed stories about the grand states
| of yore from a perspective of engineering, rather than politics
| and great man moments.
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| John Pilger has made many fine documentaries since the 1970s when
| he made a documentary on the phenomenon of soldiers "fragging"
| officers in Vietnam and rebelling in the army.
| anjbe wrote:
| _9 /11_, directed by the Naudet brothers.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9/11_(2002_film)
|
| Notable for containing the only footage I know of that shows the
| _first_ plane hitting the tower, because they were already in the
| middle of filming a documentary about New York firefighters.
| Here's a clip of that part:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miA8Td4oNcY
| m4jor wrote:
| Check out Debris, it came out today. About 9/11 with unseen
| footage in it.
|
| https://youtu.be/HdEBQsE_YKw
| jerrysievert wrote:
| Jodorowsky's Dune - not only is it the best dune movie never
| made, but it gives you a really good look at how hard it is to do
| Dune and give it justice, as well as giving a new perspective on
| Star Wars: Lucas had pretty much everything handed to him due to
| Jodorowsky's attempt to make Dune.
| alexilliamson wrote:
| The Act of Killing - it's hard to even describe the premise. Its
| a present-day (2012) profile on participants in the 1960s mass
| killings in Indonesia. An absolutely brutal look into human
| nature.
| Copenjin wrote:
| This, extremely interesting and unique documentary.
| crummy wrote:
| It is hard to describe this doco in any way that does it
| justice. Fascinating, compelling, horrifying, disgusting,
| surreal. The breadth of discussion it opens up both on the
| individual events it covers and the implications for humanity.
|
| I have never seen a movie like this before and I doubt I ever
| will again. It is in a total category of its own.
| LaserDiscMan wrote:
| I watched that shortly after release. Very memorable. It was
| quite bizarre to hear someone freely discuss his day job of
| murdering people in such a casual context.
| mpol wrote:
| I could not finish that documentary, it was too brutal.
|
| It reminded me of the movie Man Bites Dog which was just a
| parody, https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0103905/
| nyokodo wrote:
| > fter release. Very memorable. It was quite bizarre to hear
| someone freely discuss his day job of murdering people in
| such a casual context.
|
| Sadly this is pretty common https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/E
| ichmann_in_Jerusalem#:~:tex....
| docotronic84 wrote:
| O. J. Made in America - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5275892/
| protomyth wrote:
| On the lighter side "Side by Side"
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2014338/ about the digital age
| replacing film. One of the outtakes is pretty inspiring
| https://youtu.be/lepOQ2KfDwo
|
| On the serious side, Don't Get Sick After June: American Indian
| Healthcare https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1770673/ rather
| depressing
|
| Dakota 38 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2838564/
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pX6FBSUyQI why Lincoln is taught
| a bit differently in my old high school
| LaserDiscMan wrote:
| Not sure if 7 years is going back too far, but I'll go with: Only
| The Dead
|
| Does not make for easy viewing at all. Essentially a narrated
| compilation of Australian journalist Michael Ware's footage
| (first and second hand) from his time in Iraq throughout the
| conflict.
| jvm___ wrote:
| Fear of 13.
|
| Captivating storytelling by the subject of the story. It's the
| life story of a man who spent 21 years on death row for a murder
| he had nothing to do with. He eventually cancelled all his
| appeals and requested his sentence be carried out.
| 37 wrote:
| Nick's episode on JRE was also pretty good. Link to a clip:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kPxE_Funhw
| hackeraccount wrote:
| The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor%27s_Naked_Army_Mar...
| phyalow wrote:
| The Long Way Round (2004) - a British television series
| documenting the 19,000-mile (31,000 km) journey of Ewan McGregor
| and Charley Boorman from London to New York via Eurasia on
| motorcycles. It is a lot of fun and covers incredible terrain and
| the trials and triumphs of lesser travelled roads and countries.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Way_Round
|
| There are an additional two series, Long Way Down (2007),
| Scotland to Capetown and Long Way Up (2020) over South and North
| America, both fantastic follow ons! Enjoy.
| zarzavat wrote:
| Anything by Norma Percy[0].
|
| She has an exquisite ability to get access to and interview
| people involved in recent historical events. I recommend her
| documentaries on Putin's Russia, the Iranian revolution, the Iraq
| war, and the Israel/Palestine conflict.
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norma_Percy
| wslh wrote:
| The Gatekeepers (2012) [1] a very rare documentary and interviews
| six former Shin Bet heads. They talked about Israel conflicts
| with a lot of independence.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gatekeepers_%28film%29
| thomassmith65 wrote:
| This is the best WWII documentary I've ever seen, and it's
| available free: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VS5O9I5AUXI
|
| What makes it great is (a) that the filmmaker tried only to use
| source material, including audio narration, created during WWII,
| and (b) that the film sources were shot in color (rare for the
| time).
| hermitcrab wrote:
| "The world at war" is an amazing documentary of WWII, even if
| it is quite old now.
| 13of40 wrote:
| There's a YouTube channel called "CHRONOS-MEDIA History" that
| has a lot of archival footage from that era. A couple ones I
| found interesting were a clip with American and German officers
| casually working together to coordinate a German
| surrender/withdrawal at the end of the war, and a German
| propaganda piece from before the war (?) where the skyline of
| the village they're in matches 1:1 with one of my vacation
| photos.
| ipnon wrote:
| "Stalingrad" is a horrifying documentary about the battle. It's
| recounted by the German and Soviet soldiers who took part. The
| takeaway was that given the right incentives human mass
| depravity is bottomless.
|
| Edit: https://youtu.be/VnJJQxZ0hu8
| AndrewOMartin wrote:
| This link is to "Practical Deep Learning for Coders 2022".
| hermitcrab wrote:
| Black humour at it's finest?
| tbeutel wrote:
| Curious Worlds: The Art & Imagination of David Beck. The artist
| made some incredible automata and kinetic sculptures and it's a
| documentary that I've watched again and again to get ideas for my
| own works.
| apozem wrote:
| 20 Feet From Stardom. A wonderful, heartfelt doc about backup
| singers. Talks to the people who are almost stars, those who
| never quite made it big.
|
| You even hear from the woman who helped sing "Get Shelter" by The
| Rolling Stones. Fascinating window into music history.
| drakonka wrote:
| * Icarus. It's a wild ride that just keeps getting wilder and
| would be spoiled by my attempt at an explanation. I suggest just
| watching it.
|
| * Winter on Fire. Documentary about the Euromaidan protests in
| Ukraine in 2013-2014.
| WanderPanda wrote:
| +1 on Icarus, the documentary that itself became part of
| history
| markvdb wrote:
| "A year in the taiga" [0], by Dmitry Vasyukov, blessed by Werner
| Herzog
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_People:_A_Year_in_the_Ta...
| IvyMike wrote:
| The movie "A Point in Time: The Corona Story" about the Corona
| spy satellite program. So many failures before success, and the
| program paved the way for so many better known later space
| launches.
|
| > The CORONA[1] program was a series of American strategic
| reconnaissance satellites produced and operated by the Central
| Intelligence Agency (CIA) Directorate of Science & Technology
| with substantial assistance from the U.S. Air Force. The CORONA
| satellites were used for photographic surveillance of the Soviet
| Union (USSR), China, and other areas beginning in June 1959 and
| ending in May 1972.
|
| https://archive.org/details/gov.archives.arc.1678526
| tatoalo wrote:
| I'm going to list just a few of the best I have seen so far:
|
| - The Last Dance [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8420184/]
|
| - Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer
| [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13651632/]
|
| - Indie Game: The Movie [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1942884/]
|
| - The Staircase [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0388644/]
|
| - Making a Murderer [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5189670/]
|
| - Icarus [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6333060/]
|
| - Apollo 11 [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8760684/]
| Overtonwindow wrote:
| +1 for Icarus. Until just a few years ago, cycling was up to
| its eyeballs and doping. Wasn't just one American, one Italian,
| or one German. It was nearly everyone.
| arnejenssen wrote:
| You can see Indie Game for free on Mailchimp.com
| https://mailchimp.com/presents/film/indie-game-the-movie/
| moviewise wrote:
| Ed: "If you can't get the work done, then the past two years
| are basically worth nothing ... There were at least five
| times, a good five times, where I totally broke down and I
| just didn't want to do it anymore ... I was actually really
| worried that either Tommy or I would die in the process of
| making this."
|
| From:
|
| https://moviewise.wordpress.com/2012/12/28/indie-game-the-
| mo...
| gandalfgreybeer wrote:
| I absolutely loved the Last Dance but I really like basketball.
| I wouldn't recommend it to non-fans of basketball though
| (basing this off a small sample size of friends).
| enonevets wrote:
| I'm not into sports and I don't follow basketball. I couldn't
| tell you beyond really famous basketball players who the
| majority of players are. And although I grew up in Jordan's
| era of basketball, I didn't watch his games. All that to say,
| I enjoyed it.
|
| If you like something, recommending it is fine. Let the
| people decide if it's a topic they're interested in it or
| not.
