Operation Odessa
+1 Absolutely mind-boggling documentary…
Ask HN: What are some of the best documentaries you've seen?
481–490 of 568 posts
Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best documentaries you've seen?
#482Samsara [1] is not a typical documentary, but is well worth watching. It's visually stunning, and gives the viewer a great sense of the mechanisms of civilization. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsara_(2011_film)
Koyaanisqatsi, a film in a similar vein, had a profound impact on me when I first watched it in my twenties. The cinematography is also done by Ron Fricke, but it’s directed by Godfrey Reggio with a Philip Glass score.
Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best documentaries you've seen?
#483No post body was provided.
Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best documentaries you've seen?
#484Short documentary (Leaving The Earth) by Errol Morris about United Airlines Flight 232. If you haven’t heard of that, don’t google— watch the documentary. I like it because it’s the perfect rendition by two master storytellers (Errol Morris and Denny Fitch) of perhaps the greatest clutch performance in human history. on YouTube: https://youtu.be/nf33RDu_D6M
Seconded.
I bought the First Person DVD set many years ago just to get this episode, which I first saw on (IIRC) IFC.
I rewatch Denny's episode every year or two. Chills every time.
Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best documentaries you've seen?
#485Cold Case Hammarskjöld (2019)
Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best documentaries you've seen?
#486As a huge music fan, I found "Country Music" by Ken Burns to be extremely enlightening and entertaining. After watching, you'll realize country music is the foundation of modern western (rock, pop, electronic, etc.) music.
Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best documentaries you've seen?
#487I love documentaries, and these are my favourites. All very worth a watch. - The Crash Reel - McConkey - Buck - Apollo 11 - Carts of Darkness - The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia - Samsara - Baraka - Brooklyn Castle - Spellbound - Drew: The Man Behind the Poster - Crumb - The Jinx - The Art of Flight - King of Kong - Indie Game: The Movie - Capturing the Friedmans - OJ: Made in America - The Barkley Marat…
Capturing the Friedmans is brilliantly constructed. Jarecki peels the onion one layer at a time, saving key details for when they'll have maximum impact.
Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best documentaries you've seen?
#488“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.
https://youtu.be/x1bX3F7uTrg obligatry response whenever anything by Adam Curtis is offered up. Sorry, I'm largely of the opinion that it is (well made) boomer-aimed catastrophe porn designed to give the viewer a smug sense of having "esoteric knowledge".
Yeah, I tend to agree.
I've watched a couple and they ask pretty good questions if the answers he gives require some additional research/critical thinking/knowledge of history.
The last documentary I watched, Hypernormalization, seemed to give platform to and justify the need for _more_ individualism via Trump-esque critique on Leftist ideologue. That is totally fine, but I can see how people can watch his documentaries accept many of the leaps in logic.
Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best documentaries you've seen?
#489"Fog of war" about the life of Robert McNamara. He is quite candid about some of the mistakes he made.
Fog of War is incredible. I haven't really seen anything else like it in the sense that powerful people very rarely publicly examine themselves and their lives the way McNamara does. The follow-up with Rumsfeld is so different because he doesn't.
Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best documentaries you've seen?
#490The Alpinist If you enjoyed Free Solo, you really should check out The Alpinist. It's a documentary about Marc-André Leclerc; Alex Honnold thinks of Marc-André the way most of us think about Alex Honnold.
Free solo was great, but also a nerve wracking thing to watch. Is The Alpinist as gut wrenching?
Probably more so.