March 24, 2024

300 Best Documentaries on YouTube in 2024

There are thousands of documentaries on YouTube. But finding the best ones to watch can be a challenge. We’ve put together a YouTube playlist on our LearnOutLoud YouTube Channel of the 300 Best Documentaries on YouTube in 2024, featuring award-winning, highly-rated, and popular documentaries that are legally free on YouTube.

300 Best Documentaries on YouTube Playlist

Probably 90% of the documentaries on YouTube aren’t worth watching at all. They feature low-quality productions about ancient aliens and other such nonsense. You won’t find any of those documentaries on our list. We’ve spent hours sifting through documentaries and picked out 300 documentaries we feel are educational and worth watching.

Almost all of the documentaries on our playlist are feature-length documentaries. Also, all of the documentaries on this list are legally available on YouTube. They are either from the official YouTube TV & Movies channel or from a channel on YouTube that legally distributes the movie. So we’ll list them all below in order by year, from most recent to oldest. Find a documentary worth watching from this list! We’ll keep adding to the playlist as we find more great documentaries on YouTube.

Please Note: Many of these documentaries have territory restrictions on YouTube. If you are outside the United States, please click the playlist link above, and you’ll see which of the documentaries are available in your country. Also, some of the documentaries are age-restricted and require you to log in to view them. Also, the rights to these documentaries may change over time, so some may become unavailable.

Below we’re linking to over 300 documentaries directly on YouTube:

