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The Best Documentaries of 2024, Ranked

January 2, 2025
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The Best Documentaries of 2024, Ranked

Documentary films continued to triumph in 2024, making up some of the most entertaining, mind-opening, and emotional movies of the year, just as they did in 2024. The documentary medium featured a staggeringly diverse range of perspectives, subjects, and styles in 2024, taking us around the world on an empathy roller coaster. In fact, there were just too many good documentaries to mention, so we have a list of honorary titles at the bottom which are all worthy of watching, and some will actually be added to this list in an update. From startlingly topical films about Palestine and Ukraine to intimate studies of interesting people, these are the best documentaries of 2024.

15

The Last Journey

After 40 years as a beloved French teacher at Köping, Lars Hammar retires, but becomes passive and apathetic to the dismay of his family. Looking to rekindle the spark in his life, his son Filip and his best friend Fredrik load Lars into a car to head on a road trip to France.

Release Date

September 13, 2024

Director

Fredrik Wikingsson
, Filip Hammar

Runtime

90 Minutes

Cast

Filip Hammar
, Fredrik Wikingsson

Distributor(s)

Nordisk Film

Read Our Review

One of the more personal documentaries of the year, The Last Journey follows a son’s attempt to snap his father out of a deep depression. Swedish filmmaker Filip Hammar has seen his father become a recluse since his retirement, barely leaving the house in over a decade, and decides to take him on an adventure, recreating a road trip to France they took when Filip was a teenager. The film is a vibrant, very funny, and beautifully scenic look at family, melancholy, and aging. The Last Journey is not currently available.

14

2073

Read Our Review

A hybrid piece of docufiction, Asif Kapadia takes a sharp turn away from his Oscar-winning biopics (Amy, Senna) and heads into political filmmaking with a sci-fi twist. The hook is brilliant, with the film ostensibly set in 2073 and following a lone woman (Samantha Morton) on a mission in a devastated, post-apocalyptic earth.

2073 intertwines interviews and documentary footage into that fictional narrative, using a factual analysis of today’s world to predict our awful future. The film is a damning critique of authoritarian governments, studying everything from China and the Philippines to the far-right rise in America and Europe to extrapolate a disturbing prophecy of the future. The movie feels like a pure combination of Asif Kapadia’s skills and his righteous anger. 2073 was released in theaters on Dec. 27, 2024.

13

My Name Is Alfred Hitchcock

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Re-examine the vast filmography and legacy of one of the 20th century’s greatest filmmakers, Alfred Hitchcock, through a new lens: through the auteur’s own voice.

Release Date

July 21, 2023

Director

Mark Cousins

Runtime

120 minutes

Read Our Review

Mark Cousins has been a dedicated curator and chronicler of cinema for much of his life, helping us see film in new ways; he’s kind of like the John Berger of movies. Instead of one of his usual gigantic series like The Story of Film, Cousins here turns to just one filmmaker in the documentary My Name Is Alfred Hitchcock. Cousins incorporates his usual mastery of montage, unexpected but revealing analysis, and probing intellect to portray the life and career of a master auteur like we’ve never seen before. You can rent or buy My Name Is Alfred Hitchcock on digital platforms through Dogwoof.

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12

Separated

Errol Morris returns to political filmmaking with an adaptation of investigative journalist Jacob Soboroff’s book about the 2016 Trump administration’s child separation policy. The film, of course, portrays the cruelty, bigotry, and political apathy of the policy in deeply emotional ways, but is also an informative breakdown of what was happening behind the scenes. Meticulously detailed and heartbreaking, Separated is an important documentary to watch ahead of the next Trump presidency. You can rent or buy Separated on digital platforms.

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Mats Steen, a Norwegian gamer who died at 25 from a degenerative muscular disease, was believed by his parents to have led a lonely life. However, after his passing, they discovered the strong connections he had formed with online friends worldwide, who reached out with messages of support and remembrance.

