nav[aria-label="Primary Navigation"] { padding: 0; & ul { list-style: none; width: 100%; display: flex; flex-direction: row; justify-content: start; align-items: start; gap: 30px; padding: 0; & li { margin: 0; } & ul li { list-style: none; } } }

Child Item

Best documentaries you have seen

FudgeBrownie

What are the best documentaries you have seen?

Find more posts tagged with

Quick Links

Comments

Yamanoto

Pheonix10 wrote: »

Anything similar quality and content to the keepers? Loved it. I've seen Making A M also.

Thanks!

Check out Jean Xavier de Lestrade's eight-part US courtroom documentary 'Death on the Staircase'.

First watched it when BBC Four ran all eight parts over a single night, as part of the Storyville strand of docs. It's a really well paced & cleverly crafted documentary & a compelling watch from start to finish.

Available on Youtube in its entirety. (8 x 45min episodes).

When Kathleen Peterson was found dead in her Durham, NC mansion in December '01, her husband, novelist Michael Peterson, claimed she had fallen down a narrow staircase. The authorities disagreed, and Peterson was charged with first degree murder. Thereafter, director Jean-Xavier de Lestrade and his crew were given almost unrestricted access to the defendant (who remained free on bail) and his legal team, as well as to the district attorney and the prosecution crew, albeit to a lesser extent.

There are countless meetings to map out defense strategy, dozens of interviews (including many with Peterson himself; he's not an especially sympathetic character), scenes of pre-trial home life, excerpts from Court TV coverage, and so on. The filmmakers follow the prosecution investigators to Texas, where we see a body exhumed; there's even a trip to Germany to look into a previous death in which Peterson may or may not have been involved.

The result is both exhaustive and exhausting; indeed, it's not until the end of the fourth of the series' eight episodes (each is about 45 minutes long) that the actual trial begins. By then, various revelations about Peterson, ranging from surprising to unsavory to downright sordid, have proved once again that truth really is stranger than fiction.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1kYp5DXlJE

bear1

daisybelle2008 wrote: »

Watched it, although I thought Lindeburgh himself with the 3 secret German families and the Eugenics stuff would make a much more interesting and revealing documentary subject. That was the most interest part and only got a few minutes overall.

So you wouldn't recommend it?

daisybelle2008

bear1 wrote: »

So you wouldn't recommend it?

I'd recommend skipping to the last 15/16 minutes and just watching that much.

I watched, Mommy Dead Mommy Dearest, that I would recommend in full!

retro:electro

The Jinx and The Staircase are my two all time favourites, but an honourable mention goes to The Case of: JonBenet Ramsey.
I liked Making a Murderer too but it was very one sided and too bias for my liking.

NIMAN

Jinx : Loved it
MaM : Didn't like it, too slow, boring, drawn out. Could have cut it to 3 or 4 episodes.

Andrewf20

Hypernormalisation is epic. So too is the power of nightmares and the century of the self. Adam Curtis reveals some fascinating insites into the way society and the world works. They are all on YouTube.

UsedToWait

Andrewf20 wrote: »

Hypernormalisation is epic. So too is the power of nightmares and the century of the self. Adam Curtis reveals some fascinating insites into the way society and the world works. They are all on YouTube.

His doc Bitter Lake is on iPlayer at the moment.

I love him. but also am cognisant that he is distilling his own version of events which could be told from any number of other angles..

Batesy

Anywhere one can watch One Million Dubliners online??

bear1

Not a documentary per se but I always enjoyed forensic files.
Amazing how people have been caught out covering their tracks.

tinpib

I'm halfway through episode 5 of 7 of The Keepers on Netflix. Thought it started off great, I was glued to the first 2 episodes, but struggling to finish it here.

retro:electro

tinpib wrote: »

I'm halfway through episode 5 of 7 of The Keepers on Netflix. Thought it started off great, I was glued to the first 2 episodes, but struggling to finish it here.

I was the same. Very intrigued by the first two, but felt it lagged in the centre and kind of just wanted it to be over already by episode 7.

snowflaker

When we were Kings

Daisy78

Mr.Wemmick wrote: »

The Keepers on Netflix is seriously good.

Similar to the story of Spotlight, but jam-packed with ordinary heroes trying to get at the truth with incredibly brave, awe-inspiring victims. It lays bare the decades of corruption in Baltimore dating back to the 70s.

