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?

The Boy David….about a little boy from ? Peru with a severe facial disfigurement and a plastic surgeon from Scotland

Tickled and 3 identical strangers! Both have so many wild turns and gripping from start to finish.

I honestly cannot stop recommending them to every new friend i make.

The body

I’m so glad I came across this thread! I’m home alone all day tomorrow and I can watch some of these in complete, uninterrupted peace 😃 heaven!

For Sama.

My DS was young at the time, and seeing the difference between his childhood/my experience of motherhood and that of these children just made me weep.

Some great reminders and ideas Thankyou

@Nowaysunshine
I was born in 1966 and remember Johnny come home. There was some compelling tv in the seventies

House of Secrets on netflix. Honestly one of the most disturbing...haunting things I've watched in a while. Certain bits pop back into your head and just 🤯

Life on Earth.

Nothing else will ever come close.

I came on to say this too. I think I held my breathe for about half of it!

Don’t fuck with cats.

Some great recommendations on here.

Me too. Everyone should watch, and realise just how shittily humans think it’s acceptable to treat other, highly intelligent creatures, purely for profit and cheap thrills.

Following. I absolutely love documentaries so this thread will keep me occupied for some time. Starting with that airplane crash one

Three mothers, two babies and a scandal - Amazon Prime

It was a riveting watch. I remember it being in the news all those years ago, it was interesting to find out how things turned out for everyone.

The Hot Zone - Disney Plus

A docu drama but done very very well and was both scary and fascinating to see how a pandemic was so narrowly avoided.

Shoah
The Gatekeepers

@Chuntypops The Cruel Sea is the Penlee lifeboat film, absolutely heartbreaking, especially the radio calls at the end. Bernard Hill is the narrator, he did a great job. Sadly, Trevelyan Richards, the coxswain was awarded the RNLI gold medal - it was kept in the RNLI museum & stolen in a robbery & never recovered.
I have also enjoyed "P Company" about soldiers aspiring to join the Airborne Forces,
"The Last Dance" about Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls,
Any amount of military training type documentaries,
"The World About Us", classic BBC 2 films from the 70s.

Agree with American murder being a hard watch. I followed the story so I knew before I watched it, but the whole thing was just so unbelievably horrific yet to look at him he's so laid back and docile. I still find it hard to get my head around it.

There was a Storyville documentary on the BBC a few years back about James Randi which was fascinating.

Most recently Athlete A although it’s a very tough watch

@Lillygolightly yes I watched Three mothers...
so sad. I was glued to the TV watching that

Another vote for ‘Tell Me Who I Am’. I ugly cried at that.
Also ‘The Dark Matter of Love’ about adoption & child attachment. I think it’s about 10 years old now so off to google to see if I can find out where they are now!

I have a soft spot for Christian the Lion because I love the ending.

Anything by Ken Burns. Highly recommend ‘The Roosevelt’s’ in addition to his other documentaries already mentioned here. I couldn’t find it on a streaming service so downloaded it from iTunes, so worth the money - utterly captivating, I binged it!

I can’t remember the name exactly, but something like ‘the man with the three second memory’. There was one done years ago, but the one I watched was a follow up.

I think he had suffered a virus that attacked his brain.
Its apparently one of the most severe cases of amnesia in the world.

What really fascinated me about it was that he had completely lost the ability to form new memories, however when the first documentary came out, he was very confused and very angry, crying for his wife to come and visit.

Yet in the follow up he had mellowed, and answered questions saying ‘I don’t remember anything since I got sick’
So he had learned somehow over the years that he had got sick, without having the ability to form new memories. He could still play the piano really well, I think he had been a conductor in an orchestra or something.

Anyway, I’d recommend it, I found it so fascinating (and so sad)

The Lido - I think it was a BBC documentary. Gentle, beautiful & captured summer in London so well. I wish I could watch it again.