50 Documentaries To See Before You Die

Renowned documentarian Morgan Spurlock hosts 50 Documentaries To See Before You Die, a five-part "documentary about documentaries" series currently airing on the Current TV cable network. This celebration of the most remarkable and moving documentaries released in the past 25 years examines how the documentary feature has evolved into an increasingly popular genre, becoming a major box office draw and impacting contemporary American culture in ways never seen before. (To see the complete list of all 50 films, click here.) But in case you missed it or don't have cable TV, you're in luck - most of the "nifty 50" documentaries featured in the program are available - for free! - on DVD or video from the Sights & Sounds collection at the Enoch Pratt Free Library/State Library Resource Center.  If you are interested in any of these titles or would like us to help locate audio-visual materials on a related topic, please call us directly at 410-396-4616, fax us at 410-545-7517, or e-mail us at sas@prattlibrary.org. 

Check Out These Great Docs from Pratt's Sights & Sounds Collection

Click on the links below to access our catalog for detailed descriptions of the films and check availability.

An Inconvenient Truth (Director: Davis Guggenheim, 2006) 
Former Vice President Al Gore explains the facts of global warming, presents arguments that the dangers of global warning have reached the level of crisis, and addresses the efforts of certain interests to discredit the anti-global warming cause. Between lecture segments, Gore discusses his personal commitment to the environment, sharing anecdotes from his experiences. Watch the trailer below:

 
Brother's Keeper (Director: Joel Berliner and Bruce Sinofsky, 1992)
Examines the real-life murder mystery of whether Delbert Ward, an uneducated hermit with a low IQ murdered his brother as a "mercy killing," or was the victim of police abuse. Watch the trailer below:

Burma VJ (Director: Anders Ostergaard, 2006)
Filmmaker Anders Østergaard brings us close to the video journalists who deliver the footage. Though risking torture and life in jail, courageous young citizens of Burma live the essence of journalism as they insist on keeping up the flow of news from their closed country. Armed with small handycams the Burma VJs stop at nothing to make their reportages from the streets of Rangoon. Their material is smuggled out of the country and broadcast back into Burma via satellite and offered as free usage for international media. The whole world has witnessed single event clips made by the VJs, but for the very first time, their individual images have been carefully put together and at once, they tell a much bigger story. The film offers a unique insight into high-risk journalism and dissidence in a police state, while at the same time providing a thorough documentation of the historical and dramatic days of September 2007, when the Buddhist monks started marching. Watch the trailer below:

Bus 174 (Director: Jose Padilha and Felipe Lacerda)
A powerful, award-winning examination of the tragic series of events that followed a desperate bus hijacking in Rio de Janeiro in 2000 that turned deadly when a SWAT team took evasive action against the drug-addled hijacker. Watch the trailer below:

Capturing the Friedmans (Director: Andrew Jarecki, 2003)
The Friedmans seem to be a typical family from affluent Great Neck, Long Island. One Thanksgiving, as the family gathers for a quiet holiday dinner, a police battering ram splinters the front door and officers rush inside. The police charge Arnold Friedman and his son Jesse with hundreds of shocking crimes. As police investigate, and the community reacts, the fabric of the family begins to disintegrate, revealing questions about justice, family and finally the truth. Watch the trailer below:

Catfish (Director: Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman)
In late 2007, filmmakers Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost sensed a story unfolding as they began to film the life of Ariel's brother, Yaniv (Nev). They had no idea that their project would lead to the most exhilarating and unsettling months of their lives. A reality thriller that is a shocking product of our times, Catfish is a riveting story of love, deception and grace within a labyrinth of online intrigue. Watch the trailer below:

Celluloid Closet (Director: Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, 1995)
Assembles footage from over 120 films showing the changing face of cinema homosexuality from cruel stereotypes to covert love to the activist cinema of the 1990s. Many actors, writers and commentators provide anecdotes regarding the history of the role of gay men and lesbians on the silver screen.
Crumb (Director: Terry Zwigoff, 1994)
Crumb enters a territory as spooky as it is fascinating...a portrait of an artist as misanthrope and bad-boy visionary, as joker and sex maniac, and finally as hero.
Dark Days (Director: Marc Singer, 2000)
Documentary about a community of homeless people living in a train tunnel beneath Manhattan. Depicts a way of life that is unimaginable to most of those who walk the streets above: in the pitch black of the tunnel, rats swarm through piles of garbage as high-speed trains leaving Penn station tear through the darkness. For some of those who have gone underground, it has been home for as long as 25 years.