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| I am not into basketball but I found The Last Dance
| excellent.
| westhom wrote:
| FWIW, I was absolutely captivated for all of Last Dance, and
| I don't watch basketball. But I do have an affinity for "30
| for 30"-style docs on the human interest side of sports.
| koonsolo wrote:
| The Coconut Revolution:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Sl8KJDOqK4
|
| Wikipedia: a 2001 multi-award winning documentary film about the
| struggle of the indigenous peoples of Bougainville Island during
| the Bougainville Civil War. The movement is described as the
| "world's first successful eco-revolution" and has drawn parallels
| with the conflict depicted in the 2009 film, Avatar.
|
| What I love about this is how these people are able to create
| everything from what is locally available.
| dccoolgai wrote:
| As a documentary connoisseur, there are about 20 recommendations
| I could think of, but I'll give you my top 3: Tickled: Less of a
| "global problem" issue in and if itself, this is nonetheless
| expository of our time. Top rec.
|
| Corked: there is no meritocracy.
|
| Plastic China: Arguably the most important documentary film ever
| made in terms of impact on global policy/affairs
| srcreigh wrote:
| I wouldn't mind if you wrote out the other recos you have too!
| paulirish wrote:
| FYI: The internet calls Corked a mockumentary.
| vermaden wrote:
| - Deathbed Vigil (1994)
|
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4164962/
|
| Chief engineer Dave Haynie of Commodore AMIGA documents company
| last days through eyes of former employees. Definitely would
| recommend.
|
| - Robert Kubica - Legend (2016)
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOGugc-T2jc
|
| Story of a one and only Polish F1 and rally driver.
|
| - Science of Fasting (2012)
|
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2210982/
|
| For half a century in Russia/Germany/U.S. doctors and biologists
| have been exploring a different therapeutic approach: fasting.
| doo_daa wrote:
| They Shall Not Grow Old
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_Shall_Not_Grow_Old
| gandalfgreybeer wrote:
| Added this to my list. Is Peter Jackson just focusing on
| documentaries nowadays?
| sgt wrote:
| Civil War by Ken Burns. Also The West, Jazz and a few others.
| onion2k wrote:
| I'm not sure it really falls under the banner of "documentary"
| but Red Bull Media House make a film called "Flight" a few years
| ago that profiles a group of snowboarders flying around and doing
| snowboarding. You won't learn anything watching it but it's some
| of the best film making I've ever watched. It's beautiful.
| safeimp wrote:
| The Art of Flight:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Flight
|
| I saw it when it was first released and agree, it's gorgeous
| footage. I forgot the name too and only looked it up because
| you made me curious if it's considered a documentary or some
| other classification. The wiki lists it as a documentary.
| browningstreet wrote:
| Easily one of the most beautifully assembled
| skiing/snowboarding videos ever made. On another level.
| saikatsg wrote:
| Free Solo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Solo
|
| Inside Job: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inside_Job_(2010_film)
|
| Life: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_(British_TV_series)
|
| My Octopus Teacher:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Octopus_Teacher
| hermitcrab wrote:
| I really like "My Octopus Teacher".
| wizofaus wrote:
| Seconded for My Octopus Teacher.
|
| The Social Dilemma was also worth watching.
| amelius wrote:
| I don't like documentaries that much as most documentaries tend
| to paint a one-sided picture.
|
| That said, the people they argue against generally also like to
| paint one-sided pictures.
| saulpw wrote:
| The OP asked for "best documentaries" and it sounds like in
| your opinion the best documentaries wouldn't do this. Do you
| have any content to suggest instead of empty and dismissive
| commentary?
| mwidell wrote:
| I can warmly recommend Kevin Kelly's website dedicated to his
| favorite documentaries. A catalog of very high quality
| documentaries. I've seen a few of them and loved them all.
|
| https://truefilms.com/
| BMc2020 wrote:
| Fahrenheit 911. It's about a major terrorist attack that happened
| 21 years ago today.
|
| The film maker later said the number 1 question people asked him
| on the way out was, "How come we never saw any of this on TV?"
|
| I saw it in the theater on opening night. It got about 20 seconds
| of applause at the end.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| This one should be great and yes shows a few things we didn't
| typically get to see. But it hates its subject so much that it
| resorts to few lies(aka falsehoods) thrown in for good measure.
| Disappointing because of that.
|
| Read books of Clarke and Tenet for a better account.
|
| Blood and Oil is a good non partisan account of the history of
| oil dependence since WWII. Great for more background.
| BMc2020 wrote:
| What were the lies? Lies of fact please, not opinions.
|
| This is a good place to start:
|
| https://michaelmoore.com/movies/fahrenheit-911/ click on the
| facts tab
| nl wrote:
| I generally like Michael Moore, but I think there are
| better documentaries about 9/11.
|
| I think George Bush's politics were abhorrent and his war
| in Iraq was probably the worst US intervention in history
| in terms of consequences, so I'm far from a defender of
| Bush. But conflating a documentary about 9/11 with a
| documentary about Bush's politics makes a worse documentary
| than doing both separately IMHO.
| chitowneats wrote:
| BMc2020 wrote:
| Hacker News Guidelines
|
| In Comments
|
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| chitowneats wrote:
| They're just guidelines. Not the Ten Commandments.
|
| There's a reason I have made my comments on this subject
| from a shadow-banned account.
| fathrowaway12 wrote:
| Up (series) which follows the lives of 14 British people from
| different backgrounds over 50 years.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_(film_series)
| tomiplaz wrote:
| Cosmos by Carl Sagan is my favorite.
|
| Planet Earth and Blue Planet are amazing.
|
| Jodorowsky's Dune is great.
| wellpast wrote:
| Hell House (2001) and Zoo (2007) for presenting disturbing
| subjects & material that both resist neutral/objective-ish
| treatment and yet giving it such.
| doo_daa wrote:
| they Shall Not Grow Old
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_Shall_Not_Grow_Old
| jsbg wrote:
| Into the Inferno - Werner Herzog. Documentary on volcanoes where
| the director allows the filming locations to bring other topics
| to the forefront.
|
| Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World - Werner Herzog.
| Film about the internet.
|
| The Thin Blue Line - Erol Morris. Film about a murder of a police
| officer that comes to a different conclusion than the court did
| about who the murderer is and led to the release of an innocent
| man and the incarceration of the guilty one.
|
| The Civil War - Ken Burns. There's a reason it's a classic!
|
| Good Intentions - Walter Williams. Film about how economic
| policies that sound good often have the reverse effects that they
| intend to have.
| potamic wrote:
| Came here to see who else likes The Thin Blue Line. But please,
| do not reveal the outline. I went in completely unawares and
| was kept on the edge throughout.
| hackeraccount wrote:
| Came to mention The Thin Blue Line.
|
| With the line that sings to my cynical soul, "Any good
| prosecutor can get a jury to convict a guilty man but only
| great prosecutors can get a conviction for an innocent man."
| rvanlaar wrote:
| Secret History of silicon valley, more a presentation. It gave
| insight into the collaboration of astrophysics and the military.
|
| Shoah: An documentary about the holocaust 11 hours long, but
| without any archive footage. The maker interviews all kinds of
| people. Farmers living next to train emplacements used, train
| drivers, perpetrators and more.
| SirLJ wrote:
| Red Dot on the Ocean: The Matt Rutherford Story
|
| https://reddotontheocean.com/
|
| Once labeled a "youth-at-risk," Matt Rutherford risks it all in a
| death-defying attempt to be the first person to sail alone and
| nonstop around North and South America. Professional sailors
| called him crazy and declared the journey "a suicide mission."
|
| https://youtu.be/n12nnrEGWXQ
| sassycharacter wrote:
| "King Leopold's Ghost" An honest, brutal account of colonialism
| and the attempt to cover up it's effects on the people suffering
| under it.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Leopold%27s_Ghost
| imhoguy wrote:
| For anyone into music and art, just recently I have seen
| "B-Movie: Lust & Sound in West-Berlin 1979-1989" (2015)
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4291066/ and I can't get the
| soundtrack out of my head. Genius edit on tons of rare video
| material!
|
| Make sure you have English subtitles just for a few scenes if you
| don't understand German.
|
| Ah, and one can ask how come it was finished in 2015 and Mark
| Reeder the main character haven't aged in staged scenes? No VFX
| ;) Read after watching
| https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/b-movie-...
| 7952 wrote:
| The Dawn Wall. It is about a climber (Tommey Caldwell) making
| attempts on a new route up El Capitan. The climbing scenes are
| spectacular and gruelling. Along with the climbing it mixes in
| the poignant and inspirational life story of Tommy Caldwell.
| lbrdn wrote:
| Some other great climbing documentaries:
|
| - Touching The Void (It's an older movie but maybe the most
| harrowing survival story I've ever heard).
|
| - Meru
|
| - Free Solo
|
| - The Alpinist
|
| - Valley Uprising
| olddustytrail wrote:
| AlphaGo. Surprising human and moving considering the subject
| matter.
