Brother's Keeper - A rural community rallies in support of an isolated social outcast.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103888/

King of Corn
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pr5HQrgg9mM

Planet Earth TV Series - Look for the edition narrated by David Attenborough.

Religulous
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB8fPJ6zds8

Baraka - Awesome views from around the world. Watch with a friend, since the lack of narration can stimulate great conversation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7geZs4qci1M
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Helvetica is pretty good. It is about the font, it's creators and it's users. Very nicely produced.
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Who killed the Electric Car is by Far one of my most favorite Documentaries!
Source(s):
http://www.mahalo.com/Who_killed_the_electric_car

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Man on Wire
The Times of Harvey Milk
Grizzly Man
Waltz With Bashir
Kurt Cobain: About a Son
Fareinheit 9/11
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Agreed on Helvetica - fantastic for anyone with an interest in design, technology or simply quality filmmaking. I also like Startup.com, which gives a "fly on the wall" look at the doomed govWorks site in the first dot com boom.

And I know it's a cliché, but I *do* like Michael Moore: Bowling for Columbine is a particular fave.
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Some of my favorite docs are in my experimental film list on ThisNext: http://www.thisnext.com/list/409EC378/Avant-Garde-and-Experimental?view=full

Stylistically, Tarnation is mesmerizing.
Source(s):
http://www.thisnext.com

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No particular order
Who Killed the Electric Car
Hacking Democracy
When We Left Earth
Helvetica
The Civil War


Special Mention Fake Documentary
CSA: Confederate States of America
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Great list!

I'd also add Jesus Camp, Wordplay, Confessions of a Superhero, and This Film Is Not Yet Rated.

Looking forward to Second Skin as well.
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I'm sure you've heard of some of these. It's making me realize how the question of "best" can be biased not just on quality, but political opinion. Here's mine, in no particular order:

An Inconvenient Truth
Anne Frank Remembered
Bowling for Columbine
Sicko
The Fog Of War
Stephen Hawking's Universe
Paper Clips
Crumb
Fahrenheit 9/11
When We Were Kings
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The Smartest Guys in the Room (about Enron)
Who Killed the Electric Car?
March of the Penguins
Planet Earth (great photography)
Jazz (Ken Burns)

Some of Michael Moore's films are entertaining, but too slanted and full of errors to be honestly called documentaries
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I can't post my beautiful reply, it says:
502 Bad Gateway
The server returned an invalid or incomplete response.

Oh well, here is the list:
1. Status Anxiety
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CERfoDIU2Yw
2. Religulous
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7plD7xzr2q8
3. Jesus Camp
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEhaA9BU9as
4. Bowling for Columbine
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSn5UEiovxo
5. Fahrenheit 9/11
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Zf2nCiBJLo
6. Visions of the Future
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDfwpA-iYnI
7. Steal This Film 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMaE0xBxf6o
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The Garbage Warrior. Made me include "treat the world better" as part of my 2009 resolution (Oh and not let politics get in the way of improvement).
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Here is my list:

The Secret
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Onqme41urM4

What the Bleep
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7dhztBnpxg

Google Behind the Screen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBNDYggyesc

UFO Documentary of Dan Aykroyd With David Serada http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqEdzBKWAZ4

The life of Albert Einstein
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfDzLzMYs0w
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Already mentioned but Grizzly Man is epic!
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1/ Empire of the city - Ring of Power
2/ 911 - Falling man
3/ King of Kong
4/ A Complete History Of My Sexual Failures
5/ National.Geographic - My Brilliant Brain
6/ The Pink Floyd Story - Which One's Pink
7/ Religulous
8/ Zeitgeist I & II
9/ Sick
10/ The Fog Of War
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I am also a huge documentary fan, its to say which is the best, my favourite documentary film makers include James Burke, David Attenborough and Adam Curtis.

James Burke of the The Day the Universe Changed and Connections
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufWyrUZ6-2c

David Attenborough Plethora of Documentary series', most notably Planet Earth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81NVuIQbOCk

And Adam Curtis and his documentaries
"The Power of Nightmares"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaLPFayD8FA
and "Century of the Self"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NZy2_pUVek

If your looking for the actual "best documentaries" of all time if you would have to look at the actual numbers are.

