Best Documentaries You've Ever Seen | Hacker News Reader

Best Documentaries You've Ever Seen

ask.metafilter.com

83 pointsKye46 comments

Open articleView on HN

Here is the list from the thread: --- 1. A Man Named Pearl

2. Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland

3. Microcosmos

4. Crip Camp!

5. Keep The River On Your Right

6. All The Beauty And The Bloodshed

7. Harlan County USA

8. Stay on Board: The Leo Baker Story

9. Good Night Oppy

10. We Met in Virtual Reality

11. All That Breathes

12. Still

13. Can’t Be Stopped

14. The Amazing Jonathan Documentary

15. Searching for Sugarman

16. AKA Mr Chow

17. The Pigeon Tunnel

18. Little Richard: I Am Everything

19. I Know That Voice

20. Genghis Blues

21. Kings of Pastry

22. 20 Feet From Stardom

23. Stevie

24. Anvil: the Story of Anvil

25. Searching for Sugar Man

26. King of Kong

27. The Gleaners and I

28. Touching the Void

29. Cane Toads: An Unnatural History

30. 20 Days in Mariupol

31. Minding the Gap

32. How to Survive a Plague

33. Speciesism

34. Free Solo

35. Jim Allison: Breakthrough

36. Seven Up! series

37. Bowling for Columbine

38. The Fog of War

39. Rivers and Tides

40. Capturing the Friedmans

41. Spellbound

42. King of Kong

43. Crip Camp

44. Jesus Camp

45. Jiro Dreams of Sushi

46. Flee

47. Man on Wire

48. Queen of Versailles

49. The Thin Blue Line

50. Time Indefinite

51. The Gleaners and I

52. My Life as a Turkey

53. Happy People

54. Grizzly Man

Rivers and Tides is there. I highly recommend it and The Queen of Trees (2005) which is not in the list.

Missing "Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father (2008)" here. I thought it was very good but an absolute kick to the stomach.

Thanks for providing the list from a borderline unreadable website.

(FYI King of Kong is listed twice as entries #26 and #42.)

>34. Free Solo

Also worth mentioning

The Dawn Wall (2017) Meru (2015) The Alpinist (2021)

The mindset of the people at these extremes is really interesting. Clash of cultures with Magnus Midtbø visiting Honnold was also an interesting watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cyya23MPoAI

Hoop Dreams is not on a list of the 50+ best documentaries?

There's Something Wrong with Aunt Diane - investigation of a car crash that killed 8 people

Art of the Steal - walks through the back-room negotiations and money resulting in the move of the Barnes Foundation (one of the world's greatest private art collections) from Main Line to Center City Philadelphia, which was specifically against the patron's wishes.

Roger & Me - I don't love Michael Moore's politics or his later movies but his breakthrough film, where he looks at everything gone wrong in his hometown of Flint Michigan, is very good.

June 17th, 1994 - this is an ESPN 30 For 30, splices together TV clips covering multiple historic sporting events of that particular day, most famously, the O.J. Simpson car chase. If you weren't alive on that date (and even if you were) it's utterly fascinating.

Narcoland -- why the drugs just keep coming.

American Movie (1999) has lived rent-free in my head since Y2K.

The filmmaker Chris Smith has gone on to make Fyre, Tiger King, Bad Vegan and others.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Smith_(filmmaker)

I seem to recall from the end credits, where after it was over at Cannes, they said anyone who wanted to stay and watch Coven could. Everyone stayed.

For a couple of years there after it came out on DVD, Mark Borchardt and Mike Schank had a website that they posted Mike's phone number, and you could call and leave a voicemail. That always put a smile on my face, his outgoing message was jamming on a guitar playing Led Zeppelin. I wish I could recall the URL to find it on Wayback Machine.

If I have a favorite genre of doc, it's the ones about outsider artists. In addition to American Movie I love "Monster Road", "In the Realms of the Unreal", "Exit Through the Gift Shop", and my personal favorite "Crumb".

I just watched American Movie for the first time a few weeks ago. It is just so endearing man.

Hell, I might watch it again today.

1997 BBC2 Horizon Documentary about bacteriophage therapy in the former Soviet Union

https://archive.org/details/BBCHorizonS1997e13TheVirusThatCu...

For something a bit different but still closer to tech:

Helvetica (2007)

https://www.hustwit.com/helvetica

Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control by Errol Morris [0] might be the best ever for its detailed exploration into its four subjects and their passions into their area of expertise.

It’s so simple, but part of why it’s so hard to make a documentary.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast,_Cheap_%26_Out_of_Control

For those who are aware of Hamilton Morris’s work, this is his father

I recommend those two also https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_(film_series) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Act_of_Killing

Grossing over $222 million total worldwide, the film is the highest grossing documentary of all time, according to Box Office Mojo....It was the highest-grossing film released by Lionsgate until it was surpassed by The Hunger Games in 2012.

Down the memory hole. It's not mentioned once here. (up til this post)

What documentary are you talking about?

