The 10 best documentaries of 2025

‘Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius’ (Questlove)

Questlove won an Academy Award for directing the music documentary Summer of Soul (…Or, When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised), and he’s returned to helm another briskly entertaining story about highly influential Black musicians.

Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius) may start out by recounting some of the greatest hits that Sly and the Family Stone ever released, but it develops into a deeper study about what it was like for a proudly all-Black group to allow their listeners to feel represented.

Although it’s not a film that shies away from some of the uncomfortable truths about racism within both the music industry and American music at large, Questlove is better than anyone at understanding the essence of what makes a great song connect with people, and, as expected, the film also features revelatory and insightful commentary by a number of artists who were influenced by Sly, including André 3000, George Clinton, Chaka Khan, and D’Angelo among others.

‘One to One: John & Yoko’ (Kevin MacDonald)

There’s been no shortage of documentaries centring The Beatles, as this year even saw Disney+ re-releasing and restoring the docuseries The Beatles Anthology, which got a fresh edit thanks to Peter Jackson.

While much of the Disney-released content surrounding The Beatles has sanded off some of the band’s edges, One to One: John & Yoko explored a fascinating period in the life of John Lennon between the breakup of the band and his tragic assassination in 1980.

As opoosed to most media related to The Beatles that tends to demonise Yoko Ono, One to One: John & Yoko conveys the idea that they were as in love with each other as they were passionate about using their work as a means to enact legitimate change, using previously unseen concert footage from charity performances, unearthed especially for the film, which also incorporated some of the rare interviews the couple gave during their time in New York’s Greenwich Village in the early 1970s, making for a unique perspective that’s worth your time. exploring.

‘The Tale of Silyan’ (Tamara Kotevska)

The Tale of Silyan is a contender at this year’s Academy Awards for both ‘Best Documentary Feature‘ and ‘Best International Film’, as it was selected by Macedonia to represent the nation.

While on the surface it may look like just another one of the many National Geographic nature documentaries that are released on a yearly basis, The Tale of Silyan tells a more complex story about how political fissures can divide families.

The film is focused on the lonely farmer Nikola Conev, who refuses to leave the farm that has belonged to his family for generations, even though his wife and children have moved to Germany amidst Macedonia’s economic crisis, and it’s in these moments of solitude that Nikola forms a unique connection with a white stork, which is of utmost importance in stories of Macedonian folklore; the amazing footage of this beautiful animal in its natural environment is breathtaking, which is made more profound by the disconcerting context that surrounds it.

‘The Alabama Solution’ (Andrew Jarecki)

Andrew Jarecki may be the most fearless and uncompromising documentarian working today, as he famously got Robert Durst to admit to murder in his shocking HBO project The Jinx, and The Alabama Solution sees Jarecki tackling a more complex and institutional evil by analysing the practices of America’s prisons, in which incarcerated men are forced to perform labour tasks in secret.

There’s rarely been a more visceral, frightening, and infuriating depiction of the inhumanity of incarceration, especially since The Alabama Solution incorporates real video excerpts from inmates who secretly recorded themselves, which in itself was quite a dangerous feat.

While the film uses the specific example of what’s occurring in Alabama as an inciting incident, it reaches broader conclusions about the entirety of America’s justice system and how its most atrocious practices have been swept under the rug. The Alabama Solution is as sharp and detail-oriented as anything Jarecki has made, but it also has the potential to initiate real change, which makes it so utterly important.

‘It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley’ (Amy J Berg)

Music documentaries can often be highly slanted, filtered encapsulations of artists’ greatest hits that do little more than offer them good PR, especially if the estate or family is involved. However, a truly great and individualistic music documentary can also serve as a means to remember and celebrate the life of an artist who was tragically lost too soon, and It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley doesn’t just unpack the complex reasons Jeff Buckley had for following in his father’s footsteps, but tries to understand why his music still resonates with people decades after his death.

The film is obviously quite melancholy considering its tragic ending, but it also makes a case for why Buckley’s sensitive, unabashedly earnest approach to songwriting helped an entire generation be more in touch with their feelings. In addition to incredible footage of the musician’s early performances of ‘Hallelujah’, It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley includes heartbreaking interviews with his friends, family, and admirers, for an intimate and earnest portrait of a tragic life.

