Movies are one of the greatest things in the world. I honestly believe that. And I think a lot of people will agree.
However, when talking about movies, a lot of people aren't thinking about documentaries.
Documentaries are movies about the real world, where the cameras capture candid moments, experts are consulted on the subject matter, and the end result is the viewers always learn something new.
My favorite is the documentary series Wild Wild Country, which never ceases to entertain me, no matter how many times I rewatch it. I’m not the only one who loves them, of course.
My best friend found her whole worldview had changed after she saw Blackfish for the first time. My brother pulled up his entire GPA after doing a report on Jon Cartwright’s Lighting Up the World, and of course, no health class was complete without a viewing of Supersize Me.
Redditors love documentaries too and were ready to share their favorites.
It all started when Redditor joeduncanhull asked:
“What’s the best documentary you’ve ever seen?”
Every Family Has Its Quirks
"I didn't mention Capturing the Friedmans, but I should have. That was a really good documentary."
"What a freaking twisted family."
– SweetCosmicPope
Camera Work Matters
"The Planet Earth documentaries. Praise to the people behind the camera."
– teethalarm
"Also Blue Planet 2 is f*cking amazing"
– IzaacLUXMRKT
"It was a colossal undertaking. To get a couple moments of the snow leopard took 3 months."
– External_Recipe_3562
"Absolutely unparalleled"
– joeduncanhull
The Athletes Will Celebrate
"Baseball by Ken Burns, not really a fan of baseball the sport, but the history was interesting."
– biggertheboobs
"Icarus was absolutely wild. Started with a pretty interesting premise, and then took a sharp turn and kept getting crazier. If you're even remotely interested in sport, it's worth your time."
– Spartannia
Disney Always Wins
"Kevin Perjurer's deep dive on the Fastpass System at Disney Themeparks. For such a seemlingly dull topic, it's shocking how interesting and surprising the whole thing winds up being."
– Notmiefault
"Totally agree here. That was amazing."
– mynewme
The Artsy Folk Will Celebrate
"Exit Through the Gift Shop"
"Documentary on Street Art. I literally thought Bansky was gas lighting us with this movie. No way could the story of ‘Mr Brainwash’ could be true."
– AwareParking
Higher and Higher
"Free Solo"
– Crocodile-toes-ten
"Anyone who enjoys this film should also check out The Dawn Wall. It's another climbing documentary on El Capitan in Yosemite. But it tells a very different story about two guys who try to become the first people to climb a route that many of the world's best climbers thought impossible."
– MasteringTheFlames
The Musicians Will Celebrates
"Not the best, but a favorite of mine...Dig ! A doc about the Dandy Warhols and BJM...one band's somewhat rise to fame, with the implosion/self-sabotage of the other. Half of it was embellished, and both bands had issues with the final product, but it was highly entertaining. Check it out if you're into music docs."
– Ok_Fact5541
"I would also recommend "We Jam Econo", about the 1980s punk rock band The Minutemen, who were on the cusp of the big time when their singer died in a freak accident."
"The "Jacka*s" theme is from their song "Corona."
– notthesedays
The Arts Save Lives
"Crumb"
"About the cartoonist Robert Crumb and his 2 brothers, and how abuse and mental illness plagued them. Crumb's cartooning got him out of it, but the other 2 brothers had a hard time."
– TooDeeGuy
Epic Animals
"Africa. It’s from the BBC like Planet Earth, Blue Planet."
"Why Africa? Well Africa has really varied environments and the best and most abundant wildlife by a mile. The first episode in particular has 2 awesome things: an epic Giraffe Fight and a Rhino Orgy. The Rhino Orgy is so unexpected. No one knew that Rhinos get together and party late at night. The Rhinos snuggle! And it’s especially poignant because there’s so few of them left."
– watchingsongsDL
The Truth About Vietnam
"Ken Burns’s Vietnam War docuseries was fairly eye-opening for someone like me, who only had the typical US high school history take on that conflict with a handful of fictional films to supplement it."
– Jaebird0388
"I really enjoyed that one, very eye opening indeed"
– Miggel1973
Next Level
"I remember watching the first Paradise Lost documentary so long ago and was just blown away. I know it’s not the first ever true crime doc, but sure felt like it took it to the next level. If I had to choose a favorite, that would probably be it."
– illmattic12345
Look Into Their Minds
"The Architecture of Doom was the first documentary that let me see how people could actually have bought into Nazi propaganda. Not that I agree with it, but it seemed so preposterous that anyone could believe what they were doing was somehow good."
– johnnylongpants1
A Fan Favorite
"Wild Wild Country"
– PalmerEldritch2319
All The Yesses!
"Avengers: age of ultron"
– ReapersEatApples05
"It's amazing how the camera crew caught these robots in their natural environment"
– joeduncanhull
Emotional Ending
"The six part DefunctTV about Jim Henson."
"It's a really engaging and endearing watch about Henson's life. I really appreciate all the behind the scenes footage the team was able to gather."
"The last episode leaves me sobbing every time."
– nocleverusername190
I want to watch all of these!
Truth is stranger than fiction – which is why documentaries are so fascinating to watch.
Even some fictional movies are stories derived from real-life events or people, past or present.
In my humble opinion, Michael Moore makes excellent documentaries about social injustices and he fearlessly reveals the cracks and corruption within our government.
