20 Best Documentaries on Pluto TV

20 Best Documentaries on Pluto TV

February 11, 2025

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There’s so many films available online so it can get overwhelming at times to choose something to watch. In those times, instead of picking something fictional to escape into, why not watch something real? Why not watch a documentary? Of course, if you’re already subscribed to a streaming service, you can already look through their library– Amazon Prime, Hulu, and Max users can also check out our handy lists. But for viewers wanting some quality documentaries, you can head on over to Pluto TV to watch them without any fees or log-ins. Here are our top picks for the best ones we found on the platform.

1. Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father (2008)

best

9.6

Genres

Crime, Documentary

Director

Kurt Kuenne

Actors

Andrew Bagby, Bob Bagby, David Bagby, Dr. Andrew Bagby

Moods

Discussion-sparking, Dramatic, Emotional

Get ready to cry your eyes out, scream in anger, but also rejoice at the powerful love that exists in our world. We will not spoiler the premise of this documentary and urge you not to do so yourself. Instead, we recommend watching it and prepare to be changed forever. Call it true crime if you will, but this documentary is much more. Hailed as one of the most important documentaries of the 2000s, it is a testament to friendship and love, a real-life thriller, and a political denouncement all in one.

2. The Imposter (2012)

best

9.3

Genres

Crime, Documentary, Mystery

Director

Bart Layton

Actors

Adam O'Brian, Adam O' Brian, Adam O'Brian, Alan Teichman

Moods

Discussion-sparking, Dramatic, Intense

Simply titled The Imposter, this film by English documentary maker Bart Layton tells an unbelievable tale. Any plot summary doing this film justice has to err on the side of brevity, which is why it will be only one line long: this is the story of Frederic Bourdin, a serial imposter nicknamed “The Chameleon”, who at one time claimed to be the missing son of a family from Texas. The film is so well-shot that it is hard to tell fact from fiction at times and it will force you to remind yourself that this is in fact real life. Expect twists and turns at every corner and brilliant storytelling from real people. If Christopher Nolan created a 48-hour story, it would pale in comparison to this film.

3. Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond – Featuring a Very Special, Contractually Obligated Mention of Tony Clifton (2017)

best

9.2

Genres

Comedy, Documentary, Drama

Director

Chris Smith

Actors

Andy Dick, Andy Kaufman, Bob Zmuda, Carol Kane

Moods

Dark, Discussion-sparking, Emotional

After his first serious role in The Truman Show in 1998, Jim Carrey got a shot at playing his idol, the late comedian and performance artist Andy Kaufmann, in Man on the Moon in 1999. When he got the role, a role of a lifetime, Carrey decided to honor Kaufmann’s legacy by transforming into him (and his alter ego Tony Clifton) and, in true method-acting fashion, never to leave character. Jim & Andy is the result of 100 hours of behind-the-scenes footage shot at the Man on the Moon set, which was withheld for 20 years over fears of Universal Studios that people would think Carrey was an a**hole. While Carrey was a complete and utter imposition to the film’s director, Miloš Forman, and everybody else on set, including Danny DeVito, his transformation (or obsession) was a unique, transformative experience for Carrey, who had been sick of fame and acting before he took on this gig. Whether you buy into this view or see it as a vanity piece of a complete maniac, this is one of the most unique and insane documentaries on Netflix. A mind-blowing portrayal of a complex mind.

4. Zero Days (2016)

best

9.1

Genres

Documentary

Director

Alex Gibney

Actors

Allison Cohn, Barack Obama, Benjamin Netanyahu, David Sanger

Moods

Instructive, Intense, Mind-blowing

Told in urgent fashion with first-hand accounts from cyber professionals from around the globe, Zero Days is a fascinating and alarming documentary about the Stuxnet computer virus. Originally codenamed “Olympic Games” by the people that fathered the worm, Stuxnet is a virus in the true sense of the word. It not only maliciously feeds off the host, but it also replicates itself as soon as it is implanted, which is exactly what it did when it was used by the US and Israeli secret services to sabotage centrifuges inside Iran’s Natanz nuclear plant—making them spin out of control. All this is brilliantly unpacked by renowned documentary maker Alex Gibney (Going Clear, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room), who manages not only to detail the complexities of advanced coding in a remarkably evocative manner, but also to send out a well-researched alarm call about the future of war. Ultimately, the message here is that cyber warfare is very much part of our new shared reality. This film deserves to be seen by anyone who is even remotely concerned about global security in the 21st century.

5. Uppity: The Willy T. Ribbs Story (2020)

best

8.2

Genres

Documentary

Director

Adam Carolla, Nate Adams

Actors

Adam Carolla, Al Unser Jr., Bernie Ecclestone, Bobby Unser

Moods

Discussion-sparking, Inspiring, Instructive

“They called me uppity. Uppity n*****. And I loved it”. That’s how this excellent documentary, about the first professional black racing driver Willy T. Ribbs, starts. It summarizes the strong personality of a champion who excelled in tracks that were filled with confederate flags.

