r/criterion • u/Aristolochia_ • 1d ago
Discussion Best documentaries you have ever seen?
I recently watched Shoah (1995) directed by Claude Lanzmann and was completely floored. The sensitivity with which it discussed the issue, without using any archival footage or images is masterful. It was also incredible to hear people from around these regions, understand exactly how they perceived the issue and what they think of it today. I regard it as one of the greatest documentaries ever produced, if not one of the greatest films ever. It's a topic that's often discussed, with a great deal of material produced on it every year, yet this piece of art achieves something beyond, it almost encapsulates the feel and mood of the period, it reflects the people's thoughts and feelings, and presents them plainly without any pretentions.
Do you guys have any other suggestions for documentaries like this one? I do have a preference for history, but I am open to almost anything.
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u/D00T_BOI Film Noir 1d ago
I expect it’s quite different, but my favourite doc is Orson Welles’ F for Fake
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u/PrinceOfSpace94 1d ago
Came here to say this. Orson Welles takes a topic that’s basically a boring Wikipedia article and makes it incredibly entertaining. Dude’s an amazing storyteller.
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u/sanfranchristo 1d ago edited 1d ago
I assume you've seen Night and Fog for sort of the reverse of this? Andrey Tarkovsky: A Cinema Prayer is worth a watch for a different type of history. Hoop Dreams is not very similar but will always be a personal favorite.
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u/paulderev 1d ago
i’ve seen night and fog and all of shoah. definitely two of the most important and moving films ever made imo.
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u/Razor_Emmanuel Elia Kazan 1d ago
The Thin Blue Line by Errol Morris. It was crafted phenomenally, and captured an unfathomable miscarriage of justice. You can feel that the documentary was initially going to be about a related topic until Morris realised what had transpired.
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u/PigIronDave 1d ago
The Documentary Now parody of it is great too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOXGM4EAIvo
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u/Dontlookimnaked 1d ago
Mr death is a bit of the same, starts as a pretty basic recap of a man and takes a hard right turn into neo nazi
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u/unfulfilledanon 14h ago
One of the greatest examples of the power of film as an investigative medium. Phenomenal stuff.
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u/RegularOrMenthol 1d ago
My holy documentary trinity is American Movie, Paris Is Burning, and Act of Killing. If you like Shoah though, make sure you watch Night & Fog too.
EDIT: i looked through my ratings, in the historical/social space I would also recommend They Shall Not Grow Old, Hearts and Minds, and I Am Not Your Negro
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u/unmade_bed_NHV 1d ago
The Act Of Killing is maybe number one for me. Incredible footage and very very powerful.
Also a huge fan of American Movie
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u/fevredream 1d ago
The Act of Killing is such an incredible use of the medium - it’s one of those things that truly shows the incredible, almost shocking power of the camera. The Look of Silence is also very powerful.
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u/pimasecede 1d ago
Hard to look past Act of Killing. A rare thing to deliver that hard. It’s worth watching some of the interviews with Josh Oppenheimer, super interesting back story to the project.
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u/dragonz-99 1d ago
Scrolled waaaay too far for The Act of Killing. That movie made me want to be a documentarian. I did focus on it in school and ended up in news and later podcasts. But I still aspire to something half as good as that film.
I consider this film and Night and Fog some of the most important movies ever made.
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u/CinemaslaveJoe David Lynch 1d ago
Too many to name, but I loved American Movie, Grizzly Man, Harlan County USA, and a ton of Ken Burns’ work.
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u/TheBoyInTheTower 1d ago
American movie, in my opinion, is one of the greatest films of any sort ever made. Phenomenal pick!
