Top 10 Mind Blowing Conspiracy Documentaries
Put on your tin foil hats! For this list, we’ll be looking at the most fascinating documentaries that explore or (in some cases) expose various conspiracies.
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00:00 Where's we go and say, hey, by the way, there's Seattle.
00:02 You can see it right now with your camera.
00:04 That's it.
00:05 A picture says a thousand words.
00:06 - Welcome to WatchMojo.
00:07 And today we're counting down our picks
00:09 for the top 10 mind-blowing conspiracy documentaries.
00:12 - I had great trouble understanding
00:13 why two dozen Secret Service agents
00:16 hadn't seen a man with a gun.
00:18 - For this list, we'll be looking
00:19 at the most fascinating documentaries
00:21 that explore, or in some cases, expose various conspiracies.
00:24 We'll be limiting this list to feature-length films
00:26 so multi-episode shows like "The Family"
00:28 will not be included.
00:29 Did any of these documentaries change your mind?
00:31 Let us know in the comments below.
00:33 Number 10, "The Social Dilemma."
00:36 - Yeah, these things, you release them
00:37 and they take on a life of their own.
00:39 And how they're used is pretty different
00:41 than how you expect it.
00:42 - It's no secret that social media is bad for you,
00:44 but we didn't know just how bad.
00:46 "The Social Dilemma" is a very sobering documentary
00:48 from Jeff Orlowski that expounds on the dangerous influence
00:51 of your favorite social app.
00:53 Whether it's Facebook, Instagram,
00:54 or the app formerly known as Twitter,
00:56 they all have the same goal, to keep you scrolling.
00:58 What results sounds like something
00:59 out of a conspiracy thriller,
01:00 a world in the throes of phone addiction,
01:02 political radicalization, mass amounts of misinformation,
01:05 actual propaganda, and plummeting mental health rates.
01:08 And there's no way out.
01:09 Interviews with prominent social media experts
01:11 detail how it all works, and it makes us wanna go
01:14 off the space on our phones and computers.
01:16 - I was the president of Pinterest.
01:18 Before that, I was the director of monetization
01:22 at Facebook for five years.
01:23 - Number nine, "Mirage Men."
01:25 - Let's take one step at a time.
01:26 You're looking at Richard Doty,
01:28 the professional disinformer, trained to lie.
01:32 - UFOs, the cornerstone of any great conspiracy theory.
01:35 But what if UFOs themselves were the conspiracy theory?
01:38 Stay with us.
01:38 "Mirage Men" posits the possibility
01:40 that the American government intentionally fabricates
01:43 so-called UFO sightings.
01:44 And why would they do that?
01:45 Seemingly to draw attention away
01:47 from top-secret military projects.
01:49 - Doty found a lot of gullible people in the UFO community
01:53 that would easily believe what he said.
01:55 - One can't help but think of Area 51,
01:57 the infamous Air Force facility
01:59 that tests experimental aircraft in the Nevada desert.
02:02 "Mirage Men" features extensive interviews
02:04 with a former member of the United States Air Force
02:06 Office of Special Investigation,
02:07 which lends further credence to the film's thesis.
02:10 It's a thought-provoking documentary
02:11 about government cover-ups and manipulation,
02:13 and really, what more can you ask for?
02:15 - Now, Doty played a massive role
02:19 in the perpetuation of the Roswell myth.
02:22 Many of the ideas prominent in the UFO subculture
02:26 for two decades.
02:28 - Number eight, JFK, the smoking gun.
02:31 - Who killed President John F. Kennedy?
02:34 - The policeman says, "No, you cannot come in here.
02:35 You cannot come in here."
02:37 - And have these two experts finally found the smoking gun
02:41 hidden in plain sight all along?
02:44 - We've all been down the JFK road before.
02:46 Even for those who don't often buy into conspiracy theories,
02:48 the JFK assassination bears an intense
02:50 and tantalizing interest.
02:52 An Australian detective named Colin McLaren
02:54 wrote a book titled "JFK, the Smoking Gun,"
02:57 which argued that Kennedy was accidentally shot
02:59 by an agent of the Secret Service.
03:01 - Was it more a deliberate attempt of a cover-up
03:04 of what happened earlier that day in Dealey Plaza?
03:07 - This book was then adapted into a film
03:08 which blends investigative and ballistics work
03:10 to uncover the truth behind the president's death.
