The Best Documentaries & Docuseries of 2025 (So Far)

This four-part docuseries explores the rich history of Saturday Night Live, which turns 50 this year. Featuring over 60 contributors, including some of the sketch show’s most iconic names from its inception to its current cast, the series delves into different aspects of the SNL experience, from the nerve-wracking audition process to the dynamic of the writer’s room, revealing never-before-seen footage from across five decades. And yes—there’s an entire episode dedicated to “More Cowbell.”

Release date: January 16 on Peacock

Music documentaries are a dime a dozen, but Gary Hustwit’s Oscar-shortlisted Eno, about legendary British electronic pioneer Brian Eno, is in its own category. Using generative software, Hustwit and digital artist Brendan Dawes created a film that’s never the same twice. Each viewing puts together rare archival footage, unreleased music and original interviews into one of billions of possible variations, making it a unique experience each and every time—and reflecting the innovative musical process of Eno himself.

Release date: Eno’s streaming debut is a 24-hour livestream event with surprise guests on January 24; limited tickets available

After the Oscar-winning success of his 2021 documentary Summer of Soul, The Roots drummer and director Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson has another film on the way. SLY LIVES! (aka the Burden of Black Genius) tells the story of Sly & the Family Stone, covering the influential band’s rise to fame—and the eventual toll such success took—with a special emphasis on its leader, Sly Stone. Like Summer of Soul, this documentary is also a broader cultural exploration of the era Stone was part of. It includes interviews with music industry icons like André 3000, D’Angelo, Chaka Khan, Q-Tip, Nile Rogers, Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis, George Clinton, Ruth Copeland, and Clive Davis.

Release date: Premieres January 23 at the Sundance Film Festival, streaming February 13 on Hulu

This three-part series, based on a New York magazine article by Caitlin Moscatello, uncovers the murky world of family vlogging. It focuses on one such account, created by parents Myka and James Stauffer, an Ohio-based couple who, at the height of their popularity in 2020, had over a million followers. The Stauffers brought their audience along with them throughout the process of adopting a toddler from China in 2017; a year later, he mysteriously disappeared from their social pages, sparking controversy, speculation, and the eventual end of the Stauffers’s lucrative channels. An Update on Our Family tackles the complex issues of children’s privacy, the trans-national adoption industry, and the ethics of family vlogs.

Release date: Streaming January 15 on Max

After making a killing in tech and venture capitalism, entrepreneur Bryan Johnson has been on a desperate quest to extend his lifespan at any cost. The 47-year-old’s extreme biohacking techniques, explored in this doc, include strict diet and sleeping schedules, regular MRIs, fat injections, and most famously (and controversially) injecting himself with the blood plasma of his teenage son. Don’t Die, which is also the name of Johnson’s website (“We are at war with death and its causes,” it reads), investigates the limits of the eternal chase for immortality and whether Johnson is any closer to getting there than all those seekers before him.

Release date: January 1 on Netflix

Running from 1991 to 2018, NBC’s Jerry Springer Show exemplified American trash TV—a forerunner to the reality fare that now overruns streamers (Springer, the dramatic talk show’s good-natured, pot-stirring host, died in 2023 at 79). A new two-part documentary revels in the juicy drama that went on behind the scenes of the wild scenarios that played out on-screen. It features extensive interviews with various guests and show staffers, including producer Richard Dominick, the animating force behind Springer’s turn from anodyne daytime TV to the sleazy but fascinating cultural juggernaut it later became.

Release date: January 7 on Netflix

From the team behind Armie Hammer-expose House of Hammer, this documentary hones in on the 1990s drug trade in Arizona during the height of American rave culture. Specifically, it focuses on a “showdown” battle for the ecstasy empire between British stockbroker Shaun Attwood and his rival, Gerard Gravano—the son of New York mob hitman Salvatore “Sammy the Bull” Gravano. Told through first-person accounts, including from Gerard himself, Sons of Ecstasy is a slice-of-life look at organized crime in the American Southwest.

Release date: January 9 on Max

Thirty years after her murder, a new documentary focuses not on Selena Quintanilla’s death but on her full and vibrant life. Filmmaker Isabel Castro combined interviews with Quintanilla’s close friends and family with private home videos and other archival, never-before-scene footage to paint an intimate picture of the superstar singer on and off the stage.

