Best Document Movies & TV Shows

The dedicated team at the Houston Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, a private charity, responds to a variety of distress calls involving an average of more than 100 animals per day. This series documents the work they do, from the initial investigation through, in some cases, the animals being adopted into loving homes.

Documenting the ups, downs and everything in between as polyandrous relationships navigate boundaries and life-changing decisions while working to add additional husbands to their families.

This docuseries offers unprecedented access to the inner workings of the Los Angeles County Fire Department, documenting real calls and real drama while giving faces to the passionate firefighters who risk their lives in the name of service. These real-life heroes and their compelling stories are told alongside the unpredictable dangers they face on the front lines of life and death.

Two women fight to hold the manufacturers accountable for the Agent Orange catastrophe. Incriminating documents disappear. Activists are threatened. A helicopter technician secretly films the contamination exposing a massive cover-up.

Rose McGowan, artist and activist, documents the work being done to spread her message of “bravery, art, joy and survival.”

Every episode documents a town and its people through a murder that tore through it. The townspeople not only become our storytellers, but they also hold the clues to the puzzle that has forever changed their lives and how they understand their home.

Exploring haunted locations associated with infamous serial killers, Zak Bagans and the Ghost Adventures team – Aaron Goodwin, Jay Wasley and Billy Tolley – seek to document whether malicious energy has been left behind by sadistic killers and their evil acts.

The story of life on our planet by the man who has seen more of the natural world than any other. In more than 90 years, Attenborough has visited every continent on the globe, exploring the wild places of our planet and documenting the living world in all its variety and wonder. Addressing the biggest challenges facing life on our planet, the film offers a powerful message of hope for future generations.

After-hours goings-on at two Los Angeles tattoo shops are documented in this reality series.

A team of international scientists attempt to document the first-ever image of a black hole.

As the Russian invasion begins, a team of Ukrainian journalists trapped in the besieged city of Mariupol struggle to continue their work documenting the war's atrocities.

Phil and Colin Beverly are two inept small-town brothers with big dreams, and a song-and-dance rock group to take them there. When they learn of a 'performance competition' in Austin, Texas called South by Southwest, they set out on a cross-country journey, followed by a camera crew of student filmmakers who document their quest to the top! The top of what, they have no idea.

When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions or NASA's Greatest Missions: When We Left Earth in the UK is a Discovery Channel HD documentary miniseries consisting of six episodes documenting American human spaceflight, spanning from the first Mercury flights through the Gemini program to the Apollo moon landings, the Space Shuttle, and the construction of the International Space Station. It was created in association with NASA to commemorate the agency's fiftieth anniversary in 2008. It first aired on June 8, 2008, and concluded on June 22. Each airing consisted of two hour-long episodes. The miniseries was released on DVD on July 10, 2008, and was released on Blu-ray disc on August 12. The third episode, "Landing the Eagle", was re-aired on July 20, 2009 for the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. It featured improved images from the moonwalk.

A thrilling concert film that documents Jeff Lynne’s ELO playing their triumphant concert for a massive audience at Wembley Stadium on June 24, 2017. We see Lynne and his remarkable musical ensemble filling Wembley Stadium with one of the greatest rock & roll spectacles of all time, complete with bells, whistles and spaceships, and most importantly, many of the most beloved songs of our lifetime.

A concert film documenting Talking Heads at the height of their popularity, on tour for their 1983 album "Speaking in Tongues." The band takes the stage one by one and is joined by a cadre of guest musicians for a career-spanning and cinematic performance that features creative choreography and visuals.

Zain, a 12-year-old boy scrambling to survive on the streets of Beirut, sues his parents for having brought him into such an unjust world, where being a refugee with no documents means that your rights can easily be denied.

In Casablanca, Morocco in December 1941, a cynical American expatriate meets a former lover, with unforeseen complications.

With unprecedented access to the behind the scenes process of the writers, actors and producers, Franco and his crew document what it takes to create one full episode of Saturday Night Live.