| msadowski wrote:
| I really enjoyed this documentary about Makani that was building
| "flying wind turbines": https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qd_hEja6bzE
| greggman3 wrote:
| Expo: Magic of the White City
|
| https://youtu.be/f6HuBYiQEeM
|
| I'd have never even gave it a 2nd thought except it is narrated
| by Gene Wilder and he retired in the late 80s so I though "wow, I
| wonder how this would bring him out of retirement???"
|
| The first 10 mins are hokie but it was great after that.
|
| It's about the 1893 Chicago Exposition (think Worlds Fair) where
| electricity was introduced to the public and many other things
| bradwood wrote:
| Free Solo
| Beefin wrote:
| Anything ken burns.
| MonkeyMalarky wrote:
| Netflix dropping his documentaries was a sad day and a turning
| point in my opinion of their service.
| walthamstow wrote:
| Oliver Stone's The Untold History of the United States
|
| An eye opening tour through lots of stuff I didn't previously
| know about the US (and UK to some extent): corporate nazi
| collaboration, CIA coups, Vietnam, Hiroshima, that kind of thing.
| [deleted]
| lossolo wrote:
| "The Social Dilemma", what a great documentary showing how ad
| business, recommendations, attention grabbing works in social
| networks and how it impacts society, it basically shows "how
| sausage is made" and how it impacts the whole world and the risks
| associated with it
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11464826/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0
|
| "Planet Earth II", breathtaking documentary about animal life on
| earth with extraordinary scenes
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5491994/?ref_=rt_li_tt
|
| "Inside Job", documentary about 2008 crisis, masterpiece,
| narrated by Matt Damon. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1645089/
|
| "The Last Dance", I'm not a fan of basketball, it's a doc about
| Michael Jordan, one of the best docs I've seen, sounds boring but
| you can't wait to watch the next episode, recommended even if you
| don't watch sports like me, it's about extraordinary
| person/athlete and what it takes to be GOAT
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8420184/?ref_=rt_li_tt
|
| "Zero Days", great doc about stuxnet exploit
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5446858/?ref_=rt_li_tt
|
| "Human", what it is to be a human from different perspectives
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3327994/?ref_=rt_li_tt
|
| "Over the Limit", documentary about olympic gymnastic and shows
| the price of winning at any cost.
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8184202/?ref_=rt_li_tt
|
| "Life Story", beautiful doc about animals, great scenes
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4150884/?ref_=rt_li_tt
|
| "Planet Earth", extraordinary scenes of animals lives
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0795176/?ref_=rt_li_tt
|
| "Blue Planet II", like Planet Earth but in water
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6769208/?ref_=rt_li_tt
|
| "Cosmos", doc about cosmos, nature of the world etc, very good
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2395695/?ref_=rt_li_tt
|
| "The Tinder Swindler", "Posing as a wealthy, jet-setting diamond
| mogul, he wooed women online, then conned them out of millions of
| dollars." Surprisingly good
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14992922/?ref_=rt_li_tt
|
| "The Farthest", about first human made object leaving our Solar
| system https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6223974/?ref_=rt_li_tt
|
| "Our Planet", https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9253866/?ref_=rt_li_tt
|
| "Cartel land" https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4126304/?ref_=rt_li_tt
| innocentoldguy wrote:
| I like music documentaries and one of my favorites is "Anvil! The
| Story of Anvil." I'm not a fan of the band at all. Nevertheless,
| I like the documentary for showing how a deeply flawed individual
| can achieve a degree of success through persistence and
| perseverance, and the support of a good friend.
| rougka wrote:
| I saw that no one mentioned American Factory
|
| So, American Factory, the best I've seen about globalization and
| its less glamorous results
| specialist wrote:
| I keep thinking about the young man working his butt off, away
| from his family, being paid dirt, making the owner even more
| rich. All in the name of national pride (chauvinism). Makes me
| wonder if and when Chinese Labor will gave their American style
| Progressive Era (eg collective bargaining, profit sharing,
| right to strike).
| epolanski wrote:
| About Russia:
|
| Putin's Kiss - talks about information in Russia
|
| Rise and Fall of Russian Oligarchs [1] - Terrific doc about how
| Russian oligarchs rose from nothing to billionaires
|
| Assassination of Russia [2] - Terrific french doc about 1999
| moscow bombings
|
| I think all 3, in different ways, do a lot to explain modern
| Russia.
| no_time wrote:
| Moleman 2 - Demoscene:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRkZcTg1JWU
|
| Moleman 4 - Longplay (A videogame documentary):
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nV0ZqBFf9ak
|
| Both are expertly crafted and fun documentaries about their
| titular subculture with a Hungarian twist.
| andsoitis wrote:
| Formula 1 Drive to Survive https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8289930/
| hermitcrab wrote:
| So much swearing in Formula 1 Drive to Survive. It ruined for
| me. Definitely not family viewing.
| ascari wrote:
| I follow F1 for decades, day and night. Drive to Survive is
| sadly far from reality and a paparazzi perspective at best.
| agumonkey wrote:
| into eternity
|
| about the onkalo nuclear waste storage
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayLxB9fV2y4
|
| they aim at 5000 or even 10000 years of stability and it creates
| hard scifiesque problems
| lysecret wrote:
| Inside job. The smartest guys in the room. Two excellent
| documentaries. One about the financial crisis two about the fall
| of Enron.
| seshagiric wrote:
| WWII in color; it's on Netflix. If you are looking for a good
| story telling on wwII and don't mind the length, this series is
| for you.
| ImHereToVote wrote:
| Threads
| selimthegrim wrote:
| I guess Reagan freaked out after watching The Day After so I'll
| allow it.
| westcort wrote:
| Here is a list of the best documentaries since 2000 according to
| the Chicago Film Critics Association:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Film_Critics_Associati...
|
| You will also find several categories of documentary film in
| Wikipedia links here:
| https://www.locserendipity.com/TitleSearch.html?q=documentar...
|
| Categories include:
|
| Documentary films about the media:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Documentary_films_abo...
|
| Documentary television series about astronomy:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Documentary_televisio...
|
| HBO documentary films:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:HBO_documentary_films
|
| Documentary films about space:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Documentary_films_abo...
| rzzzt wrote:
| Code Rush, a one-hour glimpse into Netscape Communications in
| 1998, just as they open source their browser:
| https://youtu.be/4Q7FTjhvZ7Y
|
| I get very tired whenever I watch it for some reason.
| chubot wrote:
| I randomly re-watched it a month or 2 ago and still liked it.
| It resonated.
|
| It probably helps that I worked in Mountain View about 10 years
| later. It felt very familiar, and the ideas and people were
| still relevant and reverberating
| Grimm665 wrote:
| Style Wars (1983)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Style_Wars
|
| It documents the rise of Graffiti and Hip Hop culture in New
| York.
| Ninjinka wrote:
| Citizenfour
| f_allwein wrote:
| Planetary, http://weareplanetary.com/ - Strauss with astronauts
| talking about how seeing the whole planet Earth from space was
| one of the most amazing experiences of their trip, then
| discussing how we can see ourselves as part of the planet again
| and live in harmony with it.
| 3np wrote:
| The Mole: Undercover in North Korea
|
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000nr85
|
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13243898/
|
| Absolutely wild turns in this story.
| syva wrote:
| Land of Silence and Darkness - Werner Herzog
| davidham wrote:
| _Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control_, I believe by Errol Morris.
| Four totally unrelated subjects, but Morris finds connections and
| echoes between them. Delightful, fascinating.
|
| _When We Were Kings_, about the Rumble in the Jungle between Ali
| and Foreman in the 1970s, really awesome. Young Ali is so quick
| witted, warm, and charismatic.
|
| And the recent doc about Apollo 11, for its 50th anniversary, was
| breathtaking.
| Archelaos wrote:
| "The Civil War" by Ken Burns
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Civil_War_(miniseries)
|
| Detailed. Unagitated text. No reenactment. Based on contemporary
| documents only (almost). Competent experts, some quite
| characters. Reserved but impressive music.
| sgt wrote:
| And surprisingly emotional at times. Even the part about
| Lincoln's death gave me a lump in a throat feeling. It's been
| years since I watched it.
| Dyson_Sphere wrote:
| Three Identical Strangers -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Identical_Strangers A
| documentary about set of identical triplet brothers adopted as
| infants by separate families ... with a twist.
| expensive_news wrote:
| A few people have mentioned Apollo 11 but I prefer (and my
| favorite documentary of all time is) For All Mankind (1989).
| They're similar, iirc they share a lot of the same footage, but
| For All Mankind gives you a great sense of what it was like for
| those early astronauts to take that trip to the Moon. It has all
| the best footage of the moon we have ever taken. For All Mankind
| is a must, but both are worth a watch if you're a space fan.
|
| Crumb is also pretty good. It's about an offbeat artist and gives
| you the look into the mind of someone that wouldn't normally be
| in the spot light.
| beezlebroxxxxxx wrote:
| Harlan County, USA
|
| Classic documentary about coal miners going on strike in the 70s.
| Deeply moving images, and incredible soundtrack from local
| artists. Won an Oscar too.
