Education Do you know an any awesome Documentaries?

Post awesome documentary's





Pretty interesting and made me realize the logistical importance of Greenland between the two super powers.

 

Most don't take me up on the recommendation based on the synopsis:

A filmmaker decides to memorialize a murdered friend when his friend's ex-girlfriend announces she is expecting his son.

My guess is because seems inconsequential, impacting only the people involved, but it is undoubtedly the most human, emotional documentary I've ever seen.

 

Note: I'm posting links to either the full movie (if available for free) or the trailer instead of embedding because I'm posting a lot of movies.

King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters - A documentary about a guy who wants to beat the Donkey Kong world record 20-some years later. It came out in 2007, but somehow means so much more now, after all this gamergate crap.
The documentary is a perfect microcosm of the toxic parts of video game culture. There's a guy who was an athlete in high school, who dedicates himself to becoming good at things (self taught at piano, is good, etc.), but who has always felt a bit on the outs, who decides he wants to beat a world record and gets into Donkey Kong. There's a group video game nerds whose claim to fame was that they were good at these games from the 80s. They are still into these games. They treat this other guy like scum. It's like they are taking revenge on all the people who made fun of them growing up through this outsider guy who is just trying to beat a record.
Ultimately it fits the one true measure of a documentary: it gets you to be deeply involved emotionally in something you otherwise wouldn't care at all about.

Dogtown and Z-Boys - A documentary about the birth of extreme skateboarding and the very small group of people that gave birth to the sport. It's very very good.

Tim's Vermeer - I haven't seen a better, more compelling documentary. If you're into art and technology this movie will draw you into the struggle of Tim Jenison, an inventor and technologist who has a secret passion for Johannes Vermeer. Jenison re-invents the technology that he believes Vermeer used to paint his paintings, and then uses it to create a replica Vermeer himself. It is surprisingly emotional and thrilling throughout. I've watched it at least three times because I keep showing it to people who come over to hang out.

Ecstasy of Order: The Tetris Masters - A surprisingly engaging documentary about people who are really good at NES Tetris, and some of the Tetris games that followed. It has an amazing payoff at the end.

Doublefine Adventure Documentary Series - 19 Episodes, over 11.5 hours of documentary pleasure. It's a very worthy inside look into the making of a video games. There are highs and lows. It's incredibly honest, and the music is great.

Atari: Game Over - About the death of Atari as a video game company, and the rumor of the burial of hundreds of thousands of video games in various landfills in the USA. It's pretty good and you can still buy some of the games recovered from the dig on ebay. It's the last I'll include in the "good" list only because you can watch it for free on youtube.

*****Everything after this isn't quite up to the same level as the documentaries posted above, but if you're into these topics (mostly video games), then I'll throw these in as well.*****

GameLoading: Rise of the Indies - A "me too" documentary about indie game developers. It's less whiny than Indie Game: The Movie, but neither are that great. Still, if you're into video games it's interesting, and it's certainly better than Indie Game: The Movie.

Free to Play - A documentary made by Valve to show off DotA 2. It's pretty good.

Indie Game: The Movie - A bit whiney and "in-club," but still interesting and overall a good watch.

Minecraft: The Story of Mojang - Better than Indie Game: The Movie. Chronicles the rise of Minecraft.

Exit Through the Giftshop - A documentary (sort of?) about the street artist Banksy. That's all I'll say about it other than it is interesting.

 

Jodorowsky's Dune is fantastic, it's about the first attempt to make a film of Dune that was canned just before filming.

I Know That Voice is John DiMaggios documentary about the voice acting industry.

It Might Get Loud is a bit odd, but the premise is they got the edge, jack white and jimmy page together to jam a bit and talk about the things they love about guitars, and there are cutaways to them visiting places they are from/grew up in/store all their vinyl.

To Mars By A-bomb is an old bbc4 doc about project orion, it's pretty cool if you like that sort of stuff (post manhattan project, pre apollo).

Fuzz, the sound that changed the world is a doc about guitar effects pedals and the people who make them. very specific, but i love docs showing people enthusing about things they love and it's great for that.

For All Mankind - Covers the Apollo Missions and has some awesome restored HD footage of humans firing things as fast as they can at the sky.

Champion - A doc about Danny Trejo, and why he's awesome.

The Burger and the King - a doc about Elvis Presley's love of food and the trouble (death?) it caused him.

those are among my favourites from recent memory. Dear Zachary as posted above i'd also vouch for.

 

Some excellent stuff there, d_stilgar!

May I also recommend:

Jiro Dreams of Sushi

Cafe de los Maestros

 

Even though I could list endless good documentaries, one of the best (imo) is The Secret Life of Chaos.

 

Calling Indie Game The Movie "a bit whiney" is a massive understatement. It's what ended up annoying me about the movie was how whiney they were.

Also the creator of Fez is just a massive dick.

 

First on my list would be Jodorowsky's Dune and Double Fine Adventure, but I see those have been posted already.
In addition:

Orson Welles' F for Fake.
Probably one of the most well made documentaries I've ever seen. The content is fascinating, but the documentary itself is incredibly interesting too... It's hard to explain. Just watch it, it'll blow your mind.
There's definitely no other documentary like it.