A definitive live concert film documenting AC/DC’s massive Black Ice World Tour. Shot in December of 2009, AC/DC Live at River Plate marks AC/DC’s triumphant return to Buenos Aires where nearly 200,000 fans, and 3 sold-out shows, welcomed the band back after a 13 year absence from Argentina. This stunning live footage of AC/DC underscores what Argentina’s Pagina 12 newspaper reported by saying “no one is on the same level when it comes to pure and clear Rock ‘n Roll.”

The Emmy-winning weekly series delivers its signature all-access coverage in the first show of any kind to document an NFL franchise in-season and in real time, following the Colts as they navigate the challenges of an NFL season and battle for a playoff berth.

A unique look inside the terrifying lives of families encountering paranormal phenomena within their own homes, witnessing first-hand the frightening incidents they experience daily. Surveillance cameras set up throughout the houses capture every moment of the eerie activity that transpires and document the damaging toll it takes on the families' lives.

A massive effort is currently under way to reshape ground zero into an expansive 16-acre complex the likes of which has never been seen before. To document this historic effort, we are on the ground alongside the men and women who are making this vision a reality until the nationally televised unveiling of the new ground zero with President Barack Obama on Sept. 11, 2011.

What would you do with your last 24 hours of freedom? Follow eight unexpected individuals as they go through their final 24 hours before they are incarcerated. Cameras document two seemingly normal people on their final day of freedom as they say their goodbyes and prepare their loved ones for the years they'll be away. A startling look at the consequences of crime and incarceration, from the devastation their sentences have wrought on their families to the aftermath their victims continue to endure. It's an emotional, unexpected look inside the machinery of the criminal justice system.

During the darkest days of the Cold War, a consortium of corporations and government agencies conducted secret research into time travel. Decades later, a couple of backyard mechanics uncover a smuggled cache of documents from those officially-forgotten experiments. Hacking together their own device tests their know-how, their dreams of sudden wealth, and their friendship. Can they survive the limits of dwelling in the past?

Create Together invites friends and families from all over the world who are coping with this unprecedented time of isolation to come together and showcase their creativity and collaboration. Rather than profiling lone artists and showcasing their finished work, each weekly episode will document the creative process as people find each other online, and remotely collaborate on a variety of family friendly projects - short films, short documentaries, music videos, and more. Anybody can come be a part of the show on HITRECORD, Gordon-Levitt's Emmy-winning platform for creative collaboration.

This High Definition, PBS miniseries uses letters, diaries, speeches, journalistic accounts, historical text and military records to document and acknowledge the sacrifices and accomplishments of African-American service men and women since the earliest days of the republic.

An investigation based on the largest leak of documents in British political history. The Labour Files examines thousands of internal documents, emails and social media messages to reveal how senior officials in one of the two parties of government in the UK ran a coup by stealth against the elected leader of the party.

Oceans is an eight-part series on BBC Two, which seeks to provide a better understanding of the state of the Earth's oceans today, their role in the past, present and future and their significance in global terms. Paul Rose also documents some of the scientific observations his team made as a feature for BBC News.

An ideological and physical barrier fell on 9 November 1989 in Berlin. For 28 years, this 155 km wall divided Germany in two, separating friends and family. The recent discovery of some documents reveals the stories of those who managed to escape to join their loved ones, or simply to regain their freedom. Demonstrating imagination and courage, some dug tunnels to get under the Berlin Wall, others inflated balloons to fly over it, while others disguised themselves with fake uniforms. By combining archives, reconstitution sequences and intrigue scenes, this documentary plunges us into a Berlin that has now disappeared, through the prism of the art of escape under the GDR.

Join our fiendish host, Dr. Vincent Van Gore, as he leads you into the forbidden world of the dead. Only the nastiest car accidents, suicides and murders are here; faithfully and explicitly documented through actual crime scene investigations by police and emergency response teams from around the world. Everything you see is real; nothing has been faked. There are no boring autopsies or old World War II footage. Only the best and bloodiest corpses killed within the past 10 years are good enough to become the FACES OF GORE! If you cannot handle smashed brains, bug-eyed corpses and char-boiled fetuses, then DO NOT WATCH THIS DVD! Nothing you have ever seen before can prepare you for this breakthrough new horror film by TODD TJERSLAND, the Visionary Overlord of American Horror!

