Finest documentaries streaming now on Prime Video

Generally actual life is stranger than fiction, and typically it is simply much more fascinating. Should you’re within the temper for a documentary that’ll get your pulse pumping, your coronary heart aching, or your thoughts operating, you may wish to take a look at Prime Video.

Now streaming on Prime Video is a wealth of mesmerizing true tales, starting from private tales of trials and triumph to harrowing crime investigations to quirky and heart-warming explorations of distinctive artistic imaginative and prescient.

Whether or not you are within the temper for one thing academic, emotional, or simply downright wild, this record of top-notch documentaries has acquired you coated.

1. Man on Wire

Depicting the excessive wire artist Philippe Petit’s mind-boggling 1974 stroll on a wire between the Twin Towers in NYC, this doc from filmmaker James Marsh makes use of uncommon video footage of Petit’s prep together with recreations of the occasion and current-day interviews with everybody concerned to craft a heart-racing heist movie. Successful each award inside attain, as much as and together with the Oscar, the movie memorializes not simply Petit’s stunt but in addition these buildings, and the legend of their monumental standing. — Jason Adams, Contributing Author

Methods to watch: Man on Wire is now streaming on Prime Video.

2. Phil Tippett: Mad Desires and Monsters

The identical man who gave us the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park gave us the holographic chess sport in Star Wars, the killer bugs in Starship Troopers, and the terrifying Enforcement Droid in RoboCop. That man’s identify is Phil Tippett, and people are simply 4 of the particular results wizard’s credit that this 2019 documentary on the person options. It is all coated within the run as much as the lengthy, lengthy, lengthy-delayed launch of his stop-motion surrealist masterpiece Mad God — principally as a result of Tippett might by no means convey himself to cease tinkering with it – which additionally will get plenty of a lot deserved love right here. Anyway, we find it irresistible when behind-the-scenes cinematic craftspeople of observe get their correct due, and Tippett’s one of the deserving there ever was or will probably be. A magician. — J.A.

Methods to watch: Phil Tippett: Mad Desires and Monsters is now streaming on Prime Video.

3. Residing With Chucky

The Kid’s Play franchise — that means the slasher movies starring Chucky the murderous doll that started in 1988 proper up by the TV collection that is at present in its third season — has been within the arms of the identical folks your entire time, save one spin-off reboot that we are going to not talk about. Particularly, creator Don Mancini and his crew of pleasant wackadoos. That is given the franchise not only a thematic throughline that the opposite ’80s slasher franchises have lacked, however an precise private one, since a long time of relationships have bloomed behind the scenes. 

And that is the juice that this 2022 doc thrives on. For instance, director Kyra Elise Gardner fairly actually grew up with Chucky; her dad Tony has been engaged on make-up and puppeteering for all issues Kid’s Play for many years. That private contact offers this doc a sweetness and an intimacy, and possibly these usually are not the phrases you’d sometimes affiliate with a killer doll, however right here we’re. — J.A.

Methods to watch: Residing With Chucky is now streaming on Prime Video.

4. Dior and I

Whereas a glance behind the scenes on the staging a style present can usually induce terror, director Frédéric Tcheng’s 2014 have a look at the primary high fashion assortment of Raf Simons for the legendary home is so awash in magnificence that you simply hardly even discover any of that. Narrated by way of excerpts of Dior’s autobiography, which was unpublished and solely found in the beginning of the movie’s manufacturing, Dior and I is as intimate and beautiful as the clothes themselves. — J.A.

Methods to watch: Dior and I is now streaming on Prime Video.

5. Jiro Desires of Sushi

David Gelb’s 2011 doc trains its eye on sushi chef Jiro Ono, the then-85-year-old proprietor and sushi grasp behind Sukiyabashi Jiro. This tiny sushi bar solely has ten seats and is predicated inside a subway station in Tokyo, and but it is the primary sushi restaurant to ever obtain three stars from Michelin. (It is since misplaced its stars attributable to its reservation coverage.) Given the truth that Jiro has been making sushi since he was seven years outdated, and he opened Sukiyabashi Jiro in 1965, you possibly can assume he is aware of a factor or two about fish. 