Release date: Premieres January 26 at the Sundance Film Festival and available January 30-February 2 for digital pass holders

Andrew Jarecki, perhaps best known for 2015’s Emmy-winning The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst, returns to Sundance with a story about the prison industrial complex and its inequities. The Alabama Solution centers on a group of incarcerated men trying to expose a deadly prison cover-up and, in doing so, sheds light on the dysfunctionality and brutality of the American justice system.

Release date: Premieres January 28 at the Sundance Film Festival

In 1988, students at Gallaudet University successfully protested against the appointment of a hearing president over the renowned school’s predominately Deaf student body, marking a significant turning point in the movement for the American Disabilities Act (ADA). Deaf President Now!, which documents this inspiring but lesser-known story, was co-directed and produced by model, actor, and fourth generation Deaf advocate Nyle DiMarco and Academy Award-winner David Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth). In addition to interviews with key figures of the movement at Gallaudet, the film uses an experimental narrative technique called Deaf Point of View, blending photography and sound design to recreate a semblance of the Deaf experience for its audience. In a release, DiMarco said, “This film not only preserves a pivotal moment in civil rights history but also celebrates the resilience of my Deaf community, whose triumphs deserve to be recognized, celebrated, and remembered.”

Release date: Premieres January 28 at the Sundance Film Festival; available January 30-February 2 for digital pass holders; streaming TBA 2025 on Apple TV+

Family vlogging is a hot topic this year; the unregulated industry is also explored in Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke, which tells the story of the titular Utah vlogger and her disturbing fall from grace. Arrested for child abuse in August 2023, Franke had until then broadcasted her idyllic family life as a mother of six to the 2.5 million followers of her highly popular YouTube channel, “8 Passengers.” Notably, this series includes in-depth interviews with Frankes’s two eldest children and her husband, Kevin, about what really happened in their home.

Release date: February 27 on Hulu

Four years after releasing her Oscar-nominated documentary, The Edge of Democracy, Brazilian filmmaker Petra Costa returns with another film exploring her home country’s contentious political landscape and future. Originally billed as a look at former president Bolsonaro’s controversial response to the pandemic, Apocalypse in the Tropics (which was made in partnership with Brad Pitt’s production company, Plan B) ended up focusing on prominent televangelist Silas Malafaia as an example of Brazil’s Evangelical movement and its growing influence on the government. By examining the problems facing Brazil’s relatively young democracy, Costa sheds light on similar issues cropping up around the world.

Release Date: Streaming later this year on Netflix

Melania Trump is executive producing this as-yet-untitled documentary about herself, which was acquired by Amazon Prime Video for a reported $40 million and will be released in the second half of 2025. The film, directed by Brett Ratner and featuring cameos from both the President and and their son Barron Trump, will most likely be a quite flattering portrait of the enigmatic and polarizing First Lady as she returns to the White House for Trump’s second term.

Release: Mid-2025 on Amazon Prime Video

The result of documentarian Alex Gibney’s years-long investigation into Elon Musk couldn’t come at a better time. Just as the South African Tesla founder and X owner has gained a direct line to the executive office, Gibney’s film, Musk, is reported to be a “definitive and unvarnished examination” of the world’s richest man. Gibney is no stranger to covering controversial subjects, having made films about the downfall of Enron, the Church of Scientology (Going Clear), and huckster Elizabeth Holmes. On X, Musk called the film a “hit piece,” to which Gibney responded, “How would you know?” There’s no official release date, but Musk is expected out this year.

Release date: TBD—both HBO and Universal have distribution rights

Gibney is also taking on the recent killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and his alleged shooter, Luigi Mangione. The December 4 murder in Midtown Manhattan set off a multi-day manhunt and a nationwide conversation about the state of the US health insurance industry. With 26-year-old Mangione now in custody, it’s likely that conversation is only just beginning. Gibney’s production company is teaming up with Anonymous Content to make the untitled project.

Release date: TBD

In 2023, Aron Arngrimsson was the last person to see the five-man crew of the OceanGate Titan submersible alive, closing the hatch door himself on the ill-fated expedition. An expert diver and underwater filmmaker, Arngrimsson is using his intimate knowledge of the crew and his unique skill set to create a documentary about the exploration-turned-disaster. Using first-hand footage from that day, the untitled doc will reportedly focus on the crew members who lost their lives, “revealing the family stories behind the media headlines.”

Release date: TBD