what are you favorite documentaries?

New York, Ken Burns

crumb
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109508/

leonard cohen: i'm your man
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0478197/

the world at war
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_at_War

Ooh! Ooh! The Civil War by Ken Burns. Bar none, the best. If I recall right, he pioneered using celebrities as the voices for the letters/diaries, so the people would have that element of familiarity. Their writing made you feel what it was like for thousands of soldiers to die in a few hours. There was one letter from a captain who wrote his wife before (I believe) the second Battle of Bull Run. The poignancy of words! Oh, man! Then, the narrator said he died during the battle. I wept for days, and even years later I still tear up.

Confessions of a Superhero

looking very much forward to this:

http://www.empireonline.com/futurefilms/film.asp?id=136800#trailer

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters.

Seriously, such a good movie. Ken Burns' Broadway: The American Musical is pretty derned good, too.

Two good documentaries about the film industry are The Celluloid Closet and This Film is Not Yet Rated.

Helvetica was also good, as was Man on Wire.

But my favorite one is Jesus Camp, probably because it hits so close to home. Reminded me how freakin' glad I am to have gotten away. *shudders*

I really like Frederick Wiseman's Hospital (1969). I saw it for an Expository Writing class in college; my take on it differed from everyone else in the class. (In retrospect, that was one of my favorite courses; why I went on to Applied Math and Economics, and not Literature and Romance Languages, I'm still not sure.)

It's not a documentary, but I've wanted to see The Cool World (1964) for a long time; Wiseman produced it, and Dizzy Gillespie did the soundtrack - which is brilliant, and maybe my favorite album of his.

Oh, and Malcolm McLaren's "Double Dutch".

Hoop Dreams
The Kid Stays in the Picture
Crumb
Super Size Me

Hoop Dreams

Paris Is Burning

catethegreat said:

Two good documentaries about the film industry are The Celluloid Closet and This Film is Not Yet Rated.

Click to expand...

a decade under the influence, as well.

Bunuel's Las Hurdes
Ken Burns' Baseball

Sharkwater, The Cove, Food Inc., for the 'unbelievable cruelty to animals' trifecta...

Crude Awakening for the 'paranoia or frighteningly true' cup...

And Shut Up and Sing to round out the field with a dose of 'glad I live where I live' smugness.

Spike Lee's 'When the Levees Broke' and also his 'Four Little Girls'. Heartbreaking, informative, shocking.

zahra said:

Spike Lee's 'When the Levees Broke' and also his 'Four Little Girls'. Heartbreaking, informative, shocking.

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I can't believe I forgot When the Levees Broke.

I liked the Beatles anthology, and the complete Beatles... I really loved the one that came out last year called "Food Inc" (nothing to do with Beatles)

But one of my favorites I think was called "Murder Inc" but I'm not sure it was the title, about the killings inside the Mafia.... good stuff...

the compleat beatles is one of the older docs, but still holds up as the best, in my opinion.

good call.

Sherman's March and Roger and Me.

Crumb was really good.

Another one of my favorites is Planet Earth. I can watch that series with the sound off. It's so stunning to just look at.

Food Inc. was legit. Just watched Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price and was pretty stunned about that as well.

The poetry and power of Cosmos brings me to tears every single time I watch it.

Semi-related

I missed this thread or am coming late to it or what have you, but I enjoyed Where in the world is Osama Bin Laden? and Born Into Brothels immensely. These are probably my two favorite docs.

Ken Burns' The Civil War
Looking For Richard
Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives
Are the first three that come to mind.