The movie additionally will get to know Jiro’s two sons, certainly one of whom began his personal sushi restaurant close by, and the opposite who nonetheless toils beneath his father, making ready to take over when he passes. This portrait of lifelong obsession manages to seize that ineffable one thing all of us lengthy for — to stay the life we had been made for, to find the factor we had been destined for, and to seek out what seems to be like peace by it every single day. — J.A. 

Methods to watch: Jiro Desires of Sushi is now streaming on Prime Video.

6. The Queen of Versailles

Motion pictures like Saltburn have confirmed that the time has positively arrived for mid-aughts nostalgia. And there is perhaps no higher time capsule of that decade than this 2012 doc from Era Wealth filmmaker Lauren Greenfield. Like one of many decade’s celebrity-driven actuality collection (suppose The Osbournes or something involving Paris Hilton) sharpened right into a hari-kari sword, The Queen of Versailles wades into the nouveau riche cesspool of Westgate Resorts’ homeowners Jackie and David Siegel’s life of the wealthy and gaudy. 

Watching them construct their obscene Florida mansion in 2008 — which Jackie, with typical understatement, has dubbed “Versailles” — because the financial system crashes round them is definitely a metaphor for American extra, as are the piles of feces left behind by their military of toy canines. A responsible pleasure writ giant, magnified by the topics’ whole incapability to unravel their very own issues (or hold a pet lizard alive). — J.A.

Methods to watch: The Queen of Versailles is now streaming on Prime Video.

7. One Little one Nation

In China between the years 1979 and 2015, the federal government had a one-child coverage; due to the surging inhabitants, households had been “inspired” to solely have a single baby. In Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhang’s 2019 documentary, they interviewed each the enforcers of that coverage and the enforced-upon, and an image of real horror emerges. 

The propaganda from the period appears downright goofy, but it surely had a chilling impact. Infanticide and human trafficking ran rampant. However probably the most transferring components of the doc are those seen from the bottom stage, particularly from inside Wang’s household, the place her personal mom speaks of the horrible selections she needed to make. — J.A.

Methods to watch: One Little one Nation is now streaming on Prime Video.

8. Nelly and Nadine

In search of blossoms of hope inside tales of the Holocaust can typically really feel like a idiot’s errand, however Magnus Gertten’s 2022 documentary a couple of love affair between two girls who met in a focus camp one way or the other manages that transferring feat. Sylvie Bianchi spent most of her life too afraid to look into her grandmother Nelly’s letters about her time within the female-only Ravensbrück camp. As soon as Sylvie does look into Nelly’s letters, she discovers a a secret love story between her grandmother and one other lady named Nadine. By some means, these two girls managed to seek out love amid all of the horror, and years later they reunited and ran off to Venezuela to be collectively. It is astonishing stuff, and a reminder of how dealing with the worst possible factor will make the sweetness in life shine all of the brighter.  — J.A. 

Methods to watch: Nelly and Nadine is now streaming on Prime Video.

9. Blackfish

Blackfish focuses on the terrible story of Tilikum, a male orca whale pushed to extremes of aggression by his captivity at SeaWorld. Filmmaker Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s incendiary documentary paints a horrifyingly vivid portrait of the truth behind these charming vacationer points of interest and the cruelty of holding these clever creatures in captivity. Inside simply three years of the movie’s launch, all such exhibits had been phased out fully, so profitable was the movie at exposing the reality behind these alluring vacationer points of interest. — J.A.

Methods to watch: Blackfish is now streaming on Prime Video.

10. Gimme Hazard

Gimme Hazard is the definitive doc of punk rock’s origin level. The Stooges had been thus far forward of their time they’d made three information and damaged up earlier than anyone might even understand what they’d carried out. Jim Jarmusch spent about ten years engaged on the doc, which involves a head with their 2010 induction into the Rock & Roll Corridor of Fame. And all people nonetheless alive to inform the wild story fortunately tells their model of it. After all it is Iggy, who’s spent a number of a long time hogging the highlight, who walks away with the present but once more. — J.A.

