The best documentaries on Netflix – CNET

In the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, this should be mandatory viewing.

Netflix
Tiger King explores the strange underbelly of big cat breeding, focusing on a cast of unforgettable (and ultimately dangerous) characters. It drags its audience to weird places. Season 2 is now available and while the show has lost a lot of its bite, it’s intriguing to catch up with this cast of wild human beings doing wild, completely outlandish things. 

Athlete A

The Raincoat Killer

Netflix

Netflix

Icarus

Netflix

The true crime documentary genre is utterly saturated at this point, but The Staircase stands out. 

Netflix
Focusing on the bizarre deaths of 11 family members in one house in Burari, Delhi, India in 2018, House of Secrets delves into the theories behind of the strangest suicide/murder cases in recent memory. Unmissable stuff. 
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The Staircase

Netflix
It’s a comprehensive, great look at The Raincoat Killer, a brutal serial killer in South Korea. It’s one of the better true crime documentaries on Netflix.

The Great Hack

Netflix
Thankfully Murder Among the Mormons is a return to form. Definitely watch this one. 

What Happened, Miss Simone?

Not gonna say much here. Nina Simone is a legend and this is maybe one of the best documentaries I’ve ever seen. 

Netflix

The Last Dance focuses on the Chicago Bulls during their 97-98 NBA title winning season, but really it’s a jumping off point for a documentary that tells the life story of its central star, Michael Jordan. 

Netflix

David Attenborough nature documentaries are so ubiquitous they’re vulnerable to self parody, but Our Planet is — I believe — the high watermark. Only Planet Earth, another Attenborough docu, comes close. But I prefer this one.

Netflix
Athlete A is a great feature length expose on Larry Nassar, the team doc of US Gymnastics, who had been sexually abusing female athletes for decades.
This Is A Robbery is about Netflix as it gets. A four-part series focusing on the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, this is essentially a documentary about an art heist. Remember Evil Genius? (Which is also on this list.) This Is A Robbery is very much in that style. The first episode takes a while to get going, but be patient — this one has a pay off. 

Netflix

Netflix
American Factory tells the story of Fuyao, a Chinese company that built a factory in Ohio that inhabits a now-closed General Motors plant. You have to watch this movie.

One of the more recent true crime documentaries from Netflix, this is a good one.

Netflix
Overlong and bloated, Wild Wild Country is nevertheless one of the most fascinating documentaries I’ve ever watched on Netflix. 

Regardless of your views on Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Knock Down The House is an incredible underdog story that cannot be missed. Focusing on progressive female candidates during the 2018 congressional primary campaigns, it’s an insightful look at the democratic process. It’s an inspiring reminder that we need to fight in order to make the voices of ordinary people count.

Netflix

Who Killed Little Gregory

The Last Dance

It tells the story of Chris Watts, a seemingly regular guy who murdered his wife and children. The access to footage is staggering and it’s edited and produced in a unique way, using text messages and social media posts to tell the story. It’s a horrific reminder of the banal, incredibly common existence of domestic violence.

Netflix
Recently released, Operations Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal has a name as long as some of Netflix’s recent documentaries. Thankfully, this isn’t as bloated as, say, the recent Cecil Hotel docu, but it could still use some trimming. 

Operation Varsity Blues focused on the FBI investigation into college admissions that put actress Felicity Huffman into jail. Its director Chris Smith previously worked on the Fyre Festival documentary. This isn’t quite as compelling, but is still well worth watching. 

Netflix
It’s released weekly and, so far so good. It’s very 30 for 30 — which is a good thing.

My Octopus Teacher follows Craig Foster, a filmmaker who spent a year snorkelling and interacting with an octopus off the coast of South Africa. It’s a nature film, sure, but it’s simultaneously a documentary designed to inspire awe in the viewer. In short, octopi are incredible. Little aliens on Earth, essentially. This is the story of a relationship between humans and nature but it’s also an inspiring call to action: Don’t ignore the wonder that exists all around you.

