For me it’s gotta be something from ARTE (the French/German culture television channel). Either it’s the one about Chodorowskis weird Dune project or the three-part series about the history of racism. Both were extremely well-made documentaries.
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Everything by Adam Curtis. It’s mostly already known facts, but arranged in a positively depressing way.
The Vietnam War by Ken Burns. Among other things, it’s got an amazing soundtrack
The civil war as well by KB. The Ashokan Farewell stayed in my head for 20 years after watching it and I didn’t know where it came from. All I remembered was a good narrator and serious historical content, finally found the song name!
Hell yes, it’s hard to go wrong Trent Reznor on the soundtrack.
“How it’s Made”
Probably not what you were thinking of, but yes, it’s actually a documentary series.
Just a fascinating look into how various things are made.
For me it was a short YouTube doc about pagpag. Granted I haven’t seen many docs but this one sorta hit home as we were very poor growing up but we were fortunate enough to not be this poor.
It’s pagpag it means brush off.
Woops looks like autocorrect got me and I was to sleepy to notice.
It can also mean “shake off” as in you just shake off the dirt sticking on the food before eating it.
Of course that’s not really what’s being done, but it’s a simplified description of what pagpag is.
Three from Ron Fricke: Koyaanisqatsi, Baraka, Samsara.
So so beautiful. I’ve only seen one(Samsara)though are they all like that.
Yeah, pretty much. Similar style.
I say give “Icarus” a shot. I think it’s on Netflix rn. It starts off as bike race and then grows into something much more crazier. I think it win some awards? Highly recommend!
Starts as trying to show how you can cheat in bike racing and ends up exposing Russia in a doping scandal within the Olympics. Was a crazy movie but amazing
“Terror! Robespierre and the French Revolution”
- imdb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1468876/
- a youtube copy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suZdYkZ_feM
- invidious: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=suZdYkZ_feM
Focuses on Robespierre’s year on the Committee for Public Safety. It has a mix of re-enactments and “talking head” experts, and the talking heads often disagree with one another. It’s a set of events that’s usually ignored in US schools, which is a shame because there’s a lot we could learn there.
Azorian: The Raising of the K-129
One of the secretive, over-engineered, and ridiculously expensive Cold War spy projects which inspired fiction like James Bond and Metal Gear Solid really happened.
I always mention The Smartest Guys In The Room. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron%3A_The_Smartest_Guys_in_the_Room
Its about Enron and the manipulation of the energy market in the 90s.
Eye opening for anyone who expects ethics , morality, or human dignity from a corporation.
Ghenghis Blues - A blind musician discovers Tuvan throat singing and travels to Mongolia to discover the music and people.
It’s hard to pick just one, but I’ve always enjoyed June 17th, 1994 by Brett Morgen and it’s one I rarely see mentioned in these contexts. There’s no narrator, it’s basically entirely archival news/sports footage from the day, but has a lot of footage that wasn’t actually broadcast, with hosts and reporters talking to producers, trying to decide what to do next. I worked in local TV news for about 10 years, so those segments were very familiar to me and really resonated with me seeing not only the events, but also the quick decisions of trying to figure out how to present those events and particularly how to tell people about what became the dominant news story of the day.
three-part series about the history of racism
That sounds interesting, but I couldn’t find it. Do you have a link, or a title?
I can reommend “Encounters at the End of the World” by Werner Herzog, it’s about researchers in Antarctica and what motivates them to be there. So many interesting people, and it gets a bit philosophical.
I am not entirely sure. I just searched a bit for it. I only found one in human zoos that was also really interesting. Also another one about the general topic but it’s from a 4 part series on a short history of slavery. Technically a small part of this series is about the emergence of modern racism as a cultural institution to justify the realised oppression due to slavery.
Particle Fever is one of my favs. Its filmed in just a simple and honest way and it really conveys the excitement of the work going on at CERN.
The Farthest, a documentary about the Voyager program. It’s marvelous.
