{     13 Documentaries You Should See Immediately.     }    

Great "Twelve" list!

"Theremin" is one of my favorite documentaries of all-time. It's just incredibly watchable and involving. I thought I would enjoy it simply based on my fascination with the Theremin itself, and I wasn't expecting much. It surprised me, and I ended up loving it for completely unexpected reasons.

I also have to chime in with my two cents-

"Brother's Keeper" is a classic doc that hit me really hard the first time I watched it, and it's stuck with me for the past 13 years.

On the West Virginia tip-

"Jesco White, The Dancing Outlaw"

and

"The Flea Market Project"

The latter I'm a bit biased towards, having been involved in the filming and production of the piece, but I think it stands on it's own as a nice portrait of rural Appalachian and transient Flea Market culture.

If you haven't seen "Whole" yet you should check it out. It's about people that are totally normal in every other respect other than they are obsessed with becoming an amputee. They will know from childhood that they want to amputate their arm and know down to the centimeter where they want to have it done. Some become so obsessed with it they self amputate themselves and when they do they they say it gives them have a sense of normalcy that they've never felt before. Very interesting.

I'm a documentary fiend and I haven't seen most of those. Must get busy!--thanks for the list.

Great list!
I'm kind of a documentary nut, so I don't know if I could ever do a "12" (only) list...
On that note, here are some of my faves (not already mentioned):
Cane Toads - http://tinyurl.com/ak7e7
Vernon, Florida - http://tinyurl.com/dnbgr
Grey Gardens - http://tinyurl.com/dgyq2
American Movie - http://tinyurl.com/dqwsn
The Thin Blue Line - http://tinyurl.com/bcovc
In the Realms of the Unreal - http://tinyurl.com/blss2
The Kid Stays In the Picture - http://tinyurl.com/8387w
Hoop Dreams - http://tinyurl.com/9c6cj
Hearts of Darkness - http://tinyurl.com/bmpvy
Lost in La Mancha - http://tinyurl.com/9yu3y
To name a "few"...
My top spot would be a battle between "Cane Toads" and "Grey Gardens" (I can watch them over-and-over-and-over-and...).
Cheers!
num-

Sweet. I also nominate Hell House, Devil's Playground, Fearless Freaks, and the purely speculative documentary Jandek on Corwood. I also consistently like PBS documentaries that I only see the middles or ends of, including the flea market one, that newer videogame one, and this one they did on delicious hot dogs.

Wow, I haven't checked back to this post for a while. I'm so excited to have all these suggestions, "Grey Gardens" sounds wonderful.