 

How Beer Saved The World

enough said

 

How did I miss Jiro Dreams of Sushi!? The movie starts off by telling you there's a sushi place in Japan where people pay $700 per seat. You can't believe that it could possibly be worth that price, but by the end of the movie you are ready to buy that ticket to Japan. It's super compelling.

Jodorowsky's Dune was a bit underwhelming for me. I think my expectations of it were a little over-inflated. It was still neat to learn about the crazy cast that was slated to be in the movie, and it's interesting to see how much of modern Hollywood was influenced by a movie that was never made, but the ideas behind the movie, this movie-that-was-never-made, are much more interesting than the documentary itself.

I'll add one more:
Man on Wire - The story of a man who illegally tightrope walked between the world trade center towers in NYC. It's a heist movie that really happened. It has you on the edge of your seat, and it's all real. I will give the one caveat. I was recommended to watch this by a friend years before I finally got around to it. I had to be in the mood and I knew I just plain wasn't. But then one day I just felt the need to watch it and was richly rewarded. But it's okay to wait until you're in the right mood.

 

Lots of excellent suggestions. Cannot agree more, Jiro Dreams of Sushi is amazing. For another good food documentary, check out Somm.

 

I still really enjoy Long Way Round, and Long Way Down.. and Both on Netflix.

That, and anything with Louie Theroux in..

 

Touching the Void - (From wikipedia) The recounting of "Joe Simpson's and Simon Yates' disastrous and near fatal attempt to climb Siula Grande (6,344 m) in the Cordillera Huayhuash in the Peruvian Andes in 1985." It's certainly from the group of stories so crazy it's hard to believe they aren't fiction. Touching the Void is gripping. You'll carry the emotions you get from that movie with you for a long time.

 

Anything by Adam Curtis

 

VipersGratitude is spot on about Dear Zachary. Emotional rollercoaster that seems too hard to believe, but sadly it's all very real. Fantastic documentary. Be prepared for that one.

Boy Interrupted (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lltJhpM4C0) - Story of 15-year old Evan Perry who committed suicide after suffering from bipolar disorder for most of his life. His parents were film producers so they recorded his life in video from the day he was born, until the day he died.

Bully (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUy2ZWoStr0) - Another very sad and, at times, infuriating documentary about victims of bullying and the utter ineptitude of the people in charge at these schools.

Blackfish - About an orca called Tilikum that was captured, used as an attraction at various water parks, and was involved in the death of 3 people. The film exposes the lies of Seaworld Orlando and the horrible conditions that drove many orcas insane. A must watch. I watched this on Netflix.

Almost forgot about this one.
Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison Of Belief - An exposé of Scientology. Very detailed about the beginnings of the religion and it's creator, L.Ron Hubbard. Has a fascinating part about Tom Cruise to. My only criticism is that it doesn't go into enough detail about why people, smart people, were with the religion for so long. Would have been nice to hear a bit about the other side to Scientology, maybe a bit about the community aspect about it.

 

10/10 must watch for fans of any featured artists or just the genres they fall into.

While we're talking about rockumentaries, any self respecting Punk or Rock/Rock & Roll music fan should watch both Back and Forth by Foo Fighters and Sound City by Dave Grohl featuring the rest of the band along with many other incredible artists. The Sonic Highways series is also worth a watch, I learned a lot about the new album from it as well as a lot of interesting history related to a genre of music that I've been listening to my whole life but never really knew the origins of.

 

The Art of the Steal - The story of an art collector who collected art before the artists were famous. It's now worth $25 billion dollars. He set up his will and trust to ensure that it was never moved from his estate, but this documentary shows how looters stole the collection and relocated it to Philadelphia.

 

I hope no one minds me bumping this thread back up.

I watched Jiro Dreams of Sushi and Tim's Vermeer and both were brilliant. Obsessive people are fascinating . Tim's Vermeer had a very nice soundtrack too.
Dear Zachary's next when I find the time.

 

Have not seen this since release 20 years ago:

Crocodile river: the tides of Kirawira

Best nature documentary I have ever seen.

 

This, this and that. All top-tier content, all available on Netflix, I've been steadily working my way through all of these. Though I do find Louis Theroux a bit frustrating in that he doesn't do any editorializing at all - he never reflects on what he's seeing, never offers personal commentary beyond pointing out the facts of the matter. The sheer lack of opinion or bias makes it feel a bit robotic and clinical - valuable as pure information, but not the first voice in the discussion that he clearly could be (and would like to be if not for his own journalistic sentiments).

It's not strictly speaking free, and I'd encourage buying it on blu-ray (it's been remastered and it's glorious) but Kenneth Clark's Civilization (linked: full youtube upload by unscrupulous youtubers) is very highbrow and interesting, if a bit dry and slow-paced.

And Carl Sagan anything, of course.

And all the modern David Attenboroughs - Planet Earth, Frozen Planet, etc., of course.

Do these even bear pointing out, or do we just assume everyone alive has seen them? Surely everyone has.

edit - the Brony documentary is on Netflix, too, and is interesting if you're neither intimately familiar with nor savagely predisposed against the movement. Q (or John de Lancie) features heavily in it, and he's a pretty cool guy. He hugs bronies and doesn't afraid of anything.