For anyone looking for a documentary on the Manhattan Project, I'd highly highly recommend The Day After Trinity, a documentary by Jon Else with a bunch of interviews of the original participants (it was made in 1980). Really fantastic look at the personalities behind all the science.
Pretty great, with high quality historical footage as well. I think you can buy the HD streaming version on Amazon for $10 (258 minutes long, broken into six segments).
Definitely second this, That was one stunningly good documentary series.. Saw it on a lark but ended up with plenty of emotional reactions. The director received criticism from both left and right, virtually all of it undeserved IMHO.
I recommend Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control by Errol Morris. It’s a series of interviews with passionate geniuses in various areas, including a naked mole rat scientist.
I watched it in the 90s and gave me awareness that there’s people who have very deep interest in a subject and achieve fulfillment in studying and working in an area.
Morris directed many other good documentaries- Thin Blue Line, Fog of War- but I think FCOoC is his best.
Also Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo (there’s a documentary and a fictional portrays) is interesting to show how someone can work on a seemingly pointless and impossible task. This was helpful in programming as frequently areas of interest seem so confusing to people outside my mind.
Great documentary. I can heartily recommend all of Al-Khalili's documentaries: "Atom", "The End of the Universe", "Shock and Awe: The Story of Electricity" and "Chemistry: A Volatile History" are all excellent. The last two are my favorites; while his documentaries on physics and quantum mechanics are good, they describe scientific phenomena that are pretty difficult to understand, let alone visualize, and it ends up having to be a little over-simplified, or explained with unsatisfying visual analogies. The ones on chemistry and electricity are a lot more (no pun intended) grounded, and include some fun demonstrations.
Thanks for mentioning that. I didn't know about it. Ended up watching the whole thing tonight. I found it fascinating. Great to see what goes on behind the scenes..
If anyone else has documentaries about film-making that they can recommend, I'd love to hear your picks. Thanks.
This is one of the best science documentaries I have seen. I'm surprised I missed it - it was made in 2011, and it had a surprising amount of visual history that I was not aware of. From the rivalry between Volta and Galvani, to all the trial and error experiments of the 19th century.
I would highly recommend this to anyone interested in the history of electricity or people interested in Physics in general.
I hadn’t seen this until a few days ago. Amazing, horrifying film like nothing I’ve seen before. It is said to be the first film to deal directly and realistically with the idea of nuclear war and what it would mean.
Roger Ebert said this was “one of the most skillful documentary films ever made.”
I was excited to see it freely available (legally) on YouTube, so I wanted to share it with HN.
Thanks! I can always use another good documentary.
In return, I can recommend The KGB, The Computer, and Me, based on the excellent book The Cuckoo's Egg.
I can also recommend all of the documentaries done by Jason Scott (Get Lamp, BBS: The Documentary, Going Cardboard (although he only edited that: He's director on the rest), and DEFCON: The Documentary)
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