Best documentaries you have seen

BrensBenz · 27-07-2014 12:28PM

scudzilla wrote: »

You really can't beat any Attenborough documentaries

And largely due to the incredible skill of the cameramen as well as Attenborough's spellbinding delivery.

One outstanding image for me is from an Attenborough documentary about polar bears. The scene was photographed underwater as a bear slid off the ice into a mirrorlike sea. Camera facing upwards, taking in a perfect blue sky, we had maybe ten seconds of watching the undercarriage of probably the nastiest carnivore on Earth, doing the doggie-paddle to a neighbouring landing area. His huge torso seemed to be suspended in mid-air as his magnificent coat shimmered and waved for the camera.

One brave cameraman, remembering that he was just feet away from a hunting polar bear, in icy water, with heavy equipment, AND, when he surfaced, tired and now carrying "heavier" scuba gear, there was still a fully-mature, male, hungry polar bear well within sniffing distance. His name appeared in the credits, in very small print!

SpaceCowb0y · 05-09-2014 08:38AM

Anyone looking for a bit of a shock to help them shake up their eating habits should have a look at this!

major deegan · 05-09-2014 08:47AM

black and amber wrote: »

Watched The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia recently. Think you've seen inbred hillbillies? Think again.

Do you remember what channel this was on?

major deegan · 05-09-2014 08:50AM

Louis Theroux usually good,on rte2 late tues nites.

Don't Chute! · 05-09-2014 09:00AM

major deegan wrote: »

Do you remember what channel this was on?

I think i watched it online just google the full movie and it should come up.

cocker5 · 05-09-2014 09:19AM

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/cove/

The Cove - amazing yet deeply upsetting at the same time... 100's dolphins everyday slaughtered in Japan for 6 months of the year.... every year.... all for the "flipper market" to train and sell the "perfect dolphin"... rest are all slaughtered... and not even in a humane manner... poked with small knives they take hours to die... crying and jumping out of the water (with their insides hanging out....) i had nightmare for weeks, thinking of all these amazing creatures in pain and dying all for greed.

Then to make matters worse feeding school children dolphin meat which makes them very ill (due to high levels of meceury)...

Yet nobody does anything.... beggars belief really

JeffK88 · 05-09-2014 09:24AM

"We live in public"
The story of Josh Harris. Guy who made money off the internet in the late 90's and blew it all on social experiments and supposable predicted Social Media sites dominance in the world. There s one part that shows you how crazy we really are when we are given anything we want with no rules or conditions attached. A good watch.

mickstupp · 05-09-2014 10:19AM

Recently watched 'Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts', which is pretty great if you like the music of Philip Glass.

Say Your Number · 05-09-2014 11:17AM

Megadeth: Behind the Music is pretty riveting stuff

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBga_Ics9wE

Another great 30 for 30 about a college American Football prospect

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KnjJskiPg0

Also the America's game series is brilliant, the 2001 Patriots and 1987 Redskins are fascinating stories.

Tombo2001 · 05-09-2014 11:22AM

One that will stay with me a long long time is Terry Fox, I Had a Dream. Just the most incredible story.

Another equally incredible one is the documentary on Sixto Rodriguez, Sugarman.

major deegan · 05-09-2014 11:56AM

black and amber wrote: »

I think i watched it online just google the full movie and it should come up.

Thanks,I'll check it out!

05-09-2014 11:58AM

Watched Beware of Mr.Baker on netflix the other day.
Definitely worth a watch

LizzieJones · 05-09-2014 12:23PM

The Great British Year. The cinemaphotography blew me away.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acuoZeILLiE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GY_uMH8Xpy0

bacon? · 05-09-2014 12:29PM

This is Spinal Tap
Pearl Jam 20
Searching for Sugarman
King Corn
Generation Iron
King of Kong

Drakares · 05-09-2014 12:32PM

These guys defrauded the states and thousands of people out of millions and millions, while running a massively "Profitable" international company, that did infact, not have a penny to it's name.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxzLX_C9Z74

kissmequick · 05-09-2014 01:55PM

Irish Doc. about people that live in pain etc. going abroad to die was interesting. It did also have a couple of people on whose opinion was that even though they were sick or in pain or whatever that they felt it was the right thing to do to live out their lives.

