Best Documentary Movies
The best documentaries out-plot fiction: stranger twists, higher stakes, real consequences. Music docs, true crime, nature epics and portraits of obsessive people doing improbable things, ranked by audience rating. Find where each one streams and build a watchlist of the real world.
Panic: The Untold Story of the 2008 Financial Crisis (2018)
Winning Your Wings (1942)
Martial Law 9-11: Rise of the Police State (2005)
Faye (2024)
Just Desserts: The Making of 'Creepshow' (2007)
Helmut Newton: The Bad and the Beautiful (2020)
NOW: In the Wings on a World Stage (2014)
The Truth vs. Alex Jones (2024)
Krakatoa: The Last Days (2006)
Classic Albums: Metallica - Metallica (2001)
Our Nixon (2013)
I Am Ali (2014)
Examined Life (2008)
The Beach Boys (2024)
The Eastwood Factor (2010)
John Huston: The Man, the Movies, the Maverick (1988)
Making The Witcher: Season 3 (2023)
Speaking of Buñuel (2000)
Shine a Light (2008)
Exploring the Reef (2003)
Handsworth Songs (1986)
Steve McQueen: The Essence of Cool (2005)
Something from Nothing: The Art of Rap (2012)
Basquiat: Rage to Riches (2017)
Limelight (2011)
Iceberg Slim: Portrait of a Pimp (2012)
Can't Stop, Won't Stop: A Bad Boy Story (2017)
Spanish Western (2015)
Grass (1999)
How Much Wood Would a Woodchuck Chuck (1976)
Leviathan: The Story of Hellraiser and Hellbound: Hellraiser II (2015)
Giving Voice (2020)
The Brink (2019)
Double Dare (2004)
Dennis Rodman's Big Bang in PyongYang (2015)
Hamilton's America (2016)
Beyond JFK: The Question of Conspiracy (1993)
Mel Blanc: The Man of a Thousand Voices (2008)
The Making of Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget (2023)
The Boy Band Con: The Lou Pearlman Story (2019)
Super 8 Stories (2001)
Celebrity Escape Room (2020)
Reclaiming the Blade (2009)
Heavy Petting (1989)
The Nomi Song (2004)
High & Low – John Galliano (2024)
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom: A Legacy Brought to Screen (2020)
Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles (2014)
The Art of Action: Martial Arts in the Movies (2002)
Judge Not: In Defense of Dogma (2002)
Marvel Studios Assembled: The Making of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)
One Night in Turin (2010)
Fellinopolis (2021)
A Trick of the Light (1995)
Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel (2009)
Hackers Wanted (2009)
Moby Doc (2021)
Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man (2006)
The Words That Built America (2017)
The Day Sports Stood Still (2021)