Release Date

October 25, 2024

Director

Benjamin Ree

Runtime

103 Minutes

Read Our Review

The Remarkable Life of Ibelin demands you bring your own tissues; this beautiful, small movie will move you deeply. It uses interviews and archival footage to explore the life of Mats Steen, a 25-year-old young man who passed away in 2014 following complications from Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). But his most passionate and perhaps ‘realest’ life was lived inside the virtual reality of the video game World of Warcraft, where his physical disability didn’t matter. The film explores this hidden life by entering the world of the game in an emotionally and aesthetically immersive look at disability, technology, and one charming, wonderful young man. The Remarkable Life of Ibelin is streaming on Netflix.

10

Tell Them You Love Me

Read Our Review

Tell Them You Love me is an outlier amid the usual forays into celebrity true crime, social media murders, and other flashy subjects of Netflix documentaries. That didn’t prevent it from becoming a major hit on the streaming platform, possibly because of its provocative, strange subject. A white progressive female academic attempts to help a disabled Black man with cerebral palsy communicate and gain control of his life, but she ends up having a sexual relationship with him. Can he consent? She thinks so. The family doesn’t.

The film brings up incredibly unsettling ethical issues that will leave you thinking long after viewing the film. It’s yet another success for producer Louis Theroux, and introduces director Nick August-Perna as an important documentarian to watch. You can stream Tell Them You Love Me on Netflix or rent on digital platforms.

2:12

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9

The Bibi Files

The Bibi Files poster

The Bibi Files is an urgent journalistic exposé based on unseen leaked footage of police interrogations of the politician as well as his wife Sara and son Yair. The film explores the corruption cases that resulted in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s indictment on breach of trust, bribery, and fraud in 2019. Many Israelis believe that Netanyahu’s attempts to delay his trial are key to understanding his current policies regarding war and the return of Israeli hostages. 

Release Date

December 11, 2024

Director

Alexis Bloom

Runtime

113 Minutes

Read Our Review

One of several fantastic documentaries in 2024 to probe the Israeli government (and its occupation of Gaza and the West Bank), The Bibi Files exposes the corruption of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his family, and his administration, but it has a trick up its sleeve. Alexis Bloom’s film reveals leaked police footage of extremely tense and personal interrogations with Netanyahu, his wife, their son, and various co-conspirators in their orbit as part of the cases of bribery and fraud that have been brought against him.

The footage is revelatory, showing petty, indignant criminals who believe they’re above the law, and is combined with excellent contemporary interviews that shed light on how the current administration is destroying Israel. Stream The Bibi Files on JOLT here until March 16, 2025.

8

Flipside

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4
/5

Flipside

Documentarian Chris Wilcha faces a mid-life crisis head-on by attempting to save a beloved New Jersey record store. “Flipside” chronicles his efforts to rejuvenate the store while reflecting on his career, which includes notable successes and numerous unfinished projects. As he navigates the ups and downs of this venture, Wilcha offers a humorous yet deeply moving exploration of lost opportunities and renewed ambitions.

Release Date

May 31, 2024

Director

Chris Wilcha

Runtime

92 Minutes

Like the brilliant film Cameraperson, Flipside collects a variety of footage from a filmmaker that was never included in their previous work, a kind of ‘odds and ends’ piece that works because the artist ties everything together beautifully. Flipside is many things — a brilliant meditation on the intersection of art, commerce, and work; a charming look at various eccentrics; a filmmaker’s autobiography; and a look at how we hold onto things.

Flipside director Chris Wilcha combines a variety of stalled or failed projects in a look at how he went from being a rebel documentarian to directing commercials for banks and insurance companies. Along the way, we watch his kids grow older, the subjects of his documentaries die, and him returning again and again to his first place of employment, a record store. Flipside, in its messy, artistic glory, somehow becomes one of the best documentaries about art and capitalism. Stream Flipside on Prime Video through Freevee or rent or buy on digital platforms.

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After three of their four children are diagnosed with an incurable eye condition, a Montreal family embarks on an unforgettable journey across the globe. As the children face impending blindness, their parents show them the world’s most beautiful sights, creating lasting memories and embracing life’s fleeting moments​.

Release Date

October 4, 2024

Director

Daniel Roher

Runtime

84 Minutes

Writers

Edmund Stenson

Read Our Review

Oh boy, was this a tear-jerker. There’s a purity, kindness, and wholesomeness to Blink (which is why it’s probably the only film in this list to be on Disney+) that will nourish your soul despite the aching sadness at its core. The film follows a large family as the parents reckon with the impending blindness of their children due to a rare genetic disorder. They take a bold move, deciding to travel the world and show their kids the diverse beauty of the planet before they go blind.