Excellent documentary, really well done.

It's astonishing, don't think I've watched such a compelling documentary in a very long time. You almost feel a bit guilty about being so caught up in it given the content. As depressing as it is at times I really warmed to the two former students who are so intent on finding out the truth, their enthusiasm and humour were a nice counterpoint to the sadness of the story. They seemed to be very dogged in their pursuit of the killer.

Ipso

Touching the Void, a mountain climb in Peru doesn't go as planned.

Titzon Toast

Cocaine Cowboys.

Noveight

I've heard a number of friends and colleagues talking positively about The People v. OJ Simpson.

It's on Netflix at the minute if I'm not wrong, must have a look.

blow69

Noveight wrote: »

I've heard a number of friends and colleagues talking positively about The People v. OJ Simpson.

It's on Netflix at the minute if I'm not wrong, must have a look.

The People v. OJ Simpson is a scripted dramatisation of the events. It's very good. Highly recommended it. It's on Netflix.

Around the same time, a five part actual documentary was released called OJ: Made in America. It's incredible. Each 'episode' is about 90 minutes and it chronologically delves deep into OJ's football career, his business interests, his dark private life, race relations in America, the LAPD, LA riots, the actual murders, the Bronco chase, the circus of a trial, the outcome and his life since then.

All the key players are interviewed and all give behind the scenes info. It covers everything.
It won the Oscar for Best Documentary last year.
Even if you think you have heard everything there is to know about the trial and are sick of it being rehashed, it's a long but very powerful documentary that is more about just the OJ case.

Nitrogan

The Late Late Show with Gay Byrne

Obi_Wan_Kenobi

March of the penguins - but even better than that was the making of extra on the DVD - amazing stuff!!

Dev84

Blackfish

worded

:pac:

Obi_Wan_Kenobi wrote: »

March of the penguins - but even better than that was the making of extra on the DVD - amazing stuff!!

That was so good.

mrsdewinter

anna080 wrote: »

I was the same. Very intrigued by the first two, but felt it lagged in the centre and kind of just wanted it to be over already by episode 7.

Yes. And really, there's a few theories in there. After the 1st episode, the initial theory seems compelling but by the end of the series, the theory shipped by the media in the initial flurry of publicity doesn't hold that much water.

My takeaway was: between The Keepers & Serial, Baltimore is one fkd-up place...

pauldla

I’m going to presume that after forty-odd pages Carl Sagan’s Cosmos has been mentioned, but if not let me add it here.

Carl Sagan’s Cosmos. By Carl Sagan. Featuring Carl Sagan. Accompanied by the book of the same name, by Carl Sagan.

Kidding aside, it’s still excellent almost forty years later.

browner85

The real sopranos it's on YouTube .. their downfall was watching the sopranos TV show

jooksavage

Just finished Ken Burns' recent 10 part documentary on the Vietnam War. Brilliant, balanced and exhaustively researched, as I would have expected from KB. I was glancingly familiar with the big events like the Tet Offensive but it was intersting to see it broken in terms of hours and days and to hear from both sides. Great soundtrack too - in addition to the 60s-70s stuff, Yo Yo Ma adapts traditional Vietnamese songs and Trent Reznor provides some grinding industrial noises for the combat footage.

Chancer3001

anybody ever see a documentary about a guy in rural china who only has daughters? Angry at the gods for having no sons?

The local thugs chop his goats head off cos the goat ate some of their vegetables?

Thats about all I remember but I would love to watch it again

bear1

Chancer3001 wrote: »

anybody ever see a documentary about a guy in rural china who only has daughters? Angry at the gods for having no sons?

The local thugs chop his goats head off cos the goat ate some of their vegetables?

Thats about all I remember but I would love to watch it again

Sounds like utter ****e.
A good one I'm watching now on Netflix is the confession tapes.

McMurphy

The Jinx on Netflix is pretty good.

That Bob is one fcuked up mofo.

blade1

Johnny Dogs wrote: »

The Jinx on Netflix is pretty good.

That Bob is one fcuked up mofo.

The ending Is priceless!!

NIMAN

Probably mentioned already, but there is an Irish produced doc on the Voyager space missions called The Farthest.

It is fascinating.

https://www.rte.ie/culture/2017/0801/894428-the-farthest-space-is-the-place/