Have you ever ever seen a documentary that was so hilarious, odd, or eerie that you just questioned if it was really actual life? Some documentaries really feel so bizarre that it looks as if they’re fiction. However typically actual life is weirder than made-up tales. From Anvil! The Story of Anvil (2008) to Crumb (1994), these factual movies are wackier than fiction.
1. The King of Kong (2007)
In 1999, gifted video gamer Billy Mitchell set the world report rating in a sport of Nintendo’s Donkey Kong. Whereas a big portion of the online game neighborhood figured nobody may probably beat Mitchell’s excessive rating, a gamer named Steve Wiebe broke the report once more in 2003. Decided to seek out extra recognition for his or her achievements, each males try to get their names within the Guinness E book of World Information.
2. Anvil! The Story of Anvil (2008)
This rockumentary movie follows the Canadian heavy metallic band Anvil. They journey throughout Europe for a lackluster world tour the place issues appear to go mistaken at each flip. Regardless of making a massively influential heavy metallic album within the early 80s, Anvil did not keep within the limelight for lengthy. As they tour Europe, the lead guitarist and drummer mirror on their profession and selections to observe their desires.
3. Tickled (2016)
Tickled is a New Zealand investigative documentary a few subculture that engages in aggressive endurance tickling. Whereas researching matters for his quirky tales beat, journalist David Farrier occurs upon a manufacturing firm that creates and distributes movies of athletic males holding one other man right down to tickle him for prolonged intervals. However when Farrier reached out to study extra, the corporate did no matter it may to maintain him from investigating additional. Farrier determined to uncover what the corporate was hiding on this documentary.
4. Tiger King (2020-2021)
Tiger King is a docuseries that started as an exploration of the massive cat breeding trade within the U.S. and become a real crime documentary in regards to the main events within the large cat world. From Joe Unique’s tried hit towards his rival Carole Baskin to unprofessional office requirements to unethical breeding and killing of huge cats, this docuseries will get wilder and wilder with every episode.
5. Catfish (2010)
Because the movie that coined the time period catfish and sparked the docuseries with the identical title, Catfish follows a person who connects with a toddler artwork prodigy on-line earlier than starting a romantic relationship with Meghan, the kid’s grownup half-sister. Earlier than assembly with Meghan in particular person for the primary time, he and his buddies begin to suspect that one thing is not proper and that Meghan might not be who she says she is.
6. Grizzly Man (2005)
Adventurous conservationist Timothy Treadwell determined to maneuver to the Alaskan wilderness and stay amongst the brown bears for a lot of summers earlier than one in every of his beloved fuzzy companions attacked and killed him and his girlfriend, Amie Huguenard. Comprised of footage from Treadwell’s life with the grizzles, interviews together with his household and buddies, and conversations with bear behaviorists, Grizzly Man is a documentary that retains viewers hooked from the primary second.
7. Bros: After the Screaming Stops (2018)
Twenty-eight years after their final stay efficiency, English pop band Bros prepares for his or her reunion tour in 2017 on this music documentary. Twins and band members Luke and Matt Goss managed to promote out the London U2 Stadium in underneath seven seconds. However with guarantees of a packed stadium of followers comes a whole lot of stress to carry out. After nearly three a long time aside, the brothers come collectively to placed on one final memorable efficiency.
8. The Wild and Great Whites of West Virginia (2009)
This documentary takes an unflinching but typically humorous have a look at poverty, dance, and dependancy in rural Appalachia. It follows Jesco White and his household of West Virginia outlaws as they try to evade the police, make ends meet, and proceed partaking of their conventional and distinctive dance type.
9. Arms on a Hardbody: The Documentary (1997)
Arms on a Hardbody: The Documentary chronicles the Texas 1995 Arms on a Hardbody contest the place males collect and place one hand on a truck they hope to win. Whoever manages to maintain their hand pressed to the pickup truck the longest wins it. Over the 77 steady hours of the 1995 competitors, many males gave up for various causes earlier than a winner took residence his prize.
10. Crumb (1994)
This endearing documentary dives into the sophisticated life and thoughts of underground cartoonist Robert Crumb. As he prepares to maneuver to France together with his beloved household and previous information, he shares his life philosophy with the filmmakers. Extraordinarily cynical and dismissive of his personal followers, this movie nonetheless manages to painting Crumb’s character as endearing, heartfelt, and loveable. The movie additionally explores Crumb’s tumultuous childhood and early years earlier than he made a reputation for himself.
11. Nice White Dying (1981)
Nice White Dying is an inflammatory movie in regards to the terrors of nice white sharks and their grotesque assaults on people. Based mostly extra on concern than information, this “documentary” spends extra time villainizing a creature that’s a lot much less more likely to kill a human in comparison with a lightning strike than sharing precise details about sharks and their food plan. The movie options interviews with shark assault survivors and grotesque photographs of actual shark assault footage.
12. Tremendous Measurement Me (2004)
Documentarian Morgan Spurlock turned well-known for partaking in intensive social experiments on display screen in his movie Tremendous Measurement Me. For a whole month, Spurlock offers up his typical wholesome, balanced food plan to find what occurs to the human physique after consuming breakfast, lunch, and dinner at McDonald’s. As his well being dwindles, Spurlock reveals simply how detrimental quick meals will be in our society. There’s one thing unreal about watching a person absolutely decide to pounding down a supersized McDonald’s meal earlier than grabbing his stomach and moaning, understanding he’ll do all of it once more in 5 hours.
