Interesting non-fiction TV shows/episodes/specials/movies.

November 10, 2007 3:11 PM

What are some interesting non-fiction TV shows/episodes/specials/movies?
posted by archagon to Media & Arts (20 answers total)

If you're in the US , I highly recommend the McLaughlin Report, and Nova on PBS (that's just tworamming on PBS). There's also the fantastic Mythbusters and the disgustingly awesome Dirty Jobs on (the Discovery Channel?).
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 3:15 PM on November 10, 2007

Try the documentary tag. Some good stuff there if you dig around. Eg
posted by Leon at 3:19 PM on November 10, 2007

Frontline. Charlie Rose. Tavis Smiley.
posted by dhammond at 3:29 PM on November 10, 2007

Bill Moyers Journal.
Frontline
posted by i_am_a_Jedi at 3:33 PM on November 10, 2007

CBS Sunday Morning. It's kinda like the New Yorker on television. Kinda.
posted by msali at 3:36 PM on November 10, 2007

It's out of print and hard to find outside of super expensive used copies, but if you ever get a chance to see Hands on a Hard Body (trailer), don't pass it up. It's excellent and one of my all-time favorite documentaries (behind Capturing the Friedmans).
posted by dhammond at 3:37 PM on November 10, 2007

QI is always quite interesting. Try searching 'qi series' in youtube and get addicted.
posted by Free word order! at 4:14 PM on November 10, 2007

Connections, Connections 2, The Day The Universe Changed, The Civil War, This American Life (TV Version), 7up series (49up, etc.), Penn and Teller's Bullshit, Simon Schama's Power of Art, Simon Schama's History of Britain, Walking With Dinosaurs
posted by grumblebee at 4:25 PM on November 10, 2007

This American Life on Showtime.
posted by JPowers at 4:28 PM on November 10, 2007

Deadliest Catch, Extreme Engineering on Discovery, Megastructures on Nat Geo.

Also, anything by David Attenborough.
posted by cholly at 4:34 PM on November 10, 2007

As far as films...

Crumb, Hoop Dreams, Capturing the Friedmans, Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession, DiG!, Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, The Corporation, and Murderball.
posted by JPowers at 4:35 PM on November 10, 2007

Any of Louis Theroux's programmes are worthwhile viewing.
posted by fire&wings at 4:39 PM on November 10, 2007

How It's Made can be tedious at times but I can never seem to change the channel.
posted by M Edward at 5:41 PM on November 10, 2007

Cosmos
The War
Austin City Limits
The Civil War
posted by erikgrande at 7:00 PM on November 10, 2007

Fast Cheap and Out of Control (documentary film)
Ken Burns' Baseball (TV mini-series)
Frontline (TV series; many episodes online)
posted by LobsterMitten at 9:17 PM on November 10, 2007

Frontier House and other related tv mini-series where partipants live in conditions of historic times.

Mythbusters is a kind of science/entertainment mix, rather than straight nonfiction.
Junkyard Wars is similar.
posted by LobsterMitten at 9:18 PM on November 10, 2007

Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure is a wonderful piece of storytelling.
posted by tomble at 5:27 AM on November 11, 2007

I just recently finished watching Simon Schama's BBC series - The Power of Art, and it was fantastic, I highly recommend it.
posted by sleep_walker at 6:37 AM on November 11, 2007

Herzog's Grizzly Man, Errol Morris's tv series First Person, and his films, particularly Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control, Sound and Fury (can't recall the director of that one), and OF COURSE, The Maysles brothers' Grey Gardens.

If you're a nature documentary junkie like me, anything with David Attenborough attached to it is like crack. Life of Birds, Life of Mammals, Planet Earth, all of it.
posted by Lieber Frau at 11:37 AM on November 12, 2007

Anything on the Science Channel, the Current, History Channel, or Discovery. Honestly, once I hit one of those channels, I stay there. Especially the Science Channel.
posted by jeffxl at 7:29 AM on November 16, 2007