Methods to watch: Gimme Hazard is now streaming on Prime Video.

11. Silver Greenback Highway

After 2016’s I Am Not Your Negro and 2021’s Exterminate All of the Brutes, it is secure to say that director Raoul Peck is likely one of the greats working at present. 2023’s Silver Greenback Highway, which is predicated on the 2019 ProPublica article “Kicked Off The Land” by Lizzie Presser, triple underlines that assertion. The movie tells the continued multi-generational story of the Reels household, whose prime slice of waterfront property in North Carolina grew to become the main focus of some grasping actual property builders. In simply 100 minutes, it manages to be each a lovely portrait of a loving household and an infuriating excavation of American institutionalized racism at work. — J.A.

Methods to watch: Silver Greenback Highway is now streaming on Prime Video.

12. Scotty and the Secret Historical past of Hollywood

Primarily based on the juicy and sordid autobiography of notorious Hollywood hustler Scotty Bowers, this 2017 documentary from director Matt Tyrnauer leaves it as much as us the viewers to determine how a lot of Bowers’s fiction is reality and the way a lot is, you understand, fiction. Nonetheless, his gossip is so good that it is a good time both approach, whether or not you really consider it or not. 

Bowers tells of his post-military sojourn to Los Angeles within the Nineteen Forties, the place he grew to become a full-service gasoline station attendant — emphasis on “full service.” His story goes that each one the blokes who labored there have been intercourse employees who totally serviced the wealthy and well-known, each women and men, although it is principally the previous tales he is telling. Lots of Scotty’s tales, like all of the stuff about super-agent Henry Willson’s secure of fairly boy actors like Rock Hudson and Tab Hunter, have been confirmed elsewhere, however we’ll in all probability by no means know the way a lot is the true true. — J.A.

Methods to watch: Scotty and the Secret Historical past of Hollywood is now streaming on Prime Video.

13. Val

Val Kilmer is likely one of the greats, with out query. He is performed Batman and The Doorways frontman Jim Morrison. His efficiency in Tombstone as Doc Holliday is a incessantly quoted cult hit that is impressed any variety of memes. And he is Hollywood’s finest Moses to this point, together with his star flip in The Prince of Egypt, an animated retelling of the Passover story from 1998, far exceeding that of Charlton Heston in The Ten Commandments.

In Val, the famed actor who largely fell out of public view within the mid-2010s as he battled throat most cancers, bares his complete self. Kilmer himself created most of the residence films and behind-the-scenes clips featured on this Amazon Unique documentary, and so they’re weaved collectively right here to color an image of his life and profession. That includes narration from Kilmer’s son Jack and phrases written by the actor himself, Val is about as private as a biographical documentary can get. — Adam Rosenberg, Video Sport Reporter

The place to look at: Val is now streaming on Prime Video.

14. Mr. Dynamite: The Rise of James Brown

Launched in 2014, the identical yr the late Chadwick Boseman starred because the Godfather of Soul within the biopic Get On Up, Mr. Dynamite: The Rise of James Brown performs like a becoming companion piece. However with an completed documentarian like Alex Gibney on the helm, Mr. Dynamite greater than stands by itself.

Highlighted by a wealth of uncommon archival supplies displaying the funk and soul celebrity throughout his early days, the movie chronicles Brown’s profession from his time taking part in for Black audiences when the American Civil Rights motion was nonetheless taking form, all the best way into his mainstreamed blockbuster success. Whereas Mr. Dynamite‘s largely uncritical look falls quick on chronicling Brown’s later years, there are greater than sufficient archival supplies and interesting revelations to maintain this two-hour journey by music historical past. — A.R.

The place to look at: Mr. Dynamite: The Rise of James Brown is now streaming on Prime Video.

