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The Best Documentaries on Netflix Right Now (October 2026)

By Matt Oakes · October 25, 2026

Netflix is now the biggest documentary studio on the planet, which means its nonfiction shelf is packed with true-crime filler and celebrity puff pieces. These are the ones worth your time, led by 13th, Bo Burnham: Inside, and André Is an Idiot, each a documentary I’ve reviewed or ranked among the best of its year.

Every pick links to where it’s streaming, and the list gets refreshed as titles come and go.

13TH (2016)

Ava DuVernay traces a direct line from the 13th Amendment’s loophole for convicted criminals to the mass incarceration of Black Americans. It’s a meticulously argued, galvanizing documentary, and one of the most essential nonfiction films of the 2010s.▶ Streaming on Netflix · From my Top Ten of 2016

BO BURNHAM: INSIDE (2021)

Shot alone in a single room during the pandemic, Bo Burnham’s special is a darkly funny, dazzlingly crafted musical spiral about isolation, the internet, and his own mind. It plays more like an art film than a comedy special, and its songs are impossible to shake.▶ Streaming on Netflix

ANDRÉ IS AN IDIOT (2026)

Anthony Benna follows his friend André Ricciardi, a charismatic adman who skipped his colonoscopy and is now living with terminal cancer, in the funniest documentary about dying you’re likely to see. It’s profane, loving, and a gut punch with a punchline.▶ Streaming on Netflix

AMERICAN FACTORY (2019)

When a Chinese billionaire reopens a shuttered GM plant in Dayton, Ohio, the culture clash between American workers and Chinese management comes to a boil. Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert’s Oscar winner is a fascinating, even-handed look at globalization on the factory floor.▶ Streaming on Netflix

THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR (2025)

Geeta Gandbhir builds this harrowing true-crime documentary almost entirely from police bodycam footage, tracing a Florida neighbor dispute as it escalates toward a fatal shooting. It’s a devastating, clear-eyed look at fear, race, and the stand-your-ground laws that let a feud turn deadly.▶ Streaming on Netflix

THE DEEPEST BREATH (2023)

Italian freediver Alessia Zecchini and safety diver Stephen Keenan chase the limits of the human body in the open ocean, and their story builds to a gut-wrenching climax. The underwater photography is stunning, and the tension is close to unbearable.▶ Streaming on Netflix

DAUGHTERS (2024)

Angela Patton and Natalie Rae follow four girls preparing for a father-daughter dance inside a Washington, D.C., jail, and the result is quietly devastating. It’s a tender, urgent portrait of what incarceration costs the families left on the outside.▶ Streaming on Netflix

MISHA AND THE WOLVES (2021)

A woman’s bestselling Holocaust memoir about surviving the war by living with wolves becomes a publishing sensation, until her former publisher starts digging. Sam Hobkinson’s twisty documentary unfolds like a detective story, and it plays a few tricks of its own.▶ Streaming on Netflix

THE SOCIAL DILEMMA (2020)

Former tech insiders explain how social media platforms are engineered to hijack attention and reshape behavior, with dramatized scenes showing the algorithm at work. Its warnings land hard enough that you may put your phone down afterward, at least for a little while.▶ Streaming on Netflix

DICK JOHNSON IS DEAD (2020)

Cinematographer Kirsten Johnson stages elaborate, darkly funny fake deaths for her father as dementia slowly takes him from her. It’s an inventive, tender, and wholly original way of saying goodbye, and you’ll laugh right up until you cry.▶ Streaming on Netflix

APOLLO 11 (2019)

Todd Douglas Miller assembles newly unearthed 70mm NASA footage and audio into a moon landing that feels like it’s happening live, with no narration or talking heads. It’s pure, breathtaking cinema, and the launch sequence alone will rattle your bones.▶ Streaming on Netflix

BEST OF ENEMIES (2015)

Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon revisit the 1968 televised debates between William F. Buckley Jr. and Gore Vidal, a bitter, brilliant sparring match that helped invent modern cable punditry. Best Of Enemies excels in its concept, execution, and timing. Educational though it may be, it’s as enjoyable as it is thought provoking.▶ Streaming on Netflix · Read the full review

HOMECOMING: A FILM BY BEYONCÉ (2019)

