50 Best 2024 Documentaries to Watch

Far from a typical documentary, Skywalkers is as relentless and fast-paced as the climbers it follows. As Angela Nikolau and Ivan Beerkus illegally scale towers and skyscrapers with little more than the clothes on their back, Director Jeff Zimbalist throws viewers into the next thrilling scenario whether they’re ready to or not. It’s amazing how much of the breathless editing replicates the energy between Nikolau and Beerkus, regardless of whether they’re in action rooftopping or deep in an argument about trust and relationships. The film has a deep emotional core that makes it resonate more than it should; people might come in for the extremity of their sport, but they’ll leave learning something worthwhile about love.

If you’ve seen the bone-chilling Oscar-winning film The Zone of Interest, then The Commandant’s Shadow isn’t just supplementary but necessary viewing. It interviews and interrogates the son of SS officer Rudolf Höss, who describes his childhood in Auschwitz as “idyllic,” and parallels his life with that of an Auschwitz survivor and her family. They’re not asked “gotcha” questions, though there are some moments where Höss’s family members’ insularity shocks you. Instead, everyone is given the time and space to reflect honestly about the pain and trauma that continues to live on in their families. It’s a difficult film to sit through, but insightful and ever-so-resonant in an age where mass torture and genocide continue in many parts of the world.

Dog lovers will think they already know everything there is to know about their favorite furry companions, while those indifferent to the animal might think a film will do little to sway their opinion. But Netflix’s Inside the Mind of a Dog makes a surprisingly compelling case for diving deeper into canine psychology. Experts weigh in on their intelligence, which many believe surpasses that of apes, our closest mammal relative, as well as their loyalty and charm. People take the latter two for granted, but they’re actually part of a successful evolution strategy experts have dubbed “survival of the friendliest.” The documentary is full of interesting takes like these, but what really tugs at the heartstrings are the stories of the service dogs we follow. It helps, too, that the movie is narrated by an enthusiastic-sounding Rob Lowe, himself an eager dog owner, and peppered with engaging animations and adorable pup clips.

The documentary starts off with a feeler that this is a wild soap opera, a real life science experiment that cannot be enacted in good conscience. If you’d never read the blurb, you’d see the coincidences slowly revealed layer by layer until the story finally clicks. Early on, it feels reliant on telling as opposed to showing, but it could just be a case of working with what you have footage-wise. The openness of our main interviewees does get better with time, but the exploration of the psychological effect and implications of such an event was lacking considering the level of coincidence we’re dealing with. All in all, it’s heartwarming, albeit with the exciting story beats very spaced out.

Invisible Victim may not be all that different from the plethora of true crime documentaries available on Netflix and other streaming platforms, but it is worth watching if only to see how misogyny continues to be rampant at best and deadly at worst. Despite being beaten, kidnapped, drugged, and eventually murdered by the superstar footballer Bruno, Eliza Samudio was still largely framed as the perpetrator in the public’s eye because she was deemed a slut. “She died because she was money hungry,” one fan said on social media. A reporter, meanwhile, asked Bruno, “How are you handling all the embarrassment coming your way?” as if the real crime was Eliza tainting Bruno’s glowing career, instead of Bruno ending her short life. The documentary succeeds in arousing the viewer’s anger, though it doesn’t offer anything particularly new to a well-known case apart from Eliza’s never-before-seen messages to her friend, which revealed her fearlessness and defiance up until her untimely end.

Though it’s a bit chaotic in structure—it’s chronological but all over the place—The Stones and Brian Jones is a compelling and crucial portrait of The Rolling Stones’ co-founding member and original leader. Jones’ life is typical of rock stars, from the misunderstood childhood and philandering habits to drug dependence and luxurious lifestyle, but director Nick Broomfield tries to paint more nuance into his character. We’re reminded, through interviews with past lovers and even letters from a family that disowned him, that he was also ambitious, insecure, sensitive, affectionate, gentle, and moody. Too often, Broomfield will relish in Jones’ tragedy, when he could’ve focused more on his musical prowess and technical knowledge, but it is overall a fair picture. It’s sympathetic to Jones of course, but Broomfield doesn’t forget to include excerpts from Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, who ‘till now seem to harbor mixed feelings over Jones (he did have Jagger arrested after all). There’s drama and tension and a good deal of great music, which are always fun to watch.

It’s hard to botch a documentary about Martha Stewart, she who lived so many lives (she was a model, a stockbroker, a convict, a homemaker, and now a TikTok darling) and she who came back from one of the hardest celebrity downfalls stronger than ever. Her life is a roller coaster ride and watching the documentary certainly feels like being in one too. Whenever Stuart dodged a question, director R.J. Cutler did well to zoom in on a twinge on her face or show a previous photo or clip that may reveal the answer. It’s well made that way. Only the prison scenes left a bitter taste in the mouth—why should I feel sorry for her hundred-day stint when so many other wrongly imprisoned women with less privilege are still stuck there?—but everything else about this dense portrait is very filling and entertaining.

If you want a powerful, masterful rendition of the ill-fated space mission, go and watch Apollo 13 (1995). But the documentary more than half a century after the mission, and two decades after the feature film, is not half bad. Of course, being a documentary, Apollo 13: Survival is much more factual, but the true tale still manages to hold the tension, the high stakes, and the emotional pull of the actual spaceflight, with excellent editing stitching the never-before-seen archival footage and key interviews into an exciting, compelling account. That being said, older viewers that already watched the Tom Hanks drama would likely not find anything new in this film, but Apollo 13: Survival would be a decent documentary to those who have never heard of the spacecraft.

Elton John’s latest concert film follows the same structure as most current music documentaries: it splices present-day footage of the musician doing his latest (and final tour) with flashbacks of his past. In either rare archival footage or lovely animation, we see snippets of his troubled childhood, his serendipitous meet-up with writing partner Bernie Taupin, his rise to fame as an unlikely rock star, and his rocky relationships with different men. If you’re an avid fan of the singer, you likely won’t see anything new here, save for excerpts from his final tour. But whether you’re familiar with John’s music or not, this documentary is sure to be a pleaser, especially aurally.

Produced by ABC News, Print It Black is a documentary that opts for a straightforward approach instead of a stylish one. It’s more breaking news than investigative, more TV than film, but it works to highlight the urgent issue at hand. Well, two issues, which it sometimes clumsily handles. On the one hand, Print It Black is about the devastating Robb Elementary massacre and how the small town of Uvalde is further divided in the aftermath. On the other, it’s about the relevancy of the town paper, The Uvalde Leader-News, and the crucial role it plays at a time when more and more news publications are shutting down. At the intersection of these two stories is Kimberly Rubio, a staff reporter for the paper whose 10-year-old daughter was one of the victims of the massacre. Without Rubio, the two threads come undone and the documentary fails to feel like a cohesive story. Odd decisions, like leaving out the identity and motivations of the perpetrator and allotting virtually zero screentime to the other nine victims, start to become glaringly obvious. It’s a shame because both are worthy topics that deserve their own features; here, they seem unfairly smushed into a feature that’s unconfident about the way it handles them.