Dogtown and Z-Boys (Director: Stacy Peralta, 2001)
Documentary about a gang of kids who virtually revolutionized skateboarding with an aggressive style, awe-inspiring moves and street smarts, and in the process, transformed youth culture forever. Captures the rise of the Zephyr skateboarding team from Venice's Dogtown, a tough "locals only" beach with a legacy of outlaw surfing, who used abandoned swimming pools to sharpen their skills. Watch the trailer below:

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (Director: Alex Gibney, 2005)
The inside story of one of history's greatest business scandals, in which top executives of America's seventh largest company walked away with over one billion dollars, while investors and employees lost everything. Watch the trailer below:

Exit Through the Gift Shop (Director: Banksy, 2010) 
An eccentric French shopkeeper turned documentary maker attempted to locate and befriend Banksy, only to have the artist turn the camera back on its owner with spectacular results. Banksy is a graffiti artist with a global reputation whose work can be seen on walls from post-hurricane New Orleans to the Palestinian segregation wall in the West Bank. Fiercely guarding his anonymity to avoid prosecution, Banksy has so far resisted all attempts to be captured on film. Watch the trailer below:

The Eyes of Tammy Faye (Director: Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato)
Chronicles the life Tammy Faye Bakker Messner. Includes interviews with those associated with her and with her various ministries, including the PTL Club. Watch the trailer below:

Fahrenheit 9/11 (Director: Michael Moore, 2004) 
Through actual footage, interviews, and declassified documents, Michael Moore illustrates the connections President Bush has to the royal house of Saud of Saudia Arabia and the bin Laden's, how the president got elected on fraudulent circumstances and then proceeded to blunder through his duties while ignoring warnings of the looming betrayal by his foreign partners. When the treachery hits with the 9/11 attacks, Moore explains how Bush failed to take immediate action to defend the nation. Watch the trailer below:

The Fog of War (Director: Errol Morris, 2003)
The story of American politics and military policies as seen through the eyes of the former Secretary of Defense, under President Kennedy and President Johnson, Robert S. McNamara. McNamara is a controversial and influential political figure. He offers a candid journey through some of the most seminal events in contemporary American history. He offers insights into the 1945 fire bombing of Tokyo, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the effects of the Vietnam War.
Food, Inc. (Director: Robert Kenner, 2008)
An unflattering look inside America's corporate controlled food industry, with commentary by MIchael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma) and Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation).

GasLand (Director: Josh Fox, 2010)
In 2009, Delaware River Basin native Josh Fox was presented with an interesting proposal: lease his family lands to a natural gas company for a new method of drilling called hydraulic fracturing, and get a check for $100,000. He wouldn't have to do anything but sit back and collect the money. Curious about the process, Fox embarks on an exploration of other areas where natural gas drilling was already in progress, to observe firsthand any potential downsides. The film documents the pitfalls and perils--borne of avarice of the most bloodless, ruthless kind--of the largest domestic natural gas drilling boom in American history, with the potential to poison millions. Watch the trailer below:

Grizzly Man (Director: Werner Herzog, 2005)
Acclaimed director Werner Herzog explores the life and death of amateur grizzly bear expert and wildlife preservationist Timothy Treadwell, who lived unarmed among grizzlies for 13 summers. Watch the trailer below:

Hoop Dreams (Director: Steve James, 1994)
This documentary follows two inner-city basketball phenoms' lives through high school as they chase their dreams of playing in the NBA. Watch the trailer below:

Inside Job (Director: Charles Ferguson, 2010)
Provides an analysis of the global financial crisis of 2008. At a cost of over $20 trillion, it caused millions of people to lose their jobs and homes in the worst recession since the Great Depression and nearly resulted in a global financial collapse. Through exhaustive research and extensive interviews with key financial insiders, politicians, journalists, and academics, this film traces the rise of a rogue industry which has corrupted politics, regulation, and academia. Watch the trailer below:

Jesus Camp (Director: Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, 2006)
A first-ever look into an intense training ground that recruits born-again Christian children to become an active part of America's political future. Follow these children at summer camp in Devil's Lake, North Dakota as they hone their 'prophetic gifts'. Watch the trailer below:

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (Director: Seth Gordon, 2007)
Unprecedented rivalry rocks the electronic world to its core. Novice gamer Steve Wiebe on his quest to destroy the top score of gaming legend Billy Mitchell, the uncontested champion of the Donkey Kong world for over 20 years. Only one can truly claim the title King of Kong. Watch the trailer below:

Man on Wire (Director: James Marsh, 2008)
On August 7th, 1974, a young Frenchman named Philippe Petit stepped out on a wire illegally rigged between the New York World Trade Center's Twin Towers.  After dancing for nearly an hour on the wire, he was arrested, taken for psychological evaluation, and brought to jail, before finally being released.  This extraordinary documentary incorporates Petit's personal footage to show how he overcame seemingly insurmountable challenges to achieve the artistic crime of the century. Watch the trailer below:

March of the Penguins (Director: Luc Jacquet, 2005)
In the Antarctic, every March since the beginning of time, the quest begins to find the perfect mate and start a family. This courtship will begin with a long journey - a journey that will take them hundreds of miles across the continent by foot, one by one in a single file. They will endure freezing temperatures, in brittle, icy winds and through deep, treacherous waters. They will risk starvation and attack by dangerous predators, under the harshest conditions on earth, all to find true love. Watch the trailer below:

Murderball (Director: Henry Alex Rubin and Dana Adam Shapiro, 2005)
A film about tough, highly competitive quadriplegic rugby players. These men have been forced to live life sitting down, but in their own version of the full-contact sport, they smash each other in custom-made gladiator-like wheelchairs. Tells the story of a group of world-class athletes unlike any ever shown on screen. In addition to smashing chairs, it will smash every stereotype you ever had about the disabled.

One Day in September (Director: Kevin Macdonald, 1999)
This is the shocking and incredibly true story of the brutal massacre of 11 Israeli athletes by a team of extreme Palestinian terrorists during the 1972 Olympics in Munich, Germany. From terrorist training in Libya to the terrorists sneaking into the Olympic Village to the tension-filled negotiations to the shocking conclusion at a German airport.For the first time, the lone surviving member of that extremist group speaks.  Actual video shot during the crisis is used to help tell the story.
Paragraph 175 (Director: Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, 1995)
Historian Klaus Müller interviews survivors of the Nazi persecution of homosexuals, many of whom were interred in concentration camps during World War II because of the German Penal Code of 1871, Paragraph 175, which states: An unnatural sex act committed between persons of the male sex or by humans with animals is punishable by imprisonment; the loss of civil rights may also be imposed. Watch the trailer below:

Paris is Burning (Director: Jennie Livingston, 1990)
A documentary about the young homosexual men of Harlem who originated "voguing" and turned these stylized dance competitions into glittering expressions of fierce personal pride. A story of street-wise urban survival, gay self-affirmation, and the pursuit of a desperate dream. Watch the trailer below:

Roger & Me (Director: Michael Moore, 1989)
When hard times came to his hometown, Michael Moore sunk every penny he had into filming "Roger & Me".  He emerged as a modern folk hero, because he doggedly and hilariously pursued what every working person wants to do - talk to the man at the top.  Moore's efforts to meet General Motors chairman Roger Smith and to get Smith to visit Flint, Michigan provide the framework for the film. Watch the trailer below: 

Shut Up and Sing (Director: Barbara Kopple, 2006)
Follow the Dixie chicks, the top selling female band of all-time, through the now infamous anti-Bush comment made by the groups lead singer Natalie Maines in 2003. Follow the lives and careers of the Dixie Chicks over a period of three years during which they were under political attack and received death threats, while continuing to live their lives, have children, and make country music. At a time when the United States is fighting for democracy and freedom in another country, it raises questions about our own right to freedom of speech and the negative consequences it sometimes has. Watch the trailer below:

Spellbound (Director: Jeffrey Blitz, 2002)
Follows the lives of eight young Americans who share one goal: to win the 1999 National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C. The Bee is as intense a competition as any Olympic match, for both the spellers and their families. The unbearable pressure becomes even more extraordinary when it is felt by ordinary teenagers. Watch the trailer below:

Street Fight (Director: Marshall Curry, 2005)
Follows the 2002 race for Mayor of Newark, N.J. between 32-year-old Cory Booker and four-term incumbent Sharpe James.  Fought in Newark's neighborhoods and housing projects, the election pits the young challenger against an old style political machine. Watch the trailer below:

Super Size Me (Director: Morgan Spurlock, 2004)
Filmmaker Morgan Spurlock embarks on a journey to find out if fast food is making Americans fat. For 30 days he can't eat or drink anything that isn't on McDonald's menu; he must eat three square meals a day, he must eat everything on the menu at least once and supersize his meal if asked. He treks across the country interviewing a host of experts on fast food and a number of regular folk while downing McDonald's to try and find out why 37% of American are now overweight. Spurlock's grueling diet spirals him into a metamorphosis that will make you think twice about picking up another Big Mac. Watch the trailer below:

Tarnation (Director: Jonathan Caouette, 2003)
A multitude of family snapshots, Super-8 home movies, old answering machine messages, video diaries, early short films, snippets of '80s pop culture, and dramatic reenactments are used to create an epic portrait of an American family travesty. Begins in 2003 when Jonathan learns that his schizophrenic mother, Renee, overdoses on her lithium medication. He is shot back into his real and horrifying family legacy of rape, abandonment, promiscuity, drug addiction, child abuse, and psychosis. He grows up on camera and finds his escape in musical theater and B-horror movies. A look into the future shows Jonathan as he confronts the almost unbearable love he shares with his tragically damaged mother. Watch the trailer below:

Taxi to the Dark Side (Director: Alex Gibney, 2007)
An investigation into the introduction of torture as an interrogation technique in U.S. facilities, and the role played by key figures of the Bush Administration in the process.  Takes an in-depth look at the case of Afghan taxi driver Dilawar, who was suddenly detained by the U.S. military one afternoon and died in his Bagram prison cell five days later. Watch the trailer below:

Tongues Untied (Director: Marlon Riggs, 1989)
Derogatory accusations, judgments, and jokes in our culture are met head-on by this video about Black, male, gay identity. Poetry, personal testimony, and drama unite to oppose the homophobia and racism that attempt to split a person into opposing loyalties. Watch the trailer below:

Trouble the Water (Director: Carl Deal, 2008)
This documentary takes the viewer inside Hurricane Katrina in a way never seen on screen.  Incorporating home footage shot by Kimberly Rivers Roberts -- an aspiring rap artist trapped with her husband in the 9th ward -- directors/producers Tia Lessin and Carl Deal weave this insider's view of Katrina with a devastating portrait of the hurricane's aftermath.  Trouble the Water takes audiences on a journey that is by turns heart-stopping, infuriating, inspiring and empowering.  It is not only about the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina, but about the underlying issues that remained when the flood waters receded -- failing public schools, record high levels of incarceration, poverty, structural racism and lack of government accountability. Watch the trailer below:

Waltz with Bashir  (Director: Ari Folman, 2008)
After not being able to recall the time he spent on an Israeli Army mission during the Lebanon War, Ari attempts to unravel the mystery by traveling around the world to interview old friends and comrades. As the pieces of the puzzle begin to come together, his memory begins to return in illustrations that are surreal. At the end of the animated film is a very short part of the film that shows real people dead and alive. Watch the trailer below:

The War Room (Director: Chris Hegedus and D.A. Pennebaker, 1993)
Documentary about the Clinton presidential campaign, from the New Hampshire primary to the victory party 10 months later.  At the center are the two men most responsible for Clinton's victory- James Carville, the campaign manager, and George Stephanopoulos, the communications director.  This is a compelling portrait of the two men and the skill and determination required to bring about a victory.
When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts (Director: Spike Lee, 2006)
The world watched in horror as Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans on August 29, 2005. Many were shocked, not only by the scale of the disaster, but the slow, inept and disorganized response of the emergency and recovery efforts. Structured into four acts, each dealing with a different aspect of the events that preceded and followed Katrina's catastrophic passage through New Orleans. Tells the heartbreaking personal stories of those who endured this harrowing ordeal and survived to tell the tale. Watch the trailer below: