Reality is often more interesting than fiction. These websites and apps will help you find the best documentary films and docuseries to watch online.
Compared to movies, documentary films and series need a different yardstick to be judged by. While the agenda of a movie is to entertain, documentaries try to provoke thought and educate. More and more people are interested in such content now, leading to even dedicated documentary streaming apps like CuriosityStream. In this article, we'll find a few other ways to find the best documentary films to watch.
1. Documentary Addict (Web): Best Documentary Lists and Rankings to Watch Online
In the mood for a documentary but don't know what to watch? Let Documentary Addict pick a flick for you with its different methods to find films. This is a hand-picked curation of over 5,000 documentaries to stream online for free.
In the Best Documentaries list, you'll find lists for the 50 highest rated, 50 most-watched, and the weeks most riveting documentaries. There are also a few annual "best of" lists, but the last one was updated in 2015. These lists help you quickly find high quality documentary films.
There's also a Random button that picks eight random documentaries on the site. Each film includes a short description and its genre. Keep generating these eight picks till you find something you like.
Of course, you can also sort the entire library by categories, and filter them by last added or most viewed. And there's a handy search bar too. Documentary Addict surely makes it to our list of the best places to watch documentary movies online.
2. Nonfics (Web): Documentary Recommendations From a Critic
Christopher Campbell is known as a noted film critic and President of the Documentary branch of the Critics Choice Awards. What you might not know is that he maintains a website of his favorite documentary films.
At NonFics, you'll find Campbell's reviews and musings on various documentary films and docuseries. Given the number of documentaries he watches, it's nice to have a curated series of recommendations by an expert.
He also occasionally publishes the best documentaries on Netflix available in any given month. It's a fantastic list that talks about new and old true-story films, and often includes a blurb from his own review. You can't go wrong with these.
3. Modern Times Review (Web): Best New Documentary Film Reviews
Modern Times Review is a triannual European magazine that covers news and reviews of films and festivals across the world. Its wide base of contributors makes it a treasure chest of regularly updated documentary reviews.
You'll find multiple reviews every week about documentaries from both Europe and other places. This frequency is higher than any other site for documentary recommendations. You can read one review per day for free, and subscribe to read more. Of course, you could also mask your IP to read more articles.
You can sort the reviews by categories like documentaries, short films, reality-based fiction, etc. Modern Times Review also covers news about the world of documentary film making, interviews, essays and commentaries, and other such write-ups.
4. Thought Maybe (Web): Films That Make You Think
If you're looking for brain food, Thought Maybe has set up a wide buffet for you. This independent crew of documentary buffs hand-picks films that make you think about various issues and push you towards taking action.
The library of documentaries is available for free streaming online, without even registering for an account. The easiest way to browse is by choosing a topic from the many categories, and then sorting the list by date, title, views, or comments.
When you click any movie, you can read a short description before playing it. These often provide information that will help you choose whether it's the right film for you to watch.
By being picky about the kinds of documentaries chosen for the site, with real humans making the choices, you can be assured of good selections.
5. GuideDoc (Web, Android, iOS): Netflix for Documentary Films and Shorts
GuideDoc is a streaming video service like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video that exclusively shows documentary films. The library has almost 1000 movies, with one new documentary added daily.
The app focuses on selections from documentary film festivals, with the idea that anything that gets nominated is worth a watch. You'll find the latest titles and past winners from festivals such as IDFA, Hot Docs, Dok Leipzig, Sundance, Visions Du Reel, Cannes, etc. Another way to find documentaries worth streaming is to browse the Top Rated section, or the Our Favorites where the makers recommend their picks.
GuideDocs is a paid service that costs $5 per month. Is that worth your while? Just to check, we compared its library with Netflix USA and Amazon Prime USA. We found several award-winning documentaries on GuideDocs that aren't available on either of the more popular streaming services. So if you are really into documentaries, this is worth the bucks.
Download: GuideDoc for Android | iOS (Free, Paid)
Watch Netflix Documentaries for Free
If you already have a subscription to a streaming service like Netflix, Disney+, or Amazon Prime, you're in luck. These services host a large collection of high quality documentaries and true story films.
Those who don't have a paid subscription are in luck. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Netflix released a few of its documentaries to watch on YouTube for free. These are primarily educational documentaries, but the list includes some all-time bests like David Attenborough's Our Planet anthology and the entire Explained series.