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'Fata Morgana' (1971) -

Werner Herzog is one of the most famous filmmakers of all time. Both his feature films and documentaries capture human experiences at their extremes. This pursuit has put him in grave danger more than once.

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'Fata Morgana' (1971) -

The 1971 documentary 'Fata Morgana' was supposed to be an experimental film capturing mirages in the the Sahara and Sahel deserts. The filming took Herzog and his crew to Cameroon only a few weeks after a coup had taken place. They were mistakenly arrested and thrown in jail where they were beaten and held in a cell with 60 other men. Herzog even contracted a dangerous parasite called bilharzia.

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'Grizzly Man' (2005) -

Herzog's 2005 documentary 'Grizzly Man' did not put him in danger, but the subjects lost their lives. The documentary looks at footage taken by Timothy Treadwell, a man who famously spent every summer living among wild grizzly bears in Alaska. He documented his relationship with the bears carefully, capturing 90 hours of film. Sadly, Treadwell and his girlfriend Amie Huguenard were attacked and killed by the bears in 2003.

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'The War Show' (2016) -

'The War Show' is an insider look at the daily lives of Syrian people during the worst days of the ongoing civil war. The footage was taken by Syrian radio DJ Obaidah Zytoon as she and her friends lived through the fallout of the Arab Spring. Cameras and filming were strictly prohibited at the time.

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'The War Show' (2016) -

As suppression and violence grew, she took greater and greater risks to capture the situation, at times dodging snipers in streets reduced to rubble.

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'Blues by the Beach' (2004) -

'Blues by the Beach' is a documentary film by English writer Jack Baxter that focuses on a small beloved bar by the beach in Tel Aviv. It became a very different story when two bombers set off an explosion at the bar that killed three people and injured 50, including Baxter himself. Baxter was left with lifelong injuries.

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'The Last Sermon' (2020) -

Rather than being deterred by this experience, Baxter began to work on his next project. He started another journey, although this time it would put his emotional well-being at risk. He traveled around Europe to learn more about the two men responsible for the attack, and to speak to their families.

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'National Geographic: Inside North Korea' (2009) -

Lisa Ling is an American journalist and TV host who got the chance of a lifetime to enter North Korea when a friend invited her to join his medical missionary group. They were entering North Korea to perform cataract surgeries around the country.

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'National Geographic: Inside North Korea' (2009) -

The visit of this foreign doctor was highly publicized and thousands of locals came to see them, giving Ling the opportunity to interview many people about their real life experiences. It's commonly known that international journalists are not welcome in North Korea, and would not usually be allowed to interact with the citizens without approval and supervision.

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The story continues -

Lisa Ling completed her mission successfully, but her sister was not so lucky. Laura Ling was filming at the border in China for a documentary about defectors escaping North Korea. According to Laura, North Korean guards dragged her and journalist Euna Lee across the border. They were then charged with illegal entry into North Korea and sentenced to 12 years in a labor camp.

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The story continues -

After months of negotiations, and a personal visit to North Korea by President Bill Clinton, the two journalists were pardoned and returned home to their families. They had been detained for 104 days.

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'Free Solo' (2018) -

Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi is a documentary filmmaker, while her husband Jimmy Chin is a professional climber and photographer. Chin happened to have been recording the climbs of world-famous free solo climber Alex Honnold for a decade, when they decided to make a documentary together about Honnold's greatest challenge yet.

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'Free Solo' (2018) -

As a free solo climber, Honnold relies entirely on his body to scale enormous cliff faces, without any ropes or safety equipment. The subject of the Oscar-winning documentary was his preparation and attempt to complete a climb that was considered physically impossible. Honnold managed to climb the face of the notorious El Capitan, a 3,000-foot (about 915 m) granite wall, in three hours and 56 minutes. Jimmy Chin was dangling from the cliff right alongside him to capture every moment. The most exceptional thing about this documentary is that no one died!

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'Citizenfour' (2014) -

Laura Poitras was the first journalist that whistleblower Edward Snowden reached out to. He chose her, along with journalist Glenn Greenwald, to help him tell his story.

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'Citizenfour' (2014) -

Snowden blew up his life when he leaked highly classified CIA documents. The documents exposed widespread global surveillance programs that many believe to be unconstitutional. He was wanted for espionage and theft in the US. Poitras and Greenwald both worked with him to share his experiences, despite risks to their own liberty and safety.