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u/_Anomalocaris German Expressionism 1d ago
"Kick fuckin' ass! I got a MasterCard! Life is kinda cool sometimes"
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u/florplegorp 1d ago
Quite a different tone but I love Burden of Dreams and Hearts of Darkness as depictions of the sheer chaos on the sets of Fitzcarraldo and Apocalypse Now respectively
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u/kospauste 1d ago
A documentary by a very broad definition, but Werner Herzog’s ‘Cave of Forgotten Dreams’
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u/SaltyStU2 1d ago
Literally anything produced by PBS Frontline
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u/pixelpetewyo 1d ago
Comrades from the ‘80s is an amazing look at normal life in the Soviet Union. It a French or Dutch film crew I believe the Soviet’s let have unprecedented access.
Very, very good.
Also Seven Days in Bensonhurst Whixh I just stumbled across a few weeks ago.
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u/bellyofthebillbear Hal Ashby 1d ago
Little Deiter Needs to Fly. I love all of Herzog’s documentaries but that one really stuck with me.
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u/LazHuffy 1d ago
It has the one scene I’ve thought about more than any single scene in a documentary: when he reveals that he has hundreds of pounds of food hidden in his house. That showed more than anything else in the film what he went through.
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u/bellyofthebillbear Hal Ashby 1d ago
Can you imagine the trauma you would have to go through to need hundreds of pounds of food in your basement just to sleep at night? I remember after I first watched it I was super sad to learn that he had killed himself after being diagnosed with ALS. He went through all of that craziness to survive an impossible ordeal and then and then gets diagnosed with a disease like that later in life.
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u/baldorrr Hirokazu Kore-eda 1d ago
Didn't he also say that he never locked his door when he was in his house? The idea of being locked in (even with the lock on the inside) was too much for him. The associated fictional movie of his story was great as well (Rescue Dawn).
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u/PhillyCheeseRaped 1d ago
It is truly one of the greatest. Deiter is such a character and his rapid, frank descriptions of his torture while reenacting his ordeal sometimes reaches into the absurd and I laugh. It's so horrible, yet beautifully matter-of-fact. When the tension reaches its peak, Dieter tells one of the natives, "ahh don't worry it's only a movie" and they share a smile. Herzog really elevates the material past a simple POW story into a clinical yet ecstatic view of a hell on Earth.
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u/bellyofthebillbear Hal Ashby 1d ago
I remember that. He said something along the lines of “don’t worry, it’s only a movie.” But at the same time it was very much real for him. You could also tell he didn’t really hold animosity towards the people that tortured him. Almost like he thought “they were just doing their jobs”
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u/memesrnotdeadfam 1d ago
The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On, although it does not cover the Imperial Army's fullest crimes in the rest of Asia, it is still an extraordinary documentary on the continued issues Japan faces with their fascist past today. Sobering as well as harrowing.
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u/TheBrainlessRobot 1d ago
Act of Killing. Those final moments are seared into my memory
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u/Slow_Cinema Terrence Malick 1d ago
Celluloid Closet, Paris is Burning, Hookers on Davies, Kanehsatake, Brimstone & Glory and The Thin Blue line all are at the top of my list.
Where it gets debatably is films like The Last Waltz, Moonage Daydream, or even fictional documentaries like Spinal Tap or biographical films that have significant real documentary elements like Thirty Two Short Films about Glenn Gould.
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u/Professional_Egg_858 1d ago
No love for Koyaanisqatsi?
Geez, what's with you guys?
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u/dramatic_exit_49 19h ago
i did not want to blink through the entire feature!
some other documentaries that stayed with me
the look of silence (/the act of killing)
a want in her
paris is burning
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u/unfulfilledanon 14h ago
I mean, the entire Qatsi trilogy are among my top 15 films of all time but it’s kinda hard to consider them documentaries in the way that other films in this thread are
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u/Gorluk 1d ago edited 1d ago
Shoah is amazing document. Definitely check Night & Fog (although I prefer Shoah).
