This Week In Documentary
Theatrical & Streaming Releases - New & Recommended - December 19-25, 2025
Over the next seven days, one of the best documentaries of 2025 will be released in theaters, two of our favorite filmmakers will debut their latest features, and baby animals will be keeping our children entertained via Apple TV. Also, December 25 is coming up at the end of this week, and we’ve got a list of nonfiction Christmas movies. That was compiled nearly a decade ago, so let us know if anything else of note has been released since then. We know of ‘Twas the Fight Before Christmas (Apple TV) and the appropriately sad feature So This is Christmas (free on Prime Video, Tubi, and Fandango at Home). If only there were 14 days of Christmas to allow the additions.
Speaking of the holidays, we have another (not sponsored or paid for) deal to share: you can gift (to yourself or someone else) a subscription to OVID at 50 percent off using the code HALFOFF. The streaming service is regularly adding documentaries, as you’ve seen in our weekly listings section, and is essential to all nonfiction film fans. See our list of the best documentaries on OVID, which shouldn’t be too dated.
Without further ado, below are this week’s documentary highlights, including capsule reviews of new nonfiction films and series. They are followed by daily listings for all known notable releases and broadcasts, plus a brief look at what’s coming soon for doc fans. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to receive more in-depth highlights and reviews in the future, plus access to special posts like our best of 2025 and most anticipated of 2026 lists, and to give me more time to watch more (if not everything) available. If you have a doc in need of coverage or a mention in our listings, you can reach me at christopherbartoncampbell (at) gmail.
Nonfics Pick Of The Week: Cover-Up (2025)
We’ve been getting a ton of documentaries about journalists lately, and for the most part, they’re fine, but the subjects’ work tends to overshadow the film at hand. Both in quality and importance. And the journalists aren’t always that interesting as characters. Laura Poitras and Mark Obenhaus’s Cover-Up isn’t the best film about journalists this year, yet it is ranked pretty well on our list of the best documentaries of 2025, partly because it does have a subject with a great screen presence.
The film follows the life and career (mostly the latter) of investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, who is one of those writers who best exemplify the need for true journalists. He broke the My Lai massacre story during the Vietnam War, was an integral part of the Watergate scandal coverage, and exposed the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuses, among his most significant efforts. He also has a certain charm and wit, despite also being a rather peevish person. Add him to the list of reluctant but relatively cooperative and thorough documentary subjects. He’s a good storyteller and does well talking about his personal and professional lives. Just don’t ask him about his sources, apparently.
You could say Hersh is “old school,” but that’d be a shame. He should be an elder archetype for how journalism should be perceived and practiced still. One of the reasons Cover-Up is so substantial now is that we’re still seeing stories like the ones he famously reported on. We can see My Lai parallels in the Venezuela boat strikes, corruption within the Nixon administration parallels in the Trump White House, and Iraqi prisoner roundups and torture in everything ICE is doing. Yet there’s little of the media infrastructure that allowed for intrepid and principled journalism like Hersh’s to flourish and rise to national attention. There’s also little in the way of such national attention. We need Americans to want and demand journalism, not just expect it.
Cover-Up opens in theaters on Friday, December 19, ahead of its exclusive Netflix streaming debut on Friday, December 26.
Other Documentary Highlights
Breakdown: 1975 (2025)
After executive producing this year’s series SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night, Morgan Neville sticks with the commemoration of the events and entertainment of 1975 with this feature combining world history with film history. Narrated by Jodie Foster and featuring interviews with figures who were there and then (like Martin Scorsese) and others who weren’t even born yet (such as Seth Rogen), the film looks at what was going on in America 50 years ago and how movies released, produced during, and carried over in 1975 reflected the national mood and zeitgeist.
Its timeline is a bit scattered, its memory a bit generalizing, its points wandering, but I do like it when Neville cross-cuts different movies together (example: Chinatown and All the President’s Men) to seem to be in conversation with one another. The best is probably when it cuts from Kim Richards getting an ice cream cone in Escape to Witch Mountain to Kim Richards being shot while holding an ice cream cone in Assault on Precinct 13. Also, the segment on the Oscar win for Hearts and Minds is worth seeing. I recommend pairing it with the new short Song of My City (now on HBO Max), which portrays New York City in the 1970s as depicted in films of the era.
Breakdown: 1975 premieres on Netflix on Friday, December 19.
Death Cap: The Mushroom Murders (2025)
This three-part true-crime docuseries presents the story of an Australian woman accused of murdering three people with beef Wellingtons that she cooked with poisonous mushrooms. It’s the latest overlong entry in the genre where the case is so contemporary that the documentary has to address the true-crime culture and its response to the story in real time. It’s a wild case, but those who would be interested in it likely already know everything, so it feels like an obligatory recap to add to the shelf, merely for the sake of genre completionism.
Death Cap: The Mushroom Murders begins streaming via CNN on Friday, December 19.
Happy And You Know It (2025)
Four years after her must-see Music Box entry Listening to Kenny G, Penny Lane has made another entry for the series with a similar approach. Like the previous film, which profiled the titular smooth jazz icon with acknowledgment that a lot of people think he’s uncool, Happy and You Know It explores the niche of children’s music as something that exists outside of critical and cultural appreciation.
