Ask HN: What are some of the best documentaries you've seen? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best documentaries you've seen?

#151

Post by _uze0 » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 8:21 PM UTC

neuron_ wrote: post #39

The Overnighters fundamentally shifted how I think about selflessness, greed, apathy, and NIMBYism. I think about it on a near-daily basis.

I was very much impressed by this documentary on many different levels. The time I watched it fell right into the time when lots of refugees seeked shelter in Germany and when Trump agitated about Mexican migrants.

Because this film is also about xenophobia - but fascinatingly the targets of this sentiment aren't Arabs or Mexicans but Americans! That shows how detached society even within one country became detached from itself.

Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best documentaries you've seen?

#152

Post by dgudkov » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 8:23 PM UTC

Icarus (2017). Won an Oscar, has 93% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Not just the story of how state-sponsored doping and corruption kill Olympic games and major sport competitions, but the emotional and sometimes artsy way the movie is made is very impressive.

Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best documentaries you've seen?

#153

Post by cbanek » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 8:49 PM UTC

Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse

It's all about the making of Apocalypse Now. It's really great, I'd say it's almost as good as Apocalypse Now the movie itself. The mental state of the characters and what it took to make this movie blew my mind.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearts_of_Darkness:_A_Filmmake...

Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best documentaries you've seen?

#154

Post by Karimppp » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 8:54 PM UTC

It'd definitely be the one about successful people. Visit ethicalguccifer.strikingly.com for more

Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best documentaries you've seen?

#155

Post by paulie_a » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 9:22 PM UTC

Something ventured and silicon valley are two great ones.

Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best documentaries you've seen?

#156

Post by Balgair » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 9:47 PM UTC

platz wrote: post #30

Restrepo is a 2010 American documentary film about the Afghanistan war. The 2nd Platoon is depicted defending the outpost (OP) named after a platoon medic who was killed earlier in the campaign. The huge success of this film and what separates it from the hundreds of other war pictures is that Junger puts us right in the middle of the action without any political agenda. He simply decides to film these groups of sold…

The sister film is Armadillo (2010) [0] which follows a group of Danish soldiers from pre-deployment shenanigans, to the FOB in Afghanistan, IED attacks, possible war crimes (found to be baseless), and then the return home.

To me, the most striking scenes were the ones where the Danish and UK soldiers would play FPS games, don very high tech gear, bounce about in armour, etc. and then contrast that to the rusty, bent rifles and leftovers from the soviets, the sandals, the dust, the mud, of the afghan fighters. The war has never been close in any way and the Junger quote comes screaming into your head:

“Each Javelin round costs $80,000, and the idea that it's fired by a guy who doesn't make that in a year at a guy who doesn't make that in a lifetime is somehow so outrageous it almost makes the war seem winnable.”

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armadillo_(2010_film)

Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best documentaries you've seen?

#157

Post by jspash » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 9:50 PM UTC

"Big River Man" - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0956101/

It follows Martin Strel a Slovenian long distance swimmer as he attempts to swim the 3000+ miles of the Amazon and chronicles his struggles with the sheer effort of the swim, his personal life and alcoholism.

You don't need to have an interest in swimming or sport at all. It's just a really well-made documentary with many layers.

"Valley Uprising" - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3784160/ Rock climbing in Yosemite. The story begins innocently enough but as it proceeds through history of the climbs, it becomes more and more astonishing. Well worth a watch! Again, you don't need to be interesting in climbing at all. A good story is a good story.

Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best documentaries you've seen?

#158

Post by forapurpose » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 10:00 PM UTC

Chronicle of a Summer (Chronique d'un été): On one hand, a simple documentary where they conduct Studs Terkel-like interviews with working-class people in Paris in 1960, asking a simple question: Are you happy? As do all the best documentarians, they magically bring out the most profound, innermost thoughts of their subjects. On the other, a documentary about documentaries and their realism - interspersed are questions of how real and honest what we see is, and near the end the subjects watch the finished product together and discuss how real and honest they were in front of the camera.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronique_d'un_été

Considered an innovative milestone in documentary film-making.

Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best documentaries you've seen?

#159

Post by ArchTypical » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 10:15 PM UTC

Exit through the gift shop

Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best documentaries you've seen?

#160

Post by contingencies » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 10:18 PM UTC

The entire genre of 'non-narrative documentary' film https://www.imdb.com/list/ls073014744/ notably Manufactured Landscapes @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufactured_Landscapes

Many BBC documentary series. Personal favourites include History of India and Islamic History of Europe.

The extremely unique (probably never to be repeated in spirit) and zeitgeist-defining Julian Assange Show @ https://www.rt.com/tags/the-julian-assange-show/ and Citizenfour.

A post-facto interview based documentary whose name I forget, perhaps Real War, about Russian military human rights abuses in the Caucasus, which was extremely shocking.

Many SBS Dateline reports.