101–110 of 568 posts
Details the events of the 1980 deadly and nearly disastrous accident at the Titan II nuclear missile complex in Damascus, Arkansas.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/command-an...
Maybe a little older than 4 years, but posting because it's really well done.
This is the best WWII documentary I've ever seen, and it's available free: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VS5O9I5AUXI What makes it great is (a) that the filmmaker tried only to use source material, including audio narration, created during WWII, and (b) that the film sources were shot in color (rare for the time).
I'm not sure it really falls under the banner of "documentary" but Red Bull Media House make a film called "Flight" a few years ago that profiles a group of snowboarders flying around and doing snowboarding. You won't learn anything watching it but it's some of the best film making I've ever watched. It's beautiful.
I saw it when it was first released and agree, it's gorgeous footage. I forgot the name too and only looked it up because you made me curious if it's considered a documentary or some other classification. The wiki lists it as a documentary.
The Act of Killing - it's hard to even describe the premise. Its a present-day (2012) profile on participants in the 1960s mass killings in Indonesia. An absolutely brutal look into human nature.
I watched that shortly after release. Very memorable. It was quite bizarre to hear someone freely discuss his day job of murdering people in such a casual context.
It reminded me of the movie Man Bites Dog which was just a parody, https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0103905/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pianomania
If you enjoy watching people who are really, really good at what they do, this one is for you.
Discusses the history of computing and the rise and fall of tech companies as the industry changed. It's old but worth it imo
"Jiro Dreams of Sushi" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiro_Dreams_of_Sushi If you're a developer / engineer you'll admire the professionalism. And more importantly value proposition of your work.
I came away with a different impression, in that I certainly don't admire or want to share Jiro's attitude to work, because the perfection-at-all-costs approach looked like it had a pretty devastating fallout on his wife and his two sons. It's a fascinating documentary in that you'll either come away saying "how inspirational!" or "I'm running 100 miles away from that", and that's interesting in itself.
Free Solo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Solo Inside Job: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inside_Job_(2010_film) Life: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_(British_TV_series) My Octopus Teacher: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Octopus_Teacher
“The Century of the Self” by Adam Curtis. https://youtu.be/eJ3RzGoQC4s It goes through each decade of the 1900s and explains how Freud’s psychology and the new field of marketing completely reshaped society. For the first time in my life I feel like I understood the “why” of how things work in American society. This film is probably best if you’re age 40+ and actually remember some of the events.
+1 for any Curtis documentary. They aren't something you necessarily need to agree with to enjoy. Most of them involve him attempting to stitch together an over-arching narrative for events of our time.