• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Name one documentary that you feel people should watch and explain why

Haha my bad. Yeah I’m too damn lazy to make a new thread. I just want a place to here recommendations on documentaries.

Hell yeah I'm not hating, just thought it was hilarious.

Captive is a good one on Netflix. True stories of kidnappings for ransom and shit like that. Highly recommend it. There's 8 episodes so far, the first one being about the Lucasville prison riot, wild stuff. Also pretty embarrassing display by law enforcement/negotiation teams.
 

godhandiscen

There are millions of whiny 5-year olds on Earth, and I AM THEIR KING.
1E4ii3p.jpg


Crazy to think how much has changed since this time. I really respect Snowden’s morales.

I cannot remember the exact numbers Snowden mentioned, but the amount of data he claimed the government could process back then, 2012, was the cutting edge and it was the surveillance capability bottleneck.

Since then, the data processing capacity in the private sector has grown over 100x with the advent of newer data engineering technologies. I wonder what the government can really infer from a person's web traffic nowadays.

My recommendations:

If you liked the Snowden one, this one is pretty much the sequel, but it isn't as good.

33340146_so.jpg


The next two are pretty much red pills on finance de-regulation and the banking industry.

The collapse of Enron due to the financial "engineering" that made banks accomplices.

MV5BNjI0ODAxMDUwNl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMDU3MjE1MQ@@._V1_UY1200_CR90,0,630,1200_AL_.jpg


The 2008 stock market crash also brought to you by pretty much the same idiots.

p8202241_p_v13_ag.jpg
 
Last edited:

IDKFA

I am Become Bilbo Baggins
images


Harrowing doc about the 2013/14 Ukraine Euromaidan riots. Mixed with interviews and footage of the civil unrest, it is required viewing if you want to understand the Ukrainian civil war and current issues in the country.

Probably one of the best docs I've ever seen.

 
Last edited:

ItsGreat

Member
Century of the Self: About how the ruling class used the work of Edward Bernays to psychologically control the masses and society. Its pretty eye opening as to how programmable we humans are and is a must watch IMO. I promote it on my FB feed but people would rather post about dumb shit.

This needs repeating. We are so deep into Bernays systems it's scary. Once the governments got a sniff and realised how easy it was to implement there was no turning back.
 

oagboghi2

Member
The Corporation
Code:
[IMG]https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71RlYsWTAxL.jpg[/IMG]

This film is a must-see. It examines the behaviour of corporations in society in the same way a psychiatrist would evaluate a patient. The finding is that corporations pretty much behave like psychopaths. The film shows how much that behaviour affects society.

I think the documentary is required viewing for anyone living today.
Stupid documentary that I had to watch in political science class.

Corporations aren’t human beings. Applying terms like psychopath to them is silly.

Timely
 
Last edited:

B D Joe

Member
Citizenfour is great, the one with Snowden anyways. It's sad despite everything revealed nothing really changed with the general public and their privacy being compromised.

Hypernormalisation is all over the place, the archive footage is interesting but I couldn't help feeling that it was just as guilty of perception management and propaganda as what it was trying to educate us about it?
 

CloudNull

Banned
I just watched Travis Scott- Look mom I can fly.



I would consider myself an average fan of hip hop and I found this documentary to be incredible. I had no idea rap tours could be so extravagant.

Astroworld was robbed for Rap Album of the Year.
 

Ballthyrm

Member
A recent one I really liked was Apollo 11



It was made just like the world at war with footage from that time.
No sensational and fake reenactment. Just the facts and the scale of what was accomplished.

It really make you understand how huge an achievement it really all was and what people were able to do at that time.
 

INC

Member
Free Solo - because it makes you realise nobody ever achieves greatness whilst feeling cosy and safe.

Insane documentary, I use to do a lot of bouldering, so to see this, is mind boggling, and he makes it look for the most part easy....
 
Last edited:

AJUMP23

Gold Member
the-vietnam-war-1920.jpg


Civil war was already on here, so I chose this one. I watched the first couple episodes with my dad who served in Nam. He said there were things in here he had never seen. And the first episode that explains how the US ended up in the war is essential. It is brutal, but all 10 parts are worth your time.

Also the Civil War. watch it.
 

MHubert

Member
the-mole-undercover-in-north-korea-731917l-600x0-w-49070bf5.jpg


The latest madness from Brügger.
- This is the story of how a family man, supported by welfare cheques, one day decides to infiltrate the North Korean regime. Which he does....
If you know Brügger's earlier works, you are well aware of his batshit crazy and dangerous filmmaking. This takes it to another level.
This documentary basically blew the doors of the North Korean illegal drug and weapons trade wide open. It's one of those movies where you go 'this cannot be real' but it is..

I recommend (y)
 
Last edited:

Zeroing

Banned
The Pharmacist


Ugh I liked that documentary, but they focused everything on the crazy dad and his obsession, the documentary painted him like a hero who done it all. I was more interested in the social background and they didn’t focused too much on that.
 

Humdinger

Member
Thanks for the thread. I'm always up for a good documentary.

Here is my suggestion, one I haven't seen mentioned yet.