The documentary explains the details of the difficulties that Ribbs went through in the 70s and 80s, but also the people who supported him and recognized his talent. It’s by no way a sad movie, on the contrary, even when Ribbs is talking about people spitting wherever he walks or about the death threats escalating, his unharmed determination is at the center of the story.

This is an inspiring documentary about a character who never got his worth in the history books. I was full of shivers by the first half-hour mark.

6. Love, Antosha (2019)

best

8.0

Genres

Documentary

Director

Garret Price

Actors

Anthony Hopkins, Anton Yelchin, Anya Taylor-Joy, Ben Foster

Moods

Emotional, Heart-warming, Mind-blowing

This movie narrated by Nicolas Cage is the incredible story of actor Anton Yelchin (Star Trek, Like Crazy): from being born to a Jewish Russian family in Leningrad to moving to the U.S. and ending with his sudden death at age 27. Anton, or Antosha as his loved ones called him, was a gifted kid: he was making his own movies at seven years old, taking highly sophisticated notes on Fellini movies, and picking up playing guitar in a short time. He took photographs that still show in exhibitions around the world. He led an extraordinary life, portrayed here, one that was cut way too short.

7. Man on Wire (2008)

7.9

Genres

Documentary

Director

James Marsh

Actors

Annie Allix, David Forman, Jean François Heckel, Jean-Louis Blondeau

Moods

Inspiring, Mind-blowing, Thrilling

Man on Wire is a true technical masterpiece. You can almost feel the director telling the cameraman what angle to choose, or thinking about the questions that will generate the most resounding answers. However, this does not diminish the story this documentary tells one bit. It’s one that is glorious, riveting, and fun. It’s one where you feel like an insider to a world lived on and below wires, with high-stake risks. Hopefully the edge of your seat is comfortable, because this is where the movie will keep you till the very end.

8. Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2011)

7.9

Genres

Documentary, Drama

Director

Werner Herzog

Actors

Charles Fathy, Dominique Baffier, Jean Clottes, Volker Schlöndorff

Moods

Intense, Thought-provoking

In this 3D documentary, Werner Herzog takes a dive into the Chauvet Cave in Southern France. From archaeology and anthropology to master perfumery, scientists across disciplines have studied the cave with a palpable enthusiasm—making their best guesses about each cave drawing, based on the data that can be collected without destroying the site. It’s fascinating to hear how they hypothesize where they can find new entrances, or how prehistoric humans could have made music. Cave of Forgotten Dreams turns a regular documentary into a profound meditation about the human soul, creation, and human history. Herzog compiles clips of his interviews with the scientists alongside footage of the cave itself and his own narration, and mixes it with an ethereal score to turn this exploration into a religious epiphany.

9. Hoop Dreams (1994)

7.9

Genres

Documentary

Director

Steve James

Actors

Arthur Agee, Bobby Knight, Dick Vitale, Gene Pingatore

Don’t be fooled—despite being a three-hour documentary, Hoop Dreams is just as thrilling, heartbreaking, and cinematic as any sports film out there. Unlike them, however, Hoop Dreams is less of an uplifting feel-good story than it is an honest and sobering look at how the education system has failed Black communities. It’s not a complete downer, though, since we follow two hardworking and inspiring boys committed to lifting their families from poverty. While more privileged players can afford to treat basketball as a hobby, to Arthur and William, basketball is a lifeline, a rare chance to enjoy better opportunities and give their families a better life. Imagine carrying that on your shoulders while training, studying, looking for colleges, and surviving teenhood. It’s a lot, but director Steve James weaves it all beautifully. James divides the chapter into freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior years, following Arthur and William as they start on the same footing, diverge and live parallel lives (one in private school, the other in public), and eventually meet again during their final years in school. Their journeys are riveting, not least because we also get to know their families, friends, hopes, and dreams. This is riveting cinema, as socially conscious as it is competitively thrilling.

10. The World Before Your Feet (2018)

7.8

Genres

Documentary

Director

Jeremy Workman

Actors

Matt Green

Moods

Inspiring, Sunday, Uplifting

An incredible documentary about Matt Green, a man who decided to walk every street in New York City. That’s more than 8000 miles (more than the diameter of Earth) that he had been walking for six years up to the point of making this movie.  

Matt stops. And that’s the beauty of this documentary, where the filmmaker joins him for part of the journey. You quickly realize that the intrigue is not so much about Matt’s challenge, but about who he meets and what kind of experiences he goes through. You also realize (if you didn’t already) that New York is a place of unimaginable size, with incredibly lively and diverse human stories. Plus lots of other forms of life too: Matt doesn’t have a fixed place, so he cat-sits for shelter.

Fun fact: this is the first movie that actor Jesse Eisenberg ever produced!

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