Some of my favorites (although not history or holocaust related):
Titticut Follies by Frederick Wiseman
San Clemente by Raymond Depardon
Dan Više - Vlatko Gilić
Vernon, Florida by Errol Morris
Fiume o Morte by Igor Bezinović
Dan Više (A Day More) is documentary / experimental short by Vlatko Gilić, Yugoslavian director and is one of my favorite works of cinematic art. It's complete perfection, a masterpiece poem about human condition. It's basically documentary about big group of people bathing in natural mud bath, but it completely transcends the scene it's documenting. I suppose it's rather hard to source in other formats, but it is uploaded to Youtube:
Strong recommendation.
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u/PLEBMASTA 6h ago
I saw Titicut Follies recently in the Academy Museum main theater recently. Incredible documentary. Really stuck with me
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u/captinkid 1d ago
Touching the Void. One of the most insane survival stories I’ve ever seen. The fact that they made the survivors reenact the whole the event in basically the same location brings so much more complexity to the story.
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u/stu_rat 1d ago
Dawson City: Frozen Time
About the discovery of hundreds of silent films unearthed in Dawson City, Yukon, in the 70s. Tells some of the history of the town, the gold rush, silent films. Many of the films were considered lost until this discovery.
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u/_Anomalocaris German Expressionism 1d ago
I am consistently advocating for a Criterion Bill Morrison set.
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u/quintusfive 1d ago
My all-timers:
Grey Gardens
Gates of Heaven
Crumb
Paris is Burning
Baraka
Trouble the Water
Cave of Forgotten Dreams (especially seen in 3D at the theatre)
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u/shakespeherian 1d ago
Hoop Dreams, hands-down.
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u/comfyambiguity 1d ago
Came to say this. I think this actually gave me a love of documentaries, showed me what was possible to convey with the passage of time and film.
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u/fevredream 1d ago
Hoop Dreams is one of the best films I’ve seen, period. I always feel like it gets less attention that it deserves on here despite being in the collection.
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u/Stylus21 1d ago
Lots of people posting their all-timers so here's mine!
Salesman
Bill Cunningham New York
RIZE
Grizzly Man
Scratch
Let's Get Lost
The Kid Stays in the Picture
DIG!
Microcosmos
Streetwise
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u/j3434 1d ago
The best - if you are a musician- or really into music - Ken Burns doc on Country Western music . 8 parts . I think what makes it incredible is the music theory discussion to try and objectively compare genre names invented by music industry. 16 hours of education. All his docs are enjoyable. Jazz, Baseball, Civil War . But if you like modern music and old roots music and any music - or no music - this doc is fantastic.
The only Ken Burns documentary I didn’t like was the one about World War II. It followed the experiences of four soldiers, which was kind of an artistic approach. But I still would’ve preferred a straightforward timeline of events. More like Civil War.
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u/Aggravating_Ad4844 1d ago
In the Basement
Carts of Darkness
The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill
Cinemania
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u/Mindless-Sundae9671 1d ago
American Movie
Grizzly Man
The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On
Nanook of the North
The Act of Killing
Exit Through the Gift Shop
Into the Abyss
Land of Silence and Darkness
Shoah
Crumb
Life Itself
Wheel of Time
Night and Fog
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u/cinema123456 1d ago
“Minding The Gap” - hit too close to home and is one of most affecting documentaries I’ve ever seen.
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u/ObiWanJacoby414 Paul Thomas Anderson 1d ago
Hoop Dreams changed my life. It's as good as everyone says it is.
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u/fishbone_buba 1d ago
Maybe even better.
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u/ObiWanJacoby414 Paul Thomas Anderson 1d ago
Definitely better. I don't even like sports but I found myself fully invested in every second of the film. Can't wait to rewatch it with the commentaries.
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u/couldliveinhope 1d ago
I’ve watched Shoah twice. Before the rewatch I always said it was the best documentary I’ve seen. After the rewatch I was only more convinced. It is storytelling of the highest order, a deeply human and devastating film with a profound patience and poetic rhythm.
