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Best Documentary Movies of All Time

Every documentary film with 500 or more TMDB votes, ranked by user rating.

📊 A century of movies in numbers 80 titlesavg ★ 7.39 avg 96 min Documentary Music Comedy History

By decade:2000s 19 2010s 40 2020s 13

#1 Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me (2022) · ★ 8.5 · 620 votes · 1h 35m · music, documentary
After years in the limelight, Selena Gomez achieves unimaginable stardom. But just as she reaches a new peak, an unexpected turn pulls her into darkness. This uniquely raw and inti…
#2 Night and Fog (1956) · ★ 8.3 · 590 votes · 0h 32m · history, war, documentary
Filmmaker Alain Resnais documents the atrocities behind the walls of Hitler's concentration camps.…
#3 One Direction: This Is Us (2013) · ★ 8.2 · 1,074 votes · 1h 32m · music, documentary
"One Direction: This Is Us" is a captivating and intimate all-access look at life on the road for the global music phenomenon. Weaved with stunning live concert footage, this inspi…
#4 Baraka (1992) · ★ 8.2 · 720 votes · 1h 37m · documentary
A paralysingly beautiful documentary with a global vision—an odyssey through landscape and time—that attempts to capture the essence of life.…
#5 BLACKPINK: Light Up the Sky (2020) · ★ 8.2 · 531 votes · 1h 19m · music, documentary
Record-shattering Korean girl band BLACKPINK tell their story — and detail the hard fought journey of the dreams and trials behind their meteoric rise.…
#6 Senna (2010) · ★ 8.1 · 1,242 votes · 1h 46m · history, documentary
The remarkable story of Brazilian racing driver Ayrton Senna, charting his physical and spiritual achievements on the track and off, his quest for perfection, and the mythical stat…
#7 Samsara (2011) · ★ 8.1 · 705 votes · 1h 42m · documentary
Filmed over nearly five years in twenty-five countries on five continents, and shot on seventy-millimetre film, Samsara transports us to the varied worlds of sacred grounds, disast…
#8 The Salt of the Earth (2014) · ★ 8.1 · 697 votes · 1h 50m · documentary
During the last forty years, the photographer Sebastião Salgado has been travelling through the continents, in the footsteps of an ever-changing humanity. He has witnessed the majo…
#9 Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father (2008) · ★ 8.1 · 602 votes · 1h 34m · crime, documentary
In 2001, Andrew Bagby, a medical resident, is murdered not long after breaking up with his girlfriend. Soon after, when she announces she's pregnant, one of Andrew's many close fri…
#10 The Cove (2009) · ★ 8.0 · 698 votes · 1h 32m · documentary
The Cove tells the amazing true story of how an elite team of individuals, films makers and free divers embarked on a covert mission to penetrate the hidden cove in Japan, shining…
#11 Won't You Be My Neighbor? (2018) · ★ 8.0 · 618 votes · 1h 35m · documentary
For more than thirty years, and through his television program, Fred Rogers (1928-2003), host, producer, writer and pianist, accompanied by his puppets and his many friends, spoke…
#12 Paris Is Burning (1991) · ★ 8.0 · 571 votes · 1h 18m · history, documentary
Where does voguing come from, and what, exactly, is throwing shade? This landmark documentary provides a vibrant snapshot of the 1980s through the eyes of New York City's African A…
#13 Free Solo (2018) · ★ 7.9 · 1,583 votes · 1h 40m · adventure, documentary
Follow Alex Honnold as he attempts to become the first person to ever free solo climb Yosemite's 3,000 foot high El Capitan wall. With no ropes or safety gear, this would arguably…
#14 Blackfish (2013) · ★ 7.9 · 1,217 votes · 1h 23m · documentary
Notorious killer whale Tilikum is responsible for the deaths of three individuals, including a top killer whale trainer. Blackfish shows the sometimes devastating consequences of k…
#15 My Octopus Teacher (2020) · ★ 7.9 · 1,083 votes · 1h 25m · documentary
After years of swimming every day in the freezing ocean at the tip of Africa, Craig Foster meets an unlikely teacher: a young octopus who displays remarkable curiosity. Visiting he…
#16 Searching for Sugar Man (2012) · ★ 7.9 · 1,063 votes · 1h 25m · music, documentary
Two South Africans set out to discover what happened to their unlikely musical hero, the mysterious 1970s rock 'n' roller, Rodriguez.…
#17 Koyaanisqatsi (1983) · ★ 7.9 · 805 votes · 1h 26m · music, documentary
Takes us to locations all around the US and shows us the heavy toll that modern technology is having on humans and the earth. The visual tone poem contains neither dialogue nor a v…
#18 Apollo 11 (2019) · ★ 7.9 · 732 votes · 1h 33m · drama, history, documentary
A look at the Apollo 11 mission to land on the moon led by commander Neil Armstrong and pilot Buzz Aldrin.…
#19 Friends: The Reunion (2021) · ★ 7.8 · 1,380 votes · 1h 44m · comedy, documentary
The cast of Friends reunites for a once-in-a-lifetime celebration of the hit series, an unforgettable evening filled with iconic memories, uncontrollable laughter, happy tears, and…
#20 Man with a Movie Camera (1929) · ★ 7.8 · 826 votes · 1h 8m · documentary
