What’s the best documentary you’ve ever seen?

[LovelyQuiche]

Mine is is “The Rescue” about the Thai cave rescue where those young footballers were trapped. Totally enthralling, even though I knew the outcome already, and seeing what they had to deal with actually helped me mentally for giving birth a fortnight later. Like, if they can do that, then I can do what millions of other women do and give birth

what’s yours?

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I love you, now die

Train wreck - Woodstock 99

@Glendaruel what's the name of that documentary? There must be approximately 12 million 9/11 documentaries out there.

"Tell me who I am" was the most devastating documentary I've watched.

Was that the one where the two families lived at different ends of the same road in Wandsworth ?

The one about Chris Watts who murdered his family.

I remembered it being in the news at the time, and in the documentary there was so much footage of Shannan and the whole family, as she was big into MLM and social media. Plus the footage of the morning after he had done it, it was unprecedented really to see that 'closely' iyswim?

They were such an apparently picture perfect family, the thought of what he did to his two little girls is just so unthinkable, I can't get my head around it really.

And also, no strictly a documentary but the Sky dramatisation of Chernobyl was probably the best TV show I have ever watched. There was also an accompanying podcast. I was literally obsessed with it, it was just unimaginable.

Ooh yes, this was chilling (and objectively fascinating)

It really was, I mean just HOW does that happen! It was very unsettling

I forgot about the Staircase.

And I still can’t decide if I believe the husband or not

I'd forgotten all about Icarus until you mentioned it.

Totally batshit - the scientist they got in touch with about how to dope without being caught 😯😯😯

I won't give the plot away but it goes somewhere really unexpected and is VERY revealing about drugs in sport. Brilliant film.

@NutellaEllaElla

It's called 9/11 - see my previous post with a link to it.

Have been looking up a few documentaries on the back of this thread and a documentary came up on Youtube about Katie and Eilish Holton, conjoined twins from Ireland. Their parents and doctors had to make a decision about whether to seperate them and they decided to in 1992. Katie died after operation but Eilish survived.

It was quite big in the news at the time i think, but I had completely forgotten about it. Their family seemed so lovely, I wonder how Eilish is doing now, she would be in her thirties now.

Yes totally get this @BedTaker - I was obsessed too! The podcast was really fascinating (but the bit about the dogs they had to cut out made me incredibly upset).

Yes. Think they were the Brett's and cominos. The oldest daughter was very intelligent and pretty but aware of how being poor is ruining her life (without having a chip on her shoulder) @TwoBlondes

The Amy Winehouse documentary was absolutely heart-breaking. The bit where her friend (one of her only true friends) describes how she tried to hide Amy's passport to stop her record company shipping her off to do an overseas show when Amy had literally just come out of hospital after OD'ing was just awful.

Thanks to this thread, I started watching Rain in my Heart (it's on YouTube) at about midnight last night and finished it in the early hours. Very moving and insightful, if upsetting. The part when that poor bloke was necking pints of wine and vomiting them up seconds later was just, well, devastating. So many demons to be conquered.

There's an excellent, very dignified one on Netflix about the Paris terrorist attacks.

Ghosts of Cite Soleil. Filmed before the major earthquake in 2010. Insight into Haiti and its people. Disgusting the UN aid worker openly having sexual relationship with one of the brothers

Thank you, I hadn't seen it.

There was a documentary series called The Tower: A Tale of Two Cities. It won a BAFTA in 2008 so must be available somewhere to watch.
Even though over ten years ago I'm still really struck by how I felt watching this and remember it so clearly.
It was filmed around an estate in Deptford (London) which was incredibly poor and was going through what was basically slum clearance by the local council. Meanwhile, the council had sold off a plot on the estate to private developers who had build a super-luxury block of flat. Both the new residents of the luxury flats and the residents of the council estate were filmed and the scenes interspersed. It was difficult to watch with the staggering differences in their lives.
Rich parents buying a penthouse suite for their daughter vs single mother having to put her older kids into foster care while she gave birth because no one was available to look after them. Wealthy new residents looking down their nose out of their balcony saying that they bought after being promised the area would change vs a man who had no family or friends left and was barely scraping money together to buy food by selling old junk he'd found.
That sort of thing. It really affected me.

While living in the US I remember seeing a collection of Ken Burns documentaries on PBS that I really enjoyed. I especially remember The West and Jazz. I was not really interested or knowledgeable on both those topics, but found the content very interesting and educational.

Man on a Wire was also something I really enjoyed, and never knew the story either.

I liked The Staircase.
Also one called there's something wrong with aunt Diane . It's on YouTube it's very good.
Dear Zachary was heartbreaking but a great documentary.

A Storyville doc called The Baby and the Buddha, about a Tibetan Buddhist monk seeking the baby who is his reincarnated dead master.

I remember in march 1999 there was an amusing but cautionary one called Amsterdamaged. About British expats who were too drawn into the sleazy side of the city