Six documentaries that educate & inspire

I've become somewhat of a documentary junkie recently. I guess that's because I've become hungry for knowledge. I've always been a fan of NZ's Country Calendar series and anything narrated by David Attenborough (Blue Planet 🙌), but Netflix has opened a world of new and varied documentaries too. The most enjoyable documentaries for me are a mixture of facts, personal accounts and inspiring information and ideas that I can apply to my own life.

Here's six interesting documentaries that I've enjoyed recently if you're looking for some inspiration for your next viewing.

Derren Brown: The Push

This documentary follows an experiment about social pressures and how far a person will go to 'fit in'. Mentalist, Derren Brown, orchestrates a complex situation to see whether a member of the public can be manipulated into pushing someone off a building under extreme social pressure.

It's a controversial watch and left me feeling a tad un-easy, but the underlying message from this documentary is clear; that we should stand up for what we believe to be true even if that doesn’t follow the crowd and don’t be manipulated in our choices.

A Plastic Ocean

This documentary really pulled at my heart strings. Parts of it made me feel sickened and disgusted. If you want to know more about the plastic problem this documentary is a must watch! 

Over 8 million tonnes of plastic enters our oceans every year. Consumer plastic only became popular in the 1960's - less than a lifetime ago! By 2050 there will be more plastic in our oceans than fish. This documentary truly showcases the extent of our plastic problem, the plastics we don't even consider that enter our waterways & the effect it is having right now on marine life, us and our food-chain.

Expedition Happiness

I'm not just watching serious, hard-hitting documentaries I promise! ​😆 Expedition Happiness is a fun documentary that follows a German couple & their dog Rudi around North America on a road trip. It gives some inspiring insight into the freedom of living cheaply and simply, not being tied down to anything.

The couple, with no prior experience, transform an old yellow school bus into their home on wheels for the journey. The film follows the successes, excitement and fun of their adventure along with their failures, challenges and pressures.

Sustainable

This documentary discusses the issue of America's food crisis and the sustainability of the farming industry. An explosion in world population and that fact that food has become a commodity has brought about many unsustainable practices and agricultural methods which this film highlights. 

​I really enjoyed how this documentary was structured and showed the relationships between our health, agriculture, economics and the environment. 

In Defense of Food

This is by far my favourite documentary about food, diet and nutrition! There are so many conflicting ideas surrounding our food and health today that it can be overwhelming and confusing to know what a healthy diet is. This documentary looks at our Western diet, the issues with fad diets and gives solutions to what we should be eating to be healthy. We're bombarded at the supermarket shelves with packaging claiming "FAT FREE", "LOW SUGAR", "ADDED VITAMINS", when what we should be eating is real food, the stuff that doesn't have labels.

an inconvenient truth and an inconvenient sequel: truth to power

I soaked up these two documentaries, which follow Al Gore's campaign to educate the world about climate change. It opened my eyes to horrifying and inspiring statistics, scientific findings and real-life events.

There is so much controversy and denial about climate change or global warming (whatever you choose to call it). I personally know people who don't believe that we, as a human race, are capable of impacting the Earth's climate. Well I challenge anyone to watch these documentaries and argue that we are not having a disastrous impact on the one planet we have to live on.

While these two documentaries are a sharp jolt to wake up to the issue that is upon us - they are also educational in what we can all do to make a difference.

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If you want to watch any of these documentaries you can find where I watched them by clicking on any of the images above.