| andsoitis wrote:
| The Andy Warhol Diaries https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aeC76ncf66w
| voisin wrote:
| Black Fish
| pchristensen wrote:
| The Motivation Factor - its about hmthe connection between
| intense physical exercise and a whole host of mental benefits. It
| showcases a high school from the 1960s that had an insane PE
| program, and the benefits for their schooling as well as setting
| a positive tone for the rest of their life. Pairs well with the
| book Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the
| Brain by John Ratey
| subdane wrote:
| Cobain: Montage of Heck https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4229236
|
| I am Not Your Negro https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5804038/
|
| Q: Into the Storm https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14215442/
| Dowwie wrote:
| Ken Burns's documentaries on America's National Parks, The Civil
| War, The Vietnam War, and The War
|
| Herzog's "Lo and Behold"
| neilpanchal wrote:
| The War by Ken Burns, a WWII documentary. My favorite documentary
| of all time. It is so exceptionally made.
|
| https://imdb.com/title/tt0996994/
| suranyami wrote:
| "Trinity and Beyond: the Atomic Bomb Movie"
|
| Narrated by William Shatner, using declassified, high quality
| footage of nuclear tests.
| joshuaheard wrote:
| "ILM - Industrial Light & Magic: Creating The Impossible". A
| documentary about how the special effects team behind Star Wars
| and other science fiction movies was created. It's basically the
| story of a start-up, a start-up that could be any Silicon Valley
| start-up, but because they were in the movie business, they
| filmed everything. This makes for a great documentary.
|
| It's actually a series. It's in the Star Wars section of Disney+
| if you go up there to watch Season 3 of "The Mandalorian".
| balr0g wrote:
| Worth mentioning that employees of ILM and the vfx industry in
| general view that film as propaganda to distract from the past
| decade of labor abuses they endured.
| fullshark wrote:
| I bet this audience would enjoy Startup.com -
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0256408/
| andsoitis wrote:
| My Octopus Teacher
| https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/05/harvard-panel...
| NicoleJO wrote:
| I LOVE this one too. I can't believe I even cried about an
| octopus.
|
| Sometimes after watching these documentaries, I feel like I
| know absolutely nothing!!
|
| Here's another one I fell in love with:
|
| Featuring Mr. T and Kinky Tail, 2 bad ass male lions did the
| unthinkable and unheard of as brothers as tight as a glove.
|
| I now have mad respect for these two jungle tyrants.
|
| Mad, mad respect.
|
| Enjoy:
| https://archive.org/details/the.lions.of.sabi.sand.brothers....
| doopy1 wrote:
| This got a lot of on the internet, but I found it so incredibly
| boring.
| defterGoose wrote:
| Can you explain why? I found it such a deft exposition on
| both zoology and philosophy. So good.
| thanatos519 wrote:
| Not from the last 4 years, but so good I watched some of the
| series twice:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_historic_farm_series
|
| In each series, a team of
| historians/archaeologists/anthropologists live for a year on a
| farm of a specific era, doing things the way they are understood
| to have been done in that era.
|
| They are like first-person documentaries and lots of fun to
| watch. You really get the feeling of how life would have been
| like back then.
| atombender wrote:
| Fantastic series. Ruth Goodman is a national treasure, and
| Peter Ginn and Alex Langlands are also extremely watchable.
|
| I'm personally partial to Victorian Farm, both because it's at
| a very interesting point in time -- much of it pre-
| machinization, but also an age of scientific discoveries and
| agricultural improvements -- and because I feel like it's the
| season where they are the most self-reliant (the farm they move
| into is disused and they have to renovate it) and living in the
| most realistically re-enacted environment.
| dmix wrote:
| This sounds amazing, reminds me of a similar show where some
| families moved into an older farm (maybe it's related?), but
| this one looks more interesting due to the experts.
| I_am_tiberius wrote:
| The Internet's Own Boy.
| slillibri wrote:
| A couple of recent Netflix docu-series I liked are Evil Genius
| and Wild Wild Country.
| lazylion2 wrote:
| +1 for Wild Wild Country, watched it like 5 times
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| The World at War - BBC documentary series about WWII. Shows
| humanity simultaneously at it's best and worst.
|
| The Vietnam War - Ken Burns documentary series. Very balanced and
| sobering take on the Vietnam war, events leading to the Vietnam
| war, and unrest in the US during that period.
|
| The Fog of War - Errol Morris doc about Robert McNamara.
|
| The Salt of the Earth - Doc about photographer Sebastiao Salgado
|
| Alone in the Wilderness - Dick Proenneke films himself building
| and living in a remote cabin in Alaska
|
| Also can't go wrong with Adam Curtis.
| lazyeye wrote:
| Similar to "Alone in the Wilderness" I recommend a recent doco
| series "The Last Alaskans". Unlike most recent reality/doco
| style shows it's not the usual melodramatic, exaggerated
| rubbish. The characters speak for themselves and its allowed to
| "breathe". The TV series is inspired by the book "The Final
| Frontiersman" by Heimo Korth. Heimo is one of the characters in
| the series.
| yotamoron wrote:
| The fog of war is amazing.
| MezzoDelCammin wrote:
| I'd be more careful when using the word "amazing".
|
| I agree that technically it's well done, but IMO it leaves
| too much space to McNamara to write his own narrative.
|
| McNamara's role in the escalation of Vietnam War and the
| U-turn he did in the Senate hearings towards the end of his
| term as Secretary of Defense is something he IMO never
| properly tried to reflect upon...
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| He's still a human being and I think he showed incredible
| reflection. It is apparent that the events of the past
| still weigh on him. I came out with more respect than I had
| going in. The Vietnam war was a tragedy.
|
| For a different view look at the Rumsfeld doc. Rumsfeld
| doesn't give a single inch but I probably wouldn't either
| if being asked about a still ongoing conflict.
| MezzoDelCammin wrote:
| Well, comparison to Rumsfeld is just setting the bar too
| low.
|
| Don't take me as saying that Fog of War is bad or that
| McNamara is completely missing self reflection. Far from
| it. On first seeing some 15 years ago I have been
| impressed as well.
|
| It's only over the years as I kept finding more and more
| about just how much responsibility for Vietnam does
| McNamara bear that I found that he's somehow trying to
| present himself as a technocrat without much in the way
| of a moral responsibility. Sort of a Nuremberg defense by
| steering clear of the ethical aspects almost altogether.
| AndrewOMartin wrote:
| Sorry to nitpick but The World at War is Thames Television. I
| think they became ITV.
|
| I also used to think it was BBC because of the quality and
| dignity of the production, I wouldn't be surprised to hear some
| people claim this is an example of the Mandela effect.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| You are correct.
| sassycharacter wrote:
| Yes it was originally made by Thames Television. Now only
| available on DVD as far as I can tell.
| asdfqwertzxcv wrote:
| Just finished Dick Proenneke's books, which the movie was based
| on. Such a great read that sounds boring - reading a guy's
| journal as he lived alone in Alaska for nearly 30 years - but
| it felt like a warm blanket each time I'd dip into the books.
|
| Want to note that he didn't like the documentary. He felt it
| was too staged and inauthentic and didn't use his voice as the
| voiceover. He mentioned that he wouldn't do it again if asked.
| lazyeye wrote:
| In a similar vein to Dick Proenneke's book, have a read of
| "An Island to Oneself" by Tom Neale. It's about a guy who
| lived alone on a remote island in the Pacific. Incredibly
| calm and peaceful book about living a life completely removed
| from the endless complications of modern life. It's out of
| print but pretty sure you can download it as an ebook.
| Simon_O_Rourke wrote:
| Any of Ken Burns' documentaries are good, The Civil War and
| Vietnam being two of the best. Even his take on Prohibition and
| Baseball are very watchable.
| tobinfekkes wrote:
| Love seeing Dick Proenneke mentioned here. My grandpa (also
| named Dick) built a hunting cabin with Proenneke on the
| adjacent lot.
|
| Both structures are still there at Twin Lakes, and are operated
| by Alaska State Parks now.
|
| We have some cool photos and stories from that time.
| MezzoDelCammin wrote:
| I'm really surprised Ken Burns isn't higher in this thread.
|
| Basically anything he made is a gem (though Civil War could use
| a slight correction these days, mainly because all the work
| done on the consequences - "Reconstruction" by PBS would
| probably be a good complement).
| giantg2 wrote:
| Is that actually Dick building the cabin, or is it a
| reenactment based on his diary/book?
| leobg wrote:
| He filmed (and narrated) himself, AFAIK.
| devd00d wrote:
| The Game Changers.
|
| It's fine if you don't care about the animals but it's not fine
| to not look after yourself. This explains why eating meat is not
| a good idea and it does it without preaching.
| vidanay wrote:
| NOVA The Miracle of Life (1983)
|
| https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3623rs
| tomgp wrote:
| Everybody in the Place: an Incomplete History of Britain
| 1984-1992 by Jeremy Deller is the best documentary I've seen
| recently. It's a history of dance music in the UK (and it's
| American roots) presented as a lecture given to secondary school
| students, part social history part love letter to a music and a
| time. Full of surprising and interesting footage and
| observations.
|
| Edit: seems it's on youtube at the moment:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Thr8PUAQuag
| andsoitis wrote:
| David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=64R2MYUt394
| mav88 wrote:
| Into the Abyss. Werner Hertzog looks at the process of capital
| punishment with great sensitivity and his usual deep insight.
|
| The Jinx. While filming a documentary on a rich man suspected of
| murdering his wife, the crew become involved in the
| investigation. Perhaps the most jaw-dropping finale of any
| documentary ever.
| crummy wrote:
| The Jinx is the peak of the true-crime-podcast genre (even if
| it is a doco). Truly gripping.
| fancyfredbot wrote:
| Anything by Jonathan Meades.
