Here are the 50 best documentaries currently streaming on Netflix:ĥ0. If you’re looking to find new, compelling stories, there is still plenty to peruse here-not to mention Beyoncé’s Homecoming and American Factory, two of our 25 best documentaries of the year so far.įor other genres and types, check out Paste’s many, many Best Movies lists, and then make your way through the following-remembering that truth is only relative.
Regardless of the source, one thing Netflix does well is bring the latest and most groundbreaking in critically lauded documentary films to the service, be it Oscar-nominated Netflix original Strong Island, or their championing of such semi-obscure essentials as Casting JonBenet and Paris Is Burning. In the past couple months it’s lost quite a bit of excellent choices, too, undoubtedly making way for more Netflix-original docs. Whether due to licensing fees, a lack of interest or both, Netflix continues, as is the case every single month, to substantially scale back on its pre-Y2K catalog, featuring only 22 documentaries from before the turn of the Millennium, and a whopping 14 docs to be released before 1990. Here, we’ll point it out before you can: The best documentaries on Netflix are mostly assembled from movies released after 2010.