It had been 50 years since two Avro Lancaster bombers flew side by side. The Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum's Avro Lancaster, VeRA, flew from Hamilton, Ontario to meet her British counterpart, Thumper - the only other surviving flight worthy Lancaster bomber in the world - the RAF Battle of Britain Memorial Flight's (BBMF) Lancaster in England. This documentary includes first-hand accounts from the men and women who experienced the war and were connected to the Lancaster. It transports the viewer back in time as they share what it was like during the Lancaster's glory days. REUNION OF GIANTS documents this historic mission as it unfolds through the eyes of the flight crews, veterans, friends and family. It includes all parts in this new chapter of the bomber's history, as VeRA crosses the Atlantic.

Passionate about ocean life, a filmmaker sets out to document the harm that humans do to marine species — and uncovers an alarming global conspiracy.

The true story of how the Boston Globe uncovered the massive scandal of child molestation and cover-up within the local Catholic Archdiocese, shaking the entire Catholic Church to its core.

Utilizing a team of reputable professionals working alongside "The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch" veterans, this series explores other sites of unusual activity and "high strangeness" phenomena in an effort to discover if the activity documented on Skinwalker Ranch is not only real, but pervasive.

Dick Proenneke's simple, yet profound account of his 30 year adventure in the remote Alaska wilderness continues in this sequel to "Alone in the Wilderness". Watch through his eyes as he continues to document with his 16mm wind-up Bolex camera, capturing his own amazing craftsmanship, the stunning Alaskan wildlife and scenery and even a visit from his brother Ray (Jake). His epic journey takes you on a vacation away from the hustle and bustle of today's fast-paced society, and is a true breath of fresh air.

David Byrne is a visual artist as well as a musician, and ever since his early days as a member of Talking Heads, he's wanted his concerts to be more than just a static performance. In 1984, Byrne and filmmaker Jonathan Demme redefined the boundaries of the concert film with the Talking Heads documentary STOP MAKING SENSE, and more than 25 years later Byrne has teamed up with David Hillman to create RIDE, RISE, ROAR, which documents Byrne's 2008-2009 concert tour, in which he performs new material written in collaboration with Brian Eno as well as favorites from his solo career as well as his tenure in Talking Heads. Using costumes and inventive choreography, Byrne and his musicians and dancers give his music a stage presentation as exciting as the music.

Thai cave Rescue documents the dramatic rescue of 12 boys and their soccer coach from the Tham Luang Cave in northern Thailand. Featuring interviews with key people involved, the film explains how the boys became trapped in the cave by heavy rains on Saturday, June 23, 2018, and explains how, fearing the worst, relatives and local rescuers began searching for the boys but to no avail. Finally, the film reveals how an international team of rescuers was called upon to find the boys and ultimately bring them to safety. This remarkable story gripped the world for 18 days. A stunning example of innovation, teamwork and human endurance in one of the most hostile environments on earth - a flooded cave.

Double Tide documents the work of a female clam digger in the mudflats of coastal Maine and is filmed on the rare occasion in which low tide occurs twice within daylight hours—once at dawn and once at dusk.

A documentary by photographer Sam Jones documenting American rock band Wilco recording their fourth album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Originally intended as a showcase of the band's creative process, the film crew catches unexpected complications between the band and its record label and problems among the band members themselves.

The life and career of comedian Rose Marie is documented through interviews with friends and colleagues as well as never-before-seen home movies shot by the actress herself.

