Documentaries to See Before You Die

[LeRouxIsPHat]

The vice guide to North Korea. They've a great documentary on Liberia too.

http://www.vbs.tv/watch/the-vice-guide- ... rea-1-of-3

[brummie-leinster-man]

The Schindler of Nanking is worth a look. It's the story of John Rabe, a Nazi in Nanking when the Japanese arrived. It was shown on RTÉ recently and I got the impression that some of the Japanese soldiers recounting their part didn't realise they were being filmed so they were more candid.

Also Discovery channel recently had a series on World War II in colour which was great for a wide scope look at the war.

Would I be correct in assuming your a bit of a war buff?

I've seen some of the colour stuff on Disco, you do get a much better idea of what it must have been like

[tate]

The vice guide to North Korea. They've a great documentary on Liberia too.

http://www.vbs.tv/watch/the-vice-guide- ... rea-1-of-3

brilliant two documentaries. they have another about north (?) pakistan where the host visits a gun market. As in a market where gun smiths demonstrate their wares like cheese monger might give a sample of his latest goats/cows blend. The rest of the site is sh!t, but their travel docs are usually pretty good. Another good one about the lost nazis of argentina

[Broken Wing]

The Schindler of Nanking is worth a look. It's the story of John Rabe, a Nazi in Nanking when the Japanese arrived. It was shown on RTÉ recently and I got the impression that some of the Japanese soldiers recounting their part didn't realise they were being filmed so they were more candid.

Also Discovery channel recently had a series on World War II in colour which was great for a wide scope look at the war.

Would I be correct in assuming your a bit of a war buff?

I've seen some of the colour stuff on Disco, you do get a much better idea of what it must have been like

Just a little but they were just the last documentaries I've seen.

Completely forgot about Saviours which got a lot of attention following Darren Sutherland's death.

[ribs]

Gasland. I've seen it twice already. Deals with probably the only environmental area that I actually worry about: water. After you have watched this, don't be fooled that it is just in the US. I'm noticing the preponderances of "natural gas" and "shale" mentions around the world, most recently in victoria, aussieland.

[Donny B.]

Great sports documentaries:

When we were Kings

Hoop Dreams

Senna

TT3D: Closer to the Edge

[Hornet]

TT3D: Closer to the Edge

Must get that. Will put my wobbling around the TT course over several years into perspective!

[Donny B.]

TT3D: Closer to the Edge

Must get that. Will put my wobbling around the TT course over several years into perspective!

I'm not even a fan of motorbike racing, but I thought it was excellent.

[icebaby]

This is great new food for thought, other than Senna I've never heard of any of them, my own favourite was one about the theory of a Tsunami between Japan and Seattle that happens every few hundred years and is due to wipe out Microsoft base any day now

[brummie-leinster-man]

This is great new food for thought, other than Senna I've never heard of any of them, my own favourite was one about the theory of a Tsunami between Japan and Seattle that happens every few hundred years and is due to wipe out Microsoft base any day now

Christ that's one intelligent tsunami if it specifically heads to Seattle

I like some if the 'what if' documentaries. There was one on National Geographic once about a volcano in southern Italy or Sicily or somewhere like that. Anyway, they were saying that a huge chunk of the mountain is pretty unstable and if the volcano was to erupt the shock would send a huge chunk of rock, about the size of the Isle of Wight, into the sea causing a mega-tsunami that would wipe out Eastern America, Northern Africa, Western Coasts of Spain, Portugal, France, South West England, South Wales, and more importantly.....Cork.
It was a great watch, interesting and sh!t scary at the same time

Another great one was looking into the theory that an underwater train tunnel could be build through the Atlantic and get passengers from London to New York in half an hour on a train that travels over 2000kph. Its actually theoretically possible. Although there is not enough steel in existence to build it and it would take every steel mill in the world something stupid like 200 years of non stop work to make all the steel required to build it. Still a good watch though

[Fitzybobs]

Great music documentaries:

DIG! - about the relationship between two bands (Brian Jonestown Massacre and The Dandy Warhols, though who they are is not very important) over a seven year period; a fascinating look at how self destructive, egomaniacal and jealous some people can be.