Beyoncé’s headlining Coachella set, a two-hour celebration of HBCU marching-band culture, is captured with staggering precision and intercut with the grueling rehearsals that made it possible. It’s a concert film and a masterclass in ambition, all in one.▶ Streaming on Netflix

ICARUS (2017)

Bryan Fogel set out to dope himself for an amateur cycling race and stumbled into Russia’s state-sponsored Olympic doping program, with whistleblower Grigory Rodchenkov at its center. It plays like a paranoid spy thriller, and it won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature.▶ Streaming on Netflix

GET ME ROGER STONE (2017)

A portrait of the flamboyant political dirty trickster who helped shape decades of Republican politics, told largely in his own gleefully unrepentant words. It’s entertaining and alarming in equal measure, a character study of the man behind the curtain.▶ Streaming on Netflix

SKYWALKERS: A LOVE STORY (2024)

A Russian rooftopping couple chase the most dangerous climb of their lives atop a Malaysian skyscraper while their relationship wobbles beneath them. Jeff Zimbalist captures vertigo-inducing footage and a genuinely moving romance in equal measure.▶ Streaming on Netflix

WILL & HARPER (2024)

Will Ferrell takes a cross-country road trip with his longtime friend Harper Steele, a former SNL writer who has come out as a trans woman. It’s warm, funny, and frank, a buddy movie about friendship that never flinches from the hard parts of the drive.▶ Streaming on Netflix

NOBODY SPEAK: TRIALS OF THE FREE PRESS (2017)

Brian Knappenberger uses the Hulk Hogan privacy lawsuit that bankrupted Gawker as a jumping-off point for a sobering look at how billionaires can buy their way out of press scrutiny. It’s a sharp, unsettling dispatch on the health of a free press.▶ Streaming on Netflix

14 PEAKS: NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE (2021)

Nepali mountaineer Nimsdai Purja sets out to summit all fourteen of the world’s 8,000-meter peaks in about seven months, a feat that previously took climbers years. The footage is jaw-dropping, and Purja’s swagger and sense of mission make it a rousing watch.▶ Streaming on Netflix

THE REMARKABLE LIFE OF IBELIN (2024)

After Mats Steen died at 25 from Duchenne muscular dystrophy, his parents discovered the rich life he’d lived inside World of Warcraft. Rebuilt from game footage and chat logs, it’s a moving, revelatory look at friendship and identity online.▶ Streaming on Netflix

JIM & ANDY: THE GREAT BEYOND (2017)

Behind-the-scenes footage from the making of Man on the Moon shows Jim Carrey disappearing so completely into Andy Kaufman that he never broke character. Paired with a reflective, older Carrey, it’s a fascinating, unsettling portrait of method acting gone off the rails.▶ Streaming on Netflix

THE TINDER SWINDLER (2022)

Women who met a self-styled diamond heir on Tinder reveal how he conned them out of millions, using money from one victim to woo the next. It’s an infuriating, binge-worthy true-crime yarn, and the women’s turn from victims to sleuths is deeply satisfying.▶ Streaming on Netflix

KNOCK DOWN THE HOUSE (2019)

Rachel Lears follows four insurgent women, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, as they take on entrenched incumbents in the 2018 Democratic primaries. It’s a stirring, intimate look at grassroots campaigning, with an underdog payoff that plays like a sports movie.▶ Streaming on Netflix

CRIP CAMP: A DISABILITY REVOLUTION (2020)

A summer camp for disabled teenagers in the 1970s seeded a generation of activists who went on to fight for the Americans with Disabilities Act. Nicole Newnham and Jim LeBrecht’s documentary is joyous, rousing, and an essential piece of civil rights history.▶ Streaming on Netflix

FYRE (2019)

The rise and spectacular collapse of the Fyre Festival, a luxury music event in the Bahamas that left attendees with cheese sandwiches and disaster-relief tents. It’s a jaw-dropping, often hilarious study of hype, fraud, and influencer culture run amok.▶ Streaming on Netflix

MERU (2015)

While it may not inspire too many non-climbers to scale some peaks, Meru gives us a glimpse into the real psyches and lifestyles of real mountain climbers, with minimal gloss. Serious aspiring climbers should take note. Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi follow three elite mountaineers attempting the Shark’s Fin, one of the Himalayas’ most treacherous routes.▶ Streaming on Netflix · Read the full review