Of the documentaries I've seen recently, I enjoyed Spellbound, the King of Kong, and New York Doll. I watched New York Doll in the theater at the UCI Edwards cinema and really liked it how it captured the Mormon experience.
There was also a documentary on Vietnam that I watched for my History of Civ class at BYU. The class had optional movie days on Friday, and most of the class went because the film choices were so interesting (Manon of the Spring, Wings of Desire, etc). I don't remember which Vietnam collection it was. There were a few DVDs, and I snoozed through some of it.
We sat down one Friday to watch one of the later chapters. The first footage we saw was of a Vietcong getting executed pointblank range, the body falling to the floor with blood squirting out of his temple like a fountain.
It was the most disturbing thing that I'd ever seen. All the R-rated shootings, stabbings, beheadings that I'd previously viewed were under the supposition that it was fake Hollywood acting. This was something completely different. It was my first time seeing video of a real human being executed.
As soon as that clip ended, the professor (Professor Keele) immediately stopped the film. He'd forgotten that the beginning of that chapter contained such footage. He apologized profusely for not giving us prior warning of the graphic nature of the video.
Now that I think about it, I'm grateful for the maturity of the students in that class. We accepted the professor's apology and continued withthe rest of class. To my knowledge, there weren't any BYU students that complained about the footage. I've known a few students/members who would have made a big fuss if they'd seen something like that while attending the Y.
There was a lot of good class discussion that day too about war and its effects. It was definitely a memorable college experience.
Below is the closest thing on Amazon I could find. I'm not sure if that's what we watched in class, but based on the users comments, it contains some of the same footage:
http://www.amazon.com/Hearts-Minds-C...f=pd_rhf_p_t_2