03:13 There are some interesting arguments here,
03:14 and it's nice to see a new theory about the shooting
03:16 that hasn't been covered again and again.
03:18 It all adds another layer to the enduring mystery.
03:21 - Hickey picks up the AR-15 to return fire
03:24 and flicks off the safety.
03:25 As the follow-up car lunges forward,
03:27 he loses his balance and accidentally pulls the trigger.
03:30 - Number seven, the Great Hack.
03:33 - These digital traces of ourselves
03:36 are being mined into a trillion-dollar-a-year industry.
03:41 - Let's head back to Facebook,
03:42 because that site is just a trove of conspiracies turned true.
03:45 In 2018, a man named Christopher Wiley
03:47 came forth and dropped a bombshell.
03:48 A British consulting firm called Cambridge Analytica
03:51 had been harvesting personal data
03:53 from millions of Facebook profiles
03:54 and selling this data to American political campaigns.
03:57 - Like, now I'm the dad who reads the privacy policy
04:00 and says, "No, you see here, they read your messages.
04:05 Are you okay with that?"
04:07 - The Great Hack explores this scandal in great depth
04:09 using interviews with prominent figures,
04:11 including a former employee of Cambridge Analytica
04:13 and journalist Carol Cadwaller.
04:15 It asks us to consider notions of privacy
04:17 in the digital age and informs us with startling clarity
04:20 that, yes, our identities are absolutely for sale.
04:22 - There's no way to go off the grid.
04:25 So you have to understand
04:28 how your data is affecting your life.
04:31 - Number six, the devil we know.
04:33 - How long do they wait to take pictures?
04:36 - I'm sure they wanted to get that one taken right away
04:38 because--
04:39 - There's a chance that they might not make it.
04:40 - That's what they said.
04:42 - This shouldn't come as a big surprise,
04:43 but corporations do not have our best interests at heart.
04:46 The devil we know, it's all about perfluoroactanoic acid,
04:49 a dangerous compound used in a wide variety of products.
04:52 If listening about industrial compounds sounds boring,
04:54 rest assured, it isn't.
04:55 The documentary's argument is told
04:57 through the lens of Parkersburg, West Virginia,
04:59 a small town that once housed a DuPont facility.
05:01 - Just thinking about, I need an answer.
05:04 You know, I need to know what's going on.
05:07 I need to know why this happened.
05:09 - DuPont would dump the industrial acid
05:10 into the local water, killing cattle, deforming children,
05:13 and giving both locals and workers cancer.
05:15 It's a fascinating if terrifying story
05:17 about corporate negligence,
05:19 the intentional concealment of dangerous information,
05:21 and the lengths that companies will go to
05:23 to gain more profit.
05:24 - In their negotiations around this,
05:27 they said that they were going to use his land
05:29 for non-hazardous waste.
05:31 But very quickly, he noticed changes in the water.
05:35 - Number five, behind the curve.
05:37 - So Mark called and said that he was a member
05:41 of the Flat Earth Society.
05:44 And I said, "Oh, Mark, what are you onto now?"
05:48 - The world has seen a sharp rise in flat earthers
05:51 in recent years, and most people blame the internet for that.
05:53 Behind the Curve explores the recent phenomenon
05:55 delving into the belief itself,
05:57 how it spreads, and the way that people find community
05:59 through their fringe opinions.
06:01 The film contains a lot of memorable characters
06:03 and hilarious situations,
06:04 like when the believers conduct tests
06:06 to prove that the earth is flat,
06:07 only to end up proving the exact opposite.
06:09 - We don't see you, Enrique.
06:12 Lift up your light way above your head.
06:15 Interesting.
06:18 - But the documentary also has a heart
06:20 and never sets out to demonize its subjects.
06:22 Rather, it takes a rather sympathetic approach
06:24 and asks the viewers to consider how it is
06:26 they got to that point in the first place.
06:28 - I caught his smile when I was talking
06:29 about the planetarium part, and he wasn't buying it.
06:32 It's in his head.
06:33 He may research it, may not.
06:34 That's what the billboard's for.
06:35 We're just trying to put the seeds in people's heads.
06:37 - Number four, unacknowledged.
06:39 15 years later, Dr. Stephen Greer
06:43 opened his archives of documents and interviews.
06:47 - There are about a billion alien documentaries out there,
06:49 but none quite like "Unacknowledged."