Over nearly six decades, the series has documented the group as they have become adults and entered middle-age, dealing with everything life has thrown at them in between. Now, as the group reach retirement age, the series is back to discover what they are doing…

500 Nations is an eight-part documentary on the Native Americans of North and Central America. It documents from pre-Columbian to the end of the 19th century. Much of the information comes from text, eyewitnesses, pictorials, and computer graphics. The series was hosted by Kevin Costner, narrated by Gregory Harrison, and directed by Jack Leustig. It included the voice talents of Eric Schweig, Gordon Tootoosis, Wes Studi, Cástulo Guerra, Tony Plana, Edward James Olmos, Patrick Stewart, Gary Farmer, Tom Jackson, Tantoo Cardinal, Dante Basco, Sheldon Peters Wolfchild, Tim Bottoms, Michael Horse, Graham Greene, Floyd Red Crow Westerman, Amy Madigan, Frank Salsedo, and Kurtwood Smith. The series was written by Jack Leustig, Roberta Grossman, Lee Miller, and W. T. Morgan, with Dr. John M. D. Pohl. "The truth is, we have a story worth talking about. We have a history worth celebrating. Long before the first Europeans arrived here, there were some 500 nations already in North America. They blanketed the continent from coast to coast, from Central America to the Arctic. There were tens of millions of people here, speaking over 300 languages. Many of them lived in beautiful cities, among the largest and most advanced in the world. In the coming hours, 500 Nations looks back on those ancient cultures, how they lived, and how many survived.... What you're about to see is what happened. It's not all that happened, and it's not always pleasant. We can't change that. We can't turn back the clock. But we can open our eyes and give the first nations of this land the recognition and respect they deserve: their rightful place in the history of the world." Kevin Costner

During WWII, the valet to the British Ambassador to Ankara sells British secrets to the Germans while trying to romance a refugee Polish countess.

It’s a revelation conjuring heated debate: According to a recently translated ancient text called the Gospel of Judas, the disciple infamous for betraying Jesus may well have been Christ’s most faithful servant and—because the Savior asked him to—accepted perpetual disgrace to bring about Jesus' death. Explore the mysticism of early Gnostic thought expressed in words written on a 1,700-year-old leather-bound papyrus. Hear the interpretations of four biblical scholars. Follow this fragile document from its discovery in Egypt to its translation and ultimate presentation to the world. And share your thoughts on the Gospel of Judas.

This documentary follows superstar Bret Hart during his last year in the WWF. The film documents the tensions that resulted in The Montreal Screwjob, one of the most controversial events in the history of professional wrestling, in which Vince McMahon, Shawn Micheals, and others, legitimately conspired behind the scenes to go against the script and remove Bret Hart as champion.

The film discusses the traits and originators of some of metal's many subgenres, including the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, power metal, Nu metal, glam metal, thrash metal, black metal, and death metal. Dunn uses a family-tree-type flowchart to document some of the most popular metal subgenres. The film also explores various aspects of heavy metal culture.

This film documents the coal miners' strike against the Brookside Mine of the Eastover Mining Company in Harlan County, Kentucky in June, 1973. Eastovers refusal to sign a contract (when the miners joined with the United Mine Workers of America) led to the strike, which lasted more than a year and included violent battles between gun-toting company thugs/scabs and the picketing miners and their supportive women-folk. Director Barbara Kopple puts the strike into perspective by giving us some background on the historical plight of the miners and some history of the UMWA.

This special follows the farmers' 10-year tireless journey as they transform the land into a magical working farm and document the whole process in this heartwarming special that is akin to a real-life "Charlotte’s Web."

Follows Bradley - only the third American coach to manage a foreign team - his wife, Lindsay, his staff and his players. In gaining access to the training camps and providing in-depth coverage of the Pharaohs' games in Africa, the filmmakers document the team's personal and professional struggles to keep their eyes on the prize of getting to the World Cup while living in and representing a country in turmoil.

A unique, unpredictable, no-holds-barred comedy reality show and follows the successful format of Japan Amazon Original series, Hitoshi Matsumoto Presents Documental with iterations in 20 countries including Canada, Australia, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Ireland, Spain and now Nigeria. This series will see Basketmouth pit ten of Nigeria’s top tier comedic talent against each other in a celebrity showdown to win the grand prize for a local charity of their choice.