For people who love documentaries and all those movies that you could only see if you lived in a big city with an art house, Netflix has been a boon. They have everything. I live out in the middle of nowhere and my movies have a one day turn around. Netflix lets you rent, watch and return DVDs from home – Try free for 2 weeks Here is a list of my favorite documentaries:
- American Movie (1999) About a guy with no talent or skill but a passion for making movies and a contempt for those who don’t.
- Aileen Wuornos: Selling of a Serial Killer (1992) She worked as a prostitute and killed the men that raped her. Her advisers are a barefooted, singing lawyer and a religious woman that adopts her. Both of them sell her out and she ends up on death row.
- Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer (2003) The story continues.
- Born Into Brothels (2004) Film maker teaches the children that live in a red light district of India how to photograph.
- Capturing the Friedmans (2003)
- Country Boys (2-Disc Series) (2002) Follows the lives of 2 Appalachian teens that go to a special school.
- The Cruise (1998)
- Crumb (1994)
- Daughter from Danang: American Experience (2002) Woman who was born to a Vietnamese woman and an American solider leaves Vietnam and is adopted by a Texan when she is eight. She is completely americanized including a Texas accent when she returns to visit her family in Vietnam.
- The Devil and Daniel Johnston (2005)
- Devil’s Playground (2002) When Amish kids turn 16 they drink, have sex, and shoot drugs until they decide to become Amish or not.
- The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2000)
- First Person: The Complete Series (3-Disc Series) (2000) EarlMorris films people, interrogation style, with his special built camera.
- Grey Gardens (1975) Two eccentric former socialites, who are related to Jackie O, live in their decaying mansion full of cats and raccoons.
- Hands on a Hard Body (1998) Documentary about a contest in the south where people stand around with their hand on a Nissan pickup for days until the last one drops.
- Hell House (2001) Christians set up a “house of horrors” about what will happen to you if you have sex.
- Jesus Camp (2006) Training children to roll around on the floor, talk in tongues, be annoying to non-christians, and praise Bush.
- Jupiter’s Wife (1995) Homeless woman that lives in Central Park.
- Marjoe (1972) Rolling on floor, talking in tongues, child preacher grows up and doesn’t believe anymore yet keeps preaching for the cash.
- My Flesh and Blood (2003) Single woman adopts all these sweet kids with disabilities and one little hellion that makes everyone miserable.
- Sister Helen (2002) Loud, alcoholic nun runs a halfway house for drug addicts and alcoholics.
- Sound and Fury (2000) Deaf parents are given the choice to let their deaf children hear via the cochlear implant but they want their children to remain deaf.
- Spellbound (2002) Spelling bee and the kids that compete in them. Suspenseful.
- Stevie (2003) Filmmaker goes back to visit the boy that he was a “big brother” to many years before. Finds a man that is more troubled then the boy he once tried to help.
- Vernon, Florida (1981) Small town Floridians are interviewed. Ha!
- When We Were Kings (1996) I don’t like boxing but this story of the Zaire match between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman is so well told it’s like you are hearing a folk tale.
- Word Wars (2004) The rough world of the professional scrabble player.
- Wordplay (2006) The not so rough world of the crossword puzzle addict.
