The MoFo Top 100 Documentaries Countdown

Phew!

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"Don't be so gloomy. After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

Here was my full list:
1. Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About his Father (#5)
2. The Imposter (#30)
3. American Movie (#12)
4. Exit Through the Gift Shop (#2)
5. Jackass 2 (#84)
6. Life Itself (#19)
7. Indie Game: The Movie (#71)
8. Jackass: The Movie (#90)
9. I Know That Voice
10. Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (#24)
11. Beauty Day (#54)
12. West of Memphis (#68)
13. This Film is Not Yet Rated (#35)
14. Nitro Circus: The Movie
15. The Wonderful Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl (#25)
16. Baraka (#36)
17. Food Inc. (#23)
18. Super High Me
19. Triumph of the Will (#46)
20. Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey
21. Two Million Minutes
22. Last Train Home (#56)
23. March of the Penguins (#94)
24. Kingdom of Dreams and Madness (#61)
25. OT: Our Town (1 pointer)

Great job Harry. Good list. I'm surprised Exit through the gift shop was so high. I thought it was average.

My list in full:

1. Dear Zachary
2.Paradise Lost (The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills)
3. Grizzly Man
4. The Bridge (2006)
5. Deliver us from evil
6. The Thin Blue Line
7.Catching Hell
8. Man on Wire
9. Going Clear
10.Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer
11. The Overnighters
12. Murder on a Sunday Morning
13. Witch Hunt
14. The Trials of Daryl Hunt
15. Dark Days
16. The Imposter
17. The King of Kong
18. Searching for sugarman
19.Sunshine Superman
20. Farenheit 9/11
21. Jiro Dreams of Sushi
22. Indie Games
23. Bowling for Columbine
24. Dig!
25. Samsara

Nice to see The Greatest Movie Ever Sold on your list, MM. I think most people would enjoy it somewhat, but especually for anyone who has an interest in films and how they're funded, it's particularly interesting.

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Yeah, even though its concept and idea is the best thing about the film, that is also what is the film, basically, and that very concept is great enough on its own even if the film is objectively mediocre.

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I said a few times on the countdown that while I limited myself to only two documentaries about filmmaking or filmmakers (Burden of Dreams and Hearts of Darkness) that if I were compiling a list that was entirely docs about movies I would have lots and lots. Some likely would have been excluded as a series or whatever from the official list, but I'm not worried about that. I stopped at thirty-five, and I'm not overly happy about the order of the bottom half of the list, but rather than futz with it I'll just throw it up, here...

1. Burden of Dreams (1982)
2. Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse (1991)
3. Jodorowsky’s Dune (2013)
4. Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures (2001)
5. Lost in La Mancha (2002)
6. My Best Fiend (1999)
7. Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession (2004)
8. Swimming to Cambodia (1987)
9. Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired (2008)
10. The Battle Over Citizen Kane (1996)
11. Unknown Chaplin (1983)
12. All This Filming, Is It Healthy?: Martin Scorsese Directs (1990)
13. Visions of Light: The Art of Cinematography (1992)
14. Preston Sturges: The Rise and Fall of an American Dreamer (1990)
15. Trumbo (2007)
16. Waking Sleeping Beauty (2009)
17. Listen to Me Marlon (2015)
18. The Typewriter, the Rifle, and the Movie Camera (1996)
19. Directed by John Ford (1971)
20. Gene Kelly: Anatomy of a Dancer (2002)
21. Dangerous Days: The Making of Blade Runner (2007)
22. No Subtitles Necessary: László & Vilmos
23. Woody Allen: A Documentary (2012)
24. Hitchcock/Truffaut (2015)
25. Tigrero: A Film That Was Never Made (1994)
26. A Decade Under the Influence (2003)
27. A Constant Forge (2000)
28. I Am Divine (2013)
29. Cary Grant: A Class Apart (2004)
30. Tell Them Who You Are (2004)
31: This Film is Not Yet Rated (2006)
32. Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003)
33. American Movie (1999)
34. Room 666 (1982)
35. Tales from the Script (2009)

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I don't know if I've seen enough movie docs to be able to fill a 25. However, I'm sure that Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff would definitely make any current list I made.

I like that one a lot, too. I could have listed fifty, but I stopped at thirty-five.

There you go, people. It has the HP seal of approval. Now go get it seen.

Just wondering before it gets taken off important if this is making the list section?

Also if it is - J2ckass!

Yes. Make it so!

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We haven't even discussed the possibility of 1ackass .

My list:

1. Immokalee, U.S.A.
Breaking the Maya Code
De Artificiali Perspectiva
The Act of Killing
Hoop Dreams
The Thin Blue Line
Blackfish
Olympia
My Winnipeg
It's All True
Salt for Svanetia
Harlan County, U.S.A.
The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On
F for Fake
Dogtown and Z Boys
Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills
History of Postwar Japan as Told by a Bar Hostess
Grizzly Man
Fires Were Started
À Propos de Nice
Visions of Light
Rembrandt's J'accuse
Microcosmos
Ballets Russes
25. Kyoto, My Mother's Place

Ooooh, another movie-related one that I forgot about when making my list and would have to make room for, near the bottom somewhere, is Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's Island of Dr. Moreau. It is not in the same class as the un-making-ofs Lost in La Manacha or Jodorowsky's Dune or even Tigrero, but it is fascinating. I'd put it a few pegs over The Death of Superman Lives, which is fun but nowhere near Jodorowsky or Gilliam. For me, anyway.

Would anyone other than SC have put The War Room on their list if they'd remembered it, or was it just doomed no matter what?

I had The War Room in my mix, it's a great doc. Just a matter of shuffling things around and it landing just short, for me. In my top fifty, for sure.

I forgot about a couple. Did anybody have these on their list?

"Press Your Luck" Scandal


"Jonestown - Life and Death of People's Temple"


Both very good.

That infamous "Press Your Luck" story is fascinating in game show lore, for sure, and I watched that special on The Game Show Network when it first aired. But as far as quality of filmmaking, it plays like a cheesy, made-for-Game Show Network piece, not a documentary. Which is absolutely fine for what it is, but I wouldn't consider it one of the best three hundred documentaries ever made. There's a reason Peter Tomarken doesn't have a career narrating documentaries.

I know for years that Bill Murray owned the rights to Michael Larson's life story, and I was hoping he would find the right combination of filmmakers to bring it to life. But so far....nope.

Jonestown: Life and Death of Peoples Temple is very good, but I didn't really consider it for my list. HERE is my brief write-up from when I saw it theatrically back in 2006.

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I just watched that "Press Your Luck" movie, and I enjoyed it a lot, my only problem was that I thought they antagonized Michael Larson too much. He didn't cheat, he just figured out the game.

Okay, finally got this up in the Lists area:

http://www.movieforums.com/lists/mov...mentaries.html

Sorry it took so long: parsing script didn't work so I had to do a lot of the work by hand. Hopefully it's all sorted now, but there's a 5% chance some of you might have to resubmit the ones you check off if I missed something. Also, you guys really screwed me by including something that's technically a TV show. I'll have to work around that later.