Popular Documentary Movies on Amazon Prime Video

John Candy: I Like Me

2025

John Candy: I Like Me

2025
7.8
Those who knew iconic funnyman John Candy best share his story, in their own words, through never-before-seen archival footage, imagery, and interviews.
Fire Front

2022

Fire Front

2022
10
Leading Australian documentarian Eddie Martin puts viewers on the frontlines of the deadly 2019–2020 bushfires, capturing the catastrophe with a perspective and scale never before seen. 24 million hectares were burnt, 3000 homes were destroyed, 33 people died, and nearly three billion animals perished or were displaced. Fire Front is a powerful account of that calamitous antipodean summer, told from the ground where climate change took on the face of hell.
Festival Express

2003

Festival Express

2003
7.1
The filmed account of a large Canadian rock festival train tour boasting major acts. In the summer of 1970, a chartered train crossed Canada carrying some of the world's greatest rock bands. The Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, The Band, Buddy Guy, and others lived (and partied) together for five days, stopping in major cities along the way to play live concerts. Their journey was filmed.
Bad Faith

2024

Bad Faith

2024
7
On January 6, 2021, Americans witnessed an attack on the U.S. Capitol without precedent in our history. Armed militiamen and QAnon followers made headlines, but among them were a sea of crosses and Christian flags, rosaries and "Jesus Saves" signs. What motivated so many Christians to participate in this violent assault?
Human Flow

2017

Human Flow

2017
6.9
More than 65 million people around the world have been forced from their homes to escape famine, climate change and war, the greatest displacement since World War II. Filmmaker Ai Weiwei examines the staggering scale of the refugee crisis and its profoundly personal human impact. Over the course of one year in 23 countries, Weiwei follows a chain of urgent human stories that stretch across the globe, including Afghanistan, France, Greece, Germany and Iraq.
U2: Rockumentary

2022

U2: Rockumentary

2022
3
A cliche start: 4 teenage boys form a rock band in the drummer's kitchen. 45 years, 14 albums, 24 concert tours, 22 Grammies. U2 raises millions to fight hunger, disease and poverty. Music transcends melody. It means mission.
Baraka

1992

Baraka

1992
8.2
A paralysingly beautiful documentary with a global vision—an odyssey through landscape and time—that attempts to capture the essence of life.
Group Therapy

2024

Group Therapy

2024
8
A thoughtful and humorous navigation of personal conversations on mental health, through the lens of a group therapy session led by some of today's funniest comedians and comic performers.
The Program

2024

The Program

2024
5.3
Explores the unprecedented bipartisan congressional effort to uncover what intelligence agencies really know about UFOs, now referred to as UAP.
Food, Inc.

2008

Food, Inc.

2008
7.3
Documentary filmmaker Robert Kenner examines how mammoth corporations have taken over all aspects of the food chain in the United States, from the farms where our food is grown to the chain restaurants and supermarkets where it's sold. Narrated by author and activist Eric Schlosser, the film features interviews with average Americans about their dietary habits, commentary from food experts like Michael Pollan and unsettling footage shot inside large-scale animal processing plants.
Mind Meld: Secrets Behind the Voyage of a Lifetime

2001

Mind Meld: Secrets Behind the Voyage of a Lifetime

2001
7.2
An unprecedented examination of the impact the Star Trek experience has had on the franchise's most celebrated participants: William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy. These two stars have arguably embodied the brightest icons in the sci-fi universe; Shatner as passionate Captain James T. Kirk, and Nimoy as logical-minded, half Vulcan Mr. Spock.
Our Nixon

2013

Our Nixon

2013
6.4
Never before seen Super 8 home movies filmed by Richard Nixon's closest aides - and convicted Watergate conspirators - offer a surprising and intimate new look into his Presidency.
Science Friction

2022

Science Friction

2022
6
Those TV documentaries you see, and the science experts they feature? Did you know that producers often edit them out of context, and twist their words, to make it seem like they promoted some pop sensationalism instead of the real facts? Science Friction exposes these faux documentaries by name, and gives the scientists a chance to clear the record.
The Exiles

2022

The Exiles

2022
8
Brash and opinionated, Christine Choy is a documentarian, cinematographer, professor, and quintessential New Yorker whose films and teaching have influenced a generation of artists. In 1989 she started to film the leaders of the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests who escaped to political exile following the June 4 massacre. Though Choy never finished that project, she now travels with the old footage to Taiwan, Maryland, and Paris in order to share it with the dissidents who have never been able to return home.
Sweet Toronto

1971

Sweet Toronto

1971
5.8
Sweet Toronto is a documentary by D.A. Pennebaker of the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival, a one day festival held September 13, 1969 at Varsity Stadium on the campus of the University of Toronto and attended by some 20,000 persons. John Lennon played as part of the Plastic Ono Band, whose members also included Yoko Ono, Klaus Voorman, Alan White, and Eric Clapton. The video also features a selection of other acts: Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, and Bo Diddley.
Common Ground

2023

Common Ground

2023
6.1
Sobering yet hopeful, Common Ground exposes the interconnectedness of American farming policy, politics, and illness. Follow the solution-driven plight of Regenerative Farmers as they make a case for soil health across the continent and beyond.
California Typewriter

2017

California Typewriter

2017
6.9
A story about people whose lives are connected by typewriters. A meditation on creativity and technology featuring Tom Hanks, John Mayer, Sam Shepard, David McCullough and others.
I Am Not Your Negro

2017

I Am Not Your Negro

2017
7.7
Working from the text of James Baldwin’s unfinished final novel, director Raoul Peck creates a meditation on what it means to be Black in the United States.
The Aristocrats

2005

The Aristocrats

2005
5.9
One hundred superstar comedians tell the same very, VERY dirty, filthy joke--one shared privately by comics since Vaudeville.
Sample This

2013

Sample This

2013
6.7
A documentary that reveals how a forgotten record by the Incredible Bongo Band helped cement the foundation of hip hop when DJ Herc extended its percussion by playing them back to back, creating an anthem on the streets of the Bronx.