15. The Imposter

Bart Layton’s retelling of the extraordinarily curious 1997 case of the French conman Frédéric Bourdin presents us with a kind of true tales that appears too baffling to consider – certainly, when the 2009 horror movie Orphan stole this documentary’s large revelation, it got here to be thought of one of many best horror film twists of all time! However the twist is certainly primarily based in fact, as Bourdin was in a position to impersonate a lacking Texan boy and “fortunately reunite” with the boy’s household, despite the fact that he was a number of years older, had a French accent, and didn’t a lot seem like the boy in any respect. The facility of perception is a robust drive certainly. — J.A.

The place to look at: The Imposter is now streaming on Prime Video.

16. Koyaanisqatsi

This one is unquestionably a vibe – Godfrey Reggio’s experimental 1983 documentary Koyaanisqatsi (which interprets to “life out of stability” within the Hopi language) is 86 minutes of non-narrative, dialogue-free pictures of the pure world and the technological world interacting, all set to the graceful tunes of Philip Glass. Attractive pictures of the desert meet terrifying footage of atomic bombs detonating. Buildings are collapsed, and crowds of metropolis folks pulse in gradual movement.

The primary and best-known of Reggio’s “Qatsi” trilogy of movies – adopted by Powaqqatsi in 1988 and Naqoyqatsi in 2002 – Koyaanisqatsi was virtually unattainable to see for a few a long time, so positively seize the prospect to immerse your self on this tone poem of cinema distilled to its most elementary essence when you’ve acquired it. — J.A.

The place to look at: Koyaanisqatsi is now streaming on prime Video.

17. The Howlin’ Wolf Story

Chester Burnett, the Howlin’ Wolf himself: Hear that voice as soon as, and you will always remember it. Burnett’s raspy, tortured growl is the sound of a freight practice moaning at midnight, and it is only one piece of the portrait painted in filmmaker Don McGlynn’s The Howlin’ Wolf Story.

The legendary Chicago bluesman left an indelible mark on tradition and rock music particularly, because the originator of what are actually bona fide blues requirements, like “Spoonful” and “Smokestack Lightnin’.” This documentary recounts Burnett’s early days spent studying beneath Charley Patton, his travels with Robert Johnson, his affect on the Rolling Stones (and music normally), and the larger-than-life power he introduced to each stage he set foot on because the Wolf. — A.R.

The place to look at: The Howlin’ Wolf Story is now streaming on Prime Video.

18. No No: A Dockumentary

No No: A Dockumentary has one hell of a robust hook: Dock Ellis, the late Main League Baseball professional who’s its topic, as soon as pitched a no-hitter as a Pittsburgh Pirate whereas tripping his face off on LSD.

Wild as it’s, that incident is, after all, only a second in a a lot bigger and extra complicated life. Director Jeffrey Radice assembles his image of Ellis from interviews with associates, household, and former teammates, bolstering the manufacturing even additional with a beneficiant serving to of archival supplies — together with phrases from Ellis himself.

No No is a radical have a look at the person behind the second. The documentary anchors itself in that second solely to spotlight and heighten the life that led to and adopted it. We come away with a deeper understanding of who Ellis was, the varied forces that formed his life, and the highs and lows that characterised his journey. — A.R.

The place to look at: No No: A Dockumentary is now streaming on Prime Video.

19. Fiddler: Miracle of Miracles

Even when you understand each phrase to Broadway bangers like “If I Had been a Wealthy Man” and “Custom,” there’s nonetheless an excellent probability you do not know the complete historical past and affect of the play from which they hail: Fiddler on the Roof. Properly, Jews and goyim alike ought to settle in for Fiddler: Miracle of Miracles, as a result of it is a totally gratifying have a look at certainly one of Broadway’s all-time greats.

This documentary from Max Lewkowicz examines the 1964 musical from Jerry Bock (music), Sheldon Harnick (lyrics), and Joseph Stein (e-book) and the troublesome highway it took to succeed in the stage. Fiddler on the Roof‘s provocative setting and themes — the story is ready in opposition to the backdrop of early twentieth century Russia, a time when the native Jewish inhabitants confronted intense persecution — in addition to its full-force dive into Jewish tradition made it a tricky promote initially.

The doubters had been in the end confirmed improper, as Lewkowicz’s documentary illustrates. With greater than 3,000 performances — the primary Broadway present to hit this milestone — and an equally fascinating 1971 movie adaptation from director Norman Jewison, Fiddler on the Roof left its mark after which some. That includes interviews and insights from luminaries like Lin-Manuel Miranda, Harvey Fierstein, and Jewison himself, Fiddler is must-watch materials for any fan of Broadway previous and current. — A.R.

The place to look at: Fiddler: Miracle of Miracles is now streaming on Prime Video.

20. Good Evening Oppy

Irrespective of how a lot you thought you needed the titular star of Pixar’s animated masterpiece WALL-E to be actual, it is assured to solely be a fraction of how badly Good Evening Oppy director Ryan White and his forged of NASA nerds needed WALL-E to be actual, as a result of they set out with this film to anthropomorphize the dickens out of their Mars rover known as Alternative. (Or “Oppy” for cutesy quick.)

Whereas it’s at occasions a bit a lot — like when listening to those critical scientists insist their hunk of steel doo-dads they’ve shipped 230 million miles away completely has a character — Good Evening Oppy would not lack for celestial splendor. And making the little can-do robotic at its middle the viewers stand-in does usually end in a real sense of the enormity of this mission, and the percentages all of them confronted, each actual and imagined. — J.A.

The place to look at: Good Evening Oppy is now streaming on Prime Video.

21. Tales We Inform

Sarah Polley started performing when she was 4 years outdated, which is a narrative she tells with typical intelligence and emotional precision in her 2022 memoir Run In the direction of the Hazard. However a full 10 years earlier, she instructed us a completely completely different story along with her movie Tales We Inform – the one about her mother and father, the secrets and techniques of her personal beginning (from an affair that her mom had), and in regards to the methods her household processed and did not course of this discovery through the years.

The much less stated beforehand with regardsto this film’s unfolding mysteries, the higher, however simply let it’s stated you completely won’t see the place Polley is taking you. And if we’re being completely pressured to exist with out her performing on-screen, that is additional proof (alongside her different directorial efforts, Away From Her, Take This Waltz, and Ladies Speaking) that she’s acquired greater than sufficient magic to share from behind the display screen. — J.A.

The place to look at: Tales We Inform is now streaming on Prime Video.

22. Judy Blume Eternally

We personally have been celebrating “the yr of Judy Blume” for many years. However it’s exhausting to not make the case that 2023 – with the pleasant adaptation of Blume’s e-book Are You There God? It is Me, Margaret and this documentary each hitting screens – is an actual large yr for Blume-heads. And Davina Pardo and Leah Wolchok’s movie on the writer is fortunately attuned to Blume’s endurance as a lot as her legacy, and so we get to listen to as a lot on her ideas in regards to the world at present as we do her profession previous. Seeing as how she’s been on the front-lines of e-book bans and censorship for many years, there is no higher authority. – J.A.

The place to look at: Judy Blume Eternally is now streaming on Prime Video.

23. Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World

Music is awash with secret histories just like the one explored in Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World. The documentary from co-directors Catherine Bainbridge and Alfonso Maiorana takes a have a look at the affect indigenous populations in America had on standard music.

The truth is, that title speaks very on to a kind of impacts: “Rumble” is a 1958 instrumental from Hyperlink Wray, the famed Shawnee singer/songwriter and guitarist. You in all probability understand it. Wray’s signature electrical guitar distortion drives the mellow, meandering monitor that anybody who has seen Pulp Fiction will acknowledge in seconds.

We additionally find out how “Rumble” is basically the origin story for one of the potent gadgets in any rocker’s toolbox: the facility chord. However Wray is not the one focus. We meet Jesse Ed Davis, a legendary studio guitarist whose contributions on notable albums from John Lennon, Bob Dylan, and George Harrison ceaselessly enshrined him within the highest pantheon of rock godhood. Influential artists like Buffy Sainte-Marie, Mildred Bailey, Redbone, even formative blues legend Charlie Patton, who’s believed to have been part-Cherokee, all share the highlight. — A.R.

