The 25 Best Documentary Movies on Hulu (July 2026)

1

Ocean with David Attenborough (2025)

IMDb 8.4 🍅 100% Letterboxd 4.3 1h 25m

Directed by Colin Butfield

✦ MovieMuse AI takeAttenborough's accumulated naturalist authority anchors underwater cinematography as moral argument for planetary preservation.

David Attenborough takes viewers on a breathtaking journey showing there is nowhere more vital for our survival, more full of life, wonder, or surprise, than the ocean. Through spectacular sequences featuring coral reefs, kelp forests and the open ocean, Attenborough shares why a healthy ocean keeps the entire planet stable and flourishing.

2

Derek DelGaudio's In & of Itself (2020)

IMDb 8.2 🍅 100% Letterboxd 3.9 1h 30m

Directed by Frank Oz

✦ MovieMuse AI takeDelGaudio's theatrical performance becomes the documentary itself, collapsing the boundary between subject and medium to interrogate identity's constructed nature.

Storyteller and Conceptual Magician Derek DelGaudio attempts to understand the illusory nature of identity and answer the deceptively simple question 'Who am I?'

3

Free Solo (2018)

IMDb 8.1 🍅 97% Letterboxd 4.1 1h 40m

Directed by Jimmy Chin

✦ MovieMuse AI takeThe DP's commitment to filming an unroped climber creates genuine formal tension: how do you cinematically capture the absence of safety?

Follow Alex Honnold as he attempts to become the first person to ever free solo climb Yosemite's 3,000 foot high El Capitan wall. With no ropes or safety gear, this would arguably be the greatest feat in rock climbing history.

4

Stray Kids: The dominATE Experience poster

Stray Kids: The dominATE Experience (2026)

IMDb 8.1 Letterboxd 4.3 2h 26m

Directed by Paul Dugdale

✦ MovieMuse AI takeBehind-the-scenes access reveals the manufactured machinery of K-pop stardom, demystifying the industry's carefully constructed illusion.

Featuring the global K-Pop sensation Stray Kids and a live performance from their record-breaking world tour, alongside exclusive behind-the-scenes footage and intimate interviews with the band, Stray Kids: The dominATE Experience is an epic concert film that gives fans both a spectacular front-row seat and unique access to their favourite band.

5

Minding the Gap (2018)

IMDb 8.0 🍅 100% Letterboxd 4.3 1h 33m

Directed by Bing Liu

✦ MovieMuse AI takeIntimate handheld footage captures unguarded moments, allowing working-class vulnerability to expose systemic failures rather than tell them.

Three young men bond together to escape volatile families in their Rust Belt hometown. As they face adult responsibilities, unexpected revelations threaten their decade-long friendship.

6

Batman & Bill (2017)

IMDb 7.9 🍅 88% Letterboxd 3.8 1h 33m

Directed by Sheena M. Joyce

✦ MovieMuse AI takeArchival detective work resurrects a forgotten co-creator, using historical revision as the film's central narrative and ethical argument.

Everyone thinks that Bob Kane created Batman, but that’s not the whole truth. One author makes it his crusade to make it known that Bill Finger, a struggling writer, actually helped invent the iconic superhero, from concept to costume to the very character we all know and love. Bruce Wayne may be Batman’s secret identity, but his creator was always a true mystery.

7

Jane (2017)

IMDb 7.8 🍅 98% Letterboxd 4.0 1h 30m

Directed by Brett Morgen

✦ MovieMuse AI takeMorgen's archive-raid methodology transforms discovered footage into primary historical evidence, not mere nostalgia.

Drawing from never-before-seen footage that has been tucked away in the National Geographic archives, director Brett Morgen tells the story of Jane Goodall, a woman whose chimpanzee research revolutionized our understanding of the natural world.

8

Too Funny to Fail: The Life & Death of The Dana Carvey Show poster

Too Funny to Fail: The Life & Death of The Dana Carvey Show (2017)

IMDb 7.7 🍅 100% Letterboxd 3.7 1h 35m

Directed by Josh Greenbaum

✦ MovieMuse AI takeInterviews deconstruct creative failure through those who lived it, examining how ambition collides with network television's commercial constraints.

It had all the makings of a huge television success: a white-hot comic at the helm, a coveted primetime slot, and a pantheon of future comedy legends in the cast and crew. So why did The Dana Carvey Show—with a writers room and cast including then unknowns Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert, Louis C.K., Robert Smigel, Charlie Kaufman, and more— crash and burn so spectacularly? TOO FUNNY TO FAIL tells the hilarious true story of a crew of genius misfits who set out to make comedy history… and succeeded in a way they never intended.

