Your guide to documentary films & series
New Documentary helps you find your next documentary, explore the stories behind it and discover where to watch. From nature and science to history, art and everyday life.
Explore all documentaries →153 films & series to explore
Choose this for a wildlife story with a family at its center. David Attenborough recalls meeting a young mountain gorilla named Pablo, and the film brings that encounter into the present by following Pablo’s descendants in Rwanda. It uses archival and contemporary footage to show how the group has changed over time.
Choose Werner Herzog’s film for a field expedition built around a question. National Geographic Explorer Steve Boyes and experienced trackers search the Angolan highlands for an elusive herd. It premiered at Venice in 2025, opened in select North American theaters on February 27, 2026, and went to streaming in March.
This is the pick for viewers curious about how a designer works. Sofia Coppola’s portrait of Marc Jacobs focuses on the designer and his creative world. A24 lists the film for individual rental or purchase.
Pick this for a portrait of a working comedian. Judd Apatow and Neil Berkeley follow Maria Bamford across nearly four years and use clips from her stand-up to trace how she turns material from her personal life and mental health into comedy.
Pick this if you like sports stories built around one person’s ambitions. Rory Kennedy follows Judit Polgár’s rise in competitive chess and her pursuit of a win against Garry Kasparov. The rivalry gives the film a clear through-line as it explores what it took for Polgár to compete at the top of a male-dominated game.
Start here if you want a documentary with an immediate connection to everyday life. FRONTLINE and the Associated Press trace online fraud from victims’ stories to the organized networks that run scams at scale. The reporting follows the people, money and technology that keep those networks operating.
Choose this if you’re interested in what it takes to keep a team successful across decades. The series looks at UConn women’s basketball under Geno Auriemma through the experiences of players from different eras, including Rebecca Lobo, Diana Taurasi and Paige Bueckers.
Dawn Porter examines the aftermath of a Baltimore murder case in which three teenagers were wrongfully convicted and witnesses recanted decades later.
Pulling back the curtain on the origin stories that made the most polarizing and provocative athletes in sports history.
Life-changing strokes turn three young lives upside down. Fighting to reclaim their future, a dancer, a social butterfly and a man in love learn that surviving a stroke is just the beginning.
Murder in Belfast: Sisters Seeking Justice tells the story of the working-class women who challenged the might of the IRA. With evidence destroyed and an IRA cover up underway, the five sisters of Robert and his fiancée fought a very public campaign to bring his killers to justice and to discover the truth.
Once considered impenetrable, the encrypted messaging service Sky ECC became a safe haven for organized crime. When French and European investigators manage to infiltrate the system, they intercept more than a billion messages, exposing drug trafficking, money laundering and planned murders. Featuring testimonies from investigators and criminals, this documentary series explores one of the most extraordinary police operations against international organized crime.
Topic collection · 5 films & series
Five ways into the ocean: intimate encounters, changing reefs, a world of habitats, and the people making the case for protection.
