I can warmly recommend Kevin Kelly's website dedicated to his favorite documentaries. A catalog of very high quality documentaries. I've seen a few of them and loved them all.
Ask HN: What are some of the best documentaries you've seen?
391–400 of 568 posts
Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best documentaries you've seen?
#392Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks for the feedback - yes I'm not a native English speaker (I'm trilingual)
It's a weird quirk, now that I think about it, as a native English speaker. It's only a change in present / past tense and the preposition, but communicates something completely different. I guess reflecting on something external is always assumed in the past tense (I didn't care for...), while reflecting on ones own opinions (I don't care for...) suggests personal belief. And "for" (external) vs "about" (self) inten…
It's a little odd yes, but I think it counts as a phrasal verb? (https://www.englishclub.com/vocabulary/phrasal-verbs-list.ht... - eg. "throw out" vs. "throw up")
I've been learning Russian lately and re-discovering English through my lessons. Phrasal verbs are very present in Russian (as prepositions mainly), and I didn't realize how when I learned English they kind of came to me naturally and now I'm having such a hard time with them.
But when you think about it, phrasal verbs are fucking weird. For example, the various particles you can put after "send" (send out, send in, send up, send down, send away, send for, send into) are all various synonyms of "dispatching"; whereas "turn" as a phrasal verb is WAY more diverse (turn out, turn in, turn up, turn down, turn away, turn into, turn for: all different meanings).
Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best documentaries you've seen?
#393Brian Cox was mentioned in one of the replies, but without any context so I'll add some here. The stories he tells are beautifully constructed and he addresses fundamental questions like why are we here? Why is the universe the way it is? How can a handful of natural forces produce the stunning diversity we see on our planet? He does this by travelling to visually stunning places that are somehow connected to the sto…
I would love to watch Brian Cox be a bit more in depth and faster moving with less of the go somewhere exotic and spectacular for a reason which only adds a little bit tangentially to the material.
Sure it looks goods, and is good the first few sidetracks, but after a while I found myself thinking "get on with it" and that he could've told us so much more stuff in that time. I'm 100% sure he could do amazing material that was a bit more challenging for the viewer. It would probably have a smaller audience, but they could save money on all the exotic location shoots to make up for that.
Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best documentaries you've seen?
#394I'm currently obsessed with documentaries about uncontacted tribes.
Could you recommend some?
Sure. I recommend starting with this one and then letting your curiosity lead to others.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XYbR6eYrVbQ
My head hasn't been right since. I'm seriously questioning everything I've learned!
Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best documentaries you've seen?
#395Style Wars (1983)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Style_Wars
It documents the rise of Graffiti and Hip Hop culture in New York.
Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best documentaries you've seen?
#396Citizenfour
Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best documentaries you've seen?
#397Anything by Jonathan Meades. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Meades
Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best documentaries you've seen?
#398The Great War and World War 2 in Real Time, produced and narrated by Sparty Olson and Indy Nidell. Covering, as the name implies, both world wars on a weekly basis in real time. The most in depth stuff on those topics I have seen and now. Well, at somewhere between 10 and 30 minutes of YouTube content per week for the duration of both wars, 4 years for WW1 and 5.5 years for WW2 that's quite some content to watch. The WW2 series is still on going and currently at the Allied invasion of Italy in September 1943. They even have a minute by minute special series covering Pearl Habour.
Edit: Everything with David Attenborough, because of course. He did one about the crusades decades ago that was great!
Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best documentaries you've seen?
#399Anything ken burns.
Netflix dropping his documentaries was a sad day and a turning point in my opinion of their service.
Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best documentaries you've seen?
#400As a rule, BBC documentaries, and dare I say it, documentaries from the UK seem to be much much better than US documentaries.
US doc Red Flags: They have hired actors to dramatically recreate scenes. Have script writers for lines for historical figures. And worst of all, mention the words mystery, lost, sharks, nazi, aliens.