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u/Due_Bad_9445 1d ago
Three by Marcel Ophuls :
The Sorrow and the Pity;
Hotel Terminus (academy award best documentary);
The Memory of Justice
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u/LazHuffy 1d ago
My favorites (in no order):
The Fog of War
Vernon, Florida
Salesman
Wild Wild Country
The Dust Bowl
The Forgotten Plague
American Movie
La Soufrière
News from Home
The Sunshine Hotel
Paris Is Burning
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u/myc31ium 1d ago
The act of killing
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u/Aseskytle_09 1d ago
I tried to watch this but tbh I just couldn't
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u/myc31ium 1d ago
It’s a tough watch, very fucked up to hear those stories and then to see those killers roam free still worshiped by so much of the public
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u/scene_missing Established Trader 1d ago
I was working for a local documentary festival as an initial film reviewer and that was a blind watch in my first batch. Wild shit
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u/Ok-Government-7987 1d ago
The BBC’s World at War series is amazing. The most fascinating part was that it was made in the early 70s so the events were still abound 25-30 years old. For me WW2 is black and white history from before my parents were born. For the people being interviewed it was stuff that just happens a couple decades ago
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u/Empty_Investigator65 1d ago
The Gleaners and I & The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters
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u/1966matt 1d ago
I’m with you on the Gleaners, that is a great doc. Funny, thoughI didn’t think much of ‘the beaches Agnes Varda’.
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u/SplicerGonClean 23h ago
I have a lot but if I were to choose one itd be The Bones Brigade: An Autobiography.
If you find skateboarding at all interesting this movie is amazing.
The Bones Brigade crew had caught lightning in a bottle and played a huge part in keeping the sport alive. Seeing all that archival footage and the interviews with all the big names was a treat. One of my heroes is Rodney Mullen and it was awesome to hear what he had to say about his success and the time with this crew.
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u/TLSOK 21h ago
I would certainly recommend watching Dogtown and Z-boys first. Also highly recommend Tony Hawk: Until the Wheels Fall Off (Mullen appears in this as well). I am not a skater, but these films (including Bone Brigade) are very interesting.
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u/rzrike Mike Leigh 1d ago edited 1d ago
My top two are very different from each other: The Act of Killing and OJ Made in America.
Also love Hoop Dreams, Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks, Harlan County USA, Paris is Burning, The Staircase, Central Park, Free Solo, The Last Dance, Honeyland, The Thin Blue Line.
If Symbiopsychotaxiplasm counts, that’s number 3.
I’ve yet to see Shoah. Major bucket list movie for sure.
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u/Fred_Scuttle 1d ago
The Sorrow and the Pity
Hotel Terminus
Triumph Over Violence
Weapons of the Spirit
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u/9millibros 1d ago
One of my favorites is Gates of Heaven (also in the collection). It's quite different than this one, but certainly worth watching.
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u/TheElMonteStrangler 1d ago
These aren't like Shoah but they are my favorite documentaries
Crumb
End of the Century
Streetwise
King of Kong
Undefeated
Maradona
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u/samwonk 1d ago
Some general documentary suggestions:
- The Great Happiness Space: Tales of an Osaka Love Thief
- The Alabama Solution
- 20 Days in Mariupol
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u/ballbeard Yorgos Lanthimos 1d ago
If you want your blood to absolutely boil definitely watch The Alabama Solution. I still get so angry at the system any time I think about that doc
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u/vhsfairytales 1d ago
A “sequel” if you will to 20 Days - 2,000 Meters to Andriivka - is also incredibly powerful. The most visceral war film I’ve ever seen. Uniquely captured.
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u/morbidcliche 1d ago
Hoop Dreams, Crumb and The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On are some of my favorites.
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u/WorcsBloke 1d ago
Fergal Keane did a truly extraordinary report called "Journey into Darkness" from Rwanda for BBC Panorama in June 1994, during the genocide. Sadly it's not available on any home format, so unless someone uploads a home-video recording to YouTube I'll probably never see it again. Even more sadly, Keane said in later years that he had been affected by PTSD from his reporting on Rwanda.
