Recommend some documentaries...

Knoxville-Horn

Knoxville-Horn

1,000+ Posts
I'm in a big documentary phase of my life. Partially due to Hollywood putting out crap at about a 98% clip and partially due to some philosophical adjustments I've recently made in my life.

I've seen the following and highly recommend them:

Spellbound - Comical and sometimes serious view of the National Spelling Bee.

War Dance - About a group of school children from the war-torn area of Northern Uganda entering a music competetiion.
Pretty uplifting stuff.

Dare to Dream - About the U.S. women's soccer team. Pretty interesting in how little fanfare the team got at first compared to the Rose Bowl crowd in the '98 Women's World Cup.

Emmanuel's Gift - Really good story about a disabled African man that used his disability to raise money and awareness for the treatment of disabled people in his homeland.

God Grew Tired of Us - Another really good story about a group of friends that fled Sudan and eventually ended up in America. Really interesting to see the culture clash when they arrived.

By the way, I'm trying to steer clear of the political ones unless they are extremely interesting and not anti-American (i.e. Michael Moore, Truthers, that Mark Cuban piece of crap, etc...).
 
The one about Hiroshima/Nagasaki that aired on HBO (White Light, Black Rain) in the past 6 months or so was amazing. Painfully amazing.

Oh, and "King of Kong". Greatness.
 
Touching the Void is one of the 5 best documentaries I have ever seen.

About two climbers in the Andes. One gets hurt on the way down and the other tries to save his life. A horrifying tale, told entirely by the two people who lived it. It was a book as well, and I cant more highly recommend either one of them.
 
Here's a few. For a better description check out IMDB or Netflix.

Startup.com - about 2 guys during the Internet boom starting a business together

51 Birch Street - a documentary filmmaker does a film about his own family

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room - the title says it all

The Business of Being Born - about the maternity care system

An Inconvenient Truth - might be considered political but if interested in global warming

Who Killed the Electric Car? - about GM's EV1 electric car

Maxed Out - credit card/financial debt

Probably more but those are the ones that stand out now.
 
I'm like you - I'm not a big fan of Hollywood movies...I've become a big documentary buff. Here are some of my favs...

"The Fog of War" - Essentially Robert McNamara getting his say in how history is written. Worth watching.

"My Architect" - Director Nathaniel Kahn searches to understand his father, noted architect Louis Kahn, who died bankrupt and alone in 1974.

"Helvetica" - Yes, this film is really about the font. If you're into design or just curious about font evolution over the years, try out this movie. You'll never look at a logo the same again.

"Nobelity" - Austinite Turk Pipkin interviews nine Nobel Laureates about what the greatest world challenges are and possible solutions. Thought provoking.

"Planet Earth - The Complete BBC Series" - Stunning cinematography shows the various natural settings of Planet Earth.

"Jazz - A Film by Ken Burns" - Very thorough and lengthy capturing of the birth and evolution of jazz.

If you like politics at all, I recommend these:

"The War Room" - This follows Bill Clinton's 1992 race for the presidency, with most of the focus on the team that elects him - Carville, Stephanopolous, etc. In my opinion, the film could have been longer.

"Our Brand is Crisis" - "We must own crisis and we must brand crisis." So says advertising consultant Tad Devine in this insightful documentary. Along with James Carville, Jeremy Rosner, and other Greenberg Carville Shrum (GCS) pollsters and strategists, he's helping to shape the campaign of Bolivian presidential candidate Gonzalo "Goni" Sánchez de Lozada of the MNR Party.

"Street Fight" - Street Fight chronicles the bare-knuckles race for Mayor of Newark N.J. between Cory Booker a 32-year-old Rhodes Scholar/Yale Law School grad and Sharpe James the four-term incumbent and undisputed champion of New Jersey politics.

"Journeys with George" - Alexandra Pelosi (Nancy Pelosi's daughter) follows George W. Bush on the 2000 campaign trail.
 
I wouldn't call myself a documentary buff by any means, but in addition to the already good suggestions, you should definitely watch Hoop Dreams.
 
The Bridge. About the people who use the Golden Gate Bridge to jump. Very disturbing but also enlightening.
 
For those of you who like King of Kong (GREAT DOC!) check out "Pumping Iron", if you haven't already. It's along the same lines as a KoK, with a perfect, real-life, example of good v evil in a competitive environment.

For those of you who like Spellbound or Word Wars, try Wordplay. It's about people who creae/play/and compete at crowssword puzzles. I wouldn't say its as good as Spellbound, but it was ok.

For people who like "Riding Giants" check out "Step into Liquid" as another good surf movie done by Dan Brown, whos father did Endless Summer. If anyone is into skateboarding, there's "Dogtown and Z Boys" about early skate culture, or "Stoked: The Rise and Fall of Gator" about a specific skateboarder named Mark "Gator" Rogowski.

I also highly recommend "Stevie" from, Steve James, who made Hoop Dreams. It's an interesting look at rural white America and class struggles. It's a good counter argument to racism being the driving force of keeping certain people from getting ahead (in my opinion). The doc, though, is done in a very unbiased way, and you can probably gather your own insight from it. (BTW If you haven't seen it before, check out Hoop Dreams as well)

I also found "My Child Could Paint That" interesting. I don't want to delve too much into it, but basically on the surface it's about a 4 year old girl who paints. Half way through the movie, though, it turns into a documentary more about the documentarian, himself, than the girl. I liked it because I'm a documentarian, and found that interesting.