‘Pee-Wee As Himself’ (Matt Wolf)

Pee-Wee As Himself is unlike any other celebrity documentary because of the radical changes that occurred amidst its production; director Matt Wolf first had to deal with Paul Reubens’ unwillingness to discuss some of the more controversial aspects of his life before realising that his subject had only months to live.

With its bifurcated structure, the film springs into the early days of Reubens’ comedy, in which his playful energy resonated with audiences of diverse ages, before taking a dark turn amidst his reflections on mortality.

While Reubens’ persona and work have gradually gained more respect over time, Pee-Wee As Himself makes the case that he was a trailblazing artist whose performance art predated many of the modern ways in which celebrities control their image. Although it doesn’t seek to overlook Reuben’s flaws, its revelations about his acceptance of his LGBTQ+ identity are incredibly powerful, especially given how long it took after his death for them to be revealed.

‘Cover-Up’ (Laura Poitras)

Documentarian Laura Poitras was praised for her nuanced analysis of the Sackler family’s role in the opioid crisis with her previous film, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, but Cover-Up explores even more relevant issues from a unique perspective.

Seymour Hersh is an investigative journalist responsible for breaking innumerable stories relevant to corruption within the American government, including accounts of atrocities committed in Vietnam, details about the administration of President Nixon, and the unveiling of horrific images related to the torture programs post-9/11, making for a a compelling subject who is direct and lacking in nostalgia, as he’s not willing to wax poetic about his achievements when there is work to be done.

However, Poitras doesn’t let Hersh off the hook for some of his more controversial opinions, including his disregard for needing multiple sources, but she does paint a compelling portrayal of how new media has changed journalism over the last half-century with this punchy feature.

‘Apocalypse in the Tropics’ (Petra Costa)

Apocalypse in the Tropics is as thorough a history lesson as anyone would need to learn about the recent past of Brazil, which nearly witnessed the dominance of a totalitarian regime after former President Jair Bolsonaro resisted leaving office during the 2022 election, in which the Workers’ Party candidate Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva emerged victorious.

As disturbing as it is to see Brazil flirt with another far-right leadership, Apocalypse in the Tropics centres on the emergence of a radical fundamentalist Evangelical group that came out in support of Bolsonaro’s extreme policies.

The film gets to the terrifying root of how the televangelist Silas Malafaia utilised scare tactics to convince even moderate Evangelicals to accept Bolsonaro’s ideology, as they were under the impression that they would otherwise be damned to hell. It’s an immersive and upsetting story about the tools of propaganda that explores the instability of a divided populace, both in Brazil and potentially around the world at large.

‘The Perfect Neighbor’ (Geeta Gandbhir)

While Netflix has put out more than a few true crime documentaries with dubious intentions, The Perfect Neighbor is structured and convincing in an imaginative, revelatory way.

Compiled from bodycam footage from various police officers called to a neighbourhood in Ocala, Florida, the film shows how the spiteful, unstable white Susan Louise Lorincz became a public nuisance before fatally killing a Black woman, Ajike Owens.

It’s a masterpiece in construction that empathises with the helplessness of a community that is unable to prevent an issue from escalating, such that, even though it’s clear that Lorincz is delusional and holds hateful beliefs, it’s impossible to reprimand someone based on speculation that she could be dangerous.

Nothing about how The Perfect Neighbour frames its story feels manipulative, as the raw moments involving children who have just lost their mother to a senseless act of violence are as upsetting as anything that was released in 2025. It may not pinpoint an exact solution, but it makes it clear that change is necessary.

‘2000 Meters to Andriivka’ (Mstyslav Chernov)

It’s as shocking as it is upsetting that other world events have caused the attention of global journalism to stray from the ongoing situation in Ukraine, which has resulted in senseless violence and death due to the aggression of the Russian military.

Director Mstyslav Chernov won the Academy Award for ‘Best Documentary’ for his Ukraine-centric film 20 Days in Mariupol, but his latest project, 2000 Meters To Andriivka, is an even more jaw-dropping investigation, which sees Chernov personally joining a team of Ukrainian soldiers as they waged through their Russian-occupied homeland to free a city, all while being bombarded by resistance from Vladimir Putin’s ruthless military.

The combat footage included, in which Chernov’s life was in danger and several of his colleagues killed, is riveting in a way that no other film this year has been, such that 2000 Meters in Andriivka doesn’t feel like a traditional documentary, because no one knew how it would end when the production began, and the bravery of all involved makes it a must-see.