Favorite Documentaries

Hearts And Minds - Banned in some school districts. The definitive documentary account of the Vietnam War period. One of best documentaries ever made

Documentaries that I've seen and liked a great deal, in no particular order; Here goes:

Sicko

Bowling for Columbine

Fahrenheit 9/11

Harlan Country U.S.A.

One Day in September

Paranoid Park

Grizzly Man

Hearts and Minds

State of Siege

I'm sure these have already been mentioned, but some of my favorites are: Hoop Dreams, Trekkies, and Darkon.

Check 'em out, I guarantee each will be rewarding in its own unique way.

Has anyone seen darwin's nightmare, i believe it was a very good movie

Originally Posted by bettyblue

Grizzly Man (2005)… documentary on amateur bear guru Timothy Treadwell, who travelled to Alaska for 13 summers to spend isolated time with Grizzly bears. On his last trip there was a famine and the bears turned on Timothy and ate him. Great insight into the madness of Timothy and a hard lesson that no matter what you might think, animals are animals not humans!!!

With all due respect to fans of this documentary, Grizzly Man is a textbook case of why it's hard for me to take so-called movie "documentaries" seriously any more. One of the few things that we learned from Treadwell's death was that he really wasn't spending "isolated" summers with the grizzlies--he had his girl friend with him, who was killed trying to save him from the grizzly attack on their camp. Another inconvenient truth about the self-described grizzly man was that he was ticketed for conducting bear country tours as an unlicensed guide, taking money from tourists who wanted to see bears in the wild. He also was charged by park authorities for harassing bears and was warned many times about violations of safety measures including the storage of food and limitations on camping in the same spot for too long, thus causing bears to lose their fear of approaching his camp. It wasn't famine that killed Treadwell and his girlfriend--it was his refusal to take proper safety precautions.



I'm not familar with this film, but as an American journalist, I've had access to Maggie Thatcher on at least 4 separate occassions, including a press conference at an oil show in Aberdeen, Scotland, when she was reportedly on the IRA's hit list. The building in which the week-long oil show was conducted and where Mrs. Thatcher was to speak was ringed with military tanks and armored cars so that my taxi couldn't get within blocks of the place, so I bailed out and walked the rest of the way carrying my luggage since I'd checked of my hotel for a flight back to London within a few hours. Toting this big suitcase, I walked right into the building and dropped it off in the press room. The press conference was scheduled upstairs, but unlike press conferences in the States with her and other government leaders foreign and domestic, no one had run any security checks on us reporters before hand or issued us special passes for admittance to the press conference. All they had were some armed British soldiers at the foot of the stairs, a couple of uniformed policemen and plainclothes security agents and the secretary from the sponsoring industry organization who had been running the press room for us all that week. She was seated on the bottom step, telling the security agents, "He's OK...She's a reporter...Let him in, he's OK" I always found Maggie to be very nice and forthcoming to the mainstream press, even when we asked tough questions about UK taxes vs. Us investment.

I guess the reason Michael Moore and modern documentarians don't impress me is that I'm old enough to remember the TV specials that Edward R. Morrow did on farm workers and illegal aliens and other major issues back in the 1950s. You want to see investigative reporting at its best, go look at those films.

No, it doesn't. I'm just an ol' Texas working man, grew up in the oilfields in a blue-collar family. I joke that we were oilfield trash back when that was an insult instead of a bumper sticker. Yet I've interviewed 2 crown princes, dined with kings and sultans, covered 4 US presidents, one from France, 2-3 from South America, attended a performance with Queen Elizabeth, covered premiers from Canada, England, Austraila, and South Africa, interviewed a Zulu king, 8 US secretaries of energy, 4 US secretaries of the interior, at least one secretary of state (Henry Kissinger), and more corporate CEOs than I count including one or more from every major publicly traded oil and gas company in the US or abroad, many of the state owned oil companies of Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Venezuela, Saudi Aramco, 3-4 secretary generals of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, energy ministers of Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, South Africa, Germany, Japan, Canada, some Air Force aces, astronauts, and Medal of Honor winners, Pulitzer Prize winners, and god only knows how many governors, senators, US representatives, millionaires, generals, movie stars, TV stars, singers, killers, you name it. Access is no problem for a good reporter.