Don't Look Back - Bob Dylan in the original "rockumentary", at the height of his talents, frustrated by his fame, he comes across as incredibly caustic, at times almost cruel to Joan Baez and Donovan.

No Direction Home - Martin Scorsese's documentary on Dylan is long ( you'd probably have to be a fan), but is worth seeing for the scenes when Dylan is toying with reporters, making a mockery of their questions.

Two others I really enjoyed ( not music related):

Grizzly Man - Nature lover goes to live with grizzly bears in Alaska, with tragic consequences.
Man on Wire - the wire in question spans the twin towers. And he did it for art.

[LeRouxIsPHat]

The vice guide to North Korea. They've a great documentary on Liberia too.

http://www.vbs.tv/watch/the-vice-guide- ... rea-1-of-3

brilliant two documentaries. they have another about north (?) pakistan where the host visits a gun market. As in a market where gun smiths demonstrate their wares like cheese monger might give a sample of his latest goats/cows blend. The rest of the site is sh!t, but their travel docs are usually pretty good. Another good one about the lost nazis of argentina

Thanks for the tip, really enjoyed the Pakistani one although I wish it had been longer. The nazi one had great potential but was ruined by the guy who presented it! All the comments under it mention him in some derogatory way, pity someone else didn't do it.

[Skinfull]

The Bridge - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0799954/
Some documentarians put cameras on the hill facing the golden gate bridge. I think they were trying to get stock footage of fog or wildlife or something. When they collected the camera there was footage of people jumping from the bridge. After speaking to the authorities they found out there are loads of jumpers, almost daily. So they set up the cameras again, either side of the bridge, facing it and filmed it for a year. They then traced the families of the jumpers, including one survivor, and interviewed them. Amazing stuff. Little bit depressing (and one interviewee is annoying as fook) but some captivating footage.

Jesus Camp - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0486358/
Following a couple of kids who go to a jesus themed summer camp. Sounds simple enough but of course these are american, so they cant just be religious retreat, this is the bible belt so its EXTREME religion!

Religulous - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0815241/
Bill Maher travels the world interviewing some extremists of many different religions. Including a Rabbi who is a holocaust denier, a priest who is a skeptic and the theme park in Kentucky that shows dinosaurs and man living together! Less informative and more fun.

[TerenureJim]

Anything by Michael Moore !

If only he actually made documentaries rather than polemics

[TerenureJim]

The World At War - seriously it is the definitive WWII documentary with a harrowing narative. Despite being somewhat dated it has lost none of it's brillance.

[Hacker G]

Great sports documentaries:

When we were Kings

Hoop Dreams

Senna

TT3D: Closer to the Edge

I'd add "Murderball" - it's about the US Wheelchair Rugby team - crazy stuff but well worth a watch

[Logorrhea]

The vice guide to North Korea. They've a great documentary on Liberia too.

Thanks for that. Watched it over the weekend, Really enjoyed it.

[fourthirtythree]

I'm very fond of documentaries that leave you space to think rather than push a single line really hard - so not that much into Michael Moore say, not that he can't be entertaining I suppose but it's not what I like. As an example -

Capturing the Friedmans - very successful documentary about a child abuse case. Do you know the truth of what happened by the end of it? Not at all.

Mondovino - for me the best documentary on globalisation I have seen. It's about the wine industry and was expanded into a TV series broken down by country which for me lacked the focus and interest of the feature film. It let all the actors, the wine consultant, the small producer, the ex mayor, the current mayor, the activist producer, and the large corporation, have their say. They were all lying, all full of it, and all pursuing personal agendas that they would not admit. Great to see that kind of thing rather than have "x is bad" pushed at you.

Best documentaries I've seen this year would have to be "Secrets of the Tribe" by Jose Padhilla - it's a film about the anthropologists studying and making their living off one of the most studied and contentious remote peoples over the last 40 years. It's shocking, and while I don't know who did what after the film I do know they're all wrong.

