Post good documentaries itt

[aVocado]

I've been thinking about making this thread for a while now because I fucking love watching documentaries but never really did it regularly. I'd just watch them randomly if I go to national geographic on TV or something. I wanna change that though especially after my bio/chem teacher started showing us some really neat documentaries in class when we had extra time and were already ahead of schedule, and I really fucking loved them that I went home and continued them if we didn't finish in class.

SteelEdges also showed me a really neat site called documentary heaven that has a bunch of them labeled by categories.

Here are two of them that I watched recently:

Pain, Pus, and Poison. It's 3 parts and there is a playlist in the same uploader's channel with all 3 of them. It talks about the history of modern medicine/drugs and how a lot of the current poisons/medicines (including anasthesia, painkillers, recreational drugs etc) were discovered and the process of their discovery and then how they went on to be marketed/sold to the public. Really wonderful presenter (idk his name tbh) that keeps you entertained and hooked. The guy literally puts cocaine in his eye in one of the clips.

(the youtube vid is bad so you better watch it here: http://documentaryheaven.com/charles-darwin-and-the-tree-of-life/)

Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life. I think it's self explanatory but it talks about how the scientific theory of evolution first started and how Darwin came to discovering evolution etc. Also talks about the reception the theory got and all the details including missing links etc. Really great and simple to understand for everyone. Presented by David Attenborough which has been making documentaries for BBC for quite a while now. Most importantly it touches on how life first started and then evolved to the way it is now in a really lovely illustration that summarizes the thing very neatly.

Also another one is Chemistry: A Volatile History presented by Jim Al-khalili which talks about chemistry's history and how a lot of the elements were discovered back in the really old days.

 

[Minority]

The Empire of Dreams is the most extensive documentary about the making of the original Star Wars films. I saw this documentary as a kid and it's what got me interested in filmmaking. It's quite long but there aren't really any lulls in my opinion which is always a plus for a documentary. One of its focuses are all the very specific circumstances that allowed for Star Wars to come about and why it worked. The most interesting part for me is how the film was a disaster initially (production, some post production, and some pre production) and how very few people believed in it. I also really enjoy the interviews with Irvin Kershner.

Yea another documentary about Star Wars but this one is much different (just the trailer because it's not on youtube for free). I recently saw this one after wanting to see it for a couple years and it was pretty solid. It's essentially about the dysfunctional relationship between Star Wars fans and George Lucas and what happens when a film becomes a monumental pop culture success. The most interesting aspect is in regards to the idea of ownership of artwork and if something can ever be so iconic that it really belongs to culture and not to an individual.

Hearts of Darkness (sorry just the trailer again) is about the making of Coppola's Apocalypse Now. It follows how the production process went totally out of control and how despite this the film turned out to be a great success.

This is the obligatory smash documentary. You can tell a lot of work went into this and I feel like they really captured a lot of what the game is about and why it's so interesting while still being understandable to people who have never played the game. The run time, however, is really intimidating for people who don't play Melee or aren't super interested in competitive gaming.

 

[aVocado]

While we're on topic of the smash documentary, it's actually episodic with 9 episodes of about 20-25 minutes each so you could check those out instead. I personally kinda marathoned the entire thing and it was extremely amazing considering I'm obsessed with competitive smash and seeing the melee scene start from 2001 and grow to what it is today was absolutely remarkable.

 

[Glen]

werner herzog makes fantastic (and sometimes fantastical) documentaries covering a wide range of topics

ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD

beautiful documentary about antarctica, different than most in that it spends less time covering animals (the video i linked aside) and more time covering the people that live there. it's pretty fascinating.

HAPPY PEOPLE: A YEAR IN THE TAIGA

a truly engrossing look at trappers in the wilds of siberia. despite how obviously taxing and arduous the lifestyle is, it is hard not to fetishize it after watching.

ON DEATH ROW

documentary about four people on death row. was eventually turned into the feature length 'into the abyss' which i havent seen yet.



herzog has made a ton of incredible documentaries, lessons of darkness is also really good (when it debuted at cannes it was booed pretty heavily, at which point he rose to his feet, ran to the stage and started shouting 'YOU'RE ALL WRONG' at the audience), so is my best fiend, though the latter isn't as interesting if you aren't familiar with klaus kinski and his relationship with herzog. if you want to become familiar, watch aguirre the wrath of god or fitzcarraldo.

also:

also another cool documentary i watched recently was called vivan las antipodas

it's not informative or anything but it's a resplendent look at two geographical antipodes in argentina and china. really gorgeous and immersive.

also anything by adam curtis is pretty fantastic, especially it felt like a kiss

super creative take on the documentary, no narration except the occasional bit of text on the screen, everything is archival footage and american pop music from the 1950s-70s. spooky and elucidating and unique. skip to 1:50 for a better idea of what it's about.

 

[TheValkyries]

I just watched one called "an honest liar" on Netflix recently about a magician who made it his life's work to denounce frauds. It was a really really really fuckin good documentary about truth and lies and how we have black and white views of the morality of that when in fact it's v grey.

Good shit.

 

[vonFiedler]

I just watched one called "an honest liar" on Netflix recently about a magician who made it his life's work to denounce frauds. It was a really really really fuckin good documentary about truth and lies and how we have black and white views of the morality of that when in fact it's v grey.

Good shit.

Haven't seen it, but it's worth noting that James Randi is part of a long line of stage magicians who double as vocal skeptics. Other good examples include Houdini and Penn & Teller.

 

[TheValkyries]

Haven't seen it, but it's worth noting that James Randi is part of a long line of stage magicians who double as vocal skeptics. Other good examples include Houdini and Penn & Teller.

Yeah, sorry didn't mean to make it seem like that was a unique thing. I was gonna say more but it kinda reveals a twist I guess and spoiling it makes the movie description seem like a cheap gimmick so I didn't continue with what I was gonna say, ROFL.

 

[aVocado]

I just watched this documentary called Infested: Living with Parasites presented by Michael Mosley who's made a name for himself by self-experimenting for the sake of the documentaries... and yes, you guessed it right, nigga self-experiments with parasites in this one.

He fucking swallows tapeworms, literally, and grows them in his intestines to see what they would do. The documentary also talks about some extremely interesting things relating to how parasites can help us understand how humans came to evolve from apes and what the early humans' behaviour was like.

 

[RODAN]

this is my favourite documentary; its about a iranian filmmaker who is sentenced to house arrest and not allowed to make films for 20 years. So naturally he just records himself living out his everyday life and saying that it isnt a film. really really fascinating (its on netflix i think)

 

[Minwu]

 

[DM]

Last Minutes With Oden. I can't even watch it anymore, it makes me cry too much.

 

[asterat]

king of kongs. dk documentary.

 

[HelenTheHero]

I found this thread. I am intrigued. So, I thought to share one of my favorite series of all time... it's great for it's age, and here's the first three episodes because I couldn't find the first episode on its own without horrible quality. Walking with Dinosaurs used to be on Netflix, but they removed it along with Walking with Beasts and Walking with Monsters.

And another because I'm a dinosaur geek, and this is such a great one. It's also on Netflix.