Documentary films 160 films
Every documentary film we have reviewed that is out now, with the score and where it is streaming. How we rate.
We judge a documentary on the attention it pays, not the size of its subject. The question is whether whoever cut the footage decided what they thought and shows us how they got there. We mark down narration that repeats what we have just seen and music that does the feeling for us. We mark up patience, and the nerve to let someone talk until they say something they did not intend. The shelf leans towards music and history, and Errol Morris and the Maysles brothers keep turning up.
Start with The Thin Blue Line (90), Errol Morris's Dallas murder case and still the model for true crime. Then Hoop Dreams (92), which follows two young basketball players through school and family and earns every one of its 174 minutes. Then Man on Wire (90), a heist film that happens to be true. After those, set aside a week for O.J.: Made in America, and then, when you are ready, Shoah.
78Making Marie Antoinette
2026 · Documentary
75Paralyzed by Hope: The Maria Bamford Story
2026 · Documentary
55The Disciple: A Wu-Tang Fable
2026 · Documentary
84You Can See Everything
2026 · Documentary
57Free Leonard Peltier
2025 · Documentary
70Musk
2026 · Documentary
82NAZA
2026 · Documentary
65Pulp: What Do You Do for an Encore?
2026 · Documentary
77You Had to Be There: How the Toronto Godspell Ignited the Comedy Revolution...
2026 · Documentary
74Oasis: Don't Look Back in Anger
2026 · Documentary
80American Doctor
2026 · Documentary
72Jackass: Best and Last
2026 · Action
58Lorne
2026 · Documentary
56The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist
2026 · Documentary
81EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert
2026 · Music
80Cover-Up
2025 · Documentary
852000 Meters to Andriivka
2025 · Documentary
73Apocalypse in the Tropics
2025 · Documentary
70Becoming Led Zeppelin
2025 · Documentary
82Black Box Diaries
2024 · Documentary
80Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story
2024 · Documentary
78Will & Harper
2024 · Documentary
81Daughters
2024 · Documentary
73American Symphony
2023 · Documentary
9220 Days in Mariupol
2023 · Documentary
75WHAM!
2023 · Documentary
80STILL: A Michael J. Fox Movie
2023 · Documentary
67Rebellion
2023 · Documentary
86All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
2022 · Documentary
82All That Breathes
2022 · Documentary
78Moonage Daydream
2022 · Documentary
76Fire of Love
2022 · Documentary
78Navalny
2022 · Documentary
83Flee
2021 · Documentary
80Keyboard Fantasies
2021 · Documentary
74Becoming Cousteau
2021 · Documentary