Fog of War - Fantastic, just fantastic.
Confessions of a Superhero - Sad but not depressing
Vice Guide to North Korea - the only documentary I’ve ever seen that does a good job of investigating North Korea
The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virgina - a bizarre Jerry Springer like train wreck
Paris is Burning - transgender vogueing community in New York in the 80’s, far better than I expected.
Dark Days - people living in a New York subway, how and why.
Gasland
Word Wars
Anti-recommendations you didn’t ask for:
Man on Wire - dull dream and his wife is pathetic
Restrepo - Interesting for it’s transient depiction of American power, but the futility of war doesn’t seem to require a futily recorded haphazard documentary.
Hoop Dreams - really long and I think convinced me of the opposite conclusion the film drew, basketball offers no educational advantage to even those lucky and skilled.
It’s about garbage pickers in the world’s largest dump in Brazil. One of the most moving films I’ve ever seen. It’s not about their “plight,” but about an art project.
Watched it and it was definitely fascinating. I believe it was real, but I do think they recreated some of the early scenes later, which is what they are accused of doing.
*Men of the Tall Ships *- documents the transAtlantic “race” of the tall ships, ending with the 7/4/76 transit of the Hudson River at NYC. (aired most recently yesterday-10/13/12)
Seconded on this one. A brilliant engineer who worked with the greats, and also a really sweet guy.
Yes, a thousand times YES. Don’t read anything about it, just go see it. Amazing documentary. Saw it last night and loved it.
What ecoaster said. These three films have topics that, just reading about them, you wouldn’t necessarily thing “I gotta see that”, but they are all great stories, well told, as entertaining as any Hollywood movie.
I watched Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of The Toynbee Tiles the other night.
I first read about Toynbee Tiles several years ago, but if you don’t know what they are here’s the wiki page.
Warning: the Wikipedia page has information about the documentary so skip that section if you want to watch it and avoid spoilers.
I thought the documentary was pretty well done and definitely worth watching. The ending may not be 100% satisfying, but I would still recommend it.
