Mind-Blowing Documentaries Now Available to Stream

The first season of the Netflix series, based on James Patterson’s bestseller “Filthy Rich” and co-written by John Connolly with Tim Malloy, focuses on Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender and pedophile who used his influence to provide young women for rich and powerful men. The season premiered in May. Critics regard the first season as a good start, though critic Sophie Gilbert of The Atlantic said the series “comes no closer to unraveling Epstein than any previous reportorial attempts have managed.” The series won the Critics’ Choice Real TV Awards Crime/Justice Show.

Acclaimed director Alex Gibney wrote and directed this look at the controversial Church of Scientology, based on a book written by Lawrence Wright. The provocative documentary won three Emmys. Former church member Paul Haggis, one of the documentary’s writers, spoke on camera about the abuse and control that people were subjected to by the church. Critics Consensus on Rotten Tomatoes called the film “thoroughly disquieting but impossible to ignore.” It has a 95% Freshness rating among Rotten Tomatoes critics.

“Tabloid” recounts the bizarre, funny, and salacious adventures of Joyce McKinney, a former beauty queen with an IQ of 168, who chased her romantic fantasies all over the globe and those stories became tabloid newspaper fodder. The film was directed by documentarian Errol Morris, whose other notable works include “The Fog of War,” “Gates of Heaven,” and “Vernon, Florida.” Roger Moore of Tribune News Service said, “Mesmerizing…In Joyce McKinney, Morris has found a fittingly weird and funny muse.” “Tabloid” has a 92% Freshness rating among Rotten Tomatoes critics.

This documentary “takes the concept of reality television and twists it into a shocking but poignant art form,” says critic Bill Muller in the Arizona Republic. The film tells the story of a seemingly normal family whose father and son are accused of horrific crimes. The documentary has a Freshness rating of 97% on Rotten Tomatoes and was nominated for Best Documentary at the Academy Awards. Director Andrew Jarecki would later direct the popular HBO mini-series “The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst.”

“Man on Wire,” about the story of high-wire performer Philippe Petit, won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature in 2009, for director James Marsh. The documentary details how Petit prepared for his famous walk on a cable between the Twin Towers in New York City in 1974 and how this feat affected his life afterward. Petit wrote the book “To Reach the Clouds: My High Wire Walk Between the Twin Towers” that recounted his six-year quest to walk between the buildings. The Critics Consensus on Rotten Tomatoes says the documentary “brings you every ounce of suspense that can be wrung from a man on a (suspended) wire.” The movie also has a perfect score among 158 critics on Rotten Tomatoes.

Director Bart Layton won a BAFTA Award for this strange story that combined home video and reenactments to tell a story about a teen in Spain who claimed to be a boy who went missing from a Texas family three years earlier. Though he bears the missing boy’s distinguishing marks, not all is what it seems, and the story gets weirder upon further investigation. Linda Barnard of the Toronto Star said, “To give any of this film away is a crime. You simply have to see it for yourself.” The film has a Rotten Tomatoes Freshness rating of 95%.

“Wild Wild Country” is a mini-series that tells the story of a controversial guru whose group buys land in the Oregon desert in the early 1980s to build a utopian community. However, the group comes into conflict with local ranchers, leading to a bioterror attack and illegal wiretapping. The six-part series, which has a near perfect Rotten Tomatoes critics rating of 98%, won an Emmy for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series, in 2018.

Oscar-nominated director Amy Berg (“Deliver Us From Evil”) co-wrote and directed “West of Memphis,” about three young men arrested for the murder of three boys in Arkansas. The film, which holds a Rotten Tomatoes critics rating of 95%, is noted for Berg’s access to the defendants’ legal defense team and it takes an unsparing look at the flaws in the American justice system. Moira MacDonald of the Seattle Times said the movie was “a real-life horror story, made no less shocking by the familiarity of its early scenes.”

Acclaimed and eccentric director Werner Herzog wrote and directed this heartstring-pulling documentary about grizzly bear activists Timothy Treadwell and Amie Huguenard who were killed while living among the animals in Alaska in 2003. Joshua Katzman of the Chicago Reader said the movie was “an engrossing look at obsessive behavior gone terribly awry.” The documentary won numerous awards, including one for Best Non-Fiction Film from the New York Film Critics Circle in 2005 that it shared with the film “The White Diamond.” “Grizzly Man” has a 92% Freshness score among Rotten Tomatoes critics.

This shocking movie about a man’s online relationship with a young woman has received generally positive reviews from both critics and audience members. Rotten Tomatoes’ Critics Consensus states “its timely premise and tightly wound mystery make for a gripping documentary,” though some critics question the film’s authenticity.

Laura Poitras, who shared the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature in 2015 along with two other documentarians for the story about Edward Snowden, the whistleblower who disclosed the extensive covert surveillance programs operated by U.S. intelligence agencies. Critics Consensus on Rotten Tomatoes calls the documentary “part real-life thriller, part sobering examination of 21st century civil liberties, ‘Citizenfour’ transcends ideology to offer riveting, must-see cinema.” The tensely toned documentary has a 96% Freshness score among Rotten Tomatoes critics.