This one is important:

http://www.filmsforaction.org/film/?...rude_Awakening

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Envy is mental theft. If you covet another mans possessions, then you should be willing to take on his responsibilities, heartaches, and troubles, along with his money. D. Koontz

The Sorrow and the Pity, Hearts and Minds, The Fog of War, Crumb, Hoop Dreams, Buena Vista Social club, Grizzly Man, and Planet Earth (more tv documentary)

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"Don't be so gloomy. After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

i really want to watch this one from the start again. it was on pbs when i was wide awake at 3 or 4 am. Cinema's Exiles from Hilter to Hollywood. anyone else watch this or going to?

I haven't seen all that many, but of the few I've seen, these are my fave:


10. Crumb
An eccentric cartoonist who takes the idea of artistic integrity to it's most purest/extremist definition. Watching this guy talk about how he practically discovered his sexuality by riding his aunt's leg as a child, one can easily come to the conclusion of just how "weird" Crumb is. And yet, once you "meet" his family, it's he who comes off as the most normal one of the bunch.



9. Grizzly Man
While we're on the subject of taking things to the extreme, this film follows a man's journey into the world of the grizzly bear.
Or as some may say, his journey into the gullet of the grizzly bear.
Now don't quote me on this,
but I heard that there's a rumour that this guy's remains were fined a citation by park officials.
For breaking the forest rule that states "Do not feed the bears".



8. Fahrenheit 9/11
Since I hate self-limiting & mind-narrowing labels like "conservative" & "Liberal", I refrain from letting too many people I know I watched this or any of Michael Moore's films (only those few people who really know me & are aware that I dislike participating in bullsh#t-slinging debates). Because, political partisanships aside, this is a good watch just for the sake of watching a good documentary unfold, done by an excellent film-maker.

7. Hoop Dreams
A quality documentary that follows the detailed ups & downs that can come from trying to move up in the world of basketball. Here, the process is captured by following the real lives of two promising high school players as they try to reach for the promise that their favorite sport can potentially offer.



6. Brother's Keeper
A community from Smalltown U.S.A comes together for one of their own.
Well....
one of their own that came "outta the the abandoned basement of society", which we have all seem to deny exists. Until, that is, the media comes arunnin' to shine it's light of "subjective truth" upon it.
A story that starts out macabrely weird & ends up macabrely moving.



5. Jesus Camp
Back when I was a kid, I was sent to a Jesus camp for one summer.
I even earned a badge for being able to whistle thru my stigmatas.




4. Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse
With events like rented military helicoptors being called off during a scene of Apocalypse Now, so they can go engage in an actual combat for an actual war that was going on at the time & then Martin Sheen having a heart attack between shooting scenes, all happening during the filming of this movie, the true story of how this flick was made is almost as surreal & engaging as the actual movie itself.




3. Streetwise
An emotionally wrenching ending, because it's real life & not a script. This film focuses those who are easily forgotten & brings to the surface their reality & all the drama & emotion that the world of escapism entertainment can never really compare to.




2. 42 & Up
Taking the film segments of the various people chosen for this project as children & watching 'em up against the segments of them as adults, it's almost spooky on it's perspective & can beg the question, at what point in life do humans lose the expressionisms of freespiritness that naturally comes with being a child & become the more restrained walking representive of a crushed spirit that many adults can easily end up as?




1. Anne Frank Remembered
Not so much for any kind of "craftsmanship" as a film, but more on the scale of the message that can result from seeing how this real-life situation unfolded.
As with everyone else, sometimes, it gets pretty easy for me to forget how good I really have it in life. Every time I watch this movie, & hear the part when Anne writes in her diary of her waiting for things to get back to normal, as a viewer who knows that for her it never will, it serves as a great reminder to me that not taking things for granted is an act of appreciation that should never wait until tomorrow. The only existing moving-figure footage of Anne that is included in this documentary, truly serves to enhance the importance of this lesson of gratitude.

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Right now, all I'm wearing is a mustard-stained wife-beater T-shirt, no pants & a massive sombrero.

I saw a south african documentory on a guy that talks to wales.

It was amazing. It was called the wales in duna

Cant find it anywhere though

My Top 50

1. The Fog of War (2003)
2. The Sorrow and the Pity (1969)
3. Hearts and Minds (1974)
4. Hearts of Darkness, A Filmaker's Apocalypse (1991)
5. Harlan County USA (1976)
6. The Times of Harvey Milk (1984)
7. The Up Series (1964 - 2005)
8. Hoop Dreams (1999)
9. Nanook of the North (1922)
10. 500 Nations (1995)
11. Woodstock (1970)
12. My Voyage to Italy (1999)
13. Crumb (1994)
14. The Thin Blue Line (1988)
15. Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures (2001)
16. The War Room (1993)
17. Salesman (1969)
18. Eyes on the Prize (1987)
19. Roger and Me (1989)
20. Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills (1996)
21. The Celluloid Closet (1995)
22. The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl (1993)
23. Street Fight (2005)
24. A Constant Forge (2000)
25. Control Room (2004)
26. Point of Order (1964)
27. 4 Little Girls (1997)
28. Cinemania (2002)
29. Gates of Heaven (1978)
30. Grizzley Man (2005)
31. Grey Gardens (1976)
32. Huey Long (1985)
33. Mr. Death (1999)
34. Vernon Florida (1982)
35. Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)
36. An Unreasonable Man (2006)
37. Young at Heart (2007)
38. Little Dieter Needs to Fly (2007)
39. Murderball (2004)
40. No End in Sight (2007)
41. Fast , Cheap and Out of Control (1997)
42. Brother's Keeper (1992)
43. March of the Penguins (2005)
44. Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple (2006)
45. A Decade Under the Influence (2003)
46. A Brief History of Time (1991)
47. The Weather Underground (2002)
48. Reel Paradise (2005)
49. The Gleaners and I (2000)
50. Bowling for Columbine (2002

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"Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others."- Groucho Marx

Well, they have telephones there. Hell, I could do that.

Of course, if someone's shouting from South Africa to Wales, then yes, that's something that should be documented because that's one of the most incredible feats I've ever heard of... If you'll pardon the pun.

Crumb.

A Haunting in Connecticut, the pilot episode of the Discovery Channel series, A Haunting.

Especially since I live in Connecticut, it's doubly interesting to me. I find the documentary particularly frightening, and I think the re-inactments are all done very, very well. The recent film based on the "true story" it tells, The Haunting in Connecticut (2009), is no comparison, but is still decent nonetheless, sharing a few basic similarities with the original documentary. The story is very intriguing, even if I'm very skeptical that most of what's claimed by the family actually happened.

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Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven."
John Milton, Paradise Lost

My Movie Review Thread | My Top 100

I really like Bowling for Columbine.

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"Why pay a dollar for a bookmark? Why not use the dollar for a bookmark?"
Steven Spielberg

The following documentary films are the ones that I liked best, in no particular order:

State of Siege

Z

Harlan Country U. S. A.

Hearts and Minds

One Day in September

Gimme Shelter

Grizzly Man

Ground Truth

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"It does not take a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brush fires of freedom in the minds of men." -- Samuel Adams (1722-1803)

Z isn't a documentary.

Neither is State of Siege, by the same director.

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It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. - John Wooden
My IMDb page

Uh.......wow. I'm sorry, but I have to ask the blindingly obvious question: did you really think it was a documentary?

If your answer is "yes", then my next question is, "Do you know what a documentary is?".

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