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Meades
| throwaway743 wrote:
| "The Fog of War" by Errol Morris.
|
| Adam Curtis' body of work.
|
| "The Phenomenon" by James Fox.
| astuyvenberg wrote:
| Valley Uprising is about the history of rock climbing in Yosemite
| Valley: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3784160/
|
| I've rewatched it several times and love how they blend archival
| footage, interviews, and illustration to show the history of rock
| climbing.
| mvexel wrote:
| The Pruitt-Igoe Myth - about a large scale 1950s public housing
| project in Saint Louis (Missouri, US). Built in the mid-50s,
| riddled with problems pretty much from the start, torn down in
| 1972. Interesting insight into the failure of post-war public
| housing policy in the US.
| vishnuharidas wrote:
| 1. "Chef's Table BBQ", S1E1: "Tootsie Tomanetz" - a mouthwatering
| documentary on an 85yo Tootsie's job as a pitmaster.
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12922502/
|
| 2. "Tiny House Nation": https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3869500/
|
| 3. "Don't F*k with Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer" - **WARNING:
| MAY NOT BE APPROPRIATE TO SOME AUDIENCES**:
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11318602/
|
| 4. "Downfall: The Case Against Boeing" - investigating the Boeing
| 737 Max incidents killing 346 people:
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11893274/
|
| I watched all four on Netflix.
| tobbob wrote:
| Dicing with Death A series generally about dangerous roads in
| countries around the world, but largely focusing on African
| countries. It gives a view of sub-saharan countries that I've
| never seen anywhere else.
| 6stringmerc wrote:
| "Stevie" because it's so real and even almost quits half-way
| through because the filmmaker had a personal relationship history
| with the subject. Set in one of the poorest parts of the United
| States. I saw it at the Angelika where I worked and warned
| everybody: this film will test and possibly scar your heart and
| emotions.
|
| For non-US folks, it's set in a place that you probably don't
| imagine really exists here, but it's a level of poverty and
| despair on par with any urban slum or containment area in its own
| right...
| agd wrote:
| Once Upon a Time in Iraq - interviews with people who lived
| through the Iraq invasion and the years following.
|
| This was so eye opening compared to the standard news reporting
| about Iraq. Harrowing and informative.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Once_Upon_a_Time_in_Iraq
| highwaylights wrote:
| Lately I've been absolutely loving Midnight Asia on Netflix,
| mostly as a look at parts of the culture of far flung cities that
| doesn't really come across in regular documentaries.
|
| I also like the slice-of-life glimpses of the lives of people in
| the cities interspersed with the nightlife scenes.
| rainworld wrote:
| Wormwood (2017): MKUltra, CIA murder, biological weapons, the
| Korean War and more. Hauntingly well-produced.
|
| Mirage Men (2013): The UFO phenomenon is, among other things, a
| massive psychological operation by US (military) intelligence.
|
| A Perfect Crime (2020): About the "third generation" RAF, which
| in all likelihood did not exist.
|
| Heaven Adores You (2015): Elliott Smith. Time capsule.
|
| About a Son (2006): Kurt Cobain, in a similar vein.
|
| Das Netz (2003): Imperfect, omnidirectional. Love it or hate it.
|
| Another vote for the BBC historic farm series.
|
| State Funeral (2019): Stalin's funeral. Another time capsule.
|
| Glenn Gould: Hereafter (2006)
|
| London (1994): "London," he says, "is a city under siege."
|
| Andy Irons: Kissed by God (2018) and Momentum Generation (2018):
| Surfing. Not the only great ones.
| Litost wrote:
| Lots of great suggestions already. Off the top of my head, one
| not mentioned so far is Ocean Warriors (2016) about Sea Shepherd
| chasing an illegal fishing vessel across international waters.
| It's quite gripping as a documentary, but also does a good job of
| highlighting the Tragedy of the Commons that is international
| fishing and the failure of governments to prevent it.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Ocean-Warriors-Season-1/dp/B09238BH7L
| popcalc wrote:
| Spin (1995) https://youtu.be/Uock08dy19s
| nlarion wrote:
| Excellent film, to me, it perfectly describes the relationship
| between the corporate media and politicians in the US. That
| being said, this film is 25+ years old, and while still very
| relevant (and great) it generally leaves me feeling apathetic.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| I saw a 2-hour-long documentary about the Standard Model of
| particle physics, sometime around 1980. It was basically a
| presentation, by one man, with graphics (which were pretty good
| for back then). The presentation was sober, and completely free
| of gee-whizz hype. I think it must have been BBC.
|
| As I remember it, it was a really good presentation of the
| discoveries that had recently been made in particle physics. I've
| spent hours searching archives, just to find a trace of evidence
| of this programme having ever been broadcast. Nothing. If I only
| knew the name of the presenter, that would help, because he
| wasn't a famous TV presenter; I believe he was a physicist. But
| the presenter's name is linked to the documentary - his name
| might be in the title.
|
| I'd love to get a clue about how to track down this show.
| walthamstow wrote:
| The sheer amount of incredible mind-expanding content that is
| held in the BBC archives but not readily accessible (even to a
| UK taxpayer with a TV license) really kills me inside.
| xorbax wrote:
| Thr sounds pretty good
| ffhhj wrote:
| Dangerous Knowledge (2007)
| pkrotich wrote:
| "Jiro Dreams of Sushi"
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiro_Dreams_of_Sushi
|
| If you're a developer / engineer you'll admire the
| professionalism. And more importantly value proposition of your
| work.
| [deleted]
| DizzyDoo wrote:
| I think Jiro Dreams of Sushi is a fantastic documentary and
| recommend it also.
|
| I came away with a different impression, in that I certainly
| don't admire or want to share Jiro's attitude to work, because
| the perfection-at-all-costs approach looked like it had a
| pretty devastating fallout on his wife and his two sons. It's a
| fascinating documentary in that you'll either come away saying
| "how inspirational!" or "I'm running 100 miles away from that",
| and that's interesting in itself.
| UmbertoNoEco wrote:
| you may well be correct but society would be a lot less
| advanced if not for the works of 'unbalanced' individuals
| cercatrova wrote:
| In a way I do agree with you. See Newton, Einstein, MLK,
| Jobs, Musk, all have (arguably) revolutionary impacts on
| the world and yet they didn't do much for their family
| life. It is not _commendable_ , and _yet_ , it does seem to
| be the case that certain individuals who pursue their work
| above all else end up with qualitative progress in their
| fields.
| brtkdotse wrote:
| I just watched "10 years with Miyazaki" and had the exact
| same sentiments.
| pkrotich wrote:
| I agree to with you on the cost of perfectionism - I also
| didn't care for how women were treated at the restaurant
| (seating arrangements etc), but like you mentioned it's a
| fantastic documentary.
|
| I think for me, I came out thinking "damn I truly do may be
| only 25% dedication to my craft".
| Syntonicles wrote:
| It was probably a typo, but just in case English is your
| second language: We tend to use "don't care for" or "didn't
| care for" in this context.
|
| If you say "I didn't care for the way women were
| treated..", it expresses disapproval.
|
| We use "don't/didn't care about" to mean exactly the
| opposite. "I didn't care about" means that it doesn't
| matter to you at all.
| pkrotich wrote:
| Thanks for the feedback - yes I'm not a native English
| speaker (I'm trilingual)
| ethbr0 wrote:
| It's a weird quirk, now that I think about it, as a
| native English speaker. It's only a change in present /
| past tense and the preposition, but communicates
| something completely different.
|
| I guess reflecting on something external is always
| assumed in the past tense (I didn't care for...), while
| reflecting on ones own opinions (I don't care for...)
| suggests personal belief.
|
| And "for" (external) vs "about" (self) intensifies the
| above.
|
| But there aren't any real logistical or constant rules
| for why the above is, in English. :(
| pkrotich wrote:
| I often use past tense because in my tribe (Kalenjin for
| those interested)- when you do historical commentary you
| don't interject with your current feelings. You say what
| you felt then (e.g while watching the documentary) unless
| you talking about how you feel now vs then. It's very
| contexual.
|
| Rules in English can be confusing [1] ;)
|
| [1] - https://youtu.be/kXH3HDE9Czo
| ethbr0 wrote:
| I gather most people from eastern or central Africa are
| polyglot and much better at switching languages than I
| am. On behalf of English, I apologize for its
| irregularity. ;)
|
| So in your first language, how would you express the idea
| of "I saw a documentary in the past, felt some way at the
| time, and now feel a different way?" To the extent
| translation is possible.
