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?

Man on Wire. Brilliant.

Lots here already, but also wanted to add the recent Rise of the Nazis from BBC2, especially the first series.

I also really liked one about how ordinary life changed through the Victorian era – it was a reality-type show where people had to live in a tenement and see how life changed for them from decade to decade through the 1800s from 1830 onwards. Just googled and it was called The Victorian Slum. I loved it but there was only one series so maybe I was in the minority!

And the Secret History of Our Streets, which used street maps to look at how cities had changed – was much more interesting than it sounds.

The best doco I ever saw was “How to Survive a Plague” which is about the fight to develop treatments for AIDS. It followed lots of people and some died but it was so moving and actually quite uplifting as lots of them survived when they hadn’t expected to, thanks to the drugs that eventually came along.

@Ozgirl75 I read your post before reading your username and as soon as I saw, "doco", I wondered if you were Australian!

😁

Evil Genius on Netflix. Could not make up my mind by the end of that one.
Senna - incredibly well made film about his life.

Yes this was my first thought too. He was incredible. And Melinda Messenger was so lovely in it!

Some excellent documentaries here - it's a matter of personal choice of course.

For me it’s this one: -
The Fog of War - Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S McNamara

Lesson #1: Empathize with your enemy.

Absolutely fascinating and frightening - with lessons that apply today.

Bookmarking. Apologies, I've been looking for this thread for ages.

The boy whose skin fell off has stuck with me for all these years

Tell Me Who I Am
My Father, Pablo Escobar
Three Identical Strangers
Where's Martha
Don't Fuck with Cats
Abducted in Plain Sight
And the weird one where a guy persuades two students that they are all in trouble and they go 9n 5he run with him for a couple of years in the UK. I forget the name. I'm sure that there are loads of others, but those all stand out.

The Puppet Master on Netflix. It's the one @ghostestwiththemostest mentioned. The control he had over people was staggering.

One of the British Thai Boy rescuers is my son's scout leader. He has taken him on several caving sessions with the group. He's the only person that I would trust to do so to be fair. He's an absolutely fascinating man. His book 'Thirteen Lessons that Saved Thirteen Lives' is fascinating. In it he talks about the things that he learned and experienced in other rescue missions or whilst running/climbing. He is also an ultra marathon runner and has climbed that big rock (in Free Solo) in Yosemite, if my memory serves me correctly. It's well worth reading his book if you liked the documentary!

@AnneShirleysNewDress

That's the one. Thank you!! Such a fascinating and twisted documentary.

The World at War series, 26 episodes. It was made 50 years ago.

Me too. He was so eloquent.

blackfish

The Stairwell

(sneaky bookmark)

And I can still remember bits of it. It was shown on, I think, Sunday evening and we watched as a family. I'm 57 so only young when I saw it.

The Challenger documentary on Netflix is good too.

I like the one about the NZ volcano on Netflix. It’s called Watch the volcano and has some footage from survivors who were there when it erupted.