1. Fahrenheit 9/11 - $119,114,517
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Zf2nCiBJLo

2. Everest - $87,178,599
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSzi4bO8d6w

3. Space Station - $77,093,565
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SON6CT9-xy4

4. March of the Penguins - $77,437,223
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3k-fkOtTDo

5. Mysteries of Egypt - $40,593,286
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-i7EZfEnRUo
Source(s):
http://www.the-numbers.com/market/Genres/Documentary.php

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Revolution OS - http://www.revolution-os.com/
Super Size Me
The Aristocrats
The King of Kong
Triumph of the Nerds
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
Breaking Vegas
Devils Playground
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The Best Documentaries of All Time (counting down from 7 to 1):

7. Titticut Follies - Frederick Wiseman's "fly-on-the-wall" style revolutionized documentary filmmaking. This depressing account of a mental institution gives no opinions. You just have to watch and imagine yourself there.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uig-nqHgmYc

6. Night and Fog - Alain Resnais' 30-minute film captures the emptiness and sadness of the German concentration camps 10 years after their were raided by the allies. The images in this film can never be forgotten and are some of the starkest visual documents of these impacting locations.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95RXLNFewQo

5. The Thin Blue Line - Errol Morris combines interviews with cinematic recreations to make a crime come to life. This film discovered the truth of a shooting and exposed the laziness of the police investigation. A gripping thriller and an important milestone in the way a documentary film could impact the public.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rk9ymTIMAmk

4. Time Indefinite - This one is hard to track down. There aren't even any clips of it on YouTube. Ross McElwee's sequel to the heralded Sherman's March is even better than its well-known predecessor. McElwee is the sole cameraman and his introspective process makes a profound statement on the American family and life in the south.

3. The Man With The Movie Camera - The Russians really knew how to blow your mind back in the 20s. They pretty much invented modern editing. Dziga Vertov's camera explores the Russia of nearly a century ago, contrasting images of the industrial age with people going about their lives. One of the biggest inspirations behind Koyaanisqatsi.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZAVMaXdR0k

2. Don't Look Back - Containing some of the best footage of Bob Dylan ever captured, D.A. Pennebaker followed the artist on his tour of England in 1965. Displaying Dylan as equal parts musical genius and mischievous curmudgeon, it is quite simply one of the most entertaining and inviting documentaries ever made. The most famous sequence is probably Dylan's callous interview with a Time Magazine reporter, but the clip I've included is an impromptu acoustic guitar battle between Dylan and pop singer Donovan. Look at Dylan's piercing eyes as he sings "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SN6gqot02Zk

1. Gimme Shelter - The Maysles brothers brilliantly document The Rolling Stones in 1969. They have their cameras at just the right spot to catch the brawl between fans and the Hells Angels at the Altamont speedway and capture the best rock band in the world in their prime. Fascinating and invigorating even 40 years later.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6IfTTnVqSY
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I.O.U.S.A is one that often gets overlooked
Source(s):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBo2xQIWHiM

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Schindler's List
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If you like sports The Smashing Machine is a really good story about Mark Kerr. He used to be the best heavyweight MMA fighter in the world until he got wrapped up in drugs. It was on HBO and the dvd is out now.
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Einstein And Eddington
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Helvetica +1
Who Killed the Electric Car (will make you pull your hair out thinking about what SHOULD have been)
Word Wars (about pro Scrabble players)
Warphotographer (Must watch about photographer James Nachtwey)
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Poto and Cabengo - about 2 twin girls who develop and speak their own language, get their 15min of fame and a study of what happens when one becomes the object of worldwide attention, if ever so briefly.
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I think Street Fight is great. If you like political documentaries you have to see this one!
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The War Room: The story of the 1992 Clinton presidential campaign that made James Carville and George Stephanopoulos famous.

Why We Fight: Remarkable look into the history, power, and breadth of the military-industrial complex.

Hoop Dreams: Mentioned above

Grizzly Man: Amazing footage of bears in the Alaska wild. Shot from so close the camera man got eaten.

Startup.com: The highs and lows of an internet startup during the first boom. Appeals to my nerdy nostalgia.
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Grey Gardens my favorite film of all time (not just documentary). Disturbing yet life affirming story of a daughter still living with mom after age 50.

