The world is a weird and wonderful place full of weird and wonderful people, stories and things. And, thanks to some of the best documentaries out there, we get a chance to grab a peek at them all.
Documentaries come in all shapes and sizes, from bite-sized short films to multi-episode arcs full of twists and turns. Whether you’re into pop cultural insights like Asif Kapadia’s Amy or Pamela Anderson’s very own Pamela: A Love Story, or grisly true crime mysteries like American Nightmare and The Staircase, there’s something for us all. It’s true what they say: if anything interesting has ever happened, there’s probably a film about it somewhere.
Picking one to watch can be tricky and overwhelming. But across the likes of Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime and more, here are just a few of the best documentaries and docuseries out there that we think are worth investing an hour or multiple nights in.
If you want to skip to the best documentaries on your preferred streaming platform, hit the links here: Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney +
The best documentary that GQ had something to do with:
Freediver
Sure, we’re biased. As Gabriella Paiella wrote on this site not long ago: “Back in 2021, GQ’s Daniel Riley went down to the Bahamas to trail the world champion freediver Alexey Molchanov. He spent time with Molchanov and a daring crew of freedivers from around the world, all of whom were united in their passion for a pursuit that Riley summed up as follows: “Go as deep as you can go on one breath and return to the surface without passing out or dying.” Sounds simple enough! But as Riley’s feature “The Secrets of The World’s Greatest Freediver” made clear, it’s far more complicated, and the results far more sublime—for Molchanov, especially, whose legacy is entwined with his mother Natalia’s, once the greatest freediver in the world herself.” For anyone who read Riley’s story and wished they could actually see the wonder of freediving in action, you’re in luck: Writer/director Michael John Warren’s Freediver, an epic documentary that follows Molchanov which follows as he attempts to reclaim all of his world records, is now available on Prime Video or to buy or rent.
