Genre: Documentary
515 Best Documentary Movies to Watch (Page 19)
They say art imitates life, but nothing gets to the heart of humanity like documentary filmmaking. Whether you want to flex your history knowledge or binge a true crime, here are the best documentaries and docuseries available to stream now.
272. Human Flow, 2017
Chinese artist Ai Weiwei directs his attention towards the ongoing refugee crisis, the biggest displacement of people since World War II. His documentary is apolitical and tries to focus on the human side of the picture. It's not a news report or a commentary on the causes of the situation. Instead, it's a combination of heartfelt stories spanning 23 countries that showcase people's battle for dignity and basic rights. A truly epic movie complemented by impressive drone footage that's as impressive as it is sad.
Genre: Documentary
Actor: Fadi Abou Akleh, Hiba Abed, Israa Abboud, Marin Din Kajdomcaj, Rami Abu Sondos
Director: Ai Weiwei, Weiwei Ai
273. Howard, 2018
Howard Ashman was at the peak of his career—fresh off Little Mermaid’s sweeping win at the Grammys and Oscars, and concocting the iconic songs that would make up Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast—when he died of AIDS at 40. But even at that relatively young age, Ashman already had a lifetime’s worth of work to show. Howard, the documentary, gives us a glimpse into Howard’s inner and early life, starting with his fanciful and imaginative childhood, all the way down to his formative college years, his foundational work in “off, off” Broadway, and the breakout success of The Little Shop of Horrors the Musical. Disney isn’t the whole picture, the documentary rightfully proclaims, so in between the abovementioned highlights, director Don Hahn inserts pockets of heartwarming anecdotes from Howard’s friends and family, and some of Howard’s own wise words from interview snippets. It’s clear Hahn was a good friend of Ashman, since the documentary often feels like a warm get-together of the people who knew and loved Ashman best.
Genre: Documentary, Music
Actor: Adam Jacobs, Alan Menken, Angela Lansbury, Anne Bobby, Annette O'Toole, Barbara McCutchan, Barry Peterson, Bill Boggs, Bill Lauch, Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Brynn O'Malley, Charles B. Griffith, Chris Montan, Colleen Camp, Dan Rather, Dan Stevens, Danny Glover, David Friedman, David Geffen, Denise Nickerson, Dennis Green, Diane Sawyer, Divine, Don Hahn, Donald W. Ernst, Douglas Seale, Dudley Moore, Ellen Greene, Emma Watson, Estelle Bennett, Fats Waller, Frank Oz, Frederick Coffin, Gary Trousdale, Glen Keane, Howard Ashman, James Monroe Iglehart, Janis Menken, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Jerry Orbach, Joan Prather, Jodi Benson, John Herman Shaner, John Musker, Jonathan Hadary, Jonathan Haze, Karen Miller, Kirk Wise, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Kyle Renick, Larry Kramer, Leola Wendorff, Levi Stubbs, Maria O'Brien, Marvin Hamlisch, Maureen Abbott, Maury Yeston, Mel Welles, Melanie Griffith, Melinda Smith, Mena Massoud, Michelle Weeks, Mike Gabriel, Nancy Parent, Natalie Wood, Paige O'Hara, Pat Carroll, Paula Abdul, Peter Schneider, Phil Spector, Randy Cartwright, Richard Beymer, Richard White, Rick Moranis, Rob Minkoff, Roger Allers, Roger Ebert, Ron Clements, Ronnie Spector, Roy Edward Disney, Sarah Gillespie, Shirley Ashman, Steve Martin, Thomas Schumacher, Tichina Arnold, Tisha Campbell, Vincent Gardenia, Walt Disney, Will Smith
Director: Don Hahn
When people think of football, they think of teams, and if not teams, they think of individual goalscorers. Higuita: the Way of the Scorpion focuses instead on a single goalkeeper from Latin America. To be fair, this goalkeeper is René Higuita – even just checking his Wikipedia is bound to pull some curiosity. But the documentary does a great job in introducing the man and his life story, starting with his fantastic scorpion kick before delving into the more personal and sensitive aspects of his life. With the wild gameplays and crazy controversies linked to the man, it’s actually unbelievable how a documentary like this hasn’t been made yet.
Genre: Documentary
Actor: René Higuita
Director: Luis Ara
Genre: Documentary
276. Gaea Girls, 2000
When caught between taking pro wrestling too seriously and looking at it like cosplay martial arts, I lean towards the latter precisely because of cultures like this. This documentary gets in the weeds of starry-eyed trainee aspirations, as well as the physical and psychological disfigurement of those dreams that come one dropkick to the face at a time. Saika Takeuchi getting to debut doesn’t even feel like a victory at all. I wonder how much of this only happened to the extent that it did because there were cameras present; then again, I try not to think about this documentary too much.