I'll also add Grizzly Man to the list. It's a fantastic doc made from footage that a man shot while living with bears every summer for 11 or so years before finally being eaten.
 
Spinal Tap.

No seriously, the Enron movie is spectacular. I've started showing it to my intro classes every semester. Last fall, I showed it three classes in a row, watched it each time, and didn't get bored.
 
This was fantastic.

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hands on a hard body- might be a bit difficult to find but since it was made in texas, shouldn't be impossible. it's about a competition they used to have in longview where people stand with their hands on a truck until the last one's standing. one of those documentaries that just seemed to be blessed with great characters where everything just unfolds in such a perfect way.

american movie- wisconsin redneck tries to make a movie with his trollish looking friend who took way too much acid. hilarious hilarious movie

resolved: just saw this one a couple weeks ago on hbo (it's still playing on there, if you get it...should be on dvd later this summer). it's about high school debate, and if you liked wordplay, spellbound and other films like that, I think you'll really like this one. shows both the subculture of hs debate (which is worthy of a film alone) as well as follows two very different teams (one of which really takes the film to another level, again like HoaHB, where you just couldn't dream of a better story to tell).
 
Lots of good ones already mentioned.

Jazz, and really any other Ken Burns documentary is worth watching

Maxed out

King of Kong

Why We Fight

PLanet Earth
 
Monumental: David Brower's Fight For Wild America

more of a biography documentary than a political one. filled with grainy color homemade 16mm footage of our national parks before they were national parks, Brower and friends scaling New Mexico' Ship Rock in basketball sneakers, WW II shots high in Italian Alps, etc... with a beautiful soundtrack.

www.loteriafilms.org/press.html
 
These are hard to find, but they always stuck with me.

American Hollow - About a family that has lived on the same land in the hills for generations. Let's just say I don't think anyone went to college in that family.

I'm Not Nuts, Just Plane Crazy - You follow a guy with mental issues and a lack of experience in any type of design or flying experience tries to build a plane. The tires of the plane were made from shopping cart wheels.
 
i love documentaries. i enjoy even the worst ones. im glad you started this thread because there are already a couple new ones i need to check out. of those mentioned already, i will second the following:

grizzly man, king of kong, touching the void, hands on a hard body, riding giants, hoop dreams, spellbound and fog of war.

those are all really excellent movies. i also enjoyed the following, which ive tried to list in order of those that might have a general appeal first, followed by those which are entertaining due to their weirdness or uniqueness:

when we were kings - ali/foreman "rumble in the jungle". won an academy award for best doc

murderball - about wheelchair rugby and the people that play it. amazing

journeyman - about two guys struggling to make it as professional tennis players

okie noodling - you may have to look the schedule up online and catch it on pbs, but it explains so much about our neighbors to the north, and, well, how they catch fish with their hands. same director premiered his follow up/sequel in austin tonight, coincidentally. i couldnt make it, but a friend told me it was excellent

darkon - about live action role playing, or larpers, and their rennaissance fair/battle reenactment conventions. fascinating and very weird. like okie noodling, only this one is about people that dress up and hit each other with foam swords

scared straight - basically kids on the wrong path getting a stern talking to from convicts on a field trip

woodstock - if you like the music of the era and want to know more about this legendary event, its worth checking out

no direction home - about bob dylans career. i saw this on youtube, maybe its still up there in parts. i like bob dylan, so i liked this. it was very informative

winged migration - beautiful footage of birds

game over - interesting show about the chess match between gary kasparov and deep blue

tupac: resurrection - if youre a pac fan

also, spinal tap is hilarious. pretend its real. know its fake. doesnt matter. i laugh my *** off just thinking about some of those scenes
 
Gen, I just ordered Okie, Darkon, Winged MIgration, and the Tupac doc due to your recomendation.

I, too, love documentaries, nearly all of them. I especially like the "sport" ones that show various competitions that people compete in.

If you want some more obscure docs, I saw "Pucker Up" once at SXSW and thought it was pretty good. It's about professional whistlers. Similar to Spellbound, Word Play, etc. It's mostly just interesting to see interesting people and get a glimpse into different types of hobbies. I don't know if it's available on DVD or not.

Also, there's two scrabble docs. Along with Word Wars there is Scrabylon. I can't remember which is better, but I'm just throwing it out there.

And if anyone is interested in bowling, there's "League of Ordinary Gentlemen" I wouldn't recommend this one unless you really love docs, or if you really love bowling. It's not really very well done, and doesn't make the characters as interesting as they should be.

If you want something a little different, there's a doc called "The man who skied down Everest". It's about this asian guy who attempted to ski down Everest. The doc is funny, seeing all the random crap they drug up Everest, and his "practicing" where he used a parachute while skiing to try and control the wind.

Finally I think March of the Penguins needs to be mentioned in this thread. It's very well done.
 
If you've ever in your life enjoyed pro wrestling (no, you don't have to admit it), you might check out "Beyond the Mat". It features Mick Foley and Terry Funk, among others.

Also, I just saw this one recently on HBO, check out "Hard Times at Lincoln High". It's about the effect on No Child Left Behind on a "low-performing" inner-city school.

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Errol Morris has made some great documentaries. I particularly like 'Gates of Heaven', which initially is about the pet cemetery business, but like other Morris films, turns out to be about much more.
 
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