|
| Languages fascinate me. Especially in terms of the
| constructs or concepts they can or can't express.
| pkrotich wrote:
| If you use present tense then it's how you feel now with
| no reference when you started feeling so. Past tense
| implies you felt so then and you still feel so now
| (linear feeling is assumed). If your feelings have
| changed then you say how you felt originally and qualify
| it for the present (now I feel).
| scrollaway wrote:
| It's a little odd yes, but I think it counts as a phrasal
| verb? (https://www.englishclub.com/vocabulary/phrasal-
| verbs-list.ht... - eg. "throw out" vs. "throw up")
|
| I've been learning Russian lately and re-discovering
| English through my lessons. Phrasal verbs are very
| present in Russian (as prepositions mainly), and I didn't
| realize how when I learned English they kind of came to
| me naturally and now I'm having such a hard time with
| them.
|
| But when you think about it, phrasal verbs are _fucking
| weird_. For example, the various particles you can put
| after "send" (send out, send in, send up, send down,
| send away, send for, send into) are all various synonyms
| of "dispatching"; whereas "turn" as a phrasal verb is WAY
| more diverse (turn out, turn in, turn up, turn down, turn
| away, turn into, turn for: all different meanings).
| asiachick wrote:
| as someone that lived in Japan for over a decade I found it
| made up. The documentary people could have picked almost any
| indie sushi restaurant in Japan. I'm not sure what made Jiro
| special
|
| I agree tho it's a good documentary for seeing someone taking
| their work so seriously and the fallout from it as well as
| for seeing how much work might go into certain kinds of food
| prep and therefore making me appreciate it more.
| pfarrell wrote:
| I think the Michelin three star rating for the restaurant
| is why it was picked. A line I remember and found hilarious
| was that Jiro's place was the only three star restaurant
| without its own bathroom.
| giantg2 wrote:
| What do you mean by value proposition? I don't remember seeing
| much that would apply to my work.
| pkrotich wrote:
| The waiting list is like a year long - even with high cost!
| Most of us would devalue our craft by opening up bigger
| restaurant or even multiple locations.
|
| For me that translated to valuing my craft enough that people
| are willing to wait for and pay for it at whatever cost I
| set.
| procinct wrote:
| I would say it's mostly an attitude around quality that is
| likely applicable to any sort of craftsmanship.
| moviewise wrote:
| One documentary that demonstrates finding flow (happiness) in
| work is Jiro Dreams of Sushi (2011), which is the story of
| Japanese master chef Jiro Ono, who is a Shokunin, an expert
| craftsman who strives for perfection and feels great
| fulfillment and joy from yearning to improve bit by bit. He
| explains it thusly,
|
| "You must dedicate your life to mastering your skill. That's
| the secret of success and is the key to being regarded
| honorably. [...] . Even at my age, after decades of work, I
| don't think I have achieved perfection. But I feel ecstatic all
| day. I love making sushi. That's the spirit of the Shokunin."
|
| From:
|
| https://moviewise.substack.com/p/going-through-an-existentia...
| chrisbolt wrote:
| And after watching that, I would recommend the Documentary Now!
| episode Juan Likes Rice and Chicken.
| pkrotich wrote:
| That was an hilarious parody! Thanks
| narigon wrote:
| Just finished watching it, it was great. Thanks for the
| suggestion!
| westhom wrote:
| Couple of random ones I highly enjoyed recently:
|
| - Feels Good Man -- story of the innocent illustrator behind Pepe
| the Frog and how the internet ruins nice things
|
| - War Room (1993) -- fly-on-the-wall doc of James Carville during
| the most intense period of Bill Clinton's election campaign
| (amazing "pre-internet" energy)
|
| - Downfall: Case Against Boeing -- all in the title
|
| - Cane Toads: An Unnatural History -- hilarious story of the
| introduction and unintended over-multiplication of cane toads in
| Australia
|
| - The Man Who Skied Down Everest -- story of a Japanese alpinist
| plus a team of scientists and 800+ sherpas and their mission to
| support him skiing down Everest from near the peak
| tra3 wrote:
| > - Downfall: Case Against Boeing -- all in the title
|
| This is a good one. For context, it deals with the 737 Max 8
| crashes, pre covid. Boeing was incentivized to release a flawed
| aircraft which killed 362 people, across 2 crashes. They knew
| after the first crash what was going on, but decide to do
| nothing.
|
| Apart from the technical description of the failure it also
| explains how the corporate structure and the race for profits
| compromised Boeing's culture of safety.
|
| See also moral mazes [0].
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Mazes
| jongjong wrote:
| "The Money Masters" (1996). It changed the way I see everything.
| zahma wrote:
| Dr. Death by Errol Morris
|
| Fog of War also by Errol Morris
|
| The Barkley Marathons by Annika Iltis, Timothy James Kane
| Cupertino95014 wrote:
| I only see Hoop Dreams mentioned once, without comment, so:
|
| It's a 3-hour doc about two urban black teenagers who are
| basketball phenoms, and are recruited by a white suburban high
| school to play for them. Three hours is long enough for an
| extended meditation on what their lives were like, and what they
| hoped to get out of basketball.
|
| Read the Roger Ebert review of it.
| DavidWoof wrote:
| It's not mentioned because OP asked for documentaries from the
| last 4 years, and Hoop Dreams must be over a quarter century
| old at this point.
|
| Great film though.
| Cupertino95014 wrote:
| Saw that, but a lot of the other answers were for older
| flicks, too.
| aeharding wrote:
| I really enjoyed Together We Cycle. I don't think many people
| know just how close The Netherlands was to losing their cycling
| culture (and a safe transportation system overall), and what it
| took to revive it (one example being 'stop de kindermoord').
|
| https://vimeo.com/ondemand/togetherwecycle
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| No particular order:
|
| - Particle fever
|
| - Sugar Coated
|
| - The United States of Secrets (and anything Frontline)
|
| - Citizen Four and related movie drama, name escapes me now.
|
| - Cosmos (new and old)
|
| - The Social Dillema
|
| - WWII in HD, two docs on Netflix both good.
|
| - Ken Burns *
| atombender wrote:
| The Death of Yugoslavia (1996) [1] [2]. Won the BAFTA and Peabody
| awards that year.
|
| It's a BBC documentary in six episodes about the conflict that
| caused the dissolution of Yugoslavia and the wars in the Balkans.
|
| It stands out among many documentaries for being a truly
| dispassionate moment-to-moment record of events. No
| sensationalism, no grand-standing, just the facts.
|
| If you're tired of the Netflix style of documentary -- lots of
| talking heads quickly edited together for sound bites, dramatic
| music, re-enactments -- then this is for you. Sadly, too few
| documentaries are produced in this style anymore.
|
| Edit: Looks like the episodes are on YouTube [3].
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_Yugoslavia
|
| [2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00gfbpy
|
| [3]
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tj9Zw5fN3rE&list=PLdw7wnKe0w...
| throwaway_5753 wrote:
| I just watched this while traveling in Croatia and Bosnia, and
| I thought it was an incredible documentary! It's also very
| interesting that it was made only 6 month after the Dayton
| Accords ended the war. It gives you a very in-the-moment view
| of events. Definitely worth checking out!
| kklisura wrote:
| I just came here to suggest the same, since I just watched it
| recently again. Coming from a Bosnia and born just before the
| war, it was really chilling watching it. I think it portrays
| the conflict in Balkans in some neutral and fair way.
|
| Interesting story: during the high school, in 2006-2008, we
| weren't allowed to have lectures about the war. That didn't
| stop our history class teacher to play us this documentary. We
| would watch it during the class and it would take us couple of
| classes to finish, since it's pretty long.
|
| Also, the full documentary is here [1] and not segmented like
| OP's link.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVUg-
| VoPAeA&ab_channel=Triac...
| badrabbit wrote:
| Didn't a guy putting a bottle in his ass start the demise of
| Yugoslavia? Do they mention him at all?
| netrus wrote:
| To save everyone one Google search: [1]. It is/was apparently
| not clear if the guy was masturbating or being assaulted -
| that's the point of the story.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%90or%C4%91e_Martinovi%C
| 4%8...
| mrazomor wrote:
| +1 An amazing documentary. It presents the war from unbiased
| perspective. Something that I wasn't able to get (been living
| there, including during the war). Learnt so much from it.
| joshlemer wrote:
| I really can't stand the new Netflix style documentaries as you
| call them. Like, there's no coherent sentence or point being
| made by the speaker when it's literally not even full sentences
| just parts of sentences being strung together. It's really
| disorienting and obviously any nuance that the original
| interviewee was trying to get across is completely lost when
| every word they say is taken out of context into whatever the
| point is that the editors wanted to make. How are people
| enjoying this?
| 4m1rk wrote:
| I suppose it's all because of the topic or the content
| itself. They try to use any technique to keep the view and to
| make it longer. They sometimes build miniseries from
| something that could be an hour max.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Is there a good example of this style?
| lnenad wrote:
| None of the documentaries related to this war paint an
| objective picture of what happened, everyone has a dog in the
| fight.
