From buzzy superhero stories to the return of Paddington, 2025 has been filled with exciting new movie releases. But here’s some advice: Don’t count out real-life stories in the meantime. Documentaries can be just as gripping as fictional movies, and this year's slate of nonfiction releases has been no exception.
In 2025, documentary fans have been spoiled for choice, from exciting new music docs with exclusive footage of iconic bands and subgenres to timely films that provide intimate looks at modern topics, including inmate abuse and the fight for LGBTQ+ rights. There’s even a tearjerker about hummingbirds! Below, we’re rounding up the best documentaries of 2025 so far, as well as the films that are on the horizon. (If you want even more recommendations, check out our lists of the best true crime documentaries and docuseries of 2025 and the best documentaries of 2024.)
'Avicii – I'm Tim'
Release date: December 31 on Netflix
This music doc is said to be the most personal and closest examination yet of who Tim Bergling, the Swedish artist behind his star EDM persona Avicii, was throughout his life before his death by suicide in 2018. Featuring home footage and clips from his private archive, Avicii – I'm Tim, which was made with his family and closest friends and colleagues involved, paints a never-before-seen portrait of the hitmaker and his inner world.
'Don't Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever'
Release date: January 1 on Netflix
Filmmaker Chris Smith has released several buzzy documentaries in the past few years, from Netflix titles like Fyre and the true-crime hit The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann to HBO’s 100 Foot Wave. His latest rattled viewers, as well. Don’t Die’s subject is Bryan Johnson, a tech entrepreneur who has committed his life's work to defy aging through questionable and controversial practices, including plasma transfusions.
'Every Little Thing'
Release date: January 10
In the hills of L.A.’s Beverly Hills, Terry Masear spends her days tending to injured hummingbirds. Masear knows that her winged charges aren’t on Earth for long, but the joy she takes in caring for her home’s little cast of characters soon moves past typical cute animal content into something more profound. Weaving together tales of Masear’s avian rehab with her history of overcoming an abusive rural upbringing and finding her place within L.A., Every Little Thing is a lovely reminder that everyday resilience and magic can be found in your own backyard, even amid hardships and loss.
'SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night'
Release date: January 16 on Peacock
Saturday Night Live celebrates its whopping 50th anniversary in 2025, and the NBC late-night staple pulled out all the stops to celebrate. In addition to running various specials, the iconic comedy sketch show released a four-part docuseries about the untold stories behind all your favorite skits and infamous moments. If you at all have a soft spot for any number of the memorable casts, this will warm your heart and fill you with laughter.
'No Other Land'
Release date: January 31
Although No Other Land officially became an Academy Award-winning documentary during the 2025 Oscars, the searing documentary on the occupation of Palestinian villages in the West Bank struggled to find wide distribution in the U.S. Thankfully, one of the most important films in recent years is now available to stream.
'Becoming Led Zeppelin'
Release date: February 7
Rock music lovers, this one's for you. As its title suggests, Becoming Led Zeppelin isn’t your typical career-spanning music documentary. Instead, it uses a “hybrid docu-concert” format to track the iconic British band’s rise to fame in the 1960s. The biggest draw? The film’s bounty of never-before-seen early concert footage and recordings was released for fans to watch in IMAX.
'Sly Lives! (aka the Burden of Black Genius)'
Release date: February 13 on Hulu
Questlove's follow-up to the 2021 Oscar-winning doc Summer of Soul is another examination of a cultural phenomenon. Another music doc where the title hints at the film's scope, Sly Lives! (aka the Burden of Black Genius) reintroduces the genre-bending musician Sly Stone, not by charting his rise and fall, but by examining whether his later career struggles were the effect of the burdens the culture places on Black trailblazers.
'One on One: John and Yoko'
Release date: April 11 in theaters; November 14 on HBO Max
Beatlemania has never really gone away, but it's set to ramp up over the next few years. First up is this documentary, centered on the first 18 months of John Lennon and Yoko Ono's life together in N.Y.C. While chronicling the pair's adventures in 1972 Greenwich Village, the doc also looks back at a turbulent era in American history through the lens of 1970s television. The film's highlight is newly-restored footage of the duo's titular benefit concerts at Madison Square Garden, with the concert audio remixed by their son, musician Sean Ono Lennon.
'Pangolin: Kulu’s Journey'
Release date: April 21 on Netflix
My Octopus Teacher filmmaker Pippa Ehrlich returned this year with her follow-up to the Oscar-winning doc: a new project about one of the "most poached and trafficked animals on the planet." The film follows Kulu, a baby pangolin (a.k.a. scaly mammals native to Africa and Asia), and the man who "finds new purpose" when he rescues Kulu "in a sting operation in South Africa." According to the description, the man "embarks on a heartfelt mission to rehabilitate and prepare the vulnerable animal for a life of freedom in the wild."
'Titan: The OceanGate Disaster'
Release date: June 11 on Netflix
It seems we're in an age where monoculture news events are immediately turned into documentary features. (Consider the many Luigi Mangione docs already in the works.) This year, Netflix and filmmaker Mark Monroe were quick to explore the 2023 Titan submersible incident, in which a tourist expedition to the Titanic wreck notoriously went missing and left the world waiting four days for news of the vessel. In addition to the doomed expedition, the film examines the "price of ambition," regarding OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush.
'Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore'
Release date: June 20
In 1987, Marlee Matlin shot into the spotlight when she became the first Deaf actor to win an Academy Award at just 21-years-old for her performance in Children of a Lesser God. Her win, in turn, helped give Weeds and Grey’s Anatomy star Shoshannah Stern the confidence to pursue an acting career as a Deaf woman. Now, Stern is bringing things full circle in her directorial debut, Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore, in which the two women trace Matlin’s career and how navigating Hollywood has (and hasn’t) changed for the Deaf community.
'My Mom Jayne'
Release date: June 27 on HBO Max
When Mariska Hargitay was 3-years-old, she was in a car accident that claimed the life of her mother, classic Hollywood star Jayne Mansfield. In her feature directorial debut, the Law & Order: SVU star reconciles the public image of her mother—the sex symbol known as Hollywood's "smartest dumb blonde"—with the woman behind the persona, via archival footage and intimate conversations with Hargitay's siblings.
'Orwell: 2+2=5'
Release date: October 3
Nine years after Raoul Peck's I Am Not Your Negro explored modern-day racism via a survey of James Baldwin's life and career, the Oscar-nominated filmmaker is back with a prescient dive into another literary legend. The new documentary links the anti-totalitarian beliefs that inspired Orwell's writing, including the novels Animal Farm and 1984, to the recent historical events. Also, like Samuel L. Jackson in Negro, Damian Lewis gives stirring performances of Orwell's prose throughout the examination of the author's life.
'The Alabama Solution'
Release date: October 10 on HBO Max
Alabama is home to one of the deadliest, most overcrowded, and most understaffed prison systems in America, but very few know what happens inside its walls. In this jaw-dropping doc, Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman compile six years of contraband cellphone footage, captured by a group of inmate activists, to illuminate horrific abuse and brutality in one Alabama prison.
'The Perfect Neighbor'
Release date: October 17 on Netflix
In 2023, Ocala, Florida resident Ajike "A.J." Owens, 35, was fatally shot by her 60-year-old neighbor during a dispute, with the subsequent case renewing discourse around the state's controversial "stand your ground" laws. This Sundance Award-winning doc examines the tragic incident and its aftermath as an intimate case study—told through body-cam footage and CCTV—of how these laws are unevenly upheld in a society that has not yet fully reckoned with systemic racism.
'Heightened Scrutiny'
Release date: TBA; Premiered at Sundance
In 2024, a whopping 669 anti-trans bills threatening trans people’s basic access to healthcare, legal protections, and more were introduced in the United States, more than any other year on record. Now, director Sam Feder—who previously made the groundbreaking 2020 Netflix LGBTQ+ documentary Disclosure—takes on this precarious moment for trans rights in his new film Heightened Scrutiny. The doc follows ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio as he contends with not only political scapegoating but also biased media narratives in his mission to protect transgender Americans’ freedoms.
'Twiggy'
Release date: March 7 in the U.K., TBD in the U.S.
You could recognize those big eyes and eyelashes anywhere, but do you know her story? After telling the story of British fashion designer Mary Quant, filmmaker Sadie Frost's latest subject is another mod icon: Twiggy. The fashion documentary is a full-fledged look at her life, going from a working-class background to becoming an internationally renowned model to quitting her career in the industry at age 22 in pursuit of other opportunities, as well as the lesser-known setbacks she faced along the way.