20 Days in Mariupol (2023)
The Last Repair Shop (2023)
Zora Neale Hurston: Claiming a Space (2023)
Pleistocene Park (2023)
American Oz (2021)
Mentality (2021)
American Mafia: The Rise and Fall of Organized Crime in Las Vegas (2021)
Tom Petty: Somewhere You Feel Free (2021)
The Queen of Basketball (2021)
Amend: The Fight for America (2021)
Life in a Day 2020 (2021)
The Last Blockbuster (2020)
Cryptopia (2020)
Banksy Most Wanted (2020)
The Dissident (2020)
Jay Sebring: Cutting to the Truth (2020)
A Thousand Cuts (2020)
Childhood 2.0 (2020)
On the Record (2020)
Crip Camp (2020)
Once Upon a Time in Iraq (2020)
Coachella: 20 Years in the Desert (2020)
Amazon Empire: The Rise and Reign of Jeff Bezos (2020)
No Safe Spaces (2019)
Going Attractions: The Definitive Story of the Movie Palace (2019)
The Accountant of Auschwitz (2019)
Love, Antosha (2019)
Making Apes: The Artists Who Changed Film (2019)
In Search of the Last Action Heroes (2019)
Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am (2019)
Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound (2019)
The River and the Wall (2019)
Armstrong (2019)
Netflix vs. the World (2019)
Chris Farley: Anything for a Laugh (2019)
Planet of the Humans (2019)
Our Planet (2019)
Knock Down the House (2019)
The Age of A.I. (2019)
In the Age of AI (2019)
For Sama (2019)
The Gift: The Journey of Johnny Cash (2019)
The Boy Band Con: The Lou Pearlman Story (2019)
The Gilded Age (2018)
Black Hole Apocalypse (2018)
The Panama Papers (2018)
Bergman: A Year in a Life (2018)
The Flood (2018)
What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael (2018)
Mystify: Michael Hutchence (2018)
American Street Kid (2018)
Living in the Future’s Past (2018)
Chuck Berry: The Original King Of Rock ‘n’ Roll (2018)
The Bill Murray Stories: Life Lessons Learned from a Mythical Man (2018)
First to the Moon: The Journey of Apollo 8 (2018)
RBG (2018)
The Creepy Line (2018)
Period. End of Sentence. (2018)
Panic: The Untold Story of the 2008 Financial Crisis (2018)
The Price of Free (2018)
The Facebook Dilemma (2018)
King in the Wilderness (2018)
The Last Laugh (2017)
Mission Control: The Unsung Heroes of Apollo (2017)
Born Strong (2017)
Ruby Ridge (2017)
Mountain (2017)
Tickling Giants (2017)
I Am Not Your Negro (2017)
Strong Island (2017)
Chasing Coral (2017)
AlphaGo (2017)
Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken! (2017)
Perfect Bid: The Contestant Who Knew Too Much (2017)
The Third Industrial Revolution (2017)
A World in Disarray (2017)
LA 92 (2017)
Abacus: Small Enough to Jail (2016)
The Last Dalai Lama? (2016)
The Red Pill (2016)
Food Choices (2016)
Dying Laughing (2016)
Life, Animated (2016)
Score: A Film Music Documentary (2016)
Sour Grapes (2016)
The Coming War on China (2016)
Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World (2016)
13th (2016)
The White Helmets (2016)
The Occupation of the American Mind (2016)
Shelter (2016)
Greed: A Fatal Desire (2016)
The Reality of Truth (2016)
On the Streets (2016)
An Honest Liar (2015)
Minimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things (2015)
Raiders!: The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made (2015)
Misery Loves Comedy (2015)
Racing Extinction (2015)
Requiem for the American Dream (2015)
Back in Time (2015)
Being Evel (2015)
All Things Must Pass: The Rise and Fall of Tower Records (2015)
Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom (2015)
The Brainwashing of My Dad (2015)
My Scientology Movie (2015)
Manny (2015)
The Wolfpack (2015)
Human (2015)
Finding Vivian Maier (2014)
Dark Star: H.R. Giger’s World (2014)
I Am Big Bird: The Caroll Spinney Story (2014)
The Overnighters (2014)
Nas: Time is Illmatic (2014)
Plastic Galaxy: The Story of Star Wars Toys (2014)
The Rise and Rise of Bitcoin (2014)
Life Itself (2014)
Alive Inside: A Story of Music and Memory (2014)
Visitors (2014)
James Cameron’s Deepsea Challenge (2014)
20,000 Days on Earth (2014)
Fed Up (2014)
Citizenfour (2014)
The Man Who Saved the World (2014)
That Sugar Film (2014)
The Hacker Wars (2014)
Free to Play (2014)
Into the Mind (2013)
I Know That Voice (2013)
The Unbelievers (2013)
Rewind This! (2013)
Milius (2013)
How to Make Money Selling Drugs (2013)
Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy? (2013)
Our Nixon (2013)
Blackfish (2013)
20 Feet from Stardom (2013)
Inequality for All (2013)
The Square (2013)
Muscle Shoals (2013)
League of Denial: The NFL’s Concussion Crisis (2013)
This Is What Winning Looks Like (2013)
Jiro Dreams of Sushi (2012)
West of Memphis (2012)
The Source Family (2012)
Undefeated (2012)
How to Survive a Plague (2012)
3 Magic Words (2012)
The Imposter (2012)
Inner Worlds, Outer Worlds (2012)
Sunset Strip (2012)
Free the Mind (2012)
Head Games (2012)
B.B. King: The Life of Riley (2012)
Something From Nothing: The Art of Rap (2012)
Stories We Tell (2012)
Evocateur: The Morton Downey Jr. Movie (2012)
