I like putting on documentaries while I do work, and since there didn't seem to be a thread about documentaries specifically, I thought making one might be a good idea.
here's some I've watched and enjoyed:
The Price of Gold: Remember when figure skating was big in the 90s? And then the thing with Tanya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan happened? I don't, but I was an actual baby when it happened. But if you have any interest in the story behind it and the life Tanya Harding lived and how it led to Nancy Kerrigan's attack, this is a good doc to watch. It also points out some interesting things about the class war elements that were tied into the debacle and the kind of intense environment and lifelong devotion that competitive skating has.
The Queen of Versailles: for those of you outside of the US who have ever wondered "what the fuck is up with rich people in America", this is a good doc to watch. Follow the exciting life of Jacqueline and David Siegel and their many children as they live in luxury and make plans to construct the largest mansion in the united states! Except then the housing bubble collapses, and they try to adjust to the concept of actually having a budget and not being able to pay for things and having only two or three people to do housekeeping and childcare. Pretty much everything about this is an excellent look into the kind of mindset that allowed for such an economic crisis to happen in the first place.
Guys and Dolls: this is probably one that most people on here have seen, but I think it's worth mentioning anyway. A British documentary about RealDoll owners and the kind of desperation and entitlement that drives them to want a sex doll. It's fascinating just for how quickly several of them switch from genuinely sad "I've given up on ever finding someone this is the only way I will ever feel loved" to a frightening level of "ALL WOMEN ARE STUPID CUNTS THOSE FUCKING BITCHES DON'T APPRECIATE ME AT LEAST MY DOLLS CAN NEVER LEAVE ME", often in the same sentence.
I Think We're Alone Now: Does anyone remember pop sensation Tiffany? Not really, but there certainly people who have a frighteningly intense obsession with her. Follow Jeff, an autistic man who's convinced that Tiffany is in love with him and proudly shows off the restraining order he received, and Kelly, an intersex woman whose obsession ties heavily into a near-death experience as a teenager and is probably the only thing keeping her from the brink of suicide. There's a huge amount of secondhand embarrassment to watching this, as both of them are intensely sad people, but on the bright side, things seem to get better for Kelly at the end of it, and she seems to be able to move on with her life. The same can't be said for Jeff, though.
Inside Nature's Giants: this is actually a series, but it's worth tracking down the different episodes if you're interested in biology. Follows different biologists as they dissect animals such as a great white shark, a giant squid, and a hippo, and treats the information involved in a fairly informative and unglamorized way (there's a moment in the shark episode where a small child asks a scientist about the shark's sexual organs, and she explains them straightforwardly, which really stood out to me as something you would never see in an American documentary series). The downside to this series is that it keeps trotting out richard dawkins as its celebrity scientist talkpiece and he's easily the worst part of the entire thing.
All of these should be available online, either on netflix or youtube, and there's a specific site called snagfilms that I watched I Think We're Alone Now on that may or may not still have it (it's likely just that my javascript blockers giving me trouble again and not letting me see it)
