Unlike action movies, documentaries have a unique ability to make us smarter on a topic, nearly instantly. They can also make us feel deeply, like a good novel or fictional film. Not every documentary released is to everyone's particular taste, but 2024 had an eclectic mix of docs, and one of those is bound to make you take notice.
Here are the 10 best documentaries of 2024, covering history, music, science, TV, and more. Some you've heard of and some you might have missed. All of them have something to say, something to teach, and can keep you in touch with how we can all see the world with a little more nuance.
Not to mention, all of these are impossible to stop watching and contain some absolutely killer did-you-ever-know details that have kept us talking at the bar and coffee shop for hours.
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Did the world need another Beatles documentary? Maybe not. But, with so much obsession over the breakup years as of late, it's fascinating to revisit the earliest days of Beatlemania with this very specific documentary. Taken from 14 days of rare footage, filmed by Albert and David Maysles, the new movie was directed by David Tedeschi and produced by Martin Scorsese. It's sort of like a real version of the fictionalized movie A Hard Day's Night. A bit of pop comfort food, but raw in its own way.
You know the lyrics to "We Are the World," but do you know how the 1985 massive single was made? Written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie, and produced by Quincy Jones, the song was originally created as a charity single for the group USA for Africa. But the journey to get that many pop stars all in one place was, perhaps, not what you might expect.
A tight little documentary, The Greatest Night in Pop sports new interviews with the man himself, Lionel Richie, and retells how one of the biggest gatherings of pop stars ever, all went down.
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Featuring dramatized reenactments, Wyatt Earp and the Cowboy War is a six-episode miniseries that puts the events of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral in a new perspective. This infamous 1881 event was much more than just one showdown between rival families. And it was more than just a struggle between law and order. The reenactments are perhaps a bit hyperbolic, but the facts are solid. This is a slice of Old West history as you've never seen it before.
Yes, the 1995 Ron Howard docudrama Apollo 13 forever changed the way we think about this almost tragic NASA mission. But, this new 2024 documentary, Apollo 13: Survival, is arguably more gripping. Here, real footage from 1970 is spliced into a new narrative nonfiction film, which fully reaffirms just how incredible this story is. As a tale of human ingenuity and out-of-the-box thinking, the true story of Apollo 13 never gets old, and this new documentary captures the story with a surprising freshness.
We're all aware that microplastics are everywhere, but this alarming and urgent documentary will make it clear to you this isn't a partisan issue. Instead, it's something that's been happening slowly over time, resulting in an omnipresent health issue that we have to combat to survive. Luckily, this documentary offers a bit of hope in the panic and will leave you more emboldened than frightened.
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The strangest documentary of 2024 is easily Eno, a piece of nonfiction filmmaking all about legendary musician Brian Eno. He's best known as a founding member of Roxy Music and for creating the groundbreaking album Ambient 1: Music for Airports. But this documentary is hardly straightforward. Coming from director Gary Hustwit, there is not one version of Eno, but several. Using a random-generation technology, no one viewing experience of Eno is the same. Think of it like infinite director cuts all at once. It's worth seeing if only so you can compare notes with somebody else.
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If you've never watched any of the Icons: Unearthed documentary series, you've been missing out. After their blistering Star Wars docuseries in 2022, this series from VICE TV has released docs topics ranging from Harry Potter to James Bond to Batman. But, under the radar in 2024 was the six-part series on the making of The Lord of the Rings. This documentary has a ton of things you didn't know about Peter Jackson's struggle to make the trilogy and affirms the specifics of just how groundbreaking these movies were.
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Arguably the greatest single TV series of all time, the brilliance of The Sopranos will never fully diminish. In this two-part HBO documentary, the creator and cast of The Sopranos reveal how the hit TV show was made. There's a ton of never-glimpsed behind-the-scenes footage, as well as great new interviews with Drea de Matteo, Lorraine Bracco, Edie Falco, Michael Imperioli, Tony Sirico and, of course, the visionary himself, David Chase.
If you're not ready for a full rewatch of The Sopranos, this is the next best thing. For new or old fans of the show, this is essential viewing.
The perpetually controversial Norman Mailer is one of those writers who's more famous for being infamous, than perhaps, for his books. Perhaps most famous for his 1948 novel The Naked and the Dead, Mailer also penned a biography of Marilyn Monroe in 1973 and authored countless other books before his death in 2007. Despite being dead, Mailer's contradictory and incendiary spirit is more relevant than ever. This new documentary focuses on Mailer's explosive life and history but also reveals the ways in which his views predicted the problems we face in the 2020s.
Although the new DCU will formally relaunch with the feature film reboot of Superman in 2025, the first release from the new studio led by James Gunn was this touching documentary on the life of Christopher Reeve. Famous for playing Superman from 1978 to 1987, Reeve became a different kind of hero after becoming paralyzed from the neck down following a tragic accident in 1995.
With new archival footage of Reeve, plus fantastic new interviews with his family, Super/Man is a celebration of this beloved actor. It's a respectful portrait that hits all the right notes and reminds you why we all believed this man could do anything.