Burden of Dreams Les Blank's account of Werner Herzog's insane approach to filming "Fitzcarraldo"

Little Dieter Needs to Fly Werner Herzog's moving profile of a former prisoner of war.

SurfWise Fascinating look at a family who drops out of society, lives in a van, and surfs.
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I am suprised no one has added:

The Straight Story - david lynch film about the man who drove his lawn mower across Iowa - one of the best films of all time IMHO

Life and Debt - stunning documentary of the effects of the WTO on Jamaican farmers

The Agronomist - another all time favorite about Jean Dominique, the corageous leader of Radio Free Haiti during the tumultous 80s, 90s and beyond

The Corporation - required viewing for everyone - end of story.

Rivers and Tides - great documentary about the British artist Andy Goldsworthy

more great documentaries here:

http://documentary.tumblr.com/

and here

http://www.smashingtelly.com

great thread. thanks jason.
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Here are my favorites:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082252/ - The decline of western civilization.

Oh and the eighties version - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Decline_of_Western_Civilization_II

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0446055/ - The trials of Darryl Hunt

I have seen a lot of documentaries and if you have the time, you should really watch this - http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/whentheleveesbroke/
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For God's Sake -> "Hype!"

The ultimate 90s grunge documentary. Killer footage and the story of the whole phenomenon. From the roots and glory days to the fashion and Smells Like Teen Spirit Musac playing in JC Penny!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116589/
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best docs:

Be Here to Love Me - Townes Van Zandt
Director: Margaret Brown

Paradise Lost 1 & 2 - The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills
Directors: Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky

chicago 10-
Director: Brett Morgen

The American Ruling Class -
Director: John Kirby
Writer: Lewis Lapham

You're Gonna Miss Me - A film about Roky Erickson
Director: Keven McAlester

Off the Grid: Life On The Mesa
Directors: Jeremy Stulberg - Randy Stulberg

Zeitgeist 1 & 2
Director: Peter Joseph

Murder Of Fred Hampton
Director: Howard Alk
Source(s):
me viewing history, my opinion.

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I once saw a documentary describing what Atlanta real estate mogul Tom Cousins did with the East Lake Meadows ghetto, turning the neighborhood into a thriving golf-inclusive community.

I don't have a video link, but the story is here:
http://bcasports.cstv.com/genrel/042508aaa.html
Source(s):
http://bcasports.cstv.com/genrel/042508aaa.html

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Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control. Errol Morris looks at four brilliant and wacky people whose science and technology are blurring the boundaries among human, animal, and machine in differeny but fascinating ways.


Microcosmos. Beautiful and technically astonishing documentary of the lives of little things that live in a field of wildflowers. A nature doc that is never boring, and includes a surprisingly moving (and somehow not cheesy) scene of snail love set to an operatic score.
[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76R2EKEnoJQ ]

Who's Counting? This documentary about Marilyn Waring makes you question the most basic assumptions of economics (and everything else too). If you like political docs, this one takes on complicated issues but explains them in a way that even I can understand (and if you told me before I saw it that I would find a doc about an economic activist fascinating, I would have laughed right in your face).
[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbcWUoIqX6g ]

The Five Obstructions. A unique film. Dogme 95 director Lars von Trier 'assigns' his mentor several filmmaking challenges. Lars takes delight in the role reversal, and also in being a tricky bastard at times, but it's a very moving depiction of their relationship, and it shows (not tells) us how they think of the art form -- film -- that they love (and occasionally hate) so much.
[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKTSJO432kc ]

Some Kind of Monster. I think you have to include at least one rock doc, and this is my favorite (not counting mockumentaries). Watching the members of Metallica go through group therapy to deal with one another (and eventually having ambivalent feelings toward the therapist's presence too) is a weird experience. So is seeing them sincerely work on treating each other better. Yet they don't seem less 'metal' when you're done. Except maybe Kirk. But he's stil awesome musically.
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If you ask for the best I have just 2---

1. An Inconvenient Truth

&

2. Fahrenheit 9/11



---------An Inconvenient Truth----------

Appearances to the contrary, Mr. Guggenheim's movie is not really about Al Gore. It consists mainly of a multimedia presentation on climate change that Mr. Gore has given many times over the last few years, interspersed with interviews and Mr. Gore's voice-over reflections on his life in and out of politics.