Netflix

This Is A Robbery

Be warned: This one is harrowing.

Netflix

Making A Murderer

As a result, many criticized it for being a little too Jordan-focused, but The Last Dance was an event documentary that lived up to the hype. 

With the swathe of true crime documentaries and podcasts that came in its wake, it’s easy to forget that the world once lost its collective mind over Making A Murderer. In a lot of ways it created the template that many Netflix documentaries now follow. A real original.

Netflix
By this point we all have some sort of understanding of Jeffrey Epstein’s story but Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich does itself a great service by focusing on the stories of the survivors of his abuse. 

This Oscar-winning documentary is an absolute belter. 

Netflix
In 2020, in the midst of a pandemic, Netflix dropped this piece of sports doc perfection. Hulu also has a great Fyre festival documentary, but I prefer this Netflix one. Unlike many Netflix documentaries, which are stretched and bloated into multi-part episodes, this documentary is sharp, direct and solid gold the entire way through.

Wild Wild Country

I’ve watched plenty of true crime documentaries on Netflix, but nothing has come close to The Keepers. A staggering story, told across generations, that’s respectful of the victims, yet compelling throughout.
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There are a lot of true crime documentaries out there (and on this list) but American Murder: The Family Next Door sticks out. 

Netflix
Time may dull its impact, but when Tiger King was first released on Netflix, the entire world couldn’t stop talking about it. 

Netflix
Nowadays its rare to watch a lean, clean direct true to crime show that doesn’t drag things out, or deliberately obfuscate facts for the sake of drama. But that’s exactly why The Raincoat Killer is so good, and unique.

Sundance
Another Netflix true crime documentary series, Sophie: A Murder In West Cork follows the case of Sophie Toscan Du Plantier, a French artist and TV producer who was killed in 1996, in West Cork, Ireland. Justice for her murder took decades to enact and this series follows the case. 

Knock Down the House

Netflix
It’s a sports documentary series, with each episode going in-depth on controversial sports topics. The first episode focuses on Malice at the Palace, the notorious basketball match where Ron Artest waded into the crowd and wailed on fans back in 2004.
Focusing on Scott Lindgren, a kayaking legend who was an early pioneer of the sport, this is a traditional story of an extreme sports star overcoming odds, but it runs a little deeper than that. Fighting against a brain tumour and his own personal demons, Lindgren is a compelling case study. Must watch stuff.

The River Runner

Netflix

Five Came Back

Focusing on Michael Peterson and the death of his wife Kathleen, The Staircase is more than just a murder mystery. It’s a drawn-out epic that takes place over literal decades, a documentary that follows Peterson and examines his every move, but somehow still remains objective. 

Untold

Netflix

American Murder: The Family Next Door

Netflix
Some of Netflix’s more recent true crime documentaries have been a bit bloated and… sorta bad?

The Keepers

Our Planet

Netflix
Netflix might have burned the True Crime documentary into the ground, but it’s on fire when it comes to sports. Bad Sport is the latest entry into this burgeoning sub category, and it’s awesome. Focusing on strange controversies in sports history, Bad Sport is less about major players doing major things, it’s about what happens when sport goes bad, gets down in the dirt. All of these episodes are great. Hoping for a season 2. 

The Cinemart/Hulu

Who Killed Little Gregory is a documentary focused on the horrific murder of Grégory Villemin. It’s arguably the best true crime documentary on Netflix. It’s about a murder, and attempts to solve that murder, but it’s also a lesson in media representation and the horrific sexism Grégory’s mother had to face in the wake her own son’s murder. 

Netflix
Icarus starts out as an expose on the impact performance-enhancing drugs have on sports performance, but a sequence of events drags director Bryan Fogel into a web of geopolitics and conspiracies. To say more would spoil it, but Fogel ultimately has created a documentary that had a very real impact on our perception of sports as a whole. In that respect, Icarus is a literal game changer.

Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened

Netflix
The second episode focuses on Christie Martin, the female boxer from the 80s who became famous after fighting on Mike Tyson’s undercard.