The documentary may well be the most crucial genre in all of filmmaking, revealing to us the realities we can’t—or don’t want to—understand, and changing our perspective. Critic Craig Mathieson has scoured Netflix for the 25 best documentary movies.
This page last updated: March 31, 2023
13th (2016)
Watch on NetflixA blistering, detailed explanation from Selma director Ava DuVernay of how America’s racial inequality is advanced through the systematic jailing of black men that results in political disenfranchisement and economic exploitation.
American Factory (2019)
Watch on NetflixReleased through Barack and Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground Productions, this sharply drawn depiction of cultural and commercial divisions follows a Chinese billionaire’s takeover of a shuttered car factory in working-class Ohio.
The Battered Bastards of Baseball (2014)
Watch on NetflixUnderdog sports teams don’t get much more chaotic than 1970s minor league baseball outfit the Portland Mavericks—owned by Kurt Russell’s father, Bing—whose unlikely success is rousingly recounted here.
Casting JonBenet (2017)
Watch on NetflixBefore The Assistant, Australian filmmaker Kitty Green reinvented the true crime documentary by examining the unsolved 1996 murder of JonBenet Ramsey through the auditions of acting hopefuls wanting to portray the central characters.
Crip Camp (2020)
Watch on NetflixJim LeBrecht and Nicole Newnham’s uplifting documentary about a summer camp for disabled children charts how the disabled rights movement took shape during the 1970s, creating a generation of activists who the film reunites.
Dick Johnson is Dead (2020)
Watch on NetflixFacing up to her titular father’s mortality, documentary cinematographer and director Kirsten Johnson repeatedly stages her dad’s passing with inventive detail as a telling exploration of inevitability in the face of love.
Disclosure (2020)
Watch on NetflixCinema history becomes empathetic acknowledgment in Sam Federer’s documentary about screen portrayal of gender-nonconforming characters, which mixes theory and testimony—often from prominent figures—to address how the transgender community must endure harmful tropes.
Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened (2019)
Watch on NetflixIn 2017 the abandoned Fyre music festival put the con into concert, and this juicily detailed inquest captures how entrepreneurial motivation and start-up culture can tip over into criminal mayhem.
Homecoming (2019)
Watch on NetflixBuilt around Beyonce’s landmark headlining set at the 2018 Coachella music festival, Homecoming is a celebration of Black history and culture, from storied schools to musical forms, that both storms the stage and celebrates collective pride.
Icarus (2017)
Watch on NetflixAn Academy Award winner for Best Documentary Feature, Bryan Fogel’s movie satirically tugs on the thread of illegal sports doping and unexpectedly discovers a carpet of malfeasance and illegality connected to Russia’s state-sponsored cheating.
Into the Inferno (2016)
Watch on NetflixThe German filmmaker Werner Herzog has been a titanic and unique voice in documentary filmmaking since the 1970s. And while it’s disappointing that this is his only feature on Netflix, it’s definitely a compelling one as Herzog examines the power and psychology that resides in the planet’s volcanoes.
Joan Didion: The Centre Will Not Hold (2017)
Watch on NetflixDirected by her nephew, the actor and filmmaker Griffin Dunne, this biographical study of one of the pre-eminent journalist and memoirist focuses on the spirit and cost required to spend your adult life writing immaculate sentences.
Keith Richards: Under the Influence (2015)
Watch on NetflixAnchored by its subject’s remarkably textured voice, Morgan Neville’s celebration of a foundation figure for rock & roll—Keef is now 76-years-old—mixes Rolling Stones lore and rueful demystification to welcome effect.
Knock Down the House (2019)
Watch on NetflixShadowing four female Democrats seeking election in 2018 America, Rachel Lears’ documentary is now an invaluable historic record because one of the four is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, now a progressive standard-bearer after an against-the-odds Congressional campaign.
My Octopus Teacher (2020)
Watch on NetflixThe otherworldly becomes recognisably human in capturing the bond between filmmaker Craig Foster and a young octopus he befriends in a remote kelp forest off the South African coast. Their connection filters into Foster’s struggles on land, making for an idiosyncratic but genuine connection.
The Rachel Divide (2018)
Watch on NetflixEveryone had a take on the story of Rachel Dolezal, the American academic and activist who in 2015 was revealed to be a white woman passing as black. This documentary finds the missing voice: Dolezal’s, and while it’s impossible to be categorical, there’s detail and distance here that allows for nuanced recrimination.
Sherpa (2015)
Watch on NetflixClimbing Mount Everest is an industry, driven by distinction, underpinned by money and threatened by tragic deaths. In Australian director Jennifer Peedom’s compelling study, the local Sherpas who facilitate every climb receive none of the first, a smidgeon of the second and the majority of the third. At least until they’re driven to take action.
Shirkers (2018)
Watch on NetflixA memoir essay, a detective story, and a reminder that to turn out right we sometimes have to go wrong. Shirkers finds Singaporean filmmaker Sandi Tan revisiting a teenage student film she started with friends in 1992 that was inspired by an American mentor who subsequently disappeared—along with the unfinished footage. Intimate commentary and time’s uneasy passage create a mystery that eventually inspires a reckoning.
The Social Dilemma (2020)
Watch on NetflixNo-one needs—you would hope—to have the reach social media companies hold on our lives explained to them, but in Jeff Orlowski’s documentary the tactics and failings that are essential to these corporations are detailed by former employers. It’s a 21st century horror story beyond any like button.
Tell Me Who I Am (2019)
Watch on NetflixA tender and terribly moving invocation of the extremes a family can encompass, this British documentary reveals twin brothers, Alex and Marcus Lewis, who are connected by what the latter has and hasn’t told the former about their childhood after Marcus lost his memory at age 18. It’s a heart-rending puzzle-box.
They’ll Love Me When I’d Dead (2017)
Watch on NetflixWhen Netflix financed the completion of Orson Welles’ lost film The Other Side of the Wind, they also commissioned this thoroughly entertaining Morgan Neville documentary about its creator and his calamities. John Huston, Dennis Hopper and numerous other Hollywood legends also feature.
What Happened, Miss Simone (2015)
Watch on NetflixLiz Garbus (I’ll Be Gone in the Dark) chronicles the life and art of Nina Simone, the epochal Black singer-songwriter and civil rights activist whose art remains deeply relevant even if her fate is cautionary. The live performance clips are riveting.
The White Helmets (2016)
Watch on NetflixOne of several essential documentaries that emerged from Syria’s horrific civil war, this concise short follows a trio of civil defence volunteers trying to save lives in a conflict all too ready to make them targets. The scale of destruction is vast, but their deeds are inspiring.
UPDATES
Titles are added and removed from his page to reflect changes to Netflix’s catalogue. The reviews no longer available on this page can be read here.