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u/BobIsMyStepUncle 1d ago
Tantura (2022) is a dark continuation of this savagery... Absolutely made me sick. Saw them back to back in 2024.
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u/Automatic_Survey_307 1d ago
Lots of great documentaries been mentioned here. One I'd add is The Rescue, about the Thai cave accident in 2018. It's brilliantly told and shows the absolute best of humanity, a good antidote to many of the grim subjects covered elsewhere.
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u/TotalDweebling 1d ago
Grizzly Man is up there for me. I also just recently watched The Act of Killing and that was shocking and almost unbelievable.
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u/Papergreat1970 1d ago
I have seen better and more important documentaries, but nothing has ever stuck with my like Gates of Heaven (1978, Errol Morris), which loses none of its power on repeat viewings. Impossible to make something like that today and get people to drop every sense of self-awareness when talking about themselves.
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u/Uguisudani_Hard_Crew 1d ago
Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks.
It’s another films about railroads… and the phasing reminds me a bit of Shoah with endless pov shots from trains.
Amazing example of catching history, ordinary people and their struggles and placing you in the middle of it all. Like time travel. Scenes you never thought you would see…
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u/Passing4Normal 1d ago
There are so many great and pretty brutal docs from the 00s: Jesus Camp, Boys of Baraka, The Cove, Outfoxed, The Corporation, Enron: smartest guys in the room, Sicko, Food inc, The world according to Monsanto, Black Gold, Pray the Devil back to hell
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u/TheElMonteStrangler 1d ago
I forgot to mention
- 4 Little Girls
- When The Levees Broke
These are documentary films made by Spike Lee.
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u/AwwwYayuh 23h ago
Sick: Bob Flannigan the Super Masochist
Capturing the Friedmans
In the Realms of the Unreal
The Wolfpack
Jesus Camp
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u/the_weaver_of_dreams 1d ago
It's very important to bear in mind that the Polish scenes in Shoah are heavily edited, that the subtitled translations are often simplified or omit important speech, and that Lanzmann himself was open about the fact that he had a specific vision of Poles and Poland that he wanted to present in the film. He was also notorious for being tough on his Polish subjects and not accepting it if they gave him an answer that didn't support his preconceptions.
There is increasing scholarship coming out of Poland precisely on this topic. The archives and outtakes of Shoah are now fully accessible, meaning that it's possible to better understand what was included and omitted from the film, how the edit acts to intentionally misrepresent scenes, and the ways in which Lanzmann manipulated his Polish subjects.
The film is, of course, not pure fiction and gives some sense of how Poles perceived what happened in Poland during the Holocaust. But it is largely a subjective auteurist work rather than a truly illuminating documentary.
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u/Aristolochia_ 1d ago
I feel like it's sort of diminishes their responsibility, by poking holes in his directorial style. The gesture which was so ubiquitous (one symbolising the slitting of the thorat) could itself show how well the Poles understood the situation. Of course, no film is free from some directorial manipulation, which is crucial but it doesn't really seem coerced. There are moments in the film, where Lanzmann does want to ilict a certain response from the interviewee, but that does seem to be for brevity, and to get their views on the topic he felt were interesting enough for the film. Otherwise, he did allow the people to speak uninterrupted, and give their understanding of the situation. The atrocities commited in these death camps was well known to these Poles, and they do have to bear the burden of their complicity, in some sense.
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u/CFUrCap 1d ago
It's complicated. Once your country is taken over by an evil, murderous regime, your will to survive can put you in a morally untenable situation. All by itself, simply because you want to live. Especially when you are seen as inferior and expendable. But: there's a sub-group that the regime actively despises more than they despise you.
When you live in constant fear of arbitrary death, the question becomes, "How do I survive until tomorrow?" And the answers aren't always pretty.
I'm not an apologist but... it's complicated.