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'Burma VJ' (2008) -

In 2007, thousands of people took to the streets of Myanmar (previously known as Burma) to protest the country's oppressive regime. There was a government crackdown on the media, but several brave journalists and average people took great risks to record the terrible events that took place.

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'Burma VJ' (2008) -

The movement was known as the Saffron Revolution. Thousands of Buddhist monks, students, and supporters carried out peaceful protests for more than a month until the military cracked down and began to use excessive force. There was tear gas, beatings, and an unconfirmed number of deaths. The footage taken was smuggled out of the country at real risk of death so the documentary could be made.

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'Virunga' (2014) -

The acclaimed Netflix documentary 'Virunga' follows a desperate conflict in Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The park is home to the world's last remaining mountain gorillas. It's also plagued with poachers, armed militia, and outside influences that want to harvest the region's rich natural resources.

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'Virunga' (2014) -

The filmmakers spent time with the caretakers who were desperately trying to save the gorillas from extinction while a local militia group declared war. The danger was very real for all involved.

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'E-Team' (2014) -

The documentary 'E-Team' tells the story of four people with one of the most dangerous job imaginable. They are part of the "emergency team" and their responsibility is to slip into the most dangerous, war-struck parts of the world at the most hostile times.

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'E-Team' (2014) -

They submerge themselves in tragedy and violence to gather evidence of atrocities and human rights violations that can be used in international courts and shared with the media.

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'Cartel Land' (2015) -

Filmmaker Matthew Heineman ventured into dangerous territory for his 2015 documentary 'Cartel Land.' The drug war has been a popular subject thanks to hit shows like 'Narcos' and 'Breaking Bad,' but Heineman observed the situation from a new angle.

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'Cartel Land' (2015) -

He spent time shadowing the Autodefensas, a group of citizen volunteers who are taking on the regime of violence and fear created by the cartels in Mexico. He also followed a group of volunteers on the US side of the boarder who have the goal of keeping the cartel, as well as Mexican immigrants, in Mexico. There are bullets flying and questionable motives on all sides.

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'Taxi to the Dark Side' (2007) -

This harrowing documentary by Alex Gibney takes an in-depth look at the American military's use of torture. He begins with a case where an innocent taxi driver was allegedly tortured to death by US soldiers, after they received false information that he was involved in a terrorist plot.

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'Taxi to the Dark Side' (2007) -

Gibney interviewed soldiers who claim they received orders to carry out brutal torture, which their superiors now deny. The documentary unapologetically hangs the US government out to dry for these human rights violations.

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'The Act of Killing' (2013) -

Joshua Oppenheimer's Oscar-winning documentary 'The Act of Killing' gives a shockingly candid look into the minds of mass murderers who took part in one of the most brutal genocides in history.

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'The Act of Killing' (2013) -

Oppenheimer sits down with members of the Indonesian death squad who 'purged' millions of innocent people during the anti-Communist era in 1965-1966.

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'Aquarela' (2018) -

'Aquarela' is a visually astounding documentary that explores the power of water. Russian filmmaker Victor Kossakovsky dedicates part of the film to Siberia’s Lake Baikal, the oldest, deepest, and longest freshwater lake in the world.

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'Aquarela' (2018) -

The opening scene tracks the progress of a car as it drives across the frozen lake in the distance until, suddenly, it disappears through the ice. This was not part of the plan. For another section of the film, Kossakovsky found two brave sailors willing to bring him close to the melting ice caps in Greenland. The blocks of ice that fall into the water can cause tsunamis. They were lucky to escape with both the shots they needed and their lives.

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'Super Size Me' (2004) -

'Super Size Me' might seem a little silly compared to the rest, but Morgan Spurlock truly did take his life into his hands when he committed to eating nothing but McDonald's for a month! The documentary sees him proceed with the experiment against the advice of his doctor (and his then-girlfriend who's a vegan chef). He experienced a wide range of unpleasant side effects from the diet as well as a deterioration of his overall health and physical state that took more than a year to recover from. 

Sources: (Decider) (Taste of Cinema) (The Guardian) (NPR) (IndieWire)

See also: 'Tiger' and other controversial docs you need to watch

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