220px-Into_the_Wild_%282007_film_poster%29.png



It might not strictly qualify as a documentary, but it's what came to mind for me. (Others did, too, but they've already been mentioned.)

Into the Wild is the adaptation of John Krakauer's book. It chronicles the tale of a young man who decides to break away from civilization and travel on his own into the Alaskan wilderness. I related to Christopher's wanderlust, his desire to break away, and his love for nature. Even though I knew how the story ended, I still found it moving and memorable.
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the thread. I'm always up for a good documentary.

Here is my suggestion, one I haven't seen mentioned yet.


220px-Into_the_Wild_%282007_film_poster%29.png



It might not strictly qualify as a documentary, but it's what came to mind for me. (Others did, too, but they've already been mentioned.)

Into the Wild is the adaptation of John Krakauer's book. It chronicles the tale of a young man who decides to break away from civilization and travel on his own into the Alaskan wilderness. I related to Christopher's wanderlust, his desire to break away, and his love for nature. Even though I knew how the story ended, I still found it moving and memorable.
Yes, what a great movie (and book too)
 
Last edited:
I can add:

"Kalachakra, the wheel of time"; a documentary of Wener Herzog about buddhism. Very deep, very interesting, without any pretentious philosophy.

And "Fyre", on Netflix, about the greatest party that never happened.
 

BadBurger

Is 'That Pure Potato'
No Safe Spaces. I believe it's on Prime right now. Why should you watch it? *Gestures at the state of things*

Sorry if this is political mods, but it's kind of impossible not to be when discussing this particular doc:

I bought this one on Amazon about a month ago out of curiosity. While the hosts and figures are not the kinds of people I would typically agree with (I'm pretty sure everyone here knows I am super liberal), they really do a very good job of highlighting how insane the far left are, particularly in academia. How they so easily drive out their own. It's only $3.99 USD for rental on Amazon Prime Video and I'd recommend watching it. It also has a little humor in there given Adam Corolla is the co-creator.
 

Tschumi

Member
Look... There are obviously documentaries everyone should watch, like, Shoah and Cosmos and the like, but I'm just gonna assert that David Attenborough's second major series, The Living Planet, is another really good one, it's final episode is a wonderfully acerbic takedown of how little we value the earth.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
BBC Earth | Home

Any of those Planet Earth kinds of shows. It's more than just animal clips. I've got a bunch of BR discs and there's one's on Humans too. There was one clip about boat people who live in the pacific who only live on wooden boats and their skin is eternally roasted from the sun. But that's how they live. No land. And another about people in the Amazon (I forget), who live high up in trees with crazy climbing skills.

There's so many sections that you don't have to watch them all. Just pick the ones that are interesting. For example, in one of the discs it has to do with people living in cities.... BORING. I don't give a shit about someone growing plants on a roof or monkeys interacting with humans in Indian cities. I'd rather see insects and lions.

Even better, a bunch of this should already be on Netflix.

But make note, as interesting as they seem, they are faked. And it makes sense. You'd never really think of it unless you read articles about editing, but all those lion fights are videographers sitting there for weeks doing clips and they piece together clips to form a narrative. So what you see isn't in chronological order. A lion fight might be days worth of clips edited together.

And sound effects are edited in afterwards in a sound studio as they dont have mics everywhere capturing sound. So audio is fake too.
 

Quasicat

Member
Super_Size_Me_Poster.jpg


I have always liked this one.
Morgan Spurlock is so overdramatic in Super Size Me, like after eating a supersized meal and he starts throwing up.

Fat Head is a good documentary that looks at Super Size Me and shows that the opposite is also true…that you can lose weight eating fast food if you use your brain.

 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Morgan Spurlock is so overdramatic in Super Size Me, like after eating a supersized meal and he starts throwing up.

Fat Head is a good documentary that looks at Super Size Me and shows that the opposite is also true…that you can lose weight eating fast food if you use your brain.


Nice. I'll check out that movie.

That Supersize Me movie was total BS. I'm not saying eating bad food wont make you fat and doesn't have low nutrition, but I don't see how any person can eat fast food and suddenly start vomiting on day one.

His body must be so bad at adjusting to food, if someone cant take eating McDonalds for a day without half dying barfing out of his car, that's not healthy at all.

Even my 80 year old parents can eat fast food and junky stuff like cakes and pies for dessert and are fine.
 

Bragr

Banned
Nice. I'll check out that movie.

That Supersize Me movie was total BS. I'm not saying eating bad food wont make you fat and doesn't have low nutrition, but I don't see how any person can eat fast food and suddenly start vomiting on day one.

His body must be so bad at adjusting to food, if someone cant take eating McDonalds for a day without half dying barfing out of his car, that's not healthy at all.

Even my 80 year old parents can eat fast food and junky stuff like cakes and pies for dessert and are fine.
That's because you are used to it, the acid coca cola makes you want to vomit but they put shit in it that suppresses that instinct, people get used to shit. If you didn't grow up with it, it's not hard to see how someone can throw up from it.

You can eat it and be fine, but if you didn't, you be a lot finer.
 
Top Bottom