| tibbydudeza wrote:
| American Movie Anything by the Maysles brothers Cinemania
| hef19898 wrote:
| The Great War and World War 2 in Real Time, produced and narrated
| by Sparty Olson and Indy Nidell. Covering, as the name implies,
| both world wars on a weekly basis in real time. The most in depth
| stuff on those topics I have seen and now. Well, at somewhere
| between 10 and 30 minutes of YouTube content per _week_ for the
| duration of both wars, 4 years for WW1 and 5.5 years for WW2 that
| 's quite some content to watch. The WW2 series is still on going
| and currently at the Allied invasion of Italy in September 1943.
| They even have a minute by minute special series covering Pearl
| Habour.
|
| Edit: Everything with David Attenborough, because of course. He
| did one about the crusades _decades_ ago that was great!
| bodychiva wrote:
| Assassins (2020). Unraveling the audacious airport assassination
| of the exiled and estranged half-brother to North Korean Supreme
| Leader Kim Jong-un, ASSASSINS is a riveting dissection of
| infamous dynasty dynamics and the surprising tale of two young
| women recruited to secure the uncontested leadership of Kim Jong-
| un.
|
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11394276/
| poxwole wrote:
| All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace by Adam Curtis
| f1shy wrote:
| Freedom to choose by Multon Friedman
|
| Black gold saga -- a 4 hour documentary about oil, from discovery
| to the present. It really helps to understand how short sighted
| were some EU countries with Russian gas.
| kmike84 wrote:
| Exit Through the Gift Shop - an amusing documentary about
| somebody trying to find Banksy (a street artist), and much more,
| supposingly directed by Banksy himself.
|
| There is some debate if it is documentary or not (the story is
| almost too good), but it seems the evidence suggests it is real.
|
| EDIT: sorry, I missed the "last 4 years" part in the question.
| This film is older than that.
| rado wrote:
| Masterpiece, one of my top 3 films about art, along with
| "Achilles and the Tortoise" and "Vincent and Theo"
| azemetre wrote:
| I still think about the final line from banksy often,
| paraphrasing here:
|
| "I use to encourage everyone to make art. I don't do that much
| anymore."
| bobduncan wrote:
| Tim's Vermeer : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim's_Vermeer
|
| Produced and directed by Penn and Teller who I thought were just
| magicians. It mixes art and technology with a little bit of
| historical puzzle solving. As someone who knows little about art
| history, I found it fascinating.
| Simon_O_Rourke wrote:
| It's good, there's enough science in it for the nerds and
| enough painting for the Arts majors. I liked especially the
| part where they wheel in the patio heater into their art
| studio, turn it on for a few minutes and immediately start
| feeling a bit weird.
| sirsinsalot wrote:
| I second this. The last thing it is really about is painting.
|
| Tim is amazing and the lessons on playful (albeit obsessive)
| learning are important IMHO
| sgt wrote:
| Tim is also a legend in the Amiga and TV/audiovisual community.
| Just listened to a fascinating interview with him on the Retro
| Hour podcast. Highly recommend it. I still need to watch Tim's
| Vermeer.
| ChoGGi wrote:
| Einstein's Brain
|
| "English filmmaker Kevin Hull crossed America in search of the
| truth about the stolen brains, together with the Japanese
| scientist Kenji Sugimoto, who has been studying Einstein for over
| thirty years."
|
| https://www.idfa.nl/en/film/35af3499-a6ce-498f-a5ae-cbba455e...
|
| The only issue is good luck finding a legitimate copy anywhere.
|
| https://youtube.com/watch?v=xM4m-Z0nAio
|
| Edit:
|
| Triumph of the Will
|
| https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-triumph-of-th...
|
| (Goes better with the commentary by Anthony Santoro)
|
| General Idi Amin Dada - A Self Portrait
|
| https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/5609-general-idi-ami...
| superb-owl wrote:
| Samsara [1] is not a typical documentary, but is well worth
| watching. It's visually stunning, and gives the viewer a great
| sense of the mechanisms of civilization.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsara_(2011_film)
| dpcan wrote:
| My favorites on Netflix this year were:
|
| Trainwreck: Woodstock '99 https://www.netflix.com/title/81280924
|
| Challenger Final Flight https://www.netflix.com/title/81012137
|
| FYRE (Festival) https://www.netflix.com/title/81035279
|
| From a long time ago, and I don't even know if you can still
| watch it anywhere, but that FogBugz Aardvark'd documentary was
| really fun to watch too.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aardvark%27d:_12_Weeks_with_Ge...
| MrGilbert wrote:
| Oh yeah, that Woodstock documentary was really good. Didn't
| know what happened back then, and was surprised to learn that
| there was another Woodstock.
| highwaylights wrote:
| I was surprised this took so long to make as for twenty years
| Woodstock '99 was a legendary story circulating that it
| seemed no-one wanted to talk about because of how horrible
| some of the things that happened were.
| suranyami wrote:
| FYRE was epic. Worth it just for the schadenfreude of watching
| influencers suffering. :-)
| joegahona wrote:
| "Walk on By: The Story of Popular Song" was a BBC documentary in
| 8 or 10 parts that was -- I think -- alternatively titled
| "Popular Soundtrack of the Century" in the U.S. I had it saved on
| a DVR in ~2006, but that's long gone. It's in pieces on Youtube
| now, but they sometimes get yanked down. It covered multiple eras
| of popular Western music in the 20th century, from big band, to
| the interesting era of countrified-blues, all the way to the
| Monkees and boy bands. I loved watching and rewatching it. Lots
| of great interviews.
| orasis wrote:
| "The Century of the Self" by Adam Curtis.
|
| https://youtu.be/eJ3RzGoQC4s
|
| It goes through each decade of the 1900s and explains how Freud's
| psychology and the new field of marketing completely reshaped
| society. For the first time in my life I feel like I understood
| the "why" of how things work in American society. This film is
| probably best if you're age 40+ and actually remember some of the
| events.
| nickdothutton wrote:
| +1 for any Curtis documentary. They aren't something you
| necessarily need to agree with to enjoy. Most of them involve
| him attempting to stitch together an over-arching narrative for
| events of our time.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Yup. Curtis does a great job of explaining unintended
| consequences, humans being wrong, the world is far more
| complex than you know.
| type0 wrote:
| Also see The Loving Trap for explanation
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1bX3F7uTrg
| woleium wrote:
| Haha, came here to post this. it's a short explaier about
| Curtis, less than favourable. It does make you laugh
| though:)
| skinney6 wrote:
| Same here. I love watching them. They are very entertaining
| but don't care if his theme is sensible or not.
| denvaar wrote:
| I really enjoy Adam Curtis's documentaries, including "Can't
| Get You Out of My Mind" but I always have to be careful
| watching any of his content because it tends to make me feel
| depressed.
| sirsinsalot wrote:
| Amazed given the site we are on nobody mentions "All Watched
| Over by Machines of Loving Grace" by Curtis.
|
| I loved it, even being in the industry at the center of the
| topic.
|
| However the narrative is judged, it at least has a spark I find
| has died in our own.
| alcover wrote:
| I like it but frankly don't get a solid 'revelation' out of it.
| Hypnotic, that's about it (for me).
| bartimus wrote:
| I thought how individualism is just something that was
| marketed uppon us was pretty powerful. Also how medical
| science became more about grouping symptoms than
| understanding where those things originated from.
| alcover wrote:
| individualism (...) was marketed uppon us
|
| Maybe but I tend to favor materialistic explanations before
| anything 'concerted'. So I'd say individualism was always
| here but blossomed fully when abundance came.
| samstave wrote:
| One should immediately watch "Human Resources" after this one.
|
| Be prepared to feel rage and depression, but it's so damn
| informative.
| jefc1111 wrote:
| I don't mind a bit of Adam Curtis, largely for the soundtracks.
| Still hugely enjoy this though
| https://www.tomscott.com/infinite-adam-curtis/
| lilsoso wrote:
| Adam Curtis is great.
|
| I recommend even looking into his older material, such as The
| Mayfair Set (won a BAFTA Award in 2000). Another older
| documentary of his that I recommend is The Way of All Flesh
| (1997) which is a rather remarkable story on HeLa cells with a
| depth I hadn't encountered before. To give you an idea of the
| subject matter, here's a quote from Wikipedia:
|
| "HeLa cell contamination has become a pervasive worldwide
| problem - affecting even the laboratories of many notable
| physicians, scientists, and researchers, including Jonas Salk.
| The HeLa contamination problem also contributed to Cold War
| tensions. The USSR and the USA had begun to cooperate in the
| war on cancer launched by President Richard Nixon, only to find
| that the exchanged cells were contaminated by HeLa."
|
| Some of his material is viewabled on BBC iPlayer if you have
| access to that. His older material can be challenging to find.
| You can download his complete collection via torrents.
| kranke155 wrote:
| I watched it when I was 20 and it changed my life.
| bloqs wrote:
| https://youtu.be/x1bX3F7uTrg obligatry response whenever
| anything by Adam Curtis is offered up. Sorry, I'm largely of
| the opinion that it is (well made) boomer-aimed catastrophe
| porn designed to give the viewer a smug sense of having
| "esoteric knowledge".
