The Best Documentaries Of 2025 So Far (Mid-Year)

We look back at the first half of the year and choose our favorite 15 doc releases.

Another three months down, it’s time to look at the first half of 2025 and share an updated list of the best documentaries of the year. Some of my favorites are still to come out in official release (including Mr. Nobody Against Putin, which doesn’t have a distributor or release date). I’m cheating a bit, though, because one of the best films of 2025 isn’t hitting theaters for a few more weeks, but I want to spotlight it early rather than holding off until September when it’ll be well into its run. For this edition of the list, I’ve added some slots to increase the ranking to 15, and six newer films, three of them in the top five, have joined the remaining nine docs from the previous version.