A cameraman wanders around with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling inventiveness.…
#21 13th (2016) · ★ 7.8 · 815 votes · 1h 40m · documentary
An in-depth look at the prison system in the United States and how it reveals the nation's history of racial inequality.…
#22 Jodorowsky's Dune (2013) · ★ 7.8 · 781 votes · 1h 27m · documentary
In 1974, Chilean-French director Alejandro Jodorowsky embarked on the quixotic project of adapting Frank Herbert's influential novel Dune (1969) for the big screen. After investing…
#23 They Shall Not Grow Old (2018) · ★ 7.8 · 703 votes · 1h 39m · history, war, documentary
A documentary about World War I with never-before-seen footage to commemorate the centennial of Armistice Day, and the end of the war.…
#24 Miss Americana (2020) · ★ 7.8 · 656 votes · 1h 25m · music, documentary
A raw and emotionally revealing look at one of the most iconic artists of our time during a transformational period in her life as she learns to embrace her role not only as a song…
#25 Home (2009) · ★ 7.8 · 574 votes · 1h 35m · drama, family, documentary
In 200,000 years of existence, man has upset the balance on which the Earth had lived for 4 billion years. Global warming, resource depletion, species extinction: man has endangere…
#26 Citizenfour (2014) · ★ 7.7 · 1,450 votes · 1h 53m · documentary
In June 2013, Laura Poitras and reporter Glenn Greenwald flew to Hong Kong for the first of many meetings with Edward Snowden. She brought her camera with her.…
#27 Waltz with Bashir (2008) · ★ 7.7 · 1,089 votes · 1h 30m · drama, animation, war
A film director from Israel interviews fellow veterans of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon to reconstruct his own memories of his term of service in that conflict.…
#28 Inside Job (2010) · ★ 7.7 · 1,080 votes · 1h 49m · crime, documentary
A film that exposes the shocking truth behind the economic crisis of 2008. The global financial meltdown, at a cost of over $20 trillion, resulted in millions of people losing thei…
#29 Before the Flood (2016) · ★ 7.7 · 832 votes · 1h 33m · documentary
A look at how climate change affects our environment and what society can do to prevent the demise of endangered species, ecosystems, and native communities across the planet.…
#30 Jiro Dreams of Sushi (2011) · ★ 7.7 · 797 votes · 1h 22m · documentary
Revered sushi chef Jiro Ono strives for perfection in his work, while his eldest son, Yoshikazu, has trouble living up to his father's legacy.…
#31 The Act of Killing (2012) · ★ 7.7 · 790 votes · 2h 39m · history, documentary
After befriending documentarian Joshua Oppenheimer, former Indonesian death squad leaders reenact their real-life mass killings in the style of various American film genres. As the…
#32 I Am Not Your Negro (2017) · ★ 7.7 · 536 votes · 1h 33m · documentary
Working from the text of James Baldwin’s unfinished final novel, director Raoul Peck creates a meditation on what it means to be Black in the United States.…
#33 Amy (2015) · ★ 7.6 · 1,336 votes · 2h 8m · music, documentary
A documentary on the life of Amy Winehouse, the immensely talented yet doomed songstress. We see her from her teen years, where she already showed her singing abilities, to her fin…
#34 Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief (2015) · ★ 7.6 · 887 votes · 2h 0m · documentary
The film profiles eight former members of the Church of Scientology, shining a light on how they attract true believers and the things they do in the name of religion.…
#35 Icarus (2017) · ★ 7.6 · 859 votes · 2h 1m · documentary
While investigating the furtive world of illegal doping in sports, director Bryan Fogel connects with renegade Russian scientist Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov—a pillar of his country’s “a…
#36 Cobain: Montage of Heck (2015) · ★ 7.6 · 765 votes · 2h 12m · drama, music, documentary
Hailed as one of the most innovative and intimate documentaries of all time, experience Kurt Cobain like never before in the only ever fully authorized portrait of the famed music…
#37 Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret (2014) · ★ 7.6 · 522 votes · 1h 30m · documentary
Follow the shocking, yet humorous, journey of an aspiring environmentalist, as he daringly seeks to find the real solution to the most pressing environmental issues and true path t…
#38 The Social Dilemma (2020) · ★ 7.5 · 1,858 votes · 1h 34m · drama, documentary
This documentary-drama hybrid explores the dangerous human impact of social networking, with tech experts sounding the alarm on their own creations.…
#39 Bowling for Columbine (2002) · ★ 7.5 · 1,751 votes · 2h 0m · drama, documentary
This is not a film about gun control. It is a film about the fearful heart and soul of the United States, and the 280 million Americans lucky enough to have the right to a constitu…
#40 Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010) · ★ 7.5 · 998 votes · 1h 26m · documentary
Banksy is a graffiti artist with a global reputation whose work can be seen on walls from post-hurricane New Orleans to the separation barrier on the Palestinian West Bank. Fiercel…