Vincent Vega · 05-09-2014 02:45PM

I recently finished a 10 part series called 'Connections: an alternative view of change' by James Burke.
Amazing stuff.

Here's a clip from the first ep where he shows how reliant we are on technology:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKELMR6wACw

Connections takes an interdisciplinary approach to the history of science and invention and demonstrates how various discoveries, scientific achievements, and historical world events were built from one another successively in an interconnected way to bring about particular aspects of modern technology. The series was noted for Burke's crisp and enthusiastic presentation (and dry humour), historical re-enactments, and intricate working models.
Burke begins each episode with a particular event or innovation in the past (usually Ancient or Medieval times) and traces the path from that event through a series of seemingly unrelated connections to a fundamental and essential aspect of the modern world. For example, the episode "The Long Chain" traces the invention of plastics from the development of the fluyt, a type of Dutch cargo ship.

Really one to make you think about the things you'd take for granted in everyday life.
Although it's from 1978, I found the content to be just as relevant now as it was then, if not even moreso.

Am looking forward to watching more from this guy.:)

The Strawman Argument · 05-09-2014 02:54PM

www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDkrunQwoLc
The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On
Errol Morris called it his favourite documentary ever a while back, it done incredibly well on that recent sight and sound list for something f*ck all people have seen too (only about 800 ratings on IMDb atm). Follows a Japanese WW2 veteran who's been on a pursuit to find out what happened to some members of his unit on the final days of the war when the Japanese were getting really desperate. He tracks down former officers and whatnot and tries to get them to tell what happened using whatever means he can, it's a fascinating character study covering a set of people in a period of their lives that I haven't seen covered elsewhere ever (Japanese WW2 officers in the mid/late 80s) but extremely uncomfortable for patches too.

I watch a hell of a lot of documentary films but this is always the first one I bring up when asked.

Can't do links because my postcount is too low, but that's a link to the full film up there.

Might do a listish type thing later

DLMA23 · 05-09-2014 03:38PM

Al-Nakba, an Al Jazeera 4 part series on the Palestinian 'catastrophe' of 1948 that led to dispossession & conflict that still endures today

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/specialseries/2013/05/20135612348774619.html

j80ezgvc3p92xu · 05-09-2014 06:17PM

Oh boy where to start.

Human Resources

A documentary about social engineering. Parts are creepy and disturbing, but it just shows the documentary really does not hold back.

The Kinsey Syndrome

Another awesome documentary that explores how we are constantly duped.

And one of my all time favorites, for those who do not mind doing a bit of reading.

In the Shadow of Hermes.

Takes another look at the Bolshevik Revolution and who was behind it. If you like history, its definitively one to consider.

Fallschirmjager · 05-09-2014 07:40PM

The boxing documentary (don't even like boxing) 'when we were kings'. Excellent. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118147/

American civil war series. Fantastic documentary. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Civil_War_(TV_series)

Hearts of darkness (about the making of apocalypse now). A film on how drugs and making movies don't mix so well.

Shoah (the holocaust documentary). Horrible and scary.

conspiracy, film but based on notes from the Wannasee conference where the nazis agreed on the final solution, scary as fuk. Really creepy how it was agreed.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0266425/

Chosin. Documentary about the Korean battle at the Chosin reservoir when the Chinese arrived.

Pandoras promise. Documentary about nuclear power. Excellent.

Have not seen it yet but got tons of recommendations from friends and I see it has been mentioned here, king of kong, a fistful of quarters. Apparently absolutely priceless

And finally a weird one,

Almost Elvis. It is about Elvis impersonators. Hilarious and finished with a statistic that at some point in a century or so, the entire planet will be Elvis impersonators. Some of them are so bad it's hard to believe it isn't made up..but no, these people are real....

dublinman1990 · 05-09-2014 07:58PM

I have a few documentaries to note myself.

