Documentaries

[RichardDripp]

If this has been posted before, please forgive me.

I am a gigantic documentary fan. I am open to almost any subject, and it is a great way to learn new things. Yeah, some are biased, but those can be fun, too.

What are your favorites? Any suggestions would be great, too.

Some of my favorites right off the top of my head:

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
World War I in Colour
Prohibition
Crossing the Line (James Joseph Dresnok)

That's a good start.

 

[Mesh Gear Fox]

My faves:

Grey Gardens
Hype!
The Devil and Daniel Johnston
Malfunkshun: The Andrew Wood Story
The Nomi Song

Yup, kind of a music sperg.

 

[AnOminous]

In the music documentary genre I'd also recommend Dig! It's a documentary about the Dandy Warhols and Brian Jonestown Massacre and their odd, neurotic relationship.

I really liked the Daniel Johnston one, too.

 

[RichardDripp]

Speaking of music, but this is one most already heard of: Beware of Mr. Baker.

 

[Segue]

I love watching Documentaries, especially nature documentaries. The world is so amazing and the time and effort that goes into alot of the documentaries is truly something to be admired. Nature is also wonderful inspiration for settings and stories. Life, Frozen Planet, Human Planet, BBC Life Story, The Life of Birds/Mammals are all incredible. Hell, anything narrated by David Attenborough is amazing. Watch them!

 

[CatParty]

 

[AnchuentProphecy]

I watched Cocaine Cowboys last night on Netflix. It's about the Cocaine Wars in Miami in the 70s and 80s. I highly recommend it to you guys.

 

[nonnewtonian]

Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father is a great documentary if you don't mind going through several boxes of tissues.

 

[Gordon Cole]

Please forgive the following documentary sperging:

I took a lot of history classes in my senior year of high school, and it was around March that the teachers evidently gave up and started showing a largely indistinguishable set of movies and documentaries. Many of these documentaries were from Robert Greenwald, the director of Xanadu who then went on to make well-meaning, poorly-made leftist documentaries such as Outfoxed and Uncovered: The War on Iraq. I hate these movies because they're less like documentaries and more like badly made YouTube videos. Koch Brothers Exposed is quite possibly the worst documentary I've ever seen.

 

[otacon]

it seems like there's a lack of crime documentaries (esp. about spree/serial killers) that are actually good. a couple that are on netflix right now are 'the dahmer files' and 'the selling of a serial killer' (followed by the sequel, 'aileen')

 

[Strelok]

There's a once a week documentary on WW1 on Youtube these day's that's pretty great, does it week by week as it happened 100 years ago. Here's the first of 250+ videos now.

 

[FemalePresident]

I'd recommend:

The Death of Yugoslavia. It's a BBC documentary about the balkan wars in the first half of the nineties. I think it was really good, it features interviews with almost every key player in the conflict, and it certainly helped me to understand a bit more the whole thing.

The Killing of America. Some people say it's more like a "shockumentary", idk. I think it was interesting. It features lots of serial killers and brutal stuff, while it tries to uncover why there's so much violence in the US.

Zero Hour. A 2004 TV Series, by History Channel I think. It's more like "docudrama", and it's superficial on some subjects. Along its three seasons it covered events like the Columbine massacre, the Oklahoma City bombing, the Chernobyl incident, the Tokyo subway attacks, the North Hollywood bank robbery, the hostage crisis in Lima and more. I think it's interesting to discover new horrible things and then research a bit more on your own.

 

[XYZpdq]

the Chernobyl incident,

Was that the one with the guy who was fishing outside the plant and then they show a big cg energy fwoosh shoot out the top from his perspective?

BBC Horizons had a Chernobyl one I liked that has biorobots, adventures in trying to figure out where the fuel went, hiking expeditions over the reactor core, all sorts of fun stuff.

 

[FemalePresident]

Was that the one with the guy who was fishing outside the plant and then they show a big cg energy fwoosh shoot out the top from his perspective?

BBC Horizons had a Chernobyl one I liked that has biorobots, adventures in trying to figure out where the fuel went, hiking expeditions over the reactor core, all sorts of fun stuff.

Hmm I remember a bad cg explosion, but not the fisherman. It's probably another docu, I'll try to find it!

Good to know about the BBC Horizons, I'm gonna put it on my list. Chernobyl is an interesting event.

 

[XYZpdq]

Hmm I remember a bad cg explosion, but not the fisherman. It's probably another docu, I'll try to find it!

Good to know about the BBC Horizons, I'm gonna put it on my list. Chernobyl is an interesting event.

I might be wrong about the fisherman, but there's probably a few bad-cg Chernobyl explosions floating around.
pretty sure this is the Horizons I was talking about

 

[DumbDosh]

This Film is Not Yet Rated is a great documentary about criticizing the people in charge of movie ratings and their terrible decisions.

 

[CatParty]

this is a quick watch but a really awesome doc

 

[yasscat]

Titticut Follies (if you can find it).

It was basically banned in the US for decades and was the first work that was banned in the US for reasons other than "obscenity."

It's about the conditions in a mental hospital in the 1960s. This was a game changer, for documentarians as well as people involved in the psychology/medical/legal realms. For a very long time, you could only watch it if you had "good reason" to, like students in a psych class, studying legal precedent, shit like that. It also happened to be instrumental in the push for reform of the mental health field, and eventual deinstitutionalization policies ushered in by Reagan (which actually made the whole thing about five times worse than before).

I remember showing it to one of my literature professors (because it was relevant to my term paper for the class), and she just...had that stereotypical "I've seen some shit" expression for like a week. It's one of those documentaries that is just /so important/, because while few people have heard of it and even fewer have watched it, it shaped decades of domestic policies.

/documentary sperging

 

[ZepFloyd94]

Man on Wire
Woodstock
The People vs. George Lucas
History of the Eagles
The Death of Superman Lives: What Happened

 

[r00]

off the top of my head, heres a few of my favourites.

American Movie:
its about a guy who desperately wants to make the great american horror movie, despite being a talentless redneck. its a great little film about trying to follow your dreams

The Devil and Daniel Johnston:
heartbreaking doc about a severely mentally ill musician and his shakily brilliant pop songs. Hes great.

Standing in the Shadows of Motown:
about the funk brothers - the band/music production machine that churned out the instrumental parts for all the motown hits.

American Hollow:
documenting some more rednecks, this time extremely backwoods appalachian ones.

Grizzly man:
crazy doc about an insane homosexual man who loved bears so much he went to live with them, until they mauled him to death. an insanely good film.

Project Grizzly:
more lighthearted film about an equally insane man and his attempts to make a grizzly attack proof suit.

food inc:
about where we get our meat from. nearly made me a vegetarian.

crumb:
film about the unusual counterculture cartoonist robert crumb and his fucked up family.

capturing the friedmans:
horrible movie about a guy who sexually abused his kids.

Deliver us from evil:
more pedos. this time priests. ive never watched another thing that made me as angry as this did.

in the realms of the unreal:
another film about outsider art. this time about a strange recluse who wrote and illustrated a big massive 15000 page epic novel that was discovered and published after his death.

jesus camp:
about a weird fundamentalist christian indoctrination camp for kids.

beware of mr baker:
look back at the life of legendary drummer ginger baker

Aristocrats:
a bunch of comedians telling thesame filthy joke

breakfast with hunter:
a look at the typically weird life of Hunter S Thompson

taxi to the darkside:
about a man who was wrongly sent to abu graib and died from the torture that was inflicted on himwhile there

anvil!:
sad look at the farewell tour of an aging metal band.

if i think of more ill add them