I love learning about history for fun and like watching documentaries but it seems like every documentary produced in the last 10 years is always full of action, intense narrating, inaccuracies, and over-the-top reenactments.
I recently tried watching Mankind: The story of us all from the History Channel and it was completely terrible.
At one point they talked about the Vandals raiding Rome to kidnap the Empress and pillage just because. They didn't mention that the Empress herself requested they come to Rome and depose the new Emperor that murdered her husband and in exchange there would be a political marriage.
The point at which I had to shut it off was when they said that the Vikings lifted Europe out of the dark ages. All they mentioned was that they were great explorers and colonized. Not once did they mention Charlemagne and his contributions to western civilization.
Anyways, I'm finding it hard to find good quality documentaries about history, doesn't matter the time period. I just want to learn.
Can you guys recommend any quality ones?
I'd look at the credentials of people making documentaries before investing time in watching them.
Do contributors or presenters have advanced degrees in a relevant topic, do they have research outputs on those topics, are these publications reputable?
For example, there was a recent BBC series on the Plantagenets by Professor Robert Bartlett, author of The Making of Europe and England under the Angevins, which I assumed would be well informed and, based upon watching it I can confirm this. More iffy, on the face of things, was the documentary by Thomas Asbridge (a notable crusade historian, author of The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land) whose research had not, to my knowledge been overwhelmingly focused on his subject William Marshal. However, the wealth of literature on the topic meant it was easy for him to put together a special on the topic and for myself to fact-check it.
Ultimately, documentaries do not have the time to linger in such depth over the minutiae of historical record and the line between eliding points of contention - I'd have preferred a more extended examination of the Welsh Wars in Bartlett for example, and would have liked a less travelogue-like feel to Asbridge - and actively misleading viewers to cram in a narrative (I shudder at the thought of trying to squeeze the history of mankind into a documentary format) is slim, but no historian worth their chops would do so with regard to a topic they are renowned in. Think of the barbs that'd be thrown their way during the conference/seminar season.
Just to add to the already excellent response, another way to give you some hint if a documentary is worth it, look at the subject matter and then look at the length. You cannot tell the history of "all of us" in 10 hours. Documentaries are a good orientation and a quick and fun way to generally hit the highlights of a subject, but if you want the real scoop, "Take a look, it's in a book."