9

Fire of Love (2022)

IMDb 7.6 🍅 98% Letterboxd 4.2 1h 34m

Directed by Sara Dosa

✦ MovieMuse AI takeThe Kraffts' self-footage creates lyrical contradiction: intimate home-movie aesthetic documenting spectacular volcanic destruction.

A doomed love triangle between intrepid French scientists Katia and Maurice Krafft, and their beloved volcanoes.

10

Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story poster

Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story (2025)

IMDb 7.6 🍅 100% Letterboxd 3.8 1h 28m

Directed by Laurent Bouzereau

✦ MovieMuse AI takeAuthorized access yields rare footage while maintaining critical distance, modeling how institutional docs can avoid pure hagiography.

The authorized documentary celebrating the film that redefined Hollywood, 50 years after its premiere. Featuring rare archival footage and interviews with acclaimed Hollywood directors alongside Steven Spielberg, top shark scientists, and conservationists, the film uncovers the behind-the-scenes chaos and how the film launched the summer blockbuster, inspired a new wave of filmmakers, and paved the way for shark conservation that continues today.

11

I Am Greta (2020)

IMDb 7.5 🍅 77% Letterboxd 3.5 1h 37m

Directed by Nathan Grossman

✦ MovieMuse AI takeObservational cinema follows Thunberg's transformation from private activist to global symbol, documenting authenticity's erosion under media scrutiny.

Greta Thunberg, a 15-year-old student in Sweden, started a school strike for the climate as her question for adults was, if you don’t care about my future on earth, why should I care about my future in school? Within months, her strike evolved into a global movement as the quiet teenage girl on the autism spectrum becomes a world-famous activist.

12

Becoming Bond (2017)

IMDb 7.5 🍅 78% Letterboxd 3.5 1h 31m

Directed by Josh Greenbaum

✦ MovieMuse AI takeImprobable true story unfolds through interviews and re-creation, mining the gap between myth and ordinary man.

The stranger-than-fiction true story of George Lazenby, a poor Australian car mechanic who, through an unbelievable set of circumstances, landed the role of James Bond despite having never acted a day in his life.

13

The Pope: Answers (2023)

IMDb 7.1 Letterboxd 3.3 1h 23m

Directed by Jordi Évole

✦ MovieMuse AI takeDirect dialogue between youth and religious authority creates unscripted documentary conversation rather than edited narrative control.

Ten young people from all over the world meet in Rome with Pope Francis with the aim of talking and conveying to him the main concerns of their generation. What awaits them is an unprecedented meeting, a face-to-face conversation, and a unique event.

14

Titanic: The Digital Resurrection poster

Titanic: The Digital Resurrection (2025)

IMDb 7.1 Letterboxd 3.3 1h 9m

Directed by Fergus Colville

✦ MovieMuse AI take3D scanning technology transforms archaeological data into visceral image, making the documentary medium itself the archaeological instrument.

Using cutting-edge scanning technology and state-of-the-art CGI, a team of experts creates the first high-resolution 3D digital twin of the Titanic wreck. Through a groundbreaking immersive investigation, they uncover the ship’s final moments, shedding light on the acts of heroism and cowardice aboard—and revealing the true story behind the sinking of the “unsinkable” ship.

15

Kaizen (2024)

IMDb 6.9 Letterboxd 3.0 2h 40m

Directed by Basile Monnot

✦ MovieMuse AI takeFollowing a privileged YouTuber's Everest climb interrogates digital celebrity and self-documentation's relationship to authentic achievement.

Becoming a mountaineer and climbing Everest in exactly one year? That’s the dream of Inoxtag, a 21-year-old very rich YouTuber who doesn’t do any sports. By following him for a year, we will discover in this documentary all the changes in his life to achieve this dream.

16

kid 90 (2021)

IMDb 6.9 🍅 76% Letterboxd 3.2 1h 11m

Directed by Soleil Moon Frye

✦ MovieMuse AI takeFrye's decades-old personal footage becomes primary source material, positioning amateur archiving as inadvertent historical testimony.

As a teenager in the '90s, Soleil Moon Frye carried a video camera everywhere she went. She documented hundreds of hours of footage and then locked it away for over 20 years.

17

Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) poster

Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) (2021)

1h 57m

Directed by Questlove

✦ MovieMuse AI takeRediscovered footage from obscured cultural moment challenges canonical music history, restoration itself becoming the documentary's argument.

