16 Documentaries Coming Out in 2025 That Should Be on Your Watchlist

From buzzy superhero stories to the return of Paddington, 2025 is filled with exciting new movie releases. But here’s some advice: Don’t count out real-life stories in the meantime. Documentaries can be just as gripping as fictional movies, and based on the current slate of upcoming nonfiction releases, the new year will be no exception.

In 2025, movie lovers can look forward to exciting new music documentaries with exclusive footage of iconic bands and subgenres, as well as timely films that provide intimate looks at modern topics like AI and the fight for LGBTQ+ rights. There’s even a tearjerker about hummingbirds! So, it’s safe to say there are exciting docs that just about anyone can look forward to. Below, we’re rounding up the best documentaries of 2025 that are on the horizon. (If you want even more recommendations, check out our lists of the best true crime documentaries and docuseries of 2025 and the best documentaries of 2024.)

'Avicii – I'm Tim'

Release date: December 31 on Netflix

This music doc is said to be the most personal and closest examination yet of who Tim Bergling, the Swedish artist behind his star EDM persona Avicii, was throughout his life before his death by suicide in 2018. Featuring home footage and clips from his private archive, Avicii – I'm Tim, which was made with his family and closest friends and colleagues involved, paints a never-before-seen portrait of the hitmaker and his inner world.

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'Don't Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever'

Release date: January 1 on Netflix

Filmmaker Chris Smith has released several buzzy documentaries in the past few years, from Netflix titles like Fyre and the true-crime hit The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann to HBO’s 100 Foot Wave. His latest is sure to rattle viewers, as well. Don’t Die’s subject is Bryan Johnson, a tech entrepreneur who has committed his life's work to defy aging through questionable and controversial practices, including plasma transfusions.

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'Every Little Thing'

Release date: January 10

In the hills of L.A.’s Beverly Hills, Terry Masear spends her days tending to injured hummingbirds. Masear knows that her winged charges aren’t on Earth for long, but the joy she takes in caring for her home’s little cast of characters soon moves past typical cute animal content into something more profound. Weaving together tales of Masear’s avian rehab with her history of overcoming an abusive rural upbringing and finding her place within L.A., Every Little Thing is a lovely reminder that everyday resilience and magic can be found in your own backyard, even amid hardships and loss,

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'Eternal You'

Release date: January 24

Like it or not, AI seems here to stay. While some argue that it’ll help unlock a new era of human innovation, others’ view of this technology is more informed by…every sci-fi cautionary tale ever. The German documentary Eternal You attempts to parse the shadowy potential of AI with a moral quandary: What if you could use AI to talk to a late loved one? That might sound like a ghoulish Black Mirror episode, but avatars of the deceased are a real product engineered by tech startups. If any premise is ripe for soberly interrogating the boundaries this invention should have, it’s this one.

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'No Other Land'

Release date: January 31

Though No Other Land officially became an Academy Award-winning documentary during the 2025 Oscars, the searing documentary on the occupation of Palestinian villages in the West Bank still hasn't received a wide release in the U.S. However, the doc has made its way to limited theaters so more people can experience one of the most important films in recent years.

'Becoming Led Zeppelin'

Release date: February 7

Rock music lovers, this one's for you. As its title suggests, Becoming Led Zeppelin isn’t your typical career-spanning music documentary. Instead, it uses a “hybrid docu-concert” format to track the iconic British band’s rise to fame in the 1960s. The biggest draw? The film’s bounty of never-before-seen early concert footage and recordings was released for fans to watch in IMAX.

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'Sly Lives! (aka the Burden of Black Genius)'

Release date: February 13 on Hulu

Questlove's follow-up to the 2021 Oscar-winning doc Summer of Soul is another examination of a cultural phenomenon. Another music doc where the title hints at the film's scope, Sly Lives! (aka the Burden of Black Genius) reintroduces the genre-bending musician Sly Stone, not by charting his rise and fall, but by examining whether his late career struggles were the effect of the burdens the culture places on Black trailblazers.

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'One on One: John and Yoko'

Release date: April 11

Beatlemania has never really gone away, but it's set to ramp up over the next few years. First up is this documentary, centered on the first 18 months of John Lennon and Yoko Ono's life together in N.Y.C. While chronicling the pair's adventures in 1972 Greenwich Village, the doc also looks back at a turbulent era in American history through the lens of 1970s television. The film's highlight is newly-restored footage of the duo's titular benefit concerts at Madison Square Garden, with the concert audio remixed by their son, musician Sean Ono Lennon.

'Pangolin: Kulu’s Journey'

Release date: April 21 on Netflix

My Octopus Teacher filmmaker Pippa Ehrlich is back with her follow-up to the Oscar-winning doc: a new project about one of the "most poached and trafficked animals on the planet." The film follows Kulu, a baby pangolin (a.k.a. scaly mammals native to Africa and Asia), and the man who "finds new purpose" when he rescues Kulu "in a sting operation in South Africa." According to the description, the man "embarks on a heartfelt mission to rehabilitate and prepare the vulnerable animal for a life of freedom in the wild."

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'SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night'

Release date: January 16 on Peacock

Saturday Night Live celebrates its whopping 50th anniversary in 2025, and the NBC late-night staple pulled out all the stops to celebrate. In addition to running various specials, the iconic comedy sketch show released a four-part docuseries about the untold stories behind all your favorite skits and infamous moments. If you at all have a soft spot for any number of the memorable casts, this will warm your heart and fill you with laughter.

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'Heightened Scrutiny'

Release date: TBA; Premiered at Sundance

In 2024, a whopping 669 anti-trans bills threatening trans people’s basic access to healthcare, legal protections, and more were introduced in the United States, more than any other year on record. Now, director Sam Feder—who previously made the groundbreaking 2020 Netflix LGBTQ+ documentary Disclosure—is taking on this precarious moment for trans rights in his new film Heightened Scrutiny. The doc follows ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio as he contends with not only political scapegoating but also biased media narratives in his mission to protect transgender Americans’ freedoms.

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'Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore'

Release date: TBA; Premiered at Sundance

In 1987, Marlee Matlin shot into the spotlight when she became the first Deaf actor to win an Academy Award at just 21-years-old for her performance in Children of a Lesser God. Her win, in turn, helped give Weeds and Grey’s Anatomy star Shoshannah Stern the confidence to pursue an acting career as a Deaf woman. Now, Stern is bringing things full circle in her directorial debut Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore, in which the two women trace Matlin’s career and how navigating Hollywood has (and hasn’t) changed for the Deaf community.

'Move Ya Body: The Birth of House'

Release date: TBA; Premiered at Sundance

These days, house music is a global phenomenon. (See Ariana Grande's eternal sunshine and Beyoncé's Renaissance as evidence.) But in the 1980s, it was still a brand-new sound emerging in the South Side of Chicago’s underground clubs. Elegance Bratton’s Move Ya Body tracks house’s journey from the Second City to the world stage, mixing interviews with some of the genre’s key figures with rare archival footage.

'The Perfect Neighbor'

Release date: TBA on Netflix

In 2023, Ocala, Florida resident Ajike "A.J." Owens, 35, was fatally shot by her 60-year-old neighbor during a dispute, with the subsequent case renewing discourse around the state's controversial "stand your ground" laws. This Sundance Award-winning doc examines the tragic incident and its aftermath as an intimate case study—told through body-cam footage and CCTV—of how these laws are unevenly upheld in a society that has not yet fully reckoned with systemic racism.

'Titan'

Release date: TBA on Netflix

We're in an age where monoculture news events are immediately snatched up for documentary features. (Consider the many Luigi Mangione docs already in the works.) This year, Netflix and filmmaker Mark Monroe will dive into the 2023 Titan submersible incident in which a tourist expedition to the Titanic wreck notoriously went missing and left the world waiting four days for news of the vessel. In addition to the doomed expedition, the film will examine the "price of ambition," regarding OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush.

'Twiggy'

Release date: March 7 in the U.K., TBD in the U.S.

You could recognize those big eyes and eyelashes anywhere, but do you know her story? After telling the story of British fashion designer Mary Quant, filmmaker Sadie Frost's latest subject is another mod icon: Twiggy. The fashion documentary is a full-fledged look at her life, going from a working-class background to becoming an internationally renowned model to quitting her career in the industry at age 22 in pursuit of other opportunities, as well as the lesser-known setbacks she faced along the way.

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