The Queen of Versailles (2012)
Four Horsemen (2012)
The Weight of the Nation (2012)
Pina (2011)
You Laugh But It’s True (2011)
American Teacher (2011)
Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop (2011)
Crazy Wisdom: The Life and Times of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche (2011)
Kumare (2011)
Magic Trip (2011)
Finding Joe (2011)
Life in a Day (2011)
Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work (2010)
Freakonomics (2010)
Stonewall Uprising (2010)
The Parking Lot Movie (2010)
Who Is Harry Nilsson (And Why Is Everybody Talkin’ About Him)? (2010)
The Tillman Story (2010)
Secret Origin: The Story of DC Comics (2010)
Standing Army (2010)
180 Degrees South: Conquerors of the Useless (2010)
Countdown to Zero (2010)
With Great Power: The Stan Lee Story (2010)
The Trials of J. Robert Oppenheimer (2009)
The Cove (2009)
Food, Inc. (2009)
Which Way Home (2009)
Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould (2009)
Blank City (2009)
Winnebago Man (2009)
American: The Bill Hicks Story (2009)
Capitalism: A Love Story (2009)
The September Issue (2009)
Floored (2009)
Cropsey (2009)
Home (2009)
Capturing Reality: The Art of Documentary (2008)
Griefwalker (2008)
Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired (2008)
Man on Wire (2008)
More Than a Game (2008)
Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story (2008)
Crips and Bloods: Made in America (2008)
Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown (2008)
Bigger, Stronger, Faster (2008)
The Wrecking Crew (2008)
Carts of Darkness (2008)
Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten (2007)
Spirit of the Marathon (2007)
King: Man of Peace in a Time of War (2007)
Chicago 10 (2007)
Sicko (2007)
The Secret (2007)
Crazy Love (2007)
Certifiably Jonathan (2007)
Kurt Cobain: About a Son (2006)
Deep Water (2006)
American Hardcore (2006)
God Grew Tired of Us (2006)
The Trials of Darryl Hunt (2006)
Look, Up in the Sky: The Amazing Story of Superman (2006)
Iraq in Fragments (2006)
Street Fight (2005)
Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst (2004)
The White Diamond (2004)
Riding Giants (2004)
Dig! (2004)
H.H. Holmes: America’s First Serial Killer (2004)
Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism (2004)
Super Size Me (2004)
Plagues & Pleasures on the Salton Sea (2004)
The Agronomist (2003)
Wheel of Time (2003)
The Corporation (2003)
Capturing the Friedmans (2003)
Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer (2003)
Bonhoeffer (2003)
Lost in La Mancha (2002)
Aleister Crowley: The Wickedest Man in the World (2002)
The Cockettes (2002)
Biggie & Tupac (2002)
Gaza Strip (2002)
The Merchants of Cool (2001)
Ghosts of Attica (2001)
In the Mirror of Maya Deren (2001)
Murder on a Sunday Morning (2001)
Rivers and Tides (2001)
Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures (2001)
OCD: The War Inside (2001)
My Best Fiend (1999)
The Decline of Western Civilization Part III (1998)
Dying to Tell the Story (1998)
Divorce: Iranian Style (1998)
Soldier Child (1998)
Fast, Cheap & Out of Control (1997)
The Long Way Home (1997)
Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1997)
Trekkies (1997)
Biography: Jesus Christ (1997)
Heidi Fleiss: Hollywood Madam (1996)
Shtetl (1996)
Lessons of Darkness (1992)
Brother’s Keeper (1992)
Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media (1992)
Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer (1992)
Echoes from a Sombre Empire (1990)
Krishnamurti: With a Silent Mind (1990)
Herdsmen of the Sun (1989)
Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt (1989)
The Eagle Has Landed (1989)
The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years (1988)
The Last Moguls (1986)
The Dark Glow of the Mountains (1985)
Private Practices: The Story of a Sex Surrogate (1985)
Memory of the Camps (1985)
Top Guns: The Documentary (1984)
Ballad of the Little Soldier (1984)
Waterwalker (1984)
Style Wars (1983)
Genocide (1982)
The Atomic Café (1982)
God’s Angry Man (1981)
The Decline of Western Civilization (1981)
From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China (1981)
The Kids Are Alright (1979)
Gates of Heaven (1978)
Pumping Iron (1977)
How Much Wood Would a Woodchuck Chuck (1976)
The Man Who Skied Down Everest (1975)
Who’s Out There (1975)
The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner (1974)
Land of Silence and Darkness (1971)
Fata Morgana (1971)
Chariots of the Gods (1970)
The Decision to Drop the Bomb (1965)
Tokyo Olympiad (1965)
The March (1963)
Harvest of Shame (1960)
The James Dean Story (1957)
All My Babies (1953)
Navajo (1952)
Louisiana Story (1948)
The Quiet One (1948)
Let There Be Light (1946)
The Battle of San Pietro (1945)
Why We Fight (1942)
The River (1937)
The Plow That Broke the Plains (1936)
Man of Aran (1934)
Man with a Movie Camera (1929)
Nanook of the North (1922)

Watch a great documentary on YouTube today!