Masterful story telling is key to content delivery and great documentaries got that in spades.
Key Ingredients that make a Documentary great and have a lasting impact on me are:
- Content
- Delivery/Directing
- Length (run-time)
Content is at the core of the story telling to give the tale substance, the delivery via a good director makes it interesting, and the length of the Documentary determines overall comprehension.
I've watched too much to name all the greatest but I will name two to get the ball rolling and piggyback, +1SB, and etc when the WSO community shares their favorite.
- Senna (2010)
- Lo and Behold (2016)
Senna goes through the emotional tale of a three-time Formula One champion from his initial Go-karting Career, 3x Formula One Championships, and to his death and the lasting impact he had on his beloved home country Brazil.
Lo and Behold is about how we are being affected by the digital age and the next frontier that we are unraveling from a personal and professional perspective.
Made in America (OJ) and Going Clear (Scientology) are the two best i've seen in awhile, curious to hear about more to watch though
Going Clear was great
Hoop Dreams
+1. SB'd.
Most of the PBS frontline documentaries are fantastic.
I watched the entire series "The Untold History of the United States" narrated by Oliver Stone and it was fantastic. Highly recommend. It does run for ~10 hours on netflix.
Senna is a pretty awesome documentary, one of my mates showed it to me a few years ago and it got me into Formula 1
Personally am a big fan of the 30 for 30 documentaries on ESPN.
Bo Knows and Brian and the Boz
4 days in October was a good one and I'm not a Boston fan.
Bloomberg game changers Planet earth
They're not exactly documentaries, but I really like Reggio's trilogy - Koyaanisqatsi, Powaqqatsi and Naqoyqatsi - with Glass' great score. In a similar vein, Baraka by Fricke.
Commanding Heights - The Battle for the World Economy
This one is absolutely superb
Ken Burns: Civil War, I've literally watched it 16 times.
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room The Other One: The Long Strange Trip of Bob Weir
Enron was great. I like the TV movie Barbarians at the Gate.
Murder Rap
Jesus Camp was pretty insane
I know people who grew up in those types on environments. Some have never mentally recovered.
Couldn't imagine. wild to think that these kind of people still exist
ken burns baseball
Earthlings was fairly eye opening
Men Who Built America
History!
Taxi to the dark side
I used to watch all of the space exploration documentaries on Netflix. Can't remember any of the names, but basically anything with commentary from Stephen Hawking
A good one that I saw a few days ago was called Accidental Courtesy, it was a documentary about a musician named Daryl Davis who convinced ~200 people to leave the KKK. I would encourage anyone to check it out, you can watch it on the PBS website (I can't link yet).
Link :)
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/films/accidental-courtesy/
Something Ventured (VC/Startups) is amazing.
Just watched that and it is definitely amazing.
Borat - can't believe nobody's said it
I've never laughed as hard in a theater than I did watching this movie.
+1 for Senna
Brothers in War (Vietnam) is 10/10
Tough to count but approx what % of all these mentioned so far are available on netflix / Amazon prime / youtube etc etc?
Most. Netflix has a pretty sizable amount of documentaries that they rotate in and out. If you were to Google "best documentaries on Netflix", 99% of the lists that you would find would be pretty accurate (this is how I usually find documentaries to watch).
Documentaries are my favorite genre of movies. My favorite ones cover controversial subjects and are meant to get the viewer to think. Here are some that I would recommend off of the top of my head:
Somm is great
I have to give a shout out to Life, Animated, it's a really beautiful documentary.
Pumping Iron - Arnie
Check out Generation Iron if you like bodybuilding documentaries. It's essentially the "updated version" of Pumping Iron.
Michael Moore makes pretty good documentaries even though I think he's a nut.
Pretty much anything by Louis Theroux will do me, his style and delivery are fantastic.
Yeah Louis is the man. I feel like his unassuming tone makes the people he's talking to want to almost look after him by answering his questions. I watched his main series on Netflix recently, it's really eye-opening.
Making A Murderer (not sure if this counts either) but it's something that I'll never forget watching. Not sure what it is about the case but I was so hooked that I still keep up on the latest "developments" and "new evidence". Any documentary about a popular murder trial I'll watch.
Super Size Me
I recently Saw Super Size Me 2 on Netflix
through the fire, bra boys, the overnighters, year zero: the silent death of cambodia... just to name a few
.
Documentary on NBA and the Disney life? :)
American Greed
Independence Day
Let's not forget about Terminator
Entire series or any one in particular?
Highlander
Bookmarked this post for future reference. A couple I've watched:
Schooled-talks about money in college athletics Marley- life of Bob Marley Planet FIFA-goes through early years of Fifa when they started and how they started to become corrupt June 17, 1994- the day of OJ's slow speed car chase, also details all the other events that happened this day (Arnold palmers last tournament, opening match for World Cup, NBA finals, etc...)
All on Netflix except the last one I think
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