The place to look at: Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World is now streaming on Prime Video.

24. Between Me and My Thoughts (2019)

It is troublesome to explain the attraction of a band like Phish. Like all the most effective examples of artwork in its many types: You both get it, or you do not. Director Steven Cantor’s “slice of life” have a look at Phish frontman Trey Anastasio is not going to show any doubters into true believers, but it surely does provide a glimpse into the lifetime of the guitarist and singer who fuels most of the band’s creatively playful and sometimes deeply nerdy antics.

Whereas the movie facilities itself in a selected second — a busy interval during which Anastasio is ending up the solo album Ghosts within the Forest as he prepares for Phish’s 2018 run of New Yr’s Eve live shows at Madison Sq. Backyard — it isn’t all in regards to the music. This can be a household affair that presents viewers with a glimpse into the subdued rocker’s residence life and off-stage historical past. By means of that lens, we be taught a lot about the best way Anastasio thinks and approaches his work.

Identical to Phish itself, you both get Between Me and My Thoughts, or you do not. For many who get it, the documentary is as thorough a have a look at the Phish frontman as any fan has ever seen. — A.R.

The place to look at: Between Me and My Thoughts is now streaming on Prime Video.

25. The Booksellers

In case your toes curl throughout the scene in Magnificence and the Beast the place the Beast exhibits Belle his monumental library and she or he spins round so we are able to stare on the cabinets of books going up, up, up into the rafters, then have we acquired the documentary for you! D.W. Younger’s 2019 doc (govt produced and narrated by Occasion Lady star and librarian icon Parker Posey) takes us into the world of uncommon and antiquarian e-book outlets and e-book sellers in New York. Talking with the individuals who run famed establishments just like the Strand and the Argosy, in addition to erudite authors and personalities like Fran Lebowitz and Homosexual Talese, you possibly can virtually scent the bookshop scent — you understand, that candy musty one thing — wafting off your display screen as you watch. It will make your finest Belle fantasies come roaring again. — J.A.

The place to look at: The Booksellers is now streaming on Prime Video.  

26. Welcome to Chechnya

Specializing in LGBTQ refugees escaping from Chechnya, the place they have been topic to government-sanctioned torture and homicide, Methods to Survive a Plague filmmaker David France’s harrowing 2020 doc follows its topics’ flight from their homeland utilizing a wealth of recent tech, together with cell telephones and GoPros.

However it’s the movie’s utilization of AI expertise, so as to disguise the refugees’ faces and protect their anonymity, that proved revolutionary, displaying that AI can truly be used for good in some situations (moderately than to only obliterate all artists’ well-being, as has been the case as of late). However that tech nonetheless by no means manages to outshine the very human and really scary tales on the movie’s coronary heart — one which has solely felt nearer to residence with time — and which ought to shake any first rate particular person to their core. — J.A.

The place to look at: Welcome to Chechnya is now streaming on Prime Video.

27. Time

Documenting Sibil Fox Richardson’s 20-year battle to get her husband Rob out of the Louisiana State Penitentiary for against the law that he very a lot did commit, filmmaker Garrett Bradley pieced collectively Time utilizing residence films that Richardson herself filmed through the years. What the 2 summon forth is a devastating critique of the jail industrial complicated and the state-sanctioned gears that grind up households. As a result of, because the movie’s transferring footage attests at each flip, Rob’s guilt isn’t who he’s, not as a person or a husband or a father. We’re all a lot greater than the errors we make, and the system because it’s designed is blind, merciless, and detached. Rob was granted clemency in 2018, 21 years after he was convicted as a first-time felony offender to 60 years in jail, with no risk for parole or probation. — J.A.

The place to look at: Time is now streaming on Prime Video.

UPDATE: Feb. 28, 2024, 11:33 a.m. EST This record was up to date to replicate the present streaming choices.