Fahrenheit 9/11

Maybe because it's not actually very good? It's extremely partisan and conspiratorial, and doesn't actually document or explain much of anything, beyond "Bush bad". It's not surprising that a "Bush bad" film did very well in the aftermath of the Iraq War and the brazen lies from the Bush administration to sell it, but that doesn't mean it's actually a good documentary, or that it has lasting value.

I watched it back in 2004 and thought it was just brilliant, but I watched it again last year and I found it shocking just how incredibly conspiratorial and superficial it is. I do not consider it to be a serious documentary.

"Crack House USA" was quite the accomplishment in my opinion. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1991025/

Intimate view through surveillance cameras over 6 weeks about the inner working of a crack house. With interviews from law enforcement, families and later convicts. Unorganized crime being the key word here, including drive by shootings by barely adults whos perceived room for maneuvering narrows to the extreme.

On youtube as " Inside A Crack House: US Drug Gangs Exposed (True Crime Documentary) | Real Stories " https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EGK4gGtz44

BBC Horizon, thinks the microchip is going to be a big deal

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Now_the_Chips_Are_Down

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-w6duQhWuVk

General Magic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTdyb-RWNKo

Class Action Park https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqg48h_uKYM

Chiming in a second time to throw in just about every Ken Burns and Rick Burns episodic docs on PBS -— they have so much depth that it’s crazy. “The Vietnam War” is like 18 hours long. This is a bit hyperbolic and reductive but if you want to understand why an older person in your life is the way they are, pick a Burns documentary set during their formative adult years and so many puzzles get solved haha.

I’m terrified to see Ken Burns’ “The Internet” in 20 years lol

I thoroughly enjoyed watching 'Carlos' [0] on Christmas day and I would encourage anyone to watch it. I actually discovered it was being released because of this previous post [1] on HN.

[0] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt20417104

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36580128

I'd have to say my favorites are

1. The Up series

2. Fog of War

3. The Act of Killing

There's several on that list that I want to see now, though.

2 and 3 are among my favorite as well, guess I gotta see 1! Thanks

I have watched the Fog of War so many times.

It is just hard for me to rate the King of Kong or American Movie against the Fog of War though. Those are my top 3.

I will have to give the The Act of Killing a go.

The Fandom: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iv0QaTW3kEY

Even the best-intended looks at the furry fandom from the outside tend to be surface level with a focus on dispelling stereotypes. The Fandom comes from deep inside and covers the fandom I know, not just the fursuits, which are a good and valid but tiny part of it.

KJ: Music and Life

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiCYpZebx9U

Everything and Nothing: the Amazing Science of Empty Space: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2071460/

The Corporation: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379225/

Shoah (1985) by Claude Lanzmann.

Chimps Family : https://youtu.be/4r-TEKSnSXM

Top tier

If anyone has similar ones to this they recommend please send them on. This is my favorite by a country kilometer

The Decline of Western Civilization Parts I and II by Penelope Spheereis

Gates of Heaven (1978)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077598/?ref_=ext_shr

Is there any service you would recommend to know where to watch something you are searching? I know Hoarder Hoogle does it, but trying to look for an alternative

https://www.justwatch.com . It covers nearly all services and is reasonably current.

Judgment day: intelligent design on trial. Covers the Dover Intelligent Design trial, providing a lot of insight into the religious rights' plans for the US.

The Act of Killing

* The Parking Lot movie

* Carts of Darkness

* Alone In the Wilderness

Three documentaries (broadly) about interesting-but-regular people who don’t fit into society’s mold.

Honorable mention: Tickled

I can watch Alone in the Wilderness on repeat. Such a relaxing film.

I saw Meru in a theater and sat in the parking lot afterwards wondering what I just watched.

The Act of Killing

JODOROWSKY’S Dune

Burden of Dreams

Code Rush

Startup.com

IMDB best documentaries -

https://www.imdb.com/search/title/?title_type=feature,tv_ser...,

1. It's not the best people have ever seen, it's what average people love [1]

2. Ratings # is 5000 minimum. Rare stuff has less ratings. I doubt many in this HN thread would be less than 5000.

3. Political/emotive docos on strong lines will be overrated. It's a effect with some Indian or Turkish topics, and things like veganism or the holocaust. They are often rated higher than the quality of the documentary.

4. You can make the minimum 5000 ratings higher for more solid docos. You could try putting rating # to 1000 - 4000 to try and find some gems, but I don't think that will work. I think the gems are ones people don't get. So low numbers and middle ratings. Maybe looking at the graph of the votes might work. IMDB data is open to download FYI

5. Torrents are really bad with keeping docos alive. eDonkey fills the gap a little more. Youtube are always low quality.

[1] Mads Brügger The Ambassador (2011) is so subversive, it often makes me think. It's only 7.2 with only 4200 votes. It's hard to say is it good? His "The Mole: Undercover in North Korea" (2020) is on the list however.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com