| colordrops wrote:
| There is some truth to this parody, but there is also a lot
| to learn from Century of Self, if you weren't already aware
| of, say, Edward Bernaise and his role in American society.
| Now his doc HyperNormalisation, I took nothing away from it,
| but oh boy was it an amazing way to spend the evening. The
| music and imagery is fricking amazing.
| nyolfen wrote:
| i think you should watch it again. i feel like it has
| become significantly more relevant since it was released.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| > _boomer-aimed catastrophe porn designed to give the viewer
| a smug sense of having "esoteric knowledge"_
|
| I'll just balance it out with some TED optimism porn.
| itronitron wrote:
| opens arms
| woleium wrote:
| https://youtu.be/_ZBKX-6Gz6A
| ckw wrote:
| Adam Curtis likes the parody.
| agumonkey wrote:
| I thought I was the only one feeling this way.
| osynavets wrote:
| Netflix's "Turning Point: 9/11 and the War on Terror". What I
| love about it is the self reflection on war in Afghanistan and
| Iraq, consequences of that, and why those might've been a
| mistake. Really recommend, it's only 5 one hour series
| poxwole wrote:
| Burden of Dreams
| WickyNilliams wrote:
| The greatest documentary to me is not a film but a series - The
| Ascent of Man by Jacob Bronowski.
|
| It charts the cultural and technological milestones that brought
| humanity to where it is today. Well, the 1970s rather than today,
| since it is quite old. However don't let that put you off! It is
| a BBC documentary of the highest calibre. David Attenborough
| commissioned its production.
|
| Bronowski is an incredible, if unusual, presenter - he has an
| interesting history (he personally knew Einstein, Von Neumann,
| and others), is knowledgeable in many fields, and doesn't waste a
| word. His off the cuff monologue at Auschwitz where some of his
| family died at the hands of the nazis is both heart-wrenching and
| profound. But thays just one of many incredible moments.
|
| I have watched this countless times, and am always struck by the
| scope, scale, and beauty of the production.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ascent_of_Man
| arethuza wrote:
| I watched _The Ascent of Man_ when it first came out - I was
| probably 8 or 9 at the time.
|
| That scene at Auschwitz where he walks into the pond is burned
| into my memory:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltjI3BXKBgY
|
| Edit: It was many years later that I noticed the reference to
| Leo Szilard, reminding me of this quote from _The Making of the
| Atomic Bomb_ :
|
| _" In London, where Southampton Row passes Russell Square,
| across from the British Museum in Bloomsbury, Leo Szilard
| waited irritably one gray Depression morning for the stoplight
| to change. A trace of rain had fallen during the night;
| Tuesday, September 12, 1933, dawned cool, humid and dull.
| Drizzling rain would begin again in early afternoon. When
| Szilard told the story later he never mentioned his destination
| that morning. He may have had none; he often walked to think.
| In any case another destination intervened. The stoplight
| changed to green. Szilard stepped off the curb. As he crossed
| the street time cracked open before him and he saw a way to the
| future, death into the world and all our woes, the shape of
| things to come..."_
| leobg wrote:
| That moment when he stands in front of the remnants of
| Auschwitz, kneels down, reaches into the sludge of ashes and
| says, "We need to touch people".
|
| It would be an Ask HN in and of itself to ask: What broadcaster
| today, YouTube or otherwise, comes even close in education,
| trust in the intelligence of their audience, and sheer balls?
| DanBC wrote:
| This film about Richard Batterham, independent potter. It's just
| half and hour of him talking through his process and his art and
| what's important to him.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tN3hRRIO4-c
|
| Harlan County USA (1976) is a great documentary about a coal
| strike. https://www.criterion.com/films/777-harlan-county-usa
|
| American Movie (1999) is a documentary about a wanna film-maker
| in the US. In other hands the documentary would have mocked this
| man and his wild attempts to get his films made. But the
| documentary ends up being a mostly sympathetic film about
| struggling against adversity.
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0181288/
| dominotw wrote:
| thunder run on baghdad.
|
| It a documentary on iraq war seen from the eyes of bhagdadis,
| both military and common folk. This war was extensively covered
| in media but I've never seen it from the eyes of people who were
| on the other side.
|
| After all this time, i realize how racist and cruel this war was
| and such contrast to how we viewed people of ukraine. Helped me
| reflect on my own racist attitudes.
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| Recently watched a four part documentary on the Iraq war by DW
| on YouTube. It was actually quite shocking, some of the
| details. Like how the electric infrastructure was destroyed by
| the USAF with the help of the French engineering company which
| built their power stations, but it was never rebuilt.
|
| Under Saddam they had air conditioning, now many Iraqis don't
| even have fans.
| UmbertoNoEco wrote:
| yenwel wrote:
| How art made the world
|
| A mini series about art and it's impact on humanity.
|
| The bridge
|
| Shows the other side of humans suiciding on the golden gate
| bridge and how every one them is missed.
| SteveNuts wrote:
| I really like The Seven Five
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Five
| shredprez wrote:
| Already so many good recommendations here, so just a few I
| enjoyed but haven't seen mentioned:
|
| -- This excellent 2013 re-working of Guy Debord's Society of the
| Spectacle (not a proper doc, but if you like Adam Curtis, you'll
| probably like this). If you like to consider whether the world
| we've built is good for us, look no further:
| https://vimeo.com/60328678
|
| -- Pump Up The Volume, a 2001 BBC doc about the rise of House
| music. Maybe the best work on this topic ever produced, covering
| the early years as disco evolved into Daft Punk:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_Hz6FQyVJ8
|
| -- Paris Is Burning, a slice-of-time doc about the 80's Ballroom
| drag scene in NYC. You can see the roots of many elements of
| popular culture documented here, shown through performances and
| conversations featuring some of the stars of the scene at that
| time. This one's on HBOMax these days, but I'm sure it can be
| found elsewhere online.
| hardwaregeek wrote:
| Paris Is Burning is such a fantastic documentary. I can't
| recommend it enough. Such a vivid look into this unique gay
| community, with all the memorable characters. Also a great
| slice of NYC in the 80's.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| "pump up the volume" is also a cool movie about high school
| pirate radio
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pump_Up_the_Volume_(film)
| rzzzt wrote:
| Nate Harrison's "Can I get an Amen?" on the history of the Amen
| break: https://archive.org/details/NateHarrisonCanIGetAnAmen
| kitsune_ wrote:
| Once Upon A Time In Iraq (BBC). Documentary mini series.
|
| 1 "War"
|
| Iraqi civilians recall their initial hopes before the realities
| of war become clear.
|
| 2 "Insurgency"
|
| Lt Colonel Nathan Sassaman and Iraqi civilian Alaa Adel reflect
| on the Iraqi insurgency.
|
| 3 "Fallujah"
|
| The Battle of Fallujah is told by accounts from journalists,
| soldiers and civilians.
|
| 4 "Saddam"
|
| Saddam Hussein is captured by American troops and interrogated by
| CIA analyst John Nixon.
|
| 5 "Legacy"
|
| The emergence of ISIS concludes the brutal legacy of the Iraq
| War.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Once_Upon_a_Time_in_Iraq
|
| https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2020/08/why-everyone-mu...
|
| Note: There is a shortened version by PBS but it's not as
| compelling as the full series.
| ocbyc wrote:
| Operation Odessa
| _fat_santa wrote:
| it's got one of my favorite lines in a documentary: "he said
| would you like nukes with your submarine, we sell those too".
| Russia in the 90's after the fall of the soviet union was a
| wild place.
| edumucelli wrote:
| Isle of Flowers: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097564/ It is one
| of the best, if not the best short-documentaries (13 min) made in
| Brazil.
|
| It starts by telling the saga of a tomato, that is planted, goes
| to the supermarket, rots and then goes to the garbage dump site.
| From there it uses an acid humor to talk how tomatoes, pigs and
| humans (that live by collecting food from the dumping site) are
| different.
| sircastor wrote:
| "Who Killed the Electric Car" It's not new, and the narrative
| probably feels a little less dire these days because EVs are here
| to stay and the underlying politics have made way for seemingly
| much worse.
|
| Still, I think it's a fascinating peek at the way government and
| lobbies work, and how the will of the ordinary person gets lost
| in that mix.
| xyzal wrote:
| Earthlings
| jlarocco wrote:
| In the 1980s Jack Absalom made a series of 45 minute videos about
| travelling through the Australian Outback, and a lot of them are
| on YouTube now. A neat combination of how to travel through harsh
| environments, with a lot of beautiful scenery (he's a painter),
| and interesting historical facts about Australia.
|
| I also keep an eye on the PeriscopeFilm YouTube channel:
| https://www.youtube.com/user/PeriscopeFilm/videos
|
| They're not quite documentaries, but there are some interesting
| videos now and then.
| seshagiric wrote:
| Kingdom of the white wolf - a documentary on national geographic.
| My 1l yr old is fascinated with wolves and this one was quite a
| learning experience.
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