Your Favorite Documentaries

[dhermann1]

Here are a couple of older ones that come to mind.
Back in the 50's AT&T and Bell Labs produced a series of science documentaries for kids, starring Dr. Frank Baxter. They included "Hemo the Magnificent", "The Mystery of the Cosmic Rays", and a couple others. They were great.
In 1960 CBS produced a shocking documentary about the plight of migrant laborers, called "Harvest of Shame". Edward R. Murrow and Fred Friendly produced it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvest_of_Shame
Going back even further, I've seen a couple of films by a pioneering documentary maker named Robert J. Flaherty.
His first ground breaking film was "Nanook of the North". Yes, that's where that silly cliched name came from. It was filmed in 1922, on location in northern Quebec, and depicted the incredibly difficult lives of the Eskimos.
The other film by him that I have enjoyed is "Man of Aran", 1934. It shows the lives of the people of the Aran Islands, off the west coast of Ireland.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_J._Flaherty

 

[Amy Jeanne]

World Of Tomorrow

Hollywood

Complicated Women

Any pre-Code documentary, really

 

[Atomic Age]

Here are a couple of older ones that come to mind.
Back in the 50's AT&T and Bell Labs produced a series of science documentaries for kids, starring Dr. Frank Baxter. They included "Hemo the Magnificent", "The Mystery of the Cosmic Rays", and a couple others. They were great.

Both of the AT&T documentaries are for sale on DVD. I have them both.

Doug

 

[SkullCowboy]

Without a doubt it was The Civil War by Ken Burns.

 

[Miss Golightly]

Paradise Lost
One Day in September
Tarnation
Grey Gardens
Michael Palin's Around the World in 80 Days
Stephen Fry in America

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Here are a couple of older ones that come to mind.
Back in the 50's AT&T and Bell Labs produced a series of science documentaries for kids, starring Dr. Frank Baxter. They included "Hemo the Magnificent", "The Mystery of the Cosmic Rays", and a couple others. They were great.

How I remember them well! They were still showing them when I was a kid in the '70s as well as those Encyclopedia Britannica films!

Also you forgot that Disney classic Donald in Mathmagic Land!

 

[Atomic Age]

How I remember them well! They were still showing them when I was a kid in the '70s as well as those Encyclopedia Britannica films!

Also you forgot that Disney classic Donald in Mathmagic Land!

I particularly liked the Disney True Life Adventures. We saw 16mm technicolor prints of those in grade school. Amazing cinematography.

Doug

 

[Zombie_61]

Buster Keaton: A Hard Act To Follow. Not only a fascinating look a the life of a filmmaking genius, but one of the best constructed documantaries/biographies I've ever seen.

Hearts Of Darkness - A Filmmaker's Apocalypse. Shot by Eleanor Coppola during the production of Apocalypse Now, this is a brutally honest and revealing documentary about the making of the Francis Ford Coppola film and all of the catastrophies that occurred in the process; it's a miracle the film was ever completed.

Crumb. A look at the life (up to 1994, anyway) of controversial underground comic artist/writer Robert Crumb. I've been a Crumb fan for many years, and I found the subject matter fascinating.