And "nuclear eternity" a film (to be fair it does really take a side but not in a hectoring way as it's a more abstract film) about Onkalo in Finland - a place to store nuclear waste for 200K years. The film explores the idea of this length of time compared to human culture and as such it's a nice meditation on the awesome power of time. It's worth seeing as a double bill with the deeply flawed "cave of forgotten dreams" by Herzog, the greatest point of which (for me) came out when I watched Into Eternity shortly after: the culture in the caves painted in the same style in occupations spanning 5,000 years - the gulf in time covered by Gilgamesh in old Babylonian to us writing rubbish on the internet. THat is frightening to me and renders the idea of communicating with a culture 100,000 years in the future urtterly impossible.

I see Grizzly Man got a shout out earlier and I'm a huge fan of Herzog. My favourites include "Little Dieter needs to fly" where a surviver of a US plane shot down while bombing Laos talks us through, reliving, his experience with the Pathet Lao and Viet Minh. His escape from the prison camp is harrowing and unlikely and gives you a real admiration for human endeavour while the undercurrent of what his motivation was for dropping Phosphorous bombs on thatched villages is unavoidable and actually very interesting. He's also a genuinely hugely likeable character and you feel a great deal of sympathy for what a damaged person he became. Herzog's documentary made on Iraq after the '91 war is great too. He drops all pretence at making a film about war and just runs with what the camera is telling him to do: film the oil fields on fire, that's what they call "ecstatic truth". In classic Herzog style the two interviews he does put in the film relating to the war are with a woman who has lost the power of speech and another explainging how and when her son did.

[hugonaut]

Mondovino - for me the best documentary on globalisation I have seen. It's about the wine industry and was expanded into a TV series broken down by country which for me lacked the focus and interest of the feature film. It let all the actors, the wine consultant, the small producer, the ex mayor, the current mayor, the activist producer, and the large corporation, have their say. They were all lying, all full of it, and all pursuing personal agendas that they would not admit. Great to see that kind of thing rather than have "x is bad" pushed at you.

I'll be on the lookout for that – as I get older, I get more and more suspicious and tired of documentaries which trade in objectivity for 'truth'. I can understand and empathise with a documentarian if, over time, he comes to feel far more strongly towards one side over the other in a two-party contentious issue over the course of filming. I can also understand somebody who goes into a project with the idea of uncovering a wrong [as with early Michael Moore docs – some of the later ones I'd be pretty loathe to rewatch]. It can make for a more coherent piece of film, but not necessarily a fair documentary.

It's the same with journalism – I read quite a few English papers online or on certain days [Monday Telegraph Sports is a f*cking incredible supplement, and the Weekend FT I would recommend very highly], but I would mostly read the Guardian, and yet sometimes it pisses me off absolutely no-end with its incredibly obvious editorial approach. I'd rather read something where the journalist's highest priorities are the accuracy and neutrality of his/her reporting, and the reader is assumed to be sufficiently intelligent to make up his/her own mind once the facts are laid out in front of them, than somebody only presenting one side of the argument or rubbishing reasonable ideas off-handedly. That sort of thing is for columnists, whom you read at your own risk.

I found the recent coverage of the London riots to be a prime example of papers taking party lines: the Guardian to the left, the Telegraph to the right, as you'd expect. In my opinion, it meant that both papers got pretty much everything half-wrong.

[brian_c]

Cosmos: A Personal Voyage by Carl Sagan. A little dated now, it is 30 years old in fairness, but I'm excited to say that there are plans to make a second series of it with Neil Degrasse-Tyson.

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/cosmos/

Everything and Nothing with Professor Jim Al-Khalili. I just watched Part 1 of this yesterday, similar to the Brian Cox Wonders show, except without the exotic locations and going into slightly more detail of the science involved.

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/everything-and-nothing/

I'm sure I'll come up with more if I think about it.