Looking for great fly-on-the-wall looks at subcultures, obsessions, and stories of incredible artistry? From the beautiful time capsule in Summer of Soulto the sublime tragedy of Fire of Loveand Grizzly Man, the best documentaries can wrangle complex histories into intricate, astonishing narratives that mirror the human condition.
To make a documentary is to capture a subject as honestly as possible, offering a snapshot that’s educational, sensational, or (ideally) both. Here are the 22 best documentaries streaming now across various platforms.
20 Feet From Stardom (2013)
The archival footage in 20 Feet From Stardom is particularly harrowing, capturing how essential these unknown singers were to the songs that captivated the world. —Chris Bellamy
Sometimes you’ve just gotta slam a guy’s head into a kitchen cabinet repeatedly until you get the shot right. This is the American Dream… at least according to Mark Borchardt, the I-think-I-can amateur filmmaker at the heart of American Movie. This portrait of his creative process, directed by Chris Smith, is exceptionally funny, and the joke is often on Borchardt, but the affectionate eye of the camera is never condescending.
Too many titles use the word “American” as a faux-meaningful affectation. This one earns the modifier — not because it’s some sweeping statement, but because its American-ness feels so elemental, from its Midwest suburban setting to Borchardt’s single-minded passion for his horror project, which he pursues with a courageous tenacity. —C.B.
Watching father and daughter execute each fatal scenario gives us a remarkable glimpse into their relationship — and the catharsis that comes with the creative process itself. The film’s intimate sense of joy is not a deflection against the truth of what the Johnsons are facing, but a self-conscious, honest expression of it. —C.B.
This is a love story between two people and their shared obsession, one inseparable from the other. The film casts their lives as a testament to the power of science and paints discovery as the ultimate act of self-discovery. —E.F.
Errol Morris did a tremendous job articulating the key aspects of McNamara’s life and legacy that influenced his approach to the decorum of war, but he also gives his subject space to consider what he got wrong. —C.B.
The mortality rate for free solo climbers is a fact Honnold casually accepts. Thus, Free Solo is thrilling for its footage and what its subject tries to accomplish, but a sense of existential ambivalence comes with that morbid thrill. —C.B.
Morris would later scale up to more serious and heady subjects, but he never had a more curious or more fascinated eye than when documenting 450 dead animals being dug up for reburial at a different location. —E.F.
This is a complicated portrait of a person who believed in the good of wild animals and ultimately died as a result. But Herzog never judges or condescends to Treadwell, even if his involvement in documenting the fallout becomes increasingly complicated. —E.F.
Regardless of whether Arthur Agee and William Gates become the next Jordan — or even the next Isiah Thomas — their lives wind up far more interesting than potential glory, with unexpected developments achieving a profundity few scripts ever could have. —C.B.
Lee is terrifically skilled at bringing disparate concepts together; here, he captures everything from police corruption and the loss of four housing projects to the New Orleans Saints and their Super Bowl XLIV victory, the latter serving as a vibrant pulse that amplifies the possibility of what the city is capable of. —E.F.
This film explores the many ways that art can be destroyed or inhibited, including a NATO practice base making too much noise, the destruction of sets, and personal injury. It’s also a rare documentary where knowing the outcome after the cameras stopped rolling enhances the work rather than rendering it irrelevant, turning the entire project into an arc about the long road some dreams take. —C.B.
Few documentaries have ever provided this kind of first-person access to true, gravity-defying danger — because most documentaries are not co-directed by one of the very people at risk. But Jimmy Chin is the exception, filming his climb, avalanches, injuries, and near-fatal setbacks that befall the voyage. What follows is remarkable, harrowing, and a marvel of documentary editing. —C.B.
Pollard’s film is especially poignant in showing how short-sighted the country remains, even if the methods of dismantling progress have shifted from political entities to more public-facing groups. —E.F.
The beauty and vibrancy of drag balls speak for themselves, but Livingston is also savvy enough to understand how those events intersect with the political and social realities of the time. This is a vital document that’s both celebratory and sobering. —C.B.
This Sini Anderson documentary contextualizes Hanna within the progressive alternative rock scene that emerged in the 1980s and gained true steam in the ’90s, before highlighting her struggle with Lyme Disease and the way the messages in Hanna’s music translate her personal battles. —E.F.
Samsara uses its spectacular, globetrotting 70mm footage to philosophize about life on Earth, forging connections across time, space, and place. Fricke’s meditation on cycles of creation and destruction is free-associative yet thematically controlled, with the final result existing somewhere at the nexus of musical, essay, and poem. —C.B.
Far from offering a traditional examination of a “wrong place, wrong time” miscarriage of justice, Morris turns his fixation into a shared obsession, with the director as the crafty detective and the audience as his second set of eyes. —E.F.
While most documentaries, personal or political, tend to land on one specific version of events, Stories We Tell is wise enough to know the truth is in the eye of the beholder, the rememberer, and the storyteller. —E.F.
Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) (2021)
Words can’t adequately capture how emotionally resonant it is to see Stevie Wonder, Mahalia Jackson, Nina Simone, B.B. King, and Sly and the Family Stone, as brilliant as they’ve ever been, perform for New Yorkers who needed a reason to unite and celebrate. This isn’t just a movie about music but a musical experiment, a historical document with its own meticulously crafted beats and rhythms. —E.F.
The film considers the relationship between the media and politicians, and how savvy minds can spin news into something that makes or breaks the success of someone, no matter how dirty their hands are. —E.F.