Documentaries Worth Watching
A great documentary does something fiction can't: it shows real people doing things you wouldn't believe if an actor did them. These are the documentaries and docuseries worth an evening, mostly recent, and chosen because they're gripping as stories rather than because they're good for you.
They come in roughly three kinds, and it helps to know which you're in the mood for. Some are spectacle: Free Solo, Planet Earth II and Apollo 11 show you things you'll never see any other way, and they work for almost anyone. Some are portraits, where the pleasure is time spent with a person: Won't You Be My Neighbor?, Will & Harper, The Beatles: Get Back. And some are witness: 20 Days in Mariupol and Navalny are important and hard, and not what you want on a tired Friday.
For a room with kids, start with Apollo 11, My Octopus Teacher or Planet Earth II. The docuseries are real commitments: The Last Dance is ten episodes and Get Back runs nearly eight hours. Crime has its own page, True Crime Series and Docs, and the music and sports picks overlap with Musicals and Music Movies and Sports Movies.
Free Solo
Movie · 2018The most purely gripping documentary of the last decade. Alex Honnold climbs El Capitan without a rope, and the friends filming him admit on camera that they're afraid of watching him die. You know how it ends and your hands still sweat. Some swearing; otherwise fine for older kids.
Summer of Soul
Movie · 2021In 1969 a summer festival in Harlem drew huge crowds to see Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, Sly and the Family Stone and Mahalia Jackson. The footage then sat unseen for about fifty years. Questlove's film is a concert movie first and a history lesson second, which is the right order.
Planet Earth II
Series · 2016Nature filmmaking shot with the grammar of an action movie. The baby iguanas fleeing racer snakes in the first episode is the clip everyone shares, but the episode on cities is the surprise. Six episodes, David Attenborough narrating, and fine from about six, though predators do eat things.
The Last Dance
Series · 2020Ten episodes on the 1990s Chicago Bulls, built around footage of their final championship season and Michael Jordan watching his old rivals' interviews on a tablet. You don't need to like basketball: it's about how far one man will go to win. A lot of swearing.
Won't You Be My Neighbor?
Movie · 2018A film about Fred Rogers that makes the case his gentleness was a deliberate, almost radical position rather than a TV persona. It moves people who never watched his show. Best for families with kids about ten and up, though it's the adults who end up crying.
Fire of Love
Movie · 2022Katia and Maurice Krafft spent their marriage filming volcanoes from far too close, and this film turns their astonishing footage into a love story. Their deaths in a 1991 eruption are no secret, and the film doesn't treat them as one. Short, beautiful and a little strange.
Navalny
Movie · 2022Plays like a spy thriller because it is one: Alexei Navalny and a team of investigators track down the agents who poisoned him, and then he phones one of them. Watched now, after his death in a Russian prison in 2024, it carries a weight it couldn't have had on release.
The Beatles: Get Back
Series · 2021Peter Jackson restored the footage of the Beatles in January 1969, facing a deadline with no songs, and lets you sit in the room for nearly eight hours as they write them. Slow on purpose. Watching the song Get Back emerge from Paul McCartney's idle strumming is the payoff.
Apollo 11
Movie · 2019No narrator, no interviews, no modern talking heads: just restored large-format footage of the 1969 moon mission, much of it never seen before, cut together like a thriller. About ninety minutes, fine for the whole family, and the best pick here for watching with children.
Will & Harper
Movie · 2024Will Ferrell and his longtime friend Harper Steele, a former Saturday Night Live writer, drive across America after she comes out as a trans woman. Funny, awkward and kind, and it doesn't pretend every stop goes well. The rare celebrity documentary that's genuinely about friendship.
The Remarkable Life of Ibelin
Movie · 2024Mats Steen died at 25 of a degenerative disease, and his parents believed he'd lived a small, isolated life. Then messages arrived from friends he'd made in World of Warcraft. The film recreates his online life in game-style animation. You will cry. In Norwegian and English.
20 Days in Mariupol
Movie · 2023An Associated Press crew stayed in Mariupol as Russian forces encircled it in 2022, and their footage went around the world. The film shows dying children and grieving parents without flinching. Essential and very hard to watch; save it for when you're ready. Narrated in English, with Ukrainian and Russian subtitled.
Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story
Movie · 2024Christopher Reeve's life as Superman and after the riding accident that paralyzed him, told largely through his three children. Moving without being manipulative, and as much about his marriage and his advocacy as his films. Rated PG-13 for some strong language, but gentle enough for a family with teenagers.
Mr. Scorsese
Series · 2025Five episodes with Martin Scorsese, moving film by film through his career with friends, collaborators and his daughters, and frank about the low points along the way. Best if you've seen a few of his films, and it will send you off to the ones you haven't.
My Octopus Teacher
Movie · 2020A burned-out filmmaker dives in the same South African kelp forest every day for a year and gets to know one octopus. Some find it too sentimental about the man; almost everyone finds the octopus unforgettable. Short, gentle and good for curious kids.
They Shall Not Grow Old
Movie · 2018Peter Jackson restored and colorized British footage of the First World War, and the moment it shifts from flickering black-and-white into color is extraordinary. Veterans' recorded voices do the narrating. There are real images of the dead, so this isn't one for children.
Man on Wire
Movie · 2008In 1974 Philippe Petit strung a wire between the Twin Towers and walked across it, and the film tells the planning like a heist movie, crew and all. Joyous and short. It never mentions what later happened to the towers, and doesn't need to.
Searching for Sugar Man
Movie · 2012Two South African fans set out to learn what happened to Rodriguez, a Detroit singer who flopped at home but was huge in their country. It's told as a detective story and leaves out parts of his career that would complicate it. A warm crowd-pleaser all the same.
Jiro Dreams of Sushi
Movie · 2011An elderly Tokyo sushi master, and the son who may never step out of his shadow. It's really about the obsessive pursuit of doing one thing perfectly, and the food photography is gorgeous. Calm and short, in Japanese with subtitles. Don't watch it hungry.
Hoop Dreams
Movie · 1994Filmed across the high school years of two Chicago teenagers trying to make the NBA, it was meant to be a short film and grew into a nearly three-hour portrait of families, schools and money. Still the best sports documentary ever made, and it's barely about basketball.
Still can't decide? Let us pick →
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Picks are editorial recommendations. Streaming availability changes by region and over time — the “where to stream” links check current availability on JustWatch.