You gave the recommendation for Dear Zachary. Do you have any other unique/enthralling docs you'd recommend?
man it's been thirty years since i updated my documentary recommendations post so. here we go
Queen of Versailles - one of my fave documentaries of all time. during the process of filming, an obscenely wealthy family trying to build the biggest single family home in America is hit by the 2008 financial crisis. they panic due to becoming slightly less obscenely wealthy. sounds less interesting than it actually is!!!!
Jesus Camp - a look into an early 2000s fundamentalist Christian camp retreat for children, following three kids in particular. i had a weird depressed phase where i watched this one every day of my life. i'm making this one sound less interesting than it is, too. watch it
Fursonas - a furry political drama, kind of. i actually found that this movie took me on kind of an interesting ride regarding how i thought about/empathized with some of the main players. it’s worth fact-checking some of the way things are presented in this movie. notably, there is a man partway through the movie who claims to have been fired from his job due to people being uncomfortable with him being a furry, when it more likely has to do with his easily found, publicly available pedophile/”babyfur” art. other than that it's a good watch
Finders Keepers - a guy loses his leg in a plane crash, talks the hospital into letting him keep it, and embalms it in his backyard. then he leaves it in a storage unit and forgets to pay the bills. another guy buys the storage unit and starts using the leg for fame and money. the result is a custody battle over the leg. also explores the lives of the people involved in a way that’s much more interesting than you would think!
Strange Love: My Car Is My Lover- it’s about two dudes who wanna fuck cars and end up on a road trip. honestly a wild ride and only 45 minutes long. i don’t love it on a documentary level (it’s a junky TV episode), but i have drunkenly watched it many times because my best friend/roommate and i used to force everyone who visited our dorm room to watch it with us
Dear Zachary: A Letter To A Son About His Father - obviously OP has already seen this one, but including it here for completeness. please please please, do not look up spoilers or Google the movie. the filmmaker’s lifelong best friend, Andrew, was murdered by a woman who later turned out to have been pregnant with Andrew’s son, Zachary. that's all you need to know for now
The Impostor - don’t look up spoilers for this one either. a man in Spain claims to be a child from Texas who went missing years earlier. it plays out sort of like a nonfiction thriller with a lot of twists.
Grizzly Man- guy thinks that he has a special connection with nature, then gets eaten by nature
The Woman Who Wasn’t There - a movie about Tania Head, a woman who lied about being a 9/11 survivor. some interesting visual decisions in this one
Figwit Lives! - a surprisingly star-studded documentary about the Lord of the Rings fandom’s unexpected love for a minor, unnamed background character. it was free on Youtube last i checked
Tickled - DO NOT GOOGLE THIS MOVIE BEFORE WATCHING IT. A journalist discovers a page for an alleged sport called “Competitive endurance tickling.” When he contacts the page out of curiosity, he receives a barrage of homophobic harassment. His attempts to investigate it take him down a weird, thriller-like saga involving blackmail and an extraordinary amount of money being poured into….tickling. One of my absolute favorite documentaries. There is a short follow-up on Youtube regarding plot developments since the movie aired.
Weiner - Anthony Weiner hires a camera crew to film his comeback campaign. That is not what they end up filming. Any sane politician would have dismissed the camera crew. It’s a fascinating and bizarre movie and it’s worth watching.
Impact After The Crash - A documentary on the 1998 Carrollton bus crash, an incident where a collision with a drunk driver caused a church bus to catch on fire and led to 27 deaths. Possibly this is my interest in public service announcements shining through, but I thought it was a well-made movie on an incident that led to a lot of developments in anti-drunk driving organization and legislation.
Catwalk: Tales from The Cat Show Circuit - I went in judging the people who participate in these competitions, and ended up changing my mind partway through. The drama over the central competition between two cats and their passive-aggressive people is fun. You meet some interesting characters along the way. The cats are cute and my cat enjoyed watching it with me
Three Identical Strangers - a documentary about three identical triplets who were separated at birth and adopted, who later reestablish contact as adults. it takes some darker turns after that (don’t Google this one until you’re done). super wild and very interestingly made
There's Something Wrong with Aunt Diane - i REALLY go back and forth on recommending this one. it's a very interesting movie about a woman who caused a fatal accident by driving the wrong way on the Taconic parkway, and the aftermath. be aware this movie contains child death and some graphic pictures of a person's corpse that i think were completely gratuitous
We Believe in Dinosaurs - about the Noah’s Ark "replica" at the creationist museum in Kentucky, and as an extension kind of about young earth creationism in general. it’s good
Dave Not Coming Back - a diving expedition to retrieve a diver's corpse goes awry
LuLaRich - a documentary on the rise and fall of the LuLaRoe MLM. features a lot of interviews with the founders who were inexplicably dumb enough to participate in those interviews. great stuff
The Way Down - about a Christian weight loss cult. potentially worth skipping if you have any history with disordered eating, but an interesting watch otherwise, particularly because it's an instance of a woman leading a Christian cult (relatively uncommon)
Chicken People - on people who competitively breed and show chickens, profiling a few different people involved in the hobby. honestly a blast of a documentary and one i've come back to several times. a good palate cleanser from some of the other documentaries
Downfall: The Case Against Boeing - rough watch if you ever intend on getting on a plane in the future. capitalism will destroy us etc.
Pepsi, Where's My Jet? - a young man sees a commercial for a Pepsi promotion jokingly offering to give away a jet. to their surprise, he takes them up on the offer. accidentally sets a case law precedent in the United States
Disney Channel's Theme: A History Mystery - yes it's technically a Youtube video (they get into it). it doesn't sound that interesting to most people i don't think - it's about a man's quest to figure out who wrote the Disney Channel theme, and appreciation for artists who create media we don't think about all too often. unfolds like a mystery. makes you feel. i can't recommend this one enough
The Curious Case of Natalia Grace - a family adopts a Ukrainian orphan who may or may not actually be an adult, events ensue. hard to explain without a lot of detail. upsetting descriptions of child abuse but an interesting watch
hold tight, hitting character limit
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