Documentaries

[quote]I think documentaries must be my favourite genre of film

I think you mean "jandra".

The Fog of War

Spellbound, Capturing the Friedmans, The Parrots of Telegraph Hill, March of the Penguins

The Up series.

One of the best documentaries I think PBS has ever done. The music score alone is so haunting and atmospheric that you can’t help but be transported right into the tragedy that was the Donner party.

Imposter, Little Dieter Needs to Fly, Samsara, Stevie, The Dog, Grey Gardens, My Octopus Teacher

Lanzmann's Shoah

“The Times of Harvey Milk”

Tarnation, Gray Gardens, Taxi to the Dark Side, The Fog of War, Night & Fog, Paradise Lost, Crazy Love, The Weather Underground, The is Not a Film, The Thin Blue Line, Searching for Sugarman, The Devil and Daniel Johnston, Crumb, Dirty Wars, Dark Days, The Cruise, A Band Called Death

"Documentaries" which incorporate irrelevant emotional details and an orchestral score to get the audience weeping are NOT documentaries.

Kevin Brownlow's "Hollywood", about the silent film industry.

"Royal Cousins", about King George V, Tsar Nicholas II and Kaiser Wilhelm during WWI.

The Powder and the Glory, about Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubinstein, cosmetics entrepreneurs who dominated the industry in the first half of the twentieth century.

Afternoon of a Faun, the tragic story of ballerina Tanaquil LeClerc, whose career ended when she contracted polio.

If you are a fan of documentaries about filmmaking:

Leap of Faith: William Friedkin on The Exorcist

Jodorowsky's Dune

Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films

The Five Obstructions

Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's Island of Dr. Moreau

De Palma

Room 237

The Kid Stays in the Picture

78/52

Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel

Life Itself

Memory: The Origins of Alien

"In the Shadow of 9/11", a PBS Frontine documentary, is so good. It's about some bumbling Caribbean guys who are ultimately framed as terrorists by the US government, who wanted to make examples of them and earn accolades.

Some parts of it are funny, some are really sad, but the whole thing is riveting.

R10 Avoid the Ken Burns' woke-fests.

How to survive a plague. Every Little Step.

R11 Thanx for the heads-up about "Royal Cousins at War". Watching it now.

Fun fact: George and Willie were first cousins, via George's father Edward VII and Willie's mum, Victoria, the Princess Royal (children of Queen Victoria). Nicky and George were first cousins, via their mothers, sisters Dagmar and Alexandra, daughters of Denmark's Christian IX . Nicky was Willie's cousin-in-law, via his marriage to Willie's cousin, Alix of Hess and by Rhine, who's mother was Princess Alice, the younger sister of Willie's mum (and a daughter of Queen Victoria).

Erratum R16 Nicky was Willie's first cousin-in-law, via his marriage to Willie's first cousin, Alix

I’ve long loved Barbet Schroeder’s “Idi Amin Dada”. It’s a condemnation of colonialism, but it also lets Idi Amin be his terrifying, insane, risible self. It’s horrifying and hilarious and one never knows which way it’s going to go.

Sarah Polley’s ‘Stories We Tell’. The less you know about it beforehand, the better. But it’s a beautiful exploration of its subject matter, as well as being a moving deconstruction of the form.

Dawson's 50 Load Weekend

The Act of Killing'(2012) Dreams of a Life (2011) Spellbound (2002) The King of Kong (2007) The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (2003)

The Thin Blue Line

Tongues Untied

Harlan County, USA

Holy Ghost People

The Pruitt-Igoe Myth

Paris is Burning

Fake Fruit Factory

R18 here: this should provide more information as to why I consider this my favourite documentary!

Three Identical Strangers.

I have little interest in sports or true crime, but ESPN did like a six part or so documentary on OJ Simpson that was exceptional and riveting and held my attention for over like seven hours in the movie theater.

My Architect about Louis Kahn, the greatest modernist architect who dropped dead in Philly’s 30th Street Station with no ID and remained unclaimed for days, only for it to emerge he had multiple families in secret from from each other.

The frontline docu of the 1996 Mount Everest tragedy was riveting! I remember the threads about it here on DL too.

Some Nixon Watergate docus were great. Better than the best soap opera drama.

My Life as a Turkey

I love the work of Ken Burns.

Some other favorites: 20 Feet from Stardom Paris Is Burning Hoop Dreams Visions of Light Summer of Soul

Amiee and Jaguar, which was a book first, about a secret lesbian couple in WWII German, one was the trophy with of a high ranking Nazi officer and the other was a secret Jewish underground resistance fighter.

^^^ wife

Speaking of Turkey, there was an interesting documentary about feral cats in Istanbul that was quite nice and I’m not at all a cat person or find them that interesting.

“A Lion in the House” on Netflix. I had to turn it off several times from crying.

Another vote for Brownlow’s “Hollywood”.

There are some very good docs already listed themselves. I will add:

How To Die in Oregon.

(do not watch if you are depressed or contemplating suicide.)

Finding Vivian Maier

R30 Sorry, the nonfiction book and movie movie were Aimee and Jaguar, the documentary is Love Story Berlin 1942, and here’s the English version in full.

Listed as a docudrama I Am My Own Wife does include the actual person who it is about with two actors portraying her at younger ages as well.

More of a technological marvel then anything, They Shall Not Grow Old is period WWI footage that has been meticulously restored, colorized and added sound and dialogue, sometimes based on lip reading of people in the film, and it’s corrected to be the accurate speed despite being hand cranked, to give a first hand experience of what being on the battle field during the war was like, all done under the care of director Peter Jackson for the Imperial War Museum.

No love for Michael Moore or Al Gore?

39 replies in and no one posts this one?!

R40? It's listed at R9.

The Sunshine Hotel set in NYC about men in a flophouse. I was impressed by the narrator given his circumstances and a guy named Tony broke my heart.

R26 Kahn died at Penn Station in New York, and almost ended up at Hart Island.

Word Is Out: Stories of Some of Our Lives.

There were some spectacular documentary series in the 1970s: Kenneth Clark's Civilization, which was a history of western art; the original Cosmos; and the stunning British series The World at War, which I spotted the other day on a streaming service. Very hard to deny the Holocaust after you've watched that. The episode called The Bomb is also sobering viewing, if not for the devastation then for the enthusiasm of the droppers.

The coloring on R38 doesn’t look too good. I’ve seen much better colorizations.

I love a number of the documentaries mentioned: Grey Gardens, Capturing the Friedmans and Tongues Untied

I've become a big fan of Ken Burns, whose work I was mostly unfamiliar with prior to last year. I think I've seen about a half dozen of his films during that time. In fact it's to his credit that I'm willing to give the works of Hemingway a second chance.

I'm also a fan of Rob Epstein, who in addition to the Harvey Milk bio, also made The Celluloid Closet, Common Threads, Paragraph 175, The AIDS Show and Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice. (He also worked on Word Is Out.)

I love the documentaries about movies Martin Scorsese was involved with. They include Il Mio Viaggio in Italia, Val Lewton: The Man in the Shadows, and A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies

Then there are Scorsese's docs Italianamerican, Public Speaking, and the one on George Harrison

And some random documentaries I've also enjoyed: The Lady and the Dale, Hot Coffee, Divided States of America, A Time of AIDS, Abraham and Mary Lincoln: A House Divided, Grizzly Man, Hitchcock Truffaut, Bowling for Columbine, and 102 Minutes.

R16 You're welcome!

"Standing in the Shadows of Motown" was shitty in that its premise was to give credit to the musicians (guitarists, drummers, etc.) who were in the "shadows" of the vocalists. Yet, they've got vocalist Joan Osborne prominently featured on the doc. The documentary ended up glorifying vocalists, yet again.

One of the best films I saw last year was “Gunda” about the life of a pig on a farm in Sweden. The presence of humans is kept at a remove until near the end of the movie. It has the most amazing cinematography which I can only describe as the way Josef von Sternberg filmed Marlene Dietrich.

Another doc I had never known about but discovered recently was “Boatman” by Gianfranco Rosi about the Ganges River, Hindu death rituals, the Indian caste system, etc. Totally blew my head off- it’s on Kanopy streaming.

I really want to see Flee.

Ken Burns Jazz and The West are amazing and unforgettable. I love a lot of documentaries about the seedier aspects of life. Whores Glory, Love at the Twilight Hotel and Through a Blue Lens are all very good too.

Tell Me Who I Am on Netflix.

Finding Vivien Maier is terrific.

I enjoyed many of the ones mentioned already. Here’s one that’s not as artistically interesting, but was gripping: The Crash Reel, about a son of Simon Pearce (the glassblower) who got in a snowboarding accident.

The first ones that come to mind:

JFK: 3 Shots That Changed America

9/11: The Lost Tapes

Leaving Neverland (not an easy watch, but very compelling)

There's Something Wrong With Aunt Diane

The mysterious case of a New York woman who set off from an upstate campground towards home on Long Island, only to eventually crash into an oncoming car, killing herself and seven others.

You start off sympathizing with the poor frau, then end up thinking she may have been a monster.

My favourite true crime documentaries are Unseen about the Cleveland strangler, Bayou Blue, Tales of the Grim Sleeper and the Pig Farm

[quote]You start off sympathizing with the poor frau, then end up thinking she may have been a monster.

Aunt Diane is a Datalounge icon.

Oh, yeah. Aunt Diane is a must-see. I don't know if I felt she was a monster. I think that her husband & the sister-in-law (both featured in the doc) were having an affair. Husband seemed like a couch potato / gamer type of man (Diane was more like a mother to him than a wife). I think she was a heavy drinker and pot smoker. She got fed up one day and did what she did.

Capturing the Friedmans, Every Little Step, Spellbound, McQueen, The Staircase, Midnight Movies, Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocolypse, The Celluloid Closet, 9to5: Days in Porn, Shoah, Gimme Shelter, My Kid Could Paint That, Heaven's Gate, Going Clear, Living Dolls: The Making of a Child Beauty Queen.

Man on Wire is amazing.

Grizzly Man, The Source Family, Chickenhawk, Hot Girls Wanted, American Murder: The Family Next Door (Chris Watts), and I like this episode of Canada's The Fifth Estate where experts break down the Russell Williams Interrogation. The Dateline episode about him, hosted by Keith Morrison, is also very good.

“There’s Something Wrong With Aunt Diane” is such an ominous title. Very sad story.

This just came out this week from The New Yorker-“Nothing to Declare” follows the story of two young boys from Dublin who snuck a successful ride on a plane to New York City back in 1985.

Make sure to buy a couple boxes of Kleenex first!

Flee was disappointing. Interesting story but the animation wasn’t great and it dragged a bit. I was expecting a lot more.

Great recs on this thread.

If you like cranky New Yorkers:

I Like Killing Flies

It documents Shopsins restaurant in Greenwich Village.

I just thought of another documentary filmmaker I like - Josh Fox.

I think his personality has a lot to do with it - plus I find him kind of attractive - but I do like GasLand, GasLand 2, and How to Let Go of the World and Love All the Things Climate Can't Change (a title as long as Lina Wertmuller title).

Oh, and how can I forget Shoah!

The Sorrow and the Pity

The Memory of Justice

Crazy Love

The Woman Who Wasn't There

Three Identical Strangers

Idiocracy

"History of Britain" series by Simon Schama

The Wonderful Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl - Fascinating portrait of a true sociopath, who was able to live to over100. Yikes!

The Architecture of Doom - Promotes the intriguing thesis that many of the upper Nazi echelon were failed artists.

Werner Herzog is a great documentarian. I like everything he's done.

Can anyone recommend any good documentaries about New York’s history? Especially the seedy era of Times Square.

Bright Lights (HBO).

Crumb.

R78 - Netflix recently released this three-episode series. I thought the manner in which it explored the case was somewhat tawdry, but it gives a lot of the broader context about New York and Times Square at that time.

Farenheit 9-1-1-

Haven't read the entire thread but Ken Burns' 3 part doc on the Teddy, FDR and Eleanor Roosevelt is spectacular.

"Tickled" ia amazing. I might have read about it here in the last thread we did on this subject. Equal parts scary, weird and funny.

"Magic & Bird: A Courtship of Rivals". I don't think one necessarily needs to be a sports/basketball fan to enjoy it, or learn something from (especially if one didn't live through the late 1970s & 1980s).

From Variety review: [quote]Thanks, HBO Sports, for another one of those scintillating documentaries that give grown men an excuse to cry, if only in the safety of their living rooms. “Magic & Bird: A Courtship of Rivals” is a walk down memory lane with two basketball legends, sure, but it’s simultaneously a look at an unlikely friendship between two guys who couldn’t be more different, except for their extraordinary skills on the court. Teeming with carefully selected clips and interviews — and welcome insight into the sociology of the NBA and indeed America in the 1980s — for hoops aficionados, it’s fan-tastic.

'Trinity and Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie'. Outstanding footage, a masterful music score, and a great narration by William Shatner. Yes, that's right, he does and great job and never descends into vocal shtick.

Documentaries are my drug but I detest what the youngsters are doing to them--animation, reenactments, gimmicks.

One that hasn't been mentioned here but has never been equaled for investigative forensic journalism is "Waco: The Rules of Engagement."

