The 12 best documentaries of 2024

We now live in a world where documentary filmmaking is constant. Through TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, many of us are fed a near-ceaseless stream of moving images drawn from the everyday, in the form of memes, skits, jokes, rants, in-depth critical analyses, and “look at this cool thing” slices of life. The downside of this is that we also live in a world where it’s getting harder and harder to trust what we see, because we don’t always know who’s behind those images, or why they were posted. Is that footage of a riot happening right now at some campus protest, or is it an old clip from another country, repurposed to look like breaking news?

The best documentaries of this year came from trusted names: veteran filmmakers capable of finding stories in unexpected places and presenting them in ways that feel personal, meaningful and, above all, true. These films are set in prisons, museums, summer camps, and Hollywood recording studios. They feature activists, psychics, sperm donors, and movie stars. They mostly avoid gimmicks — there’s no Lego here — to focus on intimacy. They can’t be reduced to a one-minute loop or taken out of context. They demand that audiences sit with them in toto, both while watching and afterward.

While they didn’t make this list, it’s worth acknowledging some documentaries from this year that tackled life in the internet and influencer age head-on, in ways that were thoughtful, entertaining, and moving. Consider this an honorable mentions list: The Remarkable Life of Ibelin (about a man who died young but lived a full secret life within World of Warcraft), Skywalkers: A Love Story (about two young lovers who bond over filming themselves climbing up dangerously high urban spaces), and Seeking Mavis Beacon (about a search for the real-life model for a popular piece of typing software). These were all movies meant to make audiences think and feel, and they’ll likely be talked about in the years to come.

Where to watch: In theaters

Though relatively short in running time, this haunting and meditative film about repatriated West African artifacts covers over a century of shared history between French colonists and the country now known as Benin. Director Mati Diop covers the return of 26 statues and other art pieces from Paris’ Musée du Quai Branly, following all the mundane steps it took to box them up, ship them off, and then put them on display again in their original home. Diop eschews conventional narration, choosing instead to include a voice-over from one of the statues, reflecting on all it has seen. Most of the words in Dahomey come from the locals who attend the exhibit and then argue — pointedly — about what these works represent and what they have to say, if anything, about their past and present.

There’s an equal amount of hope and heartbreak in this film, which documents a special program that arranges for incarcerated men to attend a dance with their daughters — if they’re willing to complete a series of counseling sessions about what it means to be a good father. Natalie Rae co-directed Daughters with Angela Patton, one of the leaders of Girls for a Change, which offers resources and guidance to young women whose lives have been affected by poverty and crime. The documentary spends time with both the kids and their dads, in both the weeks leading up to the dance and in the weeks after, to tell a story about how broken families can have moments of unity and healing.

Ernest Cole: Lost and Found

Where to watch: In theaters

The latest documentary from the ambitious Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck is similar to his 2016 masterpiece I Am Not Your Negro, in that it too ruminates on racism with the help of an influential artist’s unfinished project. Ernest Cole: Lost and Found uses the words of the acclaimed South African photographer Ernest Cole (read by LaKeith Stanfield) to tell Cole’s story: about how his pictures documenting apartheid’s cruelty shocked the conscience of the world, and about how after he achieved a measure of fame in the art and journalism worlds, he struggled to complete a series of photos that would document American poverty. The film is both a biography and an exhibition, bringing some rarely seen images out of the archives and explaining how they came to be.

Where to watch: Prime Video (subscription or free with ads), free with a library card on Hoopla

Over 25 years after Christopher Wilcha captured Generation X at its most “oh well, whatever, never mind” in his 1999 documentary The Target Shoots First, he checks back in with a film that explains what he’s been doing since. In short: He’s been paying the bills doing commercial work while starting a bunch of documentary projects that for one reason or another he’s been unable to complete. Flipside is a clever exercise in recycling, taking these unused pieces and finding a new purpose for them in a reflective documentary about aging and regret. If Wilcha weren’t such a disarmingly earnest fellow, this hodgepodge doc might seem terribly self-indulgent. But these fragments — which cover everything from a struggling New Jersey record store to Ira Glass’ attempt to turn This American Life into a musical — combine into an affecting meditation on the artistic impulse.

Where to watch: Apple TV Plus

A sequel to the Emmy-winning 2020 documentary Boys State, the new film from directors Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine moves the action from Texas to Missouri, taking place at a politics-themed summer camp where high school girls recreate the functions of a state government. They run for offices, draft resolutions, and hear court cases — all on the same college campus where Missouri Boys State is holding a similar program, albeit with more personal freedom and curricular rigor. As with the earlier film, Moss and McBaine stay away from simplistic political points, and they avoid painting their subjects as heroes or villains because of what they believe. Instead, Girls State shows compassion for a group of young ladies who earnestly intend to make new friends and learn leadership skills.

The Greatest Night in Pop

On the evening of Jan. 28, 1985, dozens of the era’s most popular recording artists arrived at a Hollywood recording studio to record their vocal parts for “We Are the World,” a charity single raising money for Ethiopian famine relief. The sessions were run by Lionel Richie and Quincy Jones, who told the stars to “check [their] egos at the door.” But as the fun and fascinating documentary The Greatest Night in Pop shows, the real key to this session wasn’t in juggling all the different personalities but in managing the limited time they had to devote to the project. Through archival footage and new interviews, director Bao Nguyen reconstructs an exhilarating, exhausting night — stretching into the wee hours of the morning — where the likes of Stevie Wonder, Bob Dylan, Cyndi Lauper, and Bruce Springsteen were all bandmates, working together for a common cause.

Where to watch: Available for digital rental/purchase on Amazon, Apple TV

Are professional psychics charlatans? Or are they more akin to therapists, helping their clients process feelings of grief and alienation? Lana Wilson’s Look Into My Eyes supports the latter argument, while also offering another provocative theory: that psychic readings are like improv theater, with both participants working together to create catharsis. Wilson combines testimonials from New York psychics — many of whom also work in the performing arts — with extended footage of their sessions, allowing the audience to experience the human connections that emerge whenever one person looks closely and empathetically at another.

For the past decade, Nanfu Wang has been making documentaries that explore the ways authoritarianism’s ripples wash over — and swamp — ordinary citizens. Most of her work has been about her native China, while also touching on her adopted home, the United States. Night Is Not Eternal is a little bit about both, but it’s more about Cuba, as seen through the eyes of the activist Rosa María Payá Acevedo. A veteran of resistance politics whose family has been fighting for freedom since the early years of Fidel Castro’s regime, Acevedo leads Wang into a different kind of dissident culture, with a deep distrust of leftist politics. Through conversations and personal reflections, Wang considers how even social movements with similar aims can’t be painted with a broad brush.

Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat

This essay-film takes a striking approach to the Cold War, quickly cutting together archival TV clips and text from old books and newspapers to create a sort of cinematic collage. The resulting picture covers three intertwining themes: the battle for control of the United Nations between American- and Soviet-aligned leaders, the rising popularity of jazz music around the world, and the decolonization movement in Africa. Gradually a story emerges about how the U.S. relied on its cultural exports to help spread democracy publicly, while privately the foreign policy wonks worked to keep resource-rich African nations under European control — and all while the socialist bloc used American racism as a propaganda tool. Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat director Johan Grimonprez doesn’t make any of these points explicitly, but rather lets the audience stew in a swirl of images and sounds, immersing them in a politically complicated era.

Filmmaker Lance Oppenheim flirted with the mainstream this year with his buzzy HBO miniseries Ren Faire, about the backstage melodrama at a venerable Texas Renaissance festival. But for a more concentrated dose of Oppenheim’s offbeat approach to documentaries, the movie to watch is Spermworld, which follows three men who offer their semen to women who can’t afford a conventional sperm bank. Shot like an art film — with an eye for color and light, and an emphasis on small, quirky moments — Spermworld is only partly about the practical realities of this strange subculture. It’s more about the urge to procreate itself, and how clumsy, fragile, and beautiful the whole process can be.

Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story

Where to watch: Available for digital rental/purchase on Amazon, Apple TV

It’s not easy to take a story as widely known as Christopher Reeve’s and make it feel fresh. When the Superman star was paralyzed in a horse-riding accident in 1995, his injury and subsequent advocacy was covered in depth by the media, all the way up to his death in 2004. For this film, though, co-directors Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui had access to rare home-movie footage, supplemented with interviews with Reeve’s family and excerpts from the audiobooks of his memoirs. Following the lead of its title, Super/Man is divided evenly between stories about Reeve’s movie star heyday and stories about his post-accident life, cutting back and forth between the two, making it clear that the man who could fly had bad days, the man in the wheelchair had good days, and both inspired millions.

The concept of this funny, poignant road trip documentary is simple. Will Ferrell, one of the most likable comedians of his era, drives across the country with a close friend and collaborator he’s known since Saturday Night Live. The twist? The friend, Harper Steele, recently transitioned, and this will be the first extended time these two spend together since the change. Their bond remains strong, which is what makes Will & Harper so affecting. These two can talk about anything. And they both have a lot to learn: Harper about what it’s like for Will to walk around all the time as a goofy celebrity, and Will about the dozens of daily slights that make it harder for Harper to live as her true self.