It’s a broad subject to cover in just 78 minutes, and as a parent and elementary school substitute teacher (Jack Hartmann is our friend), I can’t help but feel there are a lot of worthy examples missing from the conversation. Still, it makes its points well enough, both concisely and comprehensively, while focusing on a varied sampling of artists. And I think, as she did with Kenny G, Lane makes us see that we shouldn’t so simply dismiss art and entertainment that’s not for us.
Happy and You Know It premieres on HBO and HBO Max on Thursday, December 25.
Life (2021)
Jafar Panahi’s Life premiered at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival as part of the anthology feature The Year of the Everlasting Storm. You can still find it opening that film (alongside short documentaries by Laura Poitras and Malik Vitthal, grouped with narrative works), which is currently streaming for free on Kanopy and Tubi. The segment is receiving a new life, though, as a standalone short documentary released on its own by Neon, partly in celebration of Panahi’s current awards season success with his latest narrative feature, It Was Just an Accident.
Whether by itself or part of the anthology film, Life feels like a sequel to Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb’s 2011 documentary This is Not a Film. That showed Panahi under house arrest while appealing a prison sentence and filmmaking ban. This shows him sheltering in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s funny because similar films that came out of the pandemic, including the locally related Our Iranian Lockdown, felt like remakes of This is Not a Film. Of course, only Panahi’s two films feature his pet iguana, Iggy, who once again steals the show in Life.
You can watch Life for free via Neon’s YouTube channel below.
Awards Highlights
Academy Awards Shortlists
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences released shortlists for several Oscar categories last week, including Best Documentary Feature and Best Documentary Short. On the former, we have 2000 Meters to Andriivka (available on PBS via Frontline), The Alabama Solution (HBO Max), Apocalypse in the Tropics (Netflix), Coexistence, My Ass! (in theaters), Come See Me in the Good Light (Apple TV), Cover-Up (coming to Netflix on 12/26), Cutting Through Rocks (in theaters), Folktales (Kanopy), Holding Liat (in theaters on 1/9), Mr. Nobody Against Putin (currently unavailable), Mistress Dispeller (VOD), My Undesirable Friends: Part I - Last Air in Moscow (in theaters), The Perfect Neighbor (Netflix), Seeds (unavailable), and Yanuni (unavailable).
The shortlist for the short documentaries includes All the Empty Rooms (Netflix), All the Walls Came Down (unavailable), Armed Only with a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud (HBO Max), Bad Hostage (unavailable), Cashing Out (YouTube via The New Yorker), Chasing Time (PBS via POV), Children No More: Were and Are Gone (unavilable), Classroom 4 (PBS via POV), The Devil is Busy (HBO Max), Heartbeat (unavailable), Last Days on Lake Trinity (YouTube via The New Yorker), On Healing Land, Birds Perch (unavailable), Perfectly a Strangeness (unavailable), Rovina’s Choice (YouTube via The New Yorker), and We Were the Scenery (The Criterion Channel).
Additionally, the following documentaries landed on other shortlists: Diane Warren: Relentless (Kanopy) is on the Original Score list for Lesley Barber’s music for the film; the tune “Dear Me” from that documentary, written by Diane Warren and performed by Kesha, “Dying to Live” from Billy Idol Should Be Dead (unavailable), written by Billy Idol and J. Ralph and performed by Idol, “Salt Then Sour Then Sweet” from Come See Me in the Good Light, written by Sara Bareilles and performed by Bareilles with Brandi Carlile, and “Sweet Dreams of Joy” from Viva Verdi! (unavailable), written by Nicholas Pike and performed by Ana Maria Martinez, are all on the Original Song list.
Cinema Eye Honors Final Nominations
Last week, the Cinema Eye Honors announced the last wave of their nominees and honorees for their upcoming 19th annual awards event. Their final contenders for their Nonfiction Short Film category are All the Empty Rooms (streaming on Netflix, Armed Only with a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud (HBO Max), The Devil is Busy (HBO Max), Mama Micra (unavailable), Perfectly a Strangeness (unavailable), and We Were the Scenery (The Criterion Channel). Their finalists for the hybrid-focused Heterodox Award are BLKNWS: Terms and Conditions (in theaters), East of Wall (VOD), Peter Hujar’s Day (in theaters), The Rehearsal Season 2 (HBO Max), To a Land Unknown (VOD), and The Voice of Hind Rajab (in theaters).
They also announced this year’s Legacy Award recipients. That’s plural because there are four classic titles recognized this year: Shirley Clarke’s Portrait of Jason (Kanopy, The Criterion Channel, OVID, Metrograph, and Kino Film Collection), Les Blank’s Burden of Dreams (The Criterion Channel), Chris Marker’s Sans Soleil (Kanopy and The Criterion Channel), and Marlon Riggs’s Tongues Untied (Kanopy and OVID). And speaking of legacies, the Cinema Eye Honors revealