Documentaries are among the most compelling — and important — forms of filmmaking, and among the most crucial. It follows many of the same techniques as narrative work, but every bit of it is true. Of course, this not only lends itself to entertainment but is also vital for depicting lives outside our own. If you’re looking for some great documentaries, Amazon Prime Video has plenty to choose from. We narrowed down our favorites to a shortlist of the best documentaries on Prime Video.
What are the best documentaries on Prime Video?
Before we get into this, we just wanted to say that these are a few of our favorites. There are dozens more worth watching, including our honorable mentions: I Am Evidence (2017), The Decline of Western Civilization (1981), Frida (2024), and Giannis: The Marvelous Journey (2024).
As an additional note, some of these films can be incredibly tough to watch. We recommend checking the content disclosures for some of these entries.
City of Ghosts (2017)
City of Ghosts takes us to the isolated Syrian city of Raqqa, where a group of rebel activists called Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently document the atrocities taking place in their city under the control of ISIS since 2014. The feature from Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker Matthew Heineman profiles these activists as they risk their lives to bring global attention to what is happening on the ground, while questioning whether their efforts and the danger they’ve endured have been worth it. Beyond being a powerful, brutal, and essential look into a place and time that feels so far removed from our own, City of Ghosts is vital viewing in the context of the global siege on journalism.
I Am Not Your Negro (2016)
Raoul Peck’s Oscar-nominated documentary I Am Not Your Negro is based on James Baldwin’s unfinished manuscript, Remember This House. The film draws on Baldwin’s writing and archival interviews and examines the history of racism and white supremacy in the United States. Peck takes us through the civil rights movement, focusing in particular on Baldwin’s relationships with Malcolm X, Medgar Evers, and Martin Luther King Jr. Their lives and assassinations are situated within a broader cultural and political context.
The film doesn’t function as a biography; rather, it uses interviews and Baldwin’s writings to examine American media, political rhetoric, and popular culture. Peck brilliantly draws lines between past and present using the voices of some of the most important Black figures of the 20th century. Still, nothing in this documentary suggests that the voices or their concerns remain in the past. Nothing is distant. Nothing is resolved. The documentary urgently speaks to the present moment. The result is a sobering examination of the persistence of systemic racism and the difficulty of remaining hopeful in the face of it.
Grizzly Man (2005)
If you think a man living with bears sounds like it could have a hopeful ending à la Disney’s version of The Jungle Book, you’d be wrong. Werner Herzog’s Grizzly Man looks at the curious life and death of Timothy Treadwell, an environmental activist who spent thirteen summers living among grizzly bears in Alaska’s Katmai National Park. Treadwell filmed hundreds of hours of footage documenting his encounters with the bears, believing he had formed a unique bond with them and that his presence protected them from poachers.
Herzog structures the documentary around Treadwell’s own recordings, interviews with friends, family members, and experts, and his own restrained narration. The film does not present Treadwell as a simple hero or a fool, though it offers an honest glimpse of his eccentricity. But rather than casting any point of view on the situation, Herzog remains thoughtfully distant as he examines the line between devotion and delusion. At times, the documentary simply gets bizarre, but we can’t say that wouldn’t be the word to describe the circumstance itself.
Food Inc. (2008)
From documentary filmmaker Robert Kenner, Food, Inc. examines how large corporations have come to dominate nearly every aspect of food production in the United States. Kenner uses interviews with farmers, industry experts, and investigative journalists to take an expository stance on how corporate control prioritizes profit over public health, animal welfare, environmental sustainability, and worker safety.
The documentary further explores the political and regulatory systems that allow these practices to continue. It takes a deep dive into the influence of lobbying and legislation on food production and safety, including one particular example involving Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who was formerly an attorney for Monsanto Chemical Company. The documentary is scathing and makes no attempt to hold back its point of view on the effects of industrialized food on the American diet.
We Don’t Deserve Dogs (2020)
Prepare for some real emotional whiplash with this one. We Don’t Deserve Dogs gives us plenty of heartwarming “aww” moments, then hits us with stark realities about how humans treat animals. If you expect a simple celebration of the bond between people and dogs, be warned.
Filmmaker Matthew Selleh takes viewers to 11 countries — Uganda, Peru, Italy, Scotland, Turkey, Finland, Vietnam, Romania, Nepal, Pakistan, and Chile — and depicts how humans relate to dogs. Each story offers a different perspective: in Uganda, formerly enslaved child soldiers are given dogs to aid in their healing; in Peru, a birthday party is held for a dog; in Vietnam, a married couple runs a butcher stall at a market that sells dog meat. Despite the emotional highs and lows, the film does a good job of remaining impartial. Each situation is presented without judgment, allowing the audience to witness the complexities of human-dog relationships worldwide.
How we picked the best documentaries on Prime Video
We narrowed our selection to documentaries we felt were essential viewing, critically acclaimed, or from a filmmaker worth knowing. Though HBO might have a leg up on the sheer number of award-winning documentaries, Prime Video has plenty worth watching.
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