I am an admitted and unashamed documentary addict, have been for years and I have no intention of kicking the habit.
So, in light of the wave of popularity of 'Making a Murderer' post your favourite documentaries, I'm always looking for new ones across all genres.
Economics:
- Inequality for All
- Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
- Inside Job
Crime:
- Making a Murderer (obviously)
- The Jinx
- Staircase
Political/Crime
- We Steal Secrets (WikiLeaks)
- Citizenfour
- Spymasters: CIA in the Crosshairs
And of course, the coup de grace:
- Aliens on the Moon: The Truth Exposed
Sometimes its fun to watch something absolutely off-the-wall awful. If you have time give that one a watch. Apparently Aliens are drilling for oil on the moon or some such nonsense.
Not all documentaries are created equal, you're not going to or shouldnt necessarily believe everything they present or say but the different opinions and ideas are interesting.
__________________ The Beatings Shall Continue Until Morale Improves!
This Post Has Been Distilled for the Eradication of Seemingly Incurable Sadness.
The World Ends when you're dead. Until then, you've got more punishment in store. - Flames Fans
Life is pain. Anyone who says differently is selling something. - The Dread Pirate Roberts
The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to Locke For This Useful Post:
Political:
The United States of Secrets - About NSA wire-tapping and information gathering following 9/11. Lot's of key players interviewed.
Terms and Conditions May Apply - Goes together with the above, explains how the NSA gets your information through agreements with Apple, Google, Facebook, etc... that we all just agree to without reading.
Pump - About the alternatives to gasoline and the stupid, often infuriating reasons we don't use them.
I'll second Inequality for All and Inside Job
Random:
Print the Legend - About the budding 3D printing industry. Sounds boring but is super interesting as they juxtapose the "Steve Jobs-type" who more or less sells out and how it makes him feel, and the people that want to keep everything open source.
Dear Mr Watterson - If you Like Calvin and Hobbes, watch this. If you like comics in general really.
Red Army - Enthralling film about the Red Army hockey team, how they lived, how they "escaped". Mostly told by Slava Fetisov. He is super intriguing and lead a very remarkable life.
Music:
History of the Eagles - Discussed a bunch with Frey's death, but highly recommend.
Beware of Mr Baker - Basically about the life of Ginger Baker. The guy is either crazy, or just a straight up a-hole, or both.
All on Netflix
Edited for descriptions.
__________________
Last edited by Coach; 01-19-2016 at 07:54 AM.
The Following User Says Thank You to Coach For This Useful Post:
Dear Zachary was one of the most memorable, as far as "I really enjoyed that"
Just watched Tesla the other night and really enjoyed that as well.
Both on Netflix
The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to JonDuke For This Useful Post:
And probably the best documentary of all time, The World At War.
26 part WW2 documentary, made in the 70's, narrated by Lawrence Olivier with interviews with figures such as Hitler's secretary, Curtis LeMay, Admiral Donitz and Albert Speer.
Episode 1.
The theme song gives me chills every time. One of the earliest memories in my life is my great grandmother having this on TV in the early 80s and that theme song was burned into my memory.
__________________
Quote:
Originally Posted by MisterJoji
Johnny eats garbage and isn’t 100% committed.
Last edited by nik-; 01-15-2016 at 04:11 PM.
The Following 3 Users Say Thank You to nik- For This Useful Post:
20 Feet From Stardom
Which Way is the Frontline from Here
Korengal
Restropo (haven't seen but want to)
Dear Zachary
Invisible War
From One Second to the Next
The Lego Brickumentary
The Last Patrol
-Hot Coffee: most eye opening doc I may have ever seen. Tort Law in US.
-Cocaine Cowboys: one of the best edited and paced doc IMO. Set standard for fast pacd docs now.
-Searchng for Sugarman : great Oscar winner from a few years ago
-Damn the Torpedoes: the authorized story of Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers
-Imposter: still can't believe it took place. Sometimes you just want to believe.
-Something's wrong with Aunt Dianne: tough watch like Dear Zachary is.
-Lemmy: fitting after his death but great to see the life he led when not on the road.
-Muscle Shoals: turn this one up! An amazing story if you are a music person.
I believe all are available on Netflix Cnd. They all were at one time. Will add a few more and more commentary shortly. I look forward to finding new ones on this thread.
Thanks for starting a new thread with this theme.
Last edited by 14; 01-15-2016 at 07:01 PM.
The Following User Says Thank You to 14 For This Useful Post:
-Cocaine Cowboys: one of the best edited and paced doc IMO. Set standard for fast pacd docs now.
so good. Also Cocaine Cowboys reloaded, which basically tells the same story, but with slightly different material. Surprising lack of crossover and a really good companion to the original
The Jinx was really good. Durst is such an odd guy. At times he is charming and charismatic, and at other times he is creepy beyond belief. Along with Making a Murderer, its one I'm really interested to see how it plays out eventually.
Next on my list is 'Hunting Hitler'. Haven't watched any of it yet, but I've been told its really interesting.
Last edited by The Big Chill; 01-15-2016 at 09:03 PM.
1. The Act of Killing. This might be the best documentary I've ever seen, and it is so, so weird. Essentially, imagine if, instead of losing WWII, the Nazis had succeeded in perpetrating the holocaust, and then 30ish years later were still running Germany, living alongside the family members of their victims. Then, an American filmmaker shows up and convinces them to do a dramatic re-enactment of their genocidal crimes under the guise of making a movie. That's essentially what this is, but in Indonesia.
A follow up, entitled "The Look of Silence", also came out this year - I haven't seen it but the concept is unreal; basically the director (Josh Oppenheimer) has one of the genocide victims, who's an optometrist, confront the perpetrators under the guise of giving them an eye exam for glasses.
2. Jodorowsky's Dune - As a movie about movies, it's hard to top this; a discussion of the never-made film adaptation of Herbert's "Dune" that, even though never made, influenced the sci-fi genre to be what it currently is. Had it been made, we might think of the Dune franchise in the same way we think about Star Wars.
3. Red Army - I'm amazed this isn't on everyone's list given the nature of the site... Basically a history of the Red Army team in the second half of the 20th century, largely focused through the lens of Slava Fetisov.
4. Going Clear - The scientology documentary. Simply put, this must be seen. It's an incredible expose.
5. Merchants of Doubt - A climate change documentary about the use of spokespeople to encourage a position of "let's wait until we have all the facts because things aren't clear", and how it's being used in the same way, and more alarmingly by many of the same exact people, as was the case when the debate was over the dangers of cigarettes.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
The Following User Says Thank You to CorsiHockeyLeague For This Useful Post:
Touching the Void - very engrossing mountaineering story.
Food, Inc - if this doesn't make you consider, even briefly, buying a farm and growing your own food, I am not sure what would.
The Poisoner's Handbook - Fascinating early history of the fields of forensics and pathology as tools to solve crimes, taking over from what was previously a very unscientific mindset by police detectives (unless you are from small town Wisconsin).
Silenced - The aftermath experienced by government whistleblowers.
Steak - basically meat porn. The best steaks from around the globe. I could literally stare at Wagyu beef for hours. Not sure if that is a ringing endorsement of the movie or not.
As stated before, a lot of the 30 for 30 ESPN films are fantastic. I watched the Michael Jordan one on his basketball retirement to play baseball. Incredible how far he almost took it. Initially I thought it was a joke, but he had actually trained with such dedication that there was some talk that he could have moved from minors to the majors.
Frontline - Any episode is a winner.
The Following User Says Thank You to Wormius For This Useful Post: