Inspiring, uplifting documentaries

August 21, 2021 9:45 PM

I just watched Barbara Lee: Speaking Truth To Power and it was so motivating and inspiring. What are documentaries that you recommend that are about people overcoming obstacles/doing good/trying cool things and succeeding? Movies like Knock Down The House, Mary Lou Williams: The Lady Who Swings the Band, Maidentrip.
posted by rogerroger to Media & Arts (15 answers total)

Citizen Jane
about journalist-activist Jane Jacobs and her fight in the 1960s against Robert Moses, New York’s tsar of urban development.
posted by Zumbador at 10:36 PM on August 21, 2021

Unbreakable Mark Pollock becomes the first blind person to race to the South Pole, and after an accident leaves him paralyzed, his partner Simone George self-learns science to better advocate for his treatment. He is now bionic man; she is Superwoman. There's a TED talk.
posted by BobTheScientist at 11:08 PM on August 21, 2021

Man on Wire (guy undertakes unauthorized wire-walk between the Twin Towers).
posted by praemunire at 11:18 PM on August 21, 2021

Nae Pasaran, the story of Scottish workers in the Rolls Royce factory who in the 1970s refused to work on engines for the Chilean Air Force. The film follows the guys, now in their 70s and 80s, as they learn what their actions meant to people in Chile at the time. Beautiful film.
posted by Lluvia at 1:12 AM on August 22, 2021

I just watched The Emoji Story on Hulu, and it has some story lines like this. It follows a few people who campaign to get emojis approved by the The Unicode Consortium — emojis that are important to them and their communities.
posted by edlundart at 2:40 AM on August 22, 2021

Crip Camp on Netflix is pretty great.
posted by EXISTENZ IS PAUSED at 5:18 AM on August 22, 2021

I found How to Survive a Plague, about activists during the early days of the AIDS epidemic, very inspiring, but since there are some dark and infuriating elements too - and these were people who knew they would probably die and sometimes did die - maybe read about it a bit before deciding.

3100: Run and Become is about people who run as a spiritual exercise. The title comes from a 3100 mile race run in New York around a single block. You do not have to be a sports person to find it cool and inspiring.
posted by FencingGal at 6:19 AM on August 22, 2021

RBG
posted by pangolin party at 6:27 AM on August 22, 2021

I loved Young @ Heart
posted by RobinofFrocksley at 6:32 AM on August 22, 2021

The Biggest Little Farm, available on Kanopy
posted by carlypennylane at 6:40 AM on August 22, 2021

Tim's Vermeer is about an autodidact who pursues David Hockney's hypothesis that the Dutch Masters (eg, Vermeer) were using camera lucidas to produce their paintings. With no painting experience, he creates a reproduction of a Vermeer, doing everything (everything) from scratch.
posted by adamrice at 9:47 AM on August 22, 2021

Maiden is the story of Tracy Edwards, a 24-year-old cook on charter boats, who became the skipper of the first ever all-female crew to enter the Whitbread Round the World Race in 1989. Amazing, inspiring story.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 1:38 PM on August 22, 2021

Anvil: The Story of Anvil (2008)

The story of two fifty-something rockers who have been consistently not-quite-as-successful as everyone had hoped. Their tour is a disaster. Their new album is a disaster. But then …

If you're not crying with joy at the end of this film, I dunno what to say.
posted by scruss at 1:51 PM on August 22, 2021

Rivers and Tides, about artist Andy Goldsworthy.
posted by Sublimity at 2:48 PM on August 22, 2021

Boys State (streaming on Apple TV). Fascinating and very often inspiring.
posted by MickVV at 1:05 AM on August 23, 2021