Two documentaries, both art related. Both fascinating.

The Art of the Steal (about the Barnes Collection in PA)

Herb and Dorothy - MUST SEE!! (Together they amassed one of the most important contemporary art collections in the world. Herb & Dorothy tells the extraordinary tale of Herb and Dorothy Vogel, a seemingly ordinary couple who filled their humble one-bedroom New York apartment with more than 4,000 works of art over a 45-year period.)

R7 Shoah had a huge impact without using photos of the Holocaust. Words were enough .

With so many good and interesting doc to watch, I wish I could live forever

Aunt Diane's words were "Why is there so much upstate traffic today?"

[quote] [R10] Avoid the Ken Burns' woke-fests.

Considering that “The Civil War” is probably the greatest television documentary ever made, that’s a hard no, Defacto.

[quote] "History of Britain" series by Simon Schama

That guy was a joke with all his ticks and pointless visuals.

He prefers to live sway from Britain.

Jon Alpert's "Life of Crime". Chronicles a span of 36 years of three criminal/addicts. It is fascinating.

I can’t imagine anyone considering Ken Burns’s Civil War doc a “woke-fest” given the prominence of Shelby Foote and the “Robert E. Lee was a fiiiine gentleman who just loved the state of Virginia!” types.

Watching "Drunk , Stoned Brilliant, Dead: The Story of the National Lampoon." I loved that magazine when I was a teenager...loved Spy when I was older

HBO has some good documentaries. PBS too..

They aren't documentaries.

They are—

Daddy and the Muscle Academy. Naturally.

BEEFCAKE. A Datalounge classic.

Jiro Dreams of Sushi

Blackfish

The Rape of Europa about art treasures looted by the nazis. Waiting for the Moon, about the lives of Toklas and Stein.

I watched the 1992 PBS documentary about the Donner Party last night, as recommended upthread, and it was indeed excellent. Extremely spooky.

Still want to see Wisconsin Death Trip.

The OP asks—

[quote] What are some of the best documentaries you’ve ever seen?

We seem to be choosing them for the subject matter rather than the quality of film-making.

Wisconsin Death Trip is excellent

R100 So lush! Even if it is black and white.

Obviously Gray Gardens (I also like to watch Dominic Dunne Power Privilege and Justice)

R109 here- I forgot Ken Burns and his documentary on the Dust Bowl- honestly as entertaining as Gray Gardens was, that Ken Burns doc was the best I have ever seen and I didn't have even the slightest interest in the Dust Bowl- I was just desperate for something new to watch while we were all stuck inside this year.

I loved “Exit through the Gift Shop”. A fun, twisty critique of the influence money has on art.

Hoop Dreams

Cool, here’s a good place to dump this. I just finished Empire of Pain and found out that one of the Sackler grandchildren was the person who made the movie The Lottery about kids trying to get into a charter school in Harlem. At the time I thought it was a very good, and well done documentary and having a background in education I was happy to see a dialogue on the topic and felt swayed towards charter schools more then I had before. So, OxyContin helped finance a large part of that production and now I feel icky. Apparently, she also did a prison documentary as well without ever being forward about her family’s role in the opiates problem and the fact that there’s a direct line between what her family does and people incarcerated for crimes connected to that. Beware of who is making the documentaries you’re watching, where the finance is coming from and what hidden agendas those people have.

Bad Blood about Elizabeth Holmes and the Theranos scandal.

Some great suggestions here, thank you!

Werner Herzog: Lo and Behold. Cave of Forgotten Dreams.

"Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis" (2006) about the life and times of the legendary gay artist who influenced too many to mention, including Andy Warhol and Bob Wilson

"Marwencol" (2010) the story of a gay bashing victim who lives in a fantasy world represented by an enormous maquette he builds in his house

"The Act of Killing" and "The Look of Silence" (2012-14) are also unmissable.

R78 “P.S. Burn This Letter, Please” about the drag scene in NYC in the 50s and 60s. Very affecting,. A cache of old correspondence from that era was uncovered, and the filmmakers decided to track down some of the fabulous female impersonators, video, and photos featured. Great music. My favorite find from last year. Kanopy.

'Best of Enemies', about Vidal and Buckley. Temple's 'Glastonbury.' Wiseman's 'At Berkeley', and 'The National Gallery.'

I've been trying to find the documentary about Lene Marie Fossen, a young photographer who succumbed to anorexia. No luck so far.

Aging Body, Rotting Mind--the official Aaron Schock story.