The right ones can be life changing. A good documentary feeds you with a ton of information in a short period of time. It should encourage you to dig deeper afterwards.
So, which documentaries made you want to be a more ethical, understanding and considerate human?
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Let me start with We Feed The World (2005). I’ve seen it a few times, and I’ve been recommending it for years now. The other day I discovered it was discussed in a Geography manual in Luxembourg.
What the Austrian filmmaker Erwin Wagenhofer does is to trace the origins of the food we eat through several countries around the world. He interviews from farmers to sociologists and CEOs.
It was made almost 15 years ago, but is just as fresh nowadays, since senseless consumption has increased, as well as the power of big corporations.
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I saw The Ghosts In Our Machine a while ago and it was great in pointing out the flaws of the system regarding how we look at (and how we see) animals. It can be watched on most popular streaming platforms.
A Quest for Meaning is a wonderful documentary that touches deeply many different aspects of ethical living, as the authors are interviewing many visionaries from different parts of the world. You can watch it for free on their website or leave a small donation.
Thich Nhat Hanh in Conversation with David Suzuki: a great interview where they both share important insights related to how to come to terms with our situation as humanity and what to do next.
This is not really a documentary, nor exactly an interview but a very insightful deep dive into what the current environmental crisis means for us and for the rest of the non-human world: Thich Nhat Hanh on Ecological Collapse, answering 12 questions from the Ecologist Magazine.
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Here’s a good place to find podcasts on media literacy, and pretty much everything else on media. From media masters 
http://www.mediamasters.fm/
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Divide in Concord is the story of an eighty-four year-old woman trying to ban bottled water in small town America.
“For three years Jean Hill has been trying to rid the town of single-serve plastic bottles of water. Complete with strong opposition from local merchants and the bottled water industry, Jean is once again leading the controversial crusade.”
Yep, you’re never too old to fight for a cause you believe in 
Here’s the trailer.
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I recommended Racing Extinction and The Cove before and quite a few friends and family got them as presents 
Both films are directed by Louie Psihoyos who got an Oscar (Best Doc) for The Cove.
Some say they are “too Hollywood”, but when you want to reach a large audience with such delicate topics, sprinkling a bit of stardust won’t hurt.
What’s amazing about both docs is that they are documenting activism in the making. The creators are activists and investigators themselves. Both films are inspiring, emotional, and packed with useful information. Almost everything I know about dolphins I learned from The Cove.
And Racing Extinction even manages to be fun. At times 
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I watched Human Flow recently from Ai Weiwei. It’s a great documentary on global migration happening at this moment. Touching, can really recommend it.
You can find out how to watch it here: https://www.humanflow.com/
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I recommend watching interview of Yuval Noah Harari and Tristan Harris by Wired. It’s a great talk on how we become hackable animals with the technical advancements of 21st century and how we can prepare ourself by training to have self-awereness and know about ourself better than anyone else.
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Looking forward to watching this documentary: Anthropocene.
“A cinematic meditation on humanity’s massive reengineering of the planet, Anthropocene is a four years in the making feature documentary film from the multiple-award winning team of Jennifer Baichwal, Nicholas de Pencier and Edward Burtynsky.”
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