“The Dawn Wall” — about two mountain climbers’ attempt to scale the 3,000 foot, nearly vertical rock face in Yosemite National Park — is described by critics “as thrilling as it is profound.” This climbing documentary will not only blow your mind, but send your heart racing. On Rotten Tomatoes, 100% of critics and 95% of viewers reported liking it.

The captivity of orcas, or killer whales, at places like SeaWorld may not be a topic most people have given much thought. This critically acclaimed documentary will undoubtedly give viewers reasons to care about — and likely oppose — the practice. And while the movie is described by some as disturbing, it received positive reviews from 98% of professional reviewers and 90% of audience members on Rotten Tomatoes.

Netflix’s recent smash hit mini-series offers viewers a glimpse into the lives of numerous eccentric big cat aficionados. Over the series’ eight episodes further — and oftentimes increasingly outlandish — information about each of the main characters. The series is classified as true-crime, but as critic Nick Allen, writing for RogerEbert.com, put it, “the term ‘true-crime’ doesn’t do justice to its greatness.”

This entertaining and informative feature-length documentary from award-winning British producer/director Alastair Fothergill (“Planet Earth,” “The Blue Planet”) is narrated by Emmy Award-winning actor James Earl Jones. The documentary follows the migration patterns of four separate animal families. Stephen Cole of the Globe and Mail said, “As a spectacle Disney’s Earth is right out of this world.”

“Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room” is the Oscar-nominated documentary about the spectacular implosion of the corrupt energy company. The film was co-written and directed by Alex Gibney, who won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature for “Taxi to the Dark Side” in 2008. It holds a 97% Freshness rating among Rotten Tomatoes critics. Rene Rodriguez of the Miami Herald said the film was a “deft, entertaining and infuriating documentary about one of the most egregious cases of corporate corruption in American history.”

This investigative documentary examines the widespread scourge of sexual assault in the U.S. military — a topic that press material for the film refers to as “one of our country’s most shameful and best kept secrets.” On Rotten Tomatoes, 99% of critics gave the Oscar-nominated film positive reviews, with the site’s Critics Consensus calling it “a vital and frank exposé.”

Director David Sington’s documentary examines the experiences of NASA’s moonwalkers as well as the impact their exploits had on the American public. Much of the archival footage used in the documentary had never been shown before. Critics and audiences on Rotten Tomatoes gave the film approval scores of at least 91%. Leigh Paatsch of the Herald Sun (Australia) called the film, “A captivating and revelatory experience from beginning to end.”

Prior to Amy Berg’s “West of Memphis,” filmmakers Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky dealt with the same crime in “Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills” — the first of three installments. The Emmy-winning movie about a triple murder in West Memphis, Arkansas, and the teenagers accused of the crime has a perfect score from critics on Rotten Tomatoes. Critic Joe Utichi (FilmFocus) confirms in his 2005 review that the documentary will, indeed, “blow your mind.”

The six-episode mini-series reveals information uncovered from a seven-year probe of unsolved crimes that were linked to Robert Durst, scion of a prominent New York real estate family. Andrew Jarecki directed and co-wrote the series that ran on HBO. It won an Emmy for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series in 2015. Critics Consensus on Rotten Tomatoes calls the documentary “an engrossing blend of interviews and dramatizations.” Critics on Rotten Tomatoes gave “The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst” a Freshness score of 95%, and audiences were even more effusive in their praise, with 97% liking the series.

Described by the Los Angeles Times’ Robert Abele as “an undeniably shattering story,” “Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father” is a highly emotional film by filmmaker Kurt Kuenne who set out to memorialize his murdered best friend for the benefit of his friend’s unborn son. Though not an easy watch, the documentary won positive reviews from 94% of critics and 96% of viewers on Rotten Tomatoes and has an exceptional rating of 8.5 out of 10 on IMDb.

“Deliver Us from Evil” is an Oscar-nominated chronicle of how the Catholic Church shielded a pedophile priest by moving him from parish to parish in northern California. Critics Consensus on Rotten Tomatoes calls the documentary “a profoundly disturbing chronicle of a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” adding that the victims’ recollections “are nothing short of shocking and heartbreaking.” It also holds a perfect rating among Rotten Tomatoes critics.

Ezra Edelman’s Oscar- and Emmy-winning documentary traces the rise and fall of one of America’s greatest sports heroes while exposing the nation’s racial and class fissures. Critics Consensus on Rotten Tomatoes said the film “paints a balanced and thorough portrait of the American dream juxtaposed with tragedy and executed with power and skill.” “O.J.: Made in America” holds a perfect rating among Rotten Tomatoes critics and 97% of audiences liked the film.

Documentary series “Making a Murderer” tells the story of Wisconsin man Steven Avery who served a lengthy prison sentence, was exonerated, and then charged and convicted of another crime. Filmed over the course of a decade, the two-season series contains twists and turns aplenty, building a world of corruption and crime. The highly bingeable show won four Primetime Emmy Awards and hooked 98% of audience members who rated it on Rotten Tomatoes.