06:51 That's thanks to the presence of Stephen M. Greer,
06:53 a prominent ufologist who founded
06:55 the Disclosure Project back in 1993.
06:58 The goal of this project was to get the truth
07:00 about extraterrestrial life and UFO sightings
07:02 out of the secretive American government.
07:04 - It says point blank.
07:05 When there's a very strong piece of evidence,
07:08 we need to set up something so we release
07:09 certain type of balloons and film it
07:12 so that it will look like that.
07:14 - "Unacknowledged" convincingly presents Greer's findings
07:17 through never-before-seen documents
07:18 and witness testimonies, including briefings
07:20 with Pentagon generals and even the director of the CIA.
07:23 It has a degree of authority and legitimacy
07:25 that other alien documentaries do not,
07:27 and it may just convert a few nonbelievers to the cause.
07:30 - This is arguably the most important UFO document
07:33 in history.
07:34 The irony of it is I couldn't disclose it.
07:37 - Number three, the war on democracy.
07:39 (speaking in foreign language)
07:43 Coming from filmmakers Christopher Martin
07:52 and John Pilger, the war on democracy
07:54 makes a very uncomfortable thesis.
07:56 With fantastic archival footage and absorbing narration,
07:59 it posits that the United States has secretly
08:01 but directly intervened in Latin American politics.
08:03 Along the way, the country has often undermined
08:06 the democracy of others for its own self-interests.
08:08 Through the manipulation of politics
08:09 and even the direct overthrow
08:11 of democratically elected leaders,
08:12 American intervention has led
08:14 to a full-blown human rights crisis.
08:15 The war on democracy explores how larger
08:18 and more powerful nations often mold the less fortunate
08:20 and often for their own selfish gains.
08:22 (speaking in foreign language)
08:26 (crowd cheering)
08:29 Number two, Icarus.
08:40 - I am estimating that I would have tested him
08:43 50 times, five-O.
08:44 - You tested Lance 50 times and never caught him.
08:50 - Correct.
08:51 - A fast-paced and wickedly exciting documentary,
08:54 Icarus plays out like a Hollywood thriller.
08:55 Filmmaker Brian Fogle hopes to explore the concept
08:58 of doping in professional sports,
09:00 so he consults with the head
09:01 of Russia's anti-doping agency, Grigory Rodchenkov.
09:04 As their friendship blossoms, Rodchenkov reveals
09:06 that Russia has a widespread doping system in place
09:09 and that the country continuously cheats in the Olympics.
09:11 - What did Russia have to do
09:12 with the hiding blood passports of all the athletes?
09:17 - Let's talk in my office.
09:20 - These revelations allegedly put Rodchenkov's life
09:23 in danger, and the filmmakers are forced to protect him
09:25 from those hoping to silence his revelations.
09:27 With the reveal of shocking truths
09:28 and an absorbing storyline, Icarus is a documentary
09:31 that proves real life can be as exciting as fiction.
09:34 - I know that I could change the past, telling the truth.
09:38 But would you like telling the truth?
09:44 You will be annihilated.
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10:00 Number one, Citizen Four.
10:04 - You may be the only one who can prevent that,
10:06 and that is by immediately nailing me to the cross
10:08 rather than trying to protect me as a source.
10:11 - When it comes to conspiracy documentaries,
10:13 there's just no beating Laura Poitras' Citizen Four.
10:16 This was the codename given to Edward Snowden,
10:18 the famous whistleblower who uncovered
10:19 a global surveillance program.
10:21 This documentary is shot in an unconventional manner,
10:24 with Poitras sitting in a hotel room with Snowden
10:26 and journalist Glenn Greenwald.
10:27 - Well, I'm hoping to start publishing with him
10:30 like a day or two days, as long as you're good with that.
10:34 - The firsthand account provides unique and intimate access
10:36 into the unfolding story, as Snowden grapples
10:39 with the revelations and the personal consequences
10:41 that he will face for revealing them.
10:42 The strong emotional connection is also bolstered
10:45 by an exhilarating storyline,
10:46 as Snowden hosts clandestine meetings, evades the law,
10:49 and smuggles himself out of the country.
10:51 It's a thriller with a heart, and it's all unbelievably real.
10:54 - If all ends well, perhaps the demonstration
10:57 that our methods worked will embolden more
10:59 to come forward, Citizen.
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11:10 (dramatic music)
11:13 (chanting)
11:15 (dramatic music)
11:18 ♪♪