Top 5ish Documentaries

[golfguy1672]

Vegucated

Fat, sick, and nearly dead

Food matters

Hungry for change - probably my favorite one.

As you can see I prefer documentaries about food related shows

[PrairieDog]

Cosmos (Carl Sagan) - 10 parts
Connections (James Burke) - 10 parts
The Day The Universe Changed (James Burke) - 10 parts
War (Gwynne Dyer) - 7 parts
The War Of The World (Niall Ferguson) - 6 parts

Each one of these is an intellectual overload, I highly recommend watching each of them - I've watched them all at least 4 or 5 times. I am sure I could add another dozen, but these are the first ones that come to me.

[doulos]

Wait, what? WHy had I not heard of the Gwynne Dyer documentary? Strange, as I really like him!

[Dakkster]

I love watching documentaries, and I could come up with more, but here is a bunch of varied stuff that I think should be on everyone's watch list:

Best Worst Movie: A documentary about one of the most famous bad movies, Troll 2. They interview the actors and all that. Troll 2 is one of my favorite bad movies, but the documentary is better.
Jesus Camp: About psychotic, fundamentalist christians who run a children's camp to indoctrinate kids. The woman in charge seriously talks about how she wants to make kids into actual soldiers for god and not in the metaphorical sense. Frightening.
Bully: Watch it. All of it, start to finish. Take it all in. This should be mandatory viewing for everyone, everywhere.
American Winter: People who have it tough in the current economic climate.
Gasland: About fracking, the people who benefit from it and the people who are victims to it.
Food Inc: Pretty nutty how the food production in our world has changed.
Indie Game The Movie: About the development of a handful of indie games, Fez, Super Meat Boy and Braid IIRC. We see what goes into game development on your own and what it takes to be successful. Some interesting personalities in this one.
Fat Head: Everyone who likes Super-Size Me should watch this one. It's a counter-doc, so to speak.
Deliver Us From Evil: About a pedophile priest protected by the catholic church. Pretty harrowing.
I.O.U.S.A.: Debt in USA.
The Aristocrats: About comedy, specifically a single joke, and a bunch of comedians talk about it and the different aspects of comedy.
Objectified: What goes into design of different objects? This doc takes a look at that. Form? Function?
Inside Job: Another one about the bank and insurance fraud/catastrophe of 07/08, narrated by Matt Damon.
The Shock Doctrine: The one from 2009, not the one from 2007. The one from 07 is good, but the one from 09 is better. Based on Naomi Klein's excellent book. It's about disaster capitalism and the Chicago school of economics. How that has shaped the world and different countries in scary and sickening ways.
This Film is Not Yet Rated: How the American ratings system is a joke. Filmmakers talk about it, how random and secretive the organization is.

I like all the Michael Moore docs, but he seems to be a love him or hate him kind of guy. Sometimes he's very heavy-handed and sometimes he's wonderfully subtle about making you think instead of shoving his opinion down your throat.

[PrairieDog]

Wait, what? WHy had I not heard of the Gwynne Dyer documentary? Strange, as I really like him!

Yeah I'm a huge fan of his as well - you probably haven't heard of it because it came out in 1983. But believe me, its still incredibly relevant over 30 years later.

[Rylant]

I agree with the following.

Grizzly Man - such a tragic ending
Bowling for Columbine - probably my Favorite. Definitely change some of my thought process
When We Were Kings - amazing documentary

Senna - documentary about the life and tragic death of racing legend, Aryton Senna
Woodstock - 3 1/2 hour movie covering the event Woodstock. Edited by Martin Scorsese. Awesome stuff
An Inconvenient Truth - Oscar winning documentary about the damage that man-made pollution has on the Earth. It pulls no punches, and is terrifying
Man on Wire - Documentary covering Phillipe Petit and his crime committing tight rope walk between the world trade centre buildings in 1974.

This is Spinal Tap - Tongue in cheek documentary. Does it count?

Rylant

[butch]

watched a few docs on hbo canada recently -one was about the fracking industry the other about monsanto corporation -pretty scary shit .

generally enjoy most crime docs.

[doulos]

Monsanto is the ultimate troll company. Relative to many of their peers, they are not even that horrible of a company, but they could build an orphanage for blind kids and people would flip out and say that they are doing for patent reasons. Funny stuff.

[kevinsrangers]

i thought" hired guns" was excellent. its about session musicians

planet earth stuff is still my favourite though.

[forumname]

Forgot about this thread, thanks for reviving it! Some of my new faves:

The Dawn Wall (maybe my new all-time favorite)
Magnus
Free Solo (intense and impressive, but nowhere near as good as The Dawn Wall imo)
Jim & Andy
Indie Game The Movie

[lucafen4]

Why We Hate

six-part documentary television series which is an "exploration into the human condition of hatred and how we can overcome it." It will be directed by Geeta Gandbhir and Sam Pollard and will be produced by Steven Spielberg's Amblin Television and Alex Gibney's Jigsaw Productions.