PQ17 - An Arctic Convoy Disaster. One off documentary with Jeremy Clarkson. A must watch for history fans, especially for WWII. (BBC)

The Route Masters - Running London's Roads. This is about the day to day operations of Transport for London. (BBC)

Ian Hislop Goes off the Rails. About the closure of Britain's small railway lines from the Beeching Report. (BBC)

Bealach Na Busanna - About the operations of bus services in rural Ireland and Dublin. (TG4)

Donkey Oaty · 05-09-2014 08:31PM

Vincent Vega wrote: »

James Burke

Good lord, just had a read of his Wiki page, and he's still alive!

He was very much the Dawkins of his day in the 70s and 80s when it came to controversial subjects.

He made very fine programmes exploring the philosophy of science

Here's how Not The Nine O'clock News parodied him in 1980, which just goes to show how well-known he was back then - he comes in at around 1.16

Whispered · 05-09-2014 08:38PM

Terry pratchetts documentary on assisted suicide is absolutely excellent. Heart breaking and thought provoking.

Billy86 · 06-09-2014 04:06PM

Oliver Stone's Untold History of the United States.

Absolutely incredible 12 part series that tries to give a more realistic history of the US (as the Cold War especially has led to some massive distortions caused by propaganda). He is obviously known for his Vietnam War movies, JUL, etc and being very theatrical but this as made in conjunction with a well renowned historian and was fact checked by three different organisations to make sure everything was entirely accurate. Stone is a very interesting character as well, and was awarded a Purple Heart medal of honour for his time in the US army. I would argue that this is far more intriguing and eye opening stuff than Fog of War or really any documentary about American political, imperial and military history.

The amount of "what ifs" you come away from this with is astounding, as well as absolute heroes I had never even heard of previously like George Wallace. It shows how amazing a president Roosevelt really was, and does a great job exposing frauds like Harry Truman and even Eisenhower.

One story from it I just can't love enough is Roosevelt taking the piss out of Churchill in front of Stalin to get his trust, and the two of them seeming to get on quite well on a personal level. If he had lived linger, who knows what the Cold War might have looked like (had it really kicked off at all), but the insane paranoia that came in the US government and military (and CIA) about in the years after his death is mesmerising.

Also brilliantly balanced on the positives and negatives of more divisive presidents like JFK and Nixon. Cannot recommend this enough!

Intro clip:

USA and Iran, ever heard of Operation Ajax?

Unknown hero Vasili Arkhipov may have saved the world:

The power of trust and empathy:

Link to the first episode. They are all quite easy to find online.

Hootanany · 06-09-2014 05:16PM

Dinosaur 13 absolutely brilliant. I had never heard of this Trex before and how the fossil hunters were treated by the US Government a must see from me.

retalivity · 06-09-2014 05:25PM

Havent watched it in a few years but Fiorsceal on TG4 used to be a fantastic show.

The one that sticks in the memory was one about the Chukotkan people living in Russia's far north-east... was insane/bleak/hilarious/sad all in one.

SpaceCowb0y · 15-02-2017 09:55AM

Took me a while to try dig this thread up but just watched this on Netflix last night, it's from 2013 but a good watch for any movie/art fans

re_shaft · 15-02-2017 10:19AM

I watched "TILT: The Battle to Save Pinball" recently. A story on the last-gasp measures to save the world's largest pinball manufacturer, and how it... succeeds in failure

If you're a techie or a gamer, you'll enjoy.

WHIP IT! · 15-02-2017 10:32AM

SpaceCowb0y wrote: »

Just watched this earlier! Such a good watch for any nature/animal fans

Amazing heartfelt look at the lives of an incredible species!

A longshot as it's an old post... but by any chance does someone know which Doc this was before it got removed from the Toob? thanks

Hands down, best thread on AH by the way...

Best documentaries you have seen

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