As an alternative if you have suggestions for documentary sources please do share them.
Mine would be United States of Secrets by PBS Frontline.
LEMMiNO is also great! One of the best documentary makers ever!
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I”ve watched all Curtis’ stuff apart from TraumaZone and I couldn’t agree more. I watched the first episode of that one a couple of night ago, I’m still processing.
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I put it off because there’s no narration in TraumaZone, just captions but it works so well.
Wow, thank you for the list sir! this list… is totally hidden gem for me who’s know nothing about many documentary movies.
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That one was really outstanding. I’ve seen it twice completely.
- Burden of Dreams
- Cats of Mirikitani
- Tickled +1
- The Hermit of Treig
- Free Solo
- Into Eternity: A Film for the Future
- Bureau 39: Kim’s Cash Machine
- Jiro Dreams of Sushi
- The Silence of Others
- Palio
- The Ambassador
- The Babushkas of Chernobyl
- The Act of Killing
- The Kingmaker
- Grande Hotel (2010)
- He Dreams of Giants
- HyperNormalisation +1
- The Extraordinary Voyage (2011)
- The Power of Nightmares
- Feng ai ('Til Madness Do Us Part)
- The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (maybe my all-time favorite)
- Dear Zachary (IT WILL RUIN YOUR DAY, YOU’VE BEEN WARNED)
- I Think We’re Alone Now
And reiterating all of the Adam Curtis recommendations. I especially like HyperNormalisation. I don’t know of anything else like his documentaries.
Dominion Cowspiracy What the Health The Game Changers Forks Over Knives That Sugar Film
Plenty of others, but there’s a theme here.
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Tickled blew me away!
Second this, it’s amazing. I also like: Food inc PBS circus History of the bbs Brick city
Mister Organ, by the same guy, was also a wild ride.
Koyaanisqatsi, while not a traditional documentary, is a truly fascinating time capsule featuring a great soundtrack from Phillip Glass. It’s all images/video with no dialog or voiceover. It’s a unique experience (especially in an altered state of mind)
Dick Proenneke - Alone in the Wilderness
This isn’t so much a documentary as it is a video blog, but it’s so worth it.
Recorded back in the late 1960s it is a self documented story of one man moving to remote Alaska and building a cabin/homestead in that untamed wilderness.
I cannot recommend this enough. It’s thoughtful, peaceful, and heartwarming.
Searching for sugarman
Sick Around the World, a PBS Frontline documentary, is a good one for Americans. Comparing healthcare systems in multiple countries.
Adam Curtis, HyperNormalisation (2016)
‘It argues that governments, financiers, and technological utopians have, since the 1970s, given up on the complex “real world” and built a simpler “fake world” run by corporations and kept stable by politicians.’
If you like sports, Ballon sur Bitume: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhW2CwKXsfE
I recently watched, “Russia 1985–1999: TraumaZone” and greatly enjoyed it.
It’s about what it was like to live in the Soviet Union at the end of communism and then the end of democracy. The story is entirely told with footage from the time.
I’d like to also recommend my two favorite documentaries about labor unions, Harlan County, USA and American Dream.
They Shall Not Grow Old, and the bonus “making of”, is an incredible WW1 documentary and one of my favorite documentaries I’ve ever seen.
Dirty Wars is a 2013 American documentary film about American foreign policies and war crimes. It was the first time that I heard about their manipulations, wars and assassinations.
Mine was 9/11 because it was obvious the official story was ridiculous and literally impossible.
