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

Assassins (2020). Unraveling the audacious airport assassination of the exiled and estranged half-brother to North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un, ASSASSINS is a riveting dissection of infamous dynasty dynamics and the surprising tale of two young women recruited to secure the uncontested leadership of Kim Jong-un.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11394276/

I keep thinking about the young man working his butt off, away from his family, being paid dirt, making the owner even more rich. All in the name of national pride (chauvinism). Makes me wonder if and when Chinese Labor will gave their American style Progressive Era (eg collective bargaining, profit sharing, right to strike).

A little late to the thread, but two come to mind:

Hoop Dreams (1994) - Explores inner-city poverty through the eyes of two young boys in Chicago who want to use basketball as a way to escape their environment. I haven't seen it in a long time, but my biggest takeaway from it is how narrow the bridge to "success" can be for some. If you grow up in a well-to-do upper middle class environment, you can make a shocking number of youthful mistakes, yet still get saved by your parents, school, society. Others really only have one or two chances to make things work.

The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness (2013) - A must-watch if you're an admirer of Hayao Miyazaki movies. Goes into his creative processes; how he thinks about his work, the world at-large, etc.; and his long-standing friendship with his producer, Toshio Suzuki.

I watched The Ascent of Man when it first came out - I was probably 8 or 9 at the time.

That scene at Auschwitz where he walks into the pond is burned into my memory:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltjI3BXKBgY

Edit: It was many years later that I noticed the reference to Leo Szilard, reminding me of this quote from The Making of the Atomic Bomb:

"In London, where Southampton Row passes Russell Square, across from the British Museum in Bloomsbury, Leo Szilard waited irritably one gray Depression morning for the stoplight to change. A trace of rain had fallen during the night; Tuesday, September 12, 1933, dawned cool, humid and dull. Drizzling rain would begin again in early afternoon. When Szilard told the story later he never mentioned his destination that morning. He may have had none; he often walked to think. In any case another destination intervened. The stoplight changed to green. Szilard stepped off the curb. As he crossed the street time cracked open before him and he saw a way to the future, death into the world and all our woes, the shape of things to come..."

FYI: The internet calls Corked a mockumentary.