I realy liked Bowling for Columbine and Moore’s other films and i was lucky enoughe to find a copy of Crumb at a local video store, but is such a broad genre i that’s a pretty small list do you have any good recommendations
PS Ask every who post here to not post about Moore i don’t want this moved to the pit
There’s a movie called “Gummo” which is sort of like a documentary, maybe even is. But it’s the sickest stretch of film I can recall seeing. However, I think you’d find some common treatments to the “Roger and Me” thing that Moore did early on.
I have never seen “Shoah” because it’s probably too long to put on one of the cable movie channels. Holocaust theme, but supposedly one of the better ones.
Have you ever seen “Koyaanisqatsi”? Coppola produced it and it is spellbinding, though maybe not pure documentary.
I posted a similar request about 3 months ago. Here is the link: List of documentaries
You might want to look into the films of DA Pennebaker… he’s a proponent of so-called ‘cinema verite’ (or direct cinema). That’s a movement characterized by (among other things) the lack of narration or interviews; for the most part the camera should just be like a fly on the wall, recording what goes on.
Pennebaker was the director of ‘Don’t Look Back’, which is one of my favorite documenatries. It’s about Bob Dylan in the mid-60’s, taking a Eurpoean tour.
Lots of good stuff in the thread linked to by milquetoast.
I haven’t seen Shoah either, but I can recommend Lanzmann’s recent and shorter Sobibor 14 October 1943 16:00. Filmed as part of the process of making Shoah, it’s a sort of offcut, a standalone interview with one of the inmates who took part in the uprising at Sobibor.
In a similar vein, there’s Renais’ classic Night and Fog. And not mentioned in the previous thread is Errol Morris’ related Mister Death, about Holocaust denial.
One of my favourite documentaries is The Memphis Belle (1944) directed by William Wyler who also directed Thunderbolt, the story of the P-47.
Not exactly new documentaries, but worth watching. Especially Memphis Belle. I can’t tell you how disappointed I was in the 1990 dramatization. (Hint: the only real similarities were that there was a B-17 called Memphis Belle and there was a war on.) Watch the real deal.
I recently saw Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. and found it very interesting. It’s about Fred Leuchter, an execution device engineer/inventor who got mixed up with holocaust deniers.
I was going to recommend Crumb, which I think is brilliant, but you already know about that. How about Cane Toads: An Unnatural History?
7 Up, 14 Up, 21 Up, 35 Up and 42 Up. The series follows a group of British children from various walks of life throughout their lives, checking up on them every 7 years. You can just watch 42 Up if you want, because it goes back over the previous episodes, but you won’t get as much detail, obviously. (BTW, The first two are quite hard to fnd.)
Go see Winged Migration. It was a beautifully filmed movie and, while not as full of information as some documentaries, still very educational.
Recently saw Devil’s Playground by Lucy Walker, about Amish youth during their period of rumspringa, when they are free to cut loose and do whatever they choose until such time as they make a permanent commitment to their church. The story of the Amish crank addict/dealer who moved back home after he narc’d on two other Amish drug dealers blew my mind.
Smothered is not really a documentary so much as a high-falutin’ “Behind the Music” type special on the struggles with censorship experienced by The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in the late 60s. Still entertaining, though.
I recommend “Hearts Of Darkness,” a documentary about the making of “Apocalypse Now.” “Hearts” is fascinating even if you are not a fan of Coppola’s film . It documents all the passion, excess, and insanity of making a big movie. There is lots of access to diaries and secret conversations, so a lot of it doesn’t feel as stagey or forced as some documentaries.
Genghis Blues, documentary about Paul Pena, a blind blues musician who taught himself to perform Tuvan throat singing simply by listening to radio broadcasts he picked up over what I believe was ham equipment. Also taught himself the language, and wound up getting the opportunity to actually travel to Tuva to participate in a throat-singing competition.
It’s a truly remarkable story, and a really cool documentary. I also like it because of the unexpected Richard Feynman content.
“Trekkies”, a documentary about Star Trek fandom was very interesting. The producers used Denise Crosby (Tasha Yar) to do the interviews…a great tricksy way to get access to hard-core fans and get them to take you seriously.
“Startup.com”, a documentary about a failed internet startup company. The documentary makers were college friends of the 20something CEO, and got amazing access to the inner workings of the company. They thought they were going to make a documentary about how a new successful company started and grew. But they were around and filming as the bubble burst, and watched as the company imploded. Scary and all-too familiar to anyone who worked in a technology company in the last few years.
“Walking with Dinosaurs” and “Walking with Prehistoric Beasts” weren’t exactly documentaries, but they are non-fiction. Imagine Jurassic Park without the humans and the stupid plot. The films mimic standard discovery channel nature shows including narration (“The female allosaurus approaches cautiously. During the rainy season food is plentiful, but…”), but use studio CGI dinosaur footage instead of footage from the Serengeti.
“Spinal Tap” is a great documentary, or, if you will, “rockumentary” 
Paradise Lost and Paradise Lost 2: The Revelations are among the best documentaries I’ve ever seen. They tell the story of the West Memphis 3–three young men who were arrested in 1993 and convicted of the murders of three little boys all on the basis of their “satanic” appearance and a forced false confession.
I cannot recommend these films highly enough. They’ll really make you think and question the so-called “justice system” in this country.
Here’s more on the West Memphis 3 for anyone who’s interested: WM3
Also, Dogtown and Z-Boys is supposed to be a pretty cool documentary about the origins of the skateboarding scene. I haven’t personally seen it though.
One more: The classic of all documentaries is generally considered to be “Nanook of the North” from 1922.
Burden of Dreams by Les Blank is about Werner Herzog’s making of the movie Fitzcarraldo. Just about everything that could go wrong during filming went wrong. Fitzcarraldo is about a man pursuing an obsession. Herzog is so obsessive himself that one could view his movie as an allegory about his own life. The best part of the movie is the scene of Herzog ranting in the jungle, blaming nature for all the problems he brought on himself.
Les Blank’s son Harrod made a movie called Wild Wheels about art cars. Harrod has made several art cars himself, and is a leader in the art car movement. You can learn more about art cars at http://www.artcars.com/ . Wild Wheels is as much about the people who made the cars as about the cars themselves. Some of the people see themselves as artists, while others have different reasons for making art cars (for example, a descendent of Samuel Colt covered his car with model horses to help himself withdraw from alcohol). One of my favorite people in the movie is Dalton Stevens, the Button King, who covers everything he owns with shirt buttons and has even written a song about himself (the guy definitely does not take himself seriously). My favorite car in the movie is a VW bug whose body has been replaced with wrought iron.
The Kid Stays In The Picture is entertaining, if not all that factual.
The Thin Blue Line is a documentary about the mistrial that sent an innocent man to death row. If I recall correctly, this movie prompted an investigation into the trial which subsequently found the man to be innocent.