I can't think of another movie in which the display of a graph elicited gasps of horror, but when the red lines showing the increasing rates of carbon-dioxide emissions and the corresponding rise in temperatures come on screen, the effect is jolting and chilling. Photographs of receding ice fields and glaciers — consequences of climate change that have already taken place — are as disturbing as speculative maps of submerged coastlines. The news of increased hurricane activity and warming oceans is all the more alarming for being delivered in Mr. Gore's matter-of-fact, scholarly tone.

http://www.rogerwendell.com/images/climatechange/an_inconvenient_truth_by_al_gore.jpg

He speaks of the need to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions as a "moral imperative," and most people who see this movie will do so out of a sense of duty, which seems to me entirely appropriate. Luckily, it happens to be a well-made documentary, edited crisply enough to keep it from feeling like 90 minutes of C-Span and shaped to give Mr. Gore's argument a real sense of drama. As unsettling as it can be, it is also intellectually exhilarating, and, like any good piece of pedagogy, whets the appetite for further study. This is not everything you need to know about global warming: that's the point. But it is a good place to start, and to continue, a process of education that could hardly be more urgent. "An Inconvenient Truth" is a necessary film.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2078944470709189270


-----------Fahrenheit 9/11--------------


Documentarians always have their own points of view, but Moore takes his positions and then guards them with pitbull-like intensity (though with humor as well).

Moore states his premise and then proceeds to build his case quite effectively. The title is a play on "Fahrenheit 451," the temperature at which paper burns, and a Ray Bradbury novel about a future totalitarian state in which reading and independent thought are banned. Moore's contention is that the present administration in Washington is jamming its policies down the throats of Americans -- and the world -- with little to no regard for the truth; or, at the very least, no room for an open discussion as to the validity of those policies.

http://www.movieposter.com/posters/archive/main/20/MPW-10390


Perhaps the most damaging footage shows Bush on September 11, sitting in a Florida classroom for a full seven minutes after he had been told that the second tower had been struck, and that it was clear the horrific events in New York were a terrorist attack, not a tragic accident. Moore lets this moment go on and on: The president of the United States, stone-faced in front of dozens of schoolchildren, doing absolutely nothing, as our nation comes under attack.

Though Moore is the narrator of "Fahrenheit" and appears in the movie, much of the film consists of news footage featuring the president. At times, it can be argued, some of these scenes appear out of context.

In one scene, Bush addresses supporters at a white-tie fundraiser: "This is an impressive crowd -- the haves ... and the have-mores. Some people call you the elite; I call you my base." In another moment, Bush is in the middle of a golf game when he gives an obviously impromptu news conference. "I call upon all nations to do everything they can to stop these terrorist killers," he says. "Now watch this drive." He then proceeds to step back and hit the golf ball.

But the film finds stunning power in the story of Lila Lipscomb, a resident of Moore's hometown of Flint, Michigan. Her son is fighting in Iraq; when she is first interviewed, she's a staunch defender of the war and Bush's policies.

But then her son is killed. After his death, she goes through a poignant and deep metamorphosis and becomes staunchly anti-Bush and anti-war.



http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=2Zf2nCiBJLo


SOME HONOURABLE MENTIONS--------

1. Hoop Dreams (1994)
2. The Thin Blue Line (198
3. Bowling for Columbine (2002)
4. Spellbound (2002)

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd314/RamsesFlores/spellbound.jpg

5. Harlan County U.S.A. (1976)
6. Woodstock (1970)
7. Crumb (1994)
8. Gimme Shelter (1970)
9. The Fog of War (2003)

http://www.philipglass.com/img/films/225/the-fog-of-war_225.jpg

10. Roger & Me (1989)
11. Super Size Me (2004)
12. Don't Look Back (1967)
13. Salesman (196
14. Koyaanisqatsi: Life Out of Balance (1982)
15. Sherman's March (1986)
16. Grey Gardens (1976)
17. Capturing the Friedmans (2003)
18. Born into Brothels (2004)
19. Titicut Follies (1967)
20. Buena Vista Social Club (1999)
21. Night and Fog (1955)
22. Winged Migration (2002)
23. Grizzly Man (2005)

http://www.filmcatcher.com/uploads/img/product/grizzlyman.jpg
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