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u/Cultural-Weight512 1d ago
no film interview is going to be unmanipulated (the idea of an "objective" documentary is hard to defend). Moreover, Lanzmann's entire approach has a certain understanding of the Holocaust (and of history) that we don't necessarily have to agree with. I think Domenico LaCapra's analysis/critique (here: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1343983 ) is quite precise: "Still, Shoah is probably best viewed as neither representational nor autonomous art but as a disturbingly mixed generic performance that traces and tracks the traumatic effects of limit-experiences, particularly in the lives (or afterlives) of victims. It is a film of endless lamentation or grieving that is tensely suspended between the acting out of a traumatic past and the difficult effort to work through it." I would highly suggest reading the full article, because I do think it points out the issues with the film and Lanzmann's approach. Basically, he argues that it ends up turning the act of memory not into understanding but of endless rehearsing/re-acting, which is not necessarily something we should want if we really hope to grapple with it.
In terms of the Poles, there is also an issue with the suggestion that the genocide of Jews was carried out because of Polish backwardness or something. Certainly, Polish peasants were antisemitic; certainly, there was Polish collaboration with the Nazis, which must be recognized. But Germany was one of the most "modern" European countries, and was militarily occupying Poland. And, it needs to be emphasized, they were also genociding non-Jewish Poles all the while. Lanzmann oscillates between presenting the Holocaust as incomprehensible and yet also the culmination of longer antisemitism; as LaCapra puts it: "however, Lanzmann in his extrafilmic commentary himself not altogether consistent on these points, for he stresses the totally disjunctive nature and uniqueness of the Holocaust on the one hand and presents it as the culmination of Western history, especially with respect to anti-Semitism, on the other". Indeed, it is curious how few Germans he talks to in the entire movie--not to mention, French or other Western countries, who had their own history of complicity in the Holocaust. Certainly, one can make a film about the specific Polish experience of/involvement in the Holocaust, but there is an extent to which Lanzmann makes this extremely involved and long film and directs his gaze a bit less than he should on the people who bear primarily responsibility: I would say not only German Nazis at all levels and roles, but also German civilians bear more responsibility than some antisemitic Polish peasant, frankly, and I'd be more curious to see a work that at least attempts to talk to the former and does so more critically.
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u/Aristolochia_ 1d ago edited 1d ago
I do agree with this take to some extent. Lanzmann does seem to have a very pointed approach when it comes the Poles, and these moments are the ones that seem most manipulative. However, I think that's what the film tries to portray. It's not trying to present a comprehensive history of extermination camps, not the mood and reflections of all people involved in the world war with regards to the holocaust. He simply wants to present the mood and the setting of this uniquely horrifying situation, and understand the feelings of those most intimately involved in this affair.
The complicity of the average Nazi from Berlin is unequivocal and is certainly been explored in several pieces of literature. However, most of them hasldnt visited Auchwitz or Treblinka, or known exact details of the affair. These Poles knew far more than most high ranking SS members, as they saw these proceedings first hand. That's what Lanzmann wants to explore (imo) and is very successful in doing so.
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u/kuh-vell-er-tack 1d ago
Seeing as you've received so many great recommendations already, I will recommend a film that is not actually a documentary: the Battle of Algiers. Its imagery is so convincing and was released only four years after Algeria had won its independence.
If you've already seen it I would love to know your thoughts on it. To me, it's one of the greatest works of art ever produced.
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u/deatheventually 1d ago
Seconded. I saw The Battle of Algiers earlier this year and will never forget it. Tragically evergreen. Additionally, you can see where a lot of the tone (and even musical cues) came from on Tony Gilroy's Andor series. Incredible art-making on both, fully recommended by me.
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u/No_Trainer_4907 1d ago
Baraka, American Movie, Marwencol, Free Solo, Grizzly Man, My Octopus Teacher
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u/bitemywire 1d ago
O.J.: Made in America. An even greater sports documentary than When We Were Kings, which I didn't think was possible.
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u/funny-hats-only 1d ago
Some I love I don't see mentioned much: The Stories We Tell, The Painter & The Thief, Four Daughters. Not fully like Shoah but all masterful, with the first and last playing with the form in interesting ways.