13. Class Motion Park (2020)
Class Motion Park explores the darkish aspect of underregulated capitalism by sharing the story of the rise and fall of shady entrepreneur and penny stockbroker Eugene Mulvihill’s harmful New Jersey waterpark known as Motion Park. The movie explores Mulvihill’s life and enterprise practices whereas sharing interviews with former park-goers and staff who inform terrifying tales about actual accidents and harmful oversights on the Eighties park.
14. Jesus Camp (2006)
For many who’ve by no means seen the terrors of intense spiritual fervor, Jesus Camp is a stunning documentary that feels out of this world. However for a lot of raised in religions like evangelical Christianity, Jesus Camp is all too relatable. It is a documentary about Youngsters on Hearth, an evangelical camp that indoctrinates children to carry excessive spiritual beliefs.
15. In a single day (2003)
In a single day tells the story of a brash and unfiltered bartender turned filmmaker, Troy Duffy, who rose to fame nearly in a single day by promoting his script for The Boondock Saints (1999). On the similar time, his band gained success after working with Madonna. However is his argumentative persona and infrequently out-of-control mood an asset or a harmful drive in his profession prospects?
16. Gray Gardens (1975)
Filmmakers Albert and David Maysles created Gray Gardens, a documentary made up of interviews with a mom and daughter, each named Edith Bouvier Beale, who loved an upper-class way of life as youthful girls on account of their shut familial relation to Jackie Kennedy. As they aged, the ladies’s manor at Gray Gardens fell deeper and deeper into disarray, and the ladies lived in poverty. The documentary largely explores tales from the ladies’s former elite lives.
17. Gates of Heaven (1978)
Gates of Heaven is a documentary a few enterprise many people by no means think about: the pet burial trade. The movie options interviews with numerous figures on this planet of pet burial, like Floyd “Mac” McClure, a pet mortician who wholeheartedly believes in preserving a lifeless pet’s dignity after it passes. As McClure makes an attempt to remain in enterprise, the movie additionally showcases McClure’s enemies on the opposite aspect of the trade: on the rendering plant.
18. Sick: The Life and Dying of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist (1997)
Bob Flanagan, a efficiency artist and cystic fibrosis advocate, is the topic of this heart-wrenching documentary. Cystic fibrosis is a painful, incurable situation that causes thick mucus to fill a affected person’s lungs, inflicting the common life expectancy to achieve solely 50 years. Flanagan used self-inflicted ache from a younger age to deal with his situation. This documentary appears to be like at Flanagan’s life and relationship together with his spouse up by way of his loss of life at age 43.
19. American Film (1999)
American Film is a documentary that explores the creation of a low-budget horror movie by Mark Borchardt regardless of all the chances stacked towards him. Borchardt does not have a lot cash or assist whereas creating his horror movie, however his ambition and fervour maintain him on observe to finish the film, irrespective of how lengthy it takes. Borchardt’s trustworthy pal Mike Schank is among the causes he can keep hope.
20. Cane Toads: An Unnatural Historical past (1988)
What makes the quick Australian documentary Cane Toads: An Unnatural Historical past such a singular documentary is that it tells the story from the angle of its topic: the invasive cane toad. Initially dropped at Australia to kill off a sugar-cane munching insect known as the cane beetle, the cane toad introduced a a lot greater downside. These toads took to Australia’s local weather and unfold like wildfire on account of their seemingly unending mating practices.
21. Finest Worst Film (2009)
Finest Worst Film chronicles the creation of the 1990 horror movie Troll 2. Initially a flop, the movie rose to success after gaining a loyal cult following. This documentary explores the making of Troll 2 from the angle of one in every of its former little one actors, Michael Stephenson.
22. The Last Member (2012)
In case you plan on vacationing in Iceland, you may go to the world’s solely museum devoted to male non-public components: the Icelandic Phallogical Museum. The Last Member is a documentary that follows this distinctive museum’s curator, Sigurður Hjartarson, as he makes an attempt to trace down a human phallus to finalize his assortment of mammalian members. The movie explores Hjartarson’s efforts to seek out the ultimate installment of his assortment and the person who agrees to donate it.
23. Finders Keepers (2015)
After John Wooden survived a aircraft crash during which his father Tom died, John’s leg was severely injured, and surgeons amputated it on the hospital. Eager to discover a technique to memorialize his father’s loss of life, John requested the hospital to offer him his amputated leg, which he mummified and stored in a storage shed. However earlier than he may put it on show, he misplaced the storage shed by spending its lease cash on medicine. That is when one other man named Shannon Wisnant purchased the shed, discovered the mummified leg, and determined to make use of it to turn into well-known. However John desperately desires his leg again and can cease at nothing to get it.
24. Winnebago Man (2010)
Winnebago Man appears to be like at a person who went viral for footage of his outtakes for a Winnebago gross sales video marketing campaign the place he unleashes his anger with profanity-fuelled outbursts as he makes errors in sure takes. Filmmaker Ben Steinbaur stumbled upon the viral video. He questioned what occurred to the person within the footage filmed over twenty years prior. Steinbaur tracks down the Winnebago man, Jack Rebney, and interviews about his life and perspective on the viral tapes.