Genre: Documentary
Actor: Chigusa Nagayo, Hisako Sasaki, Kaoru Maeda, Meiko Satomura, Saika Takeuchi, Yuka Sugiyama
Director: Jano Williams, Kim Longinotto
277. Frida, 2024
Genre: Documentary
Actor: Fernanda Echevarría del Rivero, Frida Kahlo
Director: Carla Gutierrez
The hook of the first episode is a very effective jumping off point, placing us in the middle of the past bond between 2 sisters. Then it immediately occurs to you how wild this premise is, and that in some ways it's still ongoing. A lot of 7M/Shekinah church members and their distraught family members are interviewed to paint the clearest possible picture, and it’s clear that a lot of care and detail was put into this project to sway a viewer away from easy victim-blaming. It’s really tense and generally sad, but the pace definitely dips after episode 1, but it’s also a 3-parter, so you might as well finish the whole thing.
Genre: Documentary
279. Close to Vermeer, 2023
Less a documentary on Johannes Vermeer himself and more about the art scholar's mission to study ideas of beauty and aesthetics from various perspectives, this documentary successfully takes an admittedly very esoteric subject and makes it compelling. Director Suzanne Raes easily gets to the essence of the complex questions and insights that these Vermeer experts have, but without dumbing them down or reducing them into generic academic talking points. In fact, the thing that really comes through in the film's discussions is the emotion that these people feel in figuring out how Vermeer managed to paint such stunning images, and what the man was drawn to in human beings. It's oddly persuasive; whether or not you're a fan of 17th-century artists, watching Close to Vermeer feels like finally solving a puzzle.
Genre: Documentary, History
Actor: Abbie Vandivere, Anna Krekeler, Gregor J. M. Weber, Jonathan Janson, Pieter Roelofs
Director: Suzanne Raes
Genre: Documentary, Music
Actor: Compay Segundo, Eliades Ochoa, Ibrahim Ferrer, Joachim Cooder, Omara Portuondo, Ry Cooder
Director: Wim Wenders
281. BS High, 2023
The particulars of the scandal are enough to shock, enrage, and move anyone, but the directors of BS High also put Johnson in the hot seat and skewer the guy until they wring all ego and delusion out of him. The result is a compelling and terrifying look into a con man’s mind. Johnson alternates between justifying and denying his fraudulent ways and even tries to draw empathy from the audience by explaining his upbringing. But cleverly, the directors intercut his wild speeches with heartfelt testimonies from the real victims of this scam: the young recruits who were promised a better life if they played in Johnson’s team, only to be abused and marked for life. It’s impossible not to feel for the young men, who even up until the documentary’s end, wonder out loud how they could possibly move on from such a traumatic experience.
Genre: Documentary
Director: Martin Desmond Roe, Travon Free
282. Born in Evin, 2020
This earnest documentary is about filmmaker and actress Maryam Zaree's journey to unravel the truth about her birth. Her parents are part of a generation of Iranian revolutionaries who were jailed, many executed, and now have taken exile in Europe. The torture and difficult prison conditions they experienced are cause for so much trauma that Maryam, born in prison, has not been told anything about her birth. Her mom, now Germany's first foreign-born mayor, cannot get past tears to tell a story that Maryam is determined to know.
Her mom is not the only one who is unable to tell the story, as Maryam's quest uncovers more silence. In the end, Born in Evin is as much about the question of "is the truth worth getting told?" as it is about the truth itself. It's a heartfelt exploration of trauma, both for the generation that experienced it and for the generation that follows.
Genre: Documentary
Actor: Marya Sirous, Maryam Zaree, Soraya Zangbari
Director: Maryam Zaree
This stirring peek into the final days of a shuttering Las Vegas dive might be one of the finest odes to American bar culture yet. It also serves as a powerful portrait of a particular moment deep into the disastrous Trump years, yet right before the pandemic struck.
Directors Bill and Turner Ross capture the good, bad, and ugly, allowing conversations to unfold naturally. The colorful hues of the bar create a cinematic canvas for the patrons, who awash with booze and nostalgia, uncertainty, fear, and love, spend their last day together. If there was ever a film for those who miss the rough and tumble nightlife of the pre-Covid world, this is it.
Genre: Documentary, Drama
Actor: Shay Walker
Director: Bill Ross IV, Turner Ross
284. Another Body, 2023
Sophie Compton and Reubyn Hamlyn's British-American documentary about the harm of deepfakes won the SXSW Special Jury Award for its innovative storytelling and deservingly so. The two filmmakers use a clever and considerate way to let a young woman fictitiously named Taylor share her story of how she found deepfake pornography of herself online. With testaments, desktop form reconstructions, and lots of deepfakes, Compton and Hamlyn alert the audience to how terrifyingly widespread this kind of abuse is, and even more: how unregulated it is. Across the globe and 48 US states deepfake pornography is legal to make and spread, while victims remain helpless and unprotected. More than 90% of them are women. These chilling statistics are only part of the reason this documentary takes an activist stance and wants to raise awareness against the uncontrolled spread of face-swapping algorhythms amidst heated discussions around AI and ethics.
Genre: Documentary
Director: Reuben Hamlyn, Sophie Compton
Genre: Documentary
Actor: Nahid Hagigat, Nicky Nodjoumi, Sara Nodjoumi
Director: Sara Nodjoumi, Till Schauder