But some topics are meant to be explored beyond the two-hour-plus running time in movies. Which is why Netflix brought Tiger King as a docuseries, and it left audiences completely dumbfounded.
Wanting to find out about compelling documentaries Redditor cryosyske asked:
"What is the most insane documentary you've ever seen?"
People with unstable minds do the unthinkable, and our eyes are glued to the screen.
The Tragedy Of Timothy Treadwell
"Grizzly Man by Werner Herzog. It's a documentary about Timothy Treadwell, an environmentalist who spent 13 summers in Alaska camping out with grizzly bears and eventually gets eaten along with his girlfriend. And it was caught on tape, because he filmed everything. Dude was clearly not all there, just a sad story, but fascinating."
– 007100
Devils In Our Midst
"Evil Genius. It's about the aftermath of a bank robbery in which the bank robber was a captive who had a bomb collar strapped to their neck. It's definitely one hell of a watch."
Crazy Investigation
"There's an excellent documentary on an incident during the Troubles in Northern Ireland called 'No Stone Unturned'. It's an investigative journalism piece about British forces' collusion and coverup of the 1994 Loughinisland Massacre, when six people in a bar watching Ireland play in the World Cup were murdered by masked paramilitary gunmen with assault rifles."
"The methodical, step-by-step investigation and laying out of the (very incriminating!) evidence makes for a truly fascinating watch. Two of the filmmakers were later arrested by the PSNI and then released."
"Not an easy watch, but highly recommend it."
The Unthinkable
"The Trials of Gabriel Fernández on Netflix. This precious little boy was tortured to death by his mom and her boyfriend. His mom recently tried to have her conviction overturned."
These are apparently psychologically riveting.
Leaving The Past In The Past
"Tell me who I am was the most heartbreaking documentary I've ever seen. It's about these twin brothers and one of them gets into a bad motorcycle accident when he was 18 and doesn't remember anything from before. His brother has to decide whether to tell him everything or let him live in ignorant bliss."
Master Manipulator
"Imposter"
"It's the story of this kid who went missing when he was 12 or 13 and then reappeared something like 10 years later. It documents him getting back to and reuniting with his family. But get this: it wasn't the actual missing kid, but instead a French scam artist who did this sh*t serially."
"Now what makes the doc crazy is the story is told with interviews from the family and the f'king scam artist. He obviously a sociopath so he just calmy explains his motives and justifications for getting this poor family's hopes up. There's footage of all this as well as reenactments with the guy. It's super creepy."
Cinematic Scrapbook
"I haven't seen too many but so far Dear Zachary."
"On top of being one of the saddest movies I've ever seen, that reveal was immensely f'ked up. Not to mention f'king terrifying with all that red light and screaming sounds."
People Describe The Worst Adult Tantrum They've Ever Witnessed | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
A Father Looking For Answers
"The Pharmacist. A guy who goes searching for his sons murderer and winds up uncovering the beginnings of the opioid addiction in New Orleans."
And these films are considered completely wackadoodle.
Kink Takes A Turn
"Tickled. Thought it was going to be just a fun and weird look at a goofy sport but it was so disturbing and wild."
Deadly Amusement Park
"Class Action Park. It's about this old amusement park in New Jersey called Action Park that had an insane number of injuries. Former employees and guests talk about each ride and what made it fun and unsafe. There are animations of people getting hurt so those parts aren't too hard to watch. It also includes interviews about a specific fatality so I do want to make that clear as a trigger warning. But mostly it's a fascinating look at how kids grew up in the 80's and 90's and whether that was the best thing. There's a lot of nostalgia but I don't think anyone wants their kid to be the one who's fatally electrocuted on a kayak ride."
McScam Scandal
"The McDonald's monopoly scam documentary, McMillion$. I'd never heard of it before, so it was really interesting and pretty insane."
Good Time Country
"The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia! Produced by Johnny Knoxville, it's about backwoods toe-dancer Jeaco White and his hillbilly family. Wildly entertaining - seen it 4 times."
Festival Con
"I watched one about fyre festival."
"The sh*t that went down was insane."
"Internet historian does a good take on things."
Scaling New Heights
"Free Solo."
"The Dawn Wall is another climbing doc that is absolutely riveting."
Insane Competition
"The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters."
"About the man whose goal was to set the world record on Donkey Kong, and the record holder he sought to dethrone trying to stop him."
"The people in this flick are bonkers."
"Operation Odessa"
"It's a documentary about this group of guys who managed to obtain and sell military equipment from the collapsed USSR to Cuba from Florida among other things. It's fascinating and hilarious, but also shockingly all true. The name actually comes from the name of the DEA operation that brought them down. One of them managed to get away, but they secured an interview with him in an undisclosed location on the documentary."
Honorable Mentions
"Man on Wire was pretty interesting, especially for a guy like me who is afraid of heights."
"I'd also go with Who the #{replace2}amp;% is Jackson Pollock is brilliant who buys a suspected real Pollock painting at a yard sale, potentially worth millions."
One docuseries that stayed with me was Don't F**k With Cats.
It was a Netflix doc about how amateur sleuths of the internet managed to lead a manhunt looking for Canadian pornographic actor, Luka Magnotta – whose penchant for torturing cute kittens for fun and posting his cruel acts on social media led him to murder Chinese international student, Jun Lin.
At the end of the series, I didn't know what I just saw and it took a while to process the absolutely bonkers turn of events.
And it's not for the faint of heart to watch.