As such, Blink is a gorgeous travelogue through Oman, Egypt, Nepal, Ecuador, Thailand, and many other locations which are masterfully filmed. At the heart of Blink, though, is the joy of a family and the incredible love of two proud parents. Stream Blink on Disney+ or Hulu.

6

Youth

Youth Hard Times movie poster

The film focuses on a group of young textile workers in Zhili, a town in the Wuxing District of Huzhou, located 150 kilometres outside of Shanghai. Every year, young people leave their rural villages and migrate to the manufacturing town. The workers are in their twenties, some in their thirties. They sleep upstairs, in dormitories, because they come from far away, sometimes over 2,000 kilometres. Their dialects come from different regions. They work tirelessly with the hope of one day having children, buying a house or starting their own business. Friendships and romances fold and unfold as the seasons pass. Geographical dispersion, financial instability, and economic and family pressures ravish their innocence and youth. Wang Bing will spend a year with them in Zhili: at work, at home, on the Internet, every day of their professional, romantic relationships and friendships.

Director

Wang Bing

Runtime

9h 51m

Production Company

House on Fire
Gladys Glover
CS Production
Arte France Cinéma
Les Films Fauves
Volya Films
Eastern-Lion Pictures and Culture Media Co.
Beijing Contemporary Art Foundation
Le Fresnoy

Read Our Review

Youth is a monumental achievement from filmmaker Wang Bing, who lived in the Chinese town of Zhili with low-wage textile workers to document their lives and experiences. Initially, his budget was set to cover six months; he stretched it to six years, using six cinematographers (filming in shifts, three at a time) to follow dozens of people as they do seasonal work. It’s actually a trilogy of films (Spring, Hard Times, and Homecoming), running nearly 10 hours in total, and rewards a great amount of patience. The way that Youth uses time itself as a cinematic tool is mesmerizing, providing a total immersion into the grim lives of young workers in the midst of post-industrial globalization. You can rent or buy Youth (Spring) on digital platforms.

5

Dahomey

Mati Diop’s Dahomey is such a unique treasure, just like the objects it’s about. The filmmaker studies more than two dozen royal artifacts (statues, a throne, art pieces) that were stolen from the former Kingdom of Dahomey (now the Republic of Benin) by colonial France. Diop traces their cultural and political history as a French museum returns them to their rightful home, and tracks the reactions of the Beninese people who interact with these historical objects for the first time.

Dahomey is an often wistful, magical film, almost an essay in art history combined with postcolonial studies, but is so much more fun and lively than that academic description sounds. Stream Dahomey on MUBI or through Prime Video, or rent or buy on digital platforms.

​​​​

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4

Look Into My Eyes

Look Into My Eyes documentary movie poster from A24

A group of New York City psychics conducts deeply intimate readings for their clients, revealing a kaleidoscope of loneliness, connection and healing.

Release Date

January 22, 2024

Director

Lana Wilson

Runtime

108 minutes

Read Our Review

Anything can be the subject of a documentary, since it’s the aesthetic, editing, and direction that usually define how it’s received as a film. Look Into My Eyes is a great example of direction transcending the subject matter, with Lana Wilson creating a strange, moody, almost ethereal vibe that feels like a tone poem. Wilson brings viewers into the lives of New York psychics, studying the suffering that so often brings customers to their doors, and the odd kind of healing they can provide. It’s not a film about ‘believing’ in psychics or not, and it doesn’t try to convince you of anything; instead, Look Into My Eyes is a profoundly human story about our need for closure and connection. Rent or buy Look Into My Eyes on digital platforms.

3

Union

Thousands of Amazon workers went on strike at Christmastime, which makes Union as topical as it could be. However, the struggle between these workers and their corporate overlords has been a lengthy and tenuous one, with Amazon frequently accused of union busting and other shady tactics, and their workers complaining of inhumane conditions and unrealistic expectations. Like last year’s Americonned, Union gets up close and personal with this issue and the people who put their lives on the line in the fight for higher wages and better conditions.