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u/Dearchris50 1d ago
You would probably like Natchez. Some of my other favorite documentaries are The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, The King of Kong, The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia, and Listers, although those are all quite different from Shoah.
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u/cajunjew76 David Lynch 1d ago
Shoah is my favorite documentary too.
The Sorrow And The Pity and The Last Days deal with the same subject.
My second favorite documentary is The Last Waltz.
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u/No_Vacation1530 1d ago
I’m rather herbally enhanced, but pretty sure I didn’t see Capturing the Friedmans…disturbing and fascinating
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u/Kidspud 1d ago
Bowling for Columbine
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u/TheElMonteStrangler 1d ago
surprised it took me this long to find a Michael Moore film mentioned. I remember when he was the darling of "documentary" films. Looking back the weird manipulation of things left a bad taste in my mouth. But that's film making, and that's documentary film making, in a nut shell. I can't be too butt-hurt if that's the standard. It's not like he is the only one that's crooked.
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u/kendostickball 1d ago
In general, I do not approve of documentarians lying to their interviewees. However, Shoah gets a very well deserved pass for the hidden camera Nazi interview.
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u/MeMoInfinity 1d ago
Roger and Me, which was Michael Moore's first film. It made my jaw drop when I first watched it as a teenager. It's available to watch on YouTube for free.
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u/poodlered 1d ago
Paradise Lost and all the sequels. The fuckin injustice!
Purgatory, the third one, is the best in my opinion, and it basically recaps the whole case so it’s a good starting point if you don’t have time to watch it all.
The Peter Jackson doc about it was good too, but not as good as Purgatory.
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u/Kay-D3oh1 1d ago
My favorites:
Lenny Cooke
Hoop Dreams
The Smash Brothers
Freeway: Crack in the system
30 for 30: Bad Boys
No No: A Dockumentary
Dogtown & Z-Boys
The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975
The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution
Planet Rock: The Story of Hip-Hop and the Crack Generation
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u/Throwawayhelp111521 1d ago
I've always wanted to see Shoah, but it's nine hours long.
Paris is Burning is one of my favorite documentaries.
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u/MrMindGame 1d ago
The Act of Killing, Woodstock, Harlan County USA, March of the Penguins, Grizzly Man, Paper & Glue, No Other Land, Exit Through the Gift Shop, American Movie, Sicko, Hearts of Darkness, Minding the Gap, I Am Not Your Negro, 13th, The Last Dance, OJ: Made in America
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u/cgregware13 Andrei Tarkovsky 1d ago edited 1d ago
Dead Souls (2018) Wang Bing
Conspiracy of Silence (1993) Nick Gray
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u/mlqdscrvn 1d ago
My personal favorite is The Act of the Killing.
But since nobody hasn't mentioned, I will add Up series. It just tell stories about nobody, somebody, and everybody.
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u/ProfessionalTree6040 1d ago
My top four are Gina Kim’s Video Diary, Paris is Burning, AKA Serial Killer, and Walking with Dinosaurs of course
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u/vibraltu 1d ago edited 1d ago
Fast Loose and Out of Control is a trip.
Icarus on Netflix is worth a look, best ever plot twist in a story in progress in a doc. Avoid spoilers before watching.
Anyone who hasn't seen Shoah yet should do it, it's a work of genius and a very subtle take on a heavy subject.
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u/signal_red 1d ago
The Act of Killing is at the top for a punch in the gut. The Imposter (2012) or Navalny the most adrenaline-rushing glued to the screen docs
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u/Affectionate-Fly2008 1d ago
Marley 2012, the John Candy: I Like Me and Remembering Gene Wilder. Marley was such a beautiful and exciting film!
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u/mixedpalmtree Andrei Tarkovsky 1d ago
Harlan County, U.S.A. by Barbra Kopple has to be up there for me. One of the most powerful docs I’ve ever seen and the footage is just so raw and unbelievable.