During the same summer as Woodstock, over 300,000 people attended the Harlem Cultural Festival, celebrating African American music and culture, and promoting Black pride and unity. The footage from the festival sat in a basement, unseen for over 50 years, keeping this incredible event in America's history lost — until now.

18

Fyre Fraud (2019)

IMDb 6.8 🍅 79% Letterboxd 3.2 1h 36m

Directed by Jenner Furst

✦ MovieMuse AI takeDark comedy tone mirrors social media's performative culture, using genre subversion to critique influencer capitalism's moral vacuum.

A true-crime comedy exploring a failed music festival turned internet meme at the nexus of social media influence, late-stage capitalism, and morality in the post-truth era.

19

Orwell: 2+2=5 (2025)

IMDb 6.8 🍅 83% Letterboxd 3.4 1h 59m

Directed by Raoul Peck

✦ MovieMuse AI takeLiterary biography employs Orwell's own words and themes as structural framework, letting the subject's vision shape documentary form.

George Orwell was one of the most visionary authors of the 20th century, whose novels 1984 and Animal Farm foretold a chilling, authoritarian future. Acclaimed director Raoul Peck interweaves clips, readings from Orwell's diary, cinematic references, and modern-day footage to craft not only a portrait of the writer, but a fresh take on how prophetic his work has become.

20

Untouchable (2019)

IMDb 6.7 Letterboxd 3.3 1h 38m

Directed by Ursula Macfarlane

✦ MovieMuse AI takeInstitutional complicity through archival evidence; the system itself becomes visible through meticulous documentation.

The inside story of the rise and fall of Harvey Weinstein reveals how, over decades, he acquired and protected his power even when scandal threatened to engulf him. Former colleagues and accusers detail the method and consequences of his alleged abuse, hoping for justice and also to inspire change.

21

March of the Penguins 2: The Next Step poster

March of the Penguins 2: The Next Step (2017)

IMDb 6.6 🍅 100% Letterboxd 3.3 1h 25m

Directed by Luc Jacquet

✦ MovieMuse AI takeAnimal behavior observation documents instinct's raw authenticity without anthropomorphic narration, trusting visual evidence.

A young penguin, driven by his instinct, embarks on his first major trip to an unknown destination.

22

WeWork: or The Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion Unicorn poster

WeWork: or The Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion Unicorn (2021)

IMDb 6.6 🍅 75% Letterboxd 3.1 1h 44m

Directed by Jed Rothstein

✦ MovieMuse AI takeCorporate rise-and-fall unfolds through interview contradiction and archival contradiction, letting competing narratives expose self-deception.

Explore the rise and fall of one of the biggest corporate flameouts and venture capitalist bubbles in recent years – the story of WeWork, and its hippie-messianic leader Adam Neumann.

23

BRATS (2024)

IMDb 6.5 🍅 85% Letterboxd 2.7 1h 32m

Directed by Andrew McCarthy

✦ MovieMuse AI takeGenerational retrospective interrogates media narratives about '80s teen actors, separating manufactured fame from lived experience.

In the 1980s, Andrew McCarthy was part of a young generation of actors who were set to take over Hollywood after a string of successful teen movies. However, when the New York magazine cover story in 1985 dubs them the Brat Pack, stars in the making suddenly find themselves losing control over the trajectory of their careers. Now, almost forty years later, McCarthy looks to reconnect with peers and co-stars so that together they can reflect on their respective legacies.

24

The Contestant (2023)

1h 31m

Directed by Clair Titley

✦ MovieMuse AI takeSurveillance footage and real-time documentation of human endurance becomes the film's evidence, witnessing without editorial mercy.

The incredible true story of a man who lived for 15 months trapped inside a small room, naked, starving and alone... and completely unaware that his life was being broadcast on national TV in Japan, to over 15 million viewers a week.

25

One Direction: This Is Us (2013)

IMDb 4.4 🍅 64% Letterboxd 4.3 1h 32m

Directed by Morgan Spurlock

✦ MovieMuse AI takeConcert footage and tour-bus intimacy collapse distance between performer and audience, offering unmediated access to constructed intimacy.

"One Direction: This Is Us" is a captivating and intimate all-access look at life on the road for the global music phenomenon. Weaved with stunning live concert footage, this inspiring feature film tells the remarkable story of Niall, Zayn, Liam, Harry and Louis' meteoric rise to fame, from their humble hometown beginnings and competing on the X-Factor, to conquering the world and performing at London’s famed O2 Arena. Hear it from the boys themselves and see through their own eyes what it's really like to be One Direction.

Best Documentary Movies on Hulu