Union stands apart, though, with its thoughtful analysis of protest and political organizing in the modern age. Filmmakers Brett Story and Stephen Maing embedded with Amazon employees at the Staten Island JFK8 fulfillment center for years, carefully chronicling their efforts in forming the company’s first union. The result is a meticulous examination of the people behind our economy and the patience and suffering required to make political change. It’s one of the best documentaries of its kind since 1976’s Harlan County, USA. Stream Union here through Jan. 17, 2025.

2

Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat

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5
/5

Soundtrack to a Coup d’État

Soundtrack to a Coup d’État examines pivotal 1960 events where Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach disrupt the United Nations, Nikita Khrushchev protests against America’s racial policies, and jazz ambassador Louis Armstrong is deployed to the Congo as the U.S. responds to its first African post-colonial coup.

Release Date

January 24, 2024

Director

Johan Grimonprez

Runtime

150 minutes

Cast

Louis Armstrong
, Patrice Lumumba
, Max Roach
, René Magritte

Producers

Rémi Grellety

Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat feels like jazz incarnate, a stylish and energetic documentary that flies by despite its expansive scope and 150-minute runtime. Johan Grimonprez’s film ostensibly explains the complicated historical postcolonial period when more than a dozen new African states shed their ties to colonial Europe and joined the United Nations, disrupting the West’s monopoly on global power.

Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat creates a formative historical narrative by focusing on one microcosmic event — the wild moment when jazz musicians Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach led protesters into the UN Security Council after the U.S.-backed assassination of Congo’s Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba. From this, Grimonprez tells intersectional stories of the Cold War, African disenfranchisement, the C.I.A., and Black musicians. It’s all thrilling and mind-opening, and feels like you’re being told the biggest secret in the world. Find showtimes and tickets for Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat.

Simone Zimmerman with the US flag in the documentary Israelism

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1

No Other Land

No Other Land movie poster

A Palestinian-Israeli collective of four documents the destruction of the occupied West Bank’s Masafer Yatta by Israeli soldiers and the friendship which develops between the Palestinian activist Basel and Israeli journalist Yuval.

Release Date

January 31, 2025

Runtime

96 Minutes

Production Company

Yabayay Media, Antipode Films

The best of many great documentaries about Palestine and Israel’s occupation of its territories (alongside Israelism, The Bibi Files, and From Ground Zero), No Other Land is so triumphant because it’s so intimate. The film isn’t a history lesson or a political diatribe, zeroing in on the specific human consequences of apartheid and Israel’s settlements in the West Bank. It’s told by a collective of four Palestinian and Israeli filmmakers, two of whom are essentially the stars of the film — Basel Adra, a Palestinian activist and documentarian, and Yuval Abraham, an Israeli journalist trying to share his family’s story with the world.

Watching the complex relationship between these two young men in No Other Land is beautiful, and contrasts with the intense horrors of daily life in the West Bank. They’re committed to documenting each time the Israeli military use bulldozers to destroy their homes; each time Israeli settlers invade and damage their property and beat them up; each time they are shot and arrested. The film is a thoughtful and unsettling look at the politics of change, the purpose of art and the media, the resilience of subjugated Palestinians, and the constant terror of being occupied.

No Other Land‘s thrilling oscillation between first- and third-person filmmaking brings you into this world, and its poetic narration and vibrant personalities bridge any gaps in empathy audiences might have. It’s a perfect film and the best documentary of the year. Find showtimes for No Other Land here.

  • Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story
  • Rule of Two Walls
  • Will & Harper
  • Ernest Cole: Lost and Found
  • Pictures of Ghosts
  • Ennio
  • Intercepted
  • Dario Argento: Panico
  • Daughters
  • Nocturnes
  • Plastic People
  • Skywalkers: A Love Story
  • Zurawski v Texas
  • My Favourite Cake
  • Bread and Roses
  • Every Little Thing
  • Sugarcane
  • Last of the Sea Women
  • Art College 1994
  • Night Is Not Eternal
  • Eno
  • The Human Surge 3
  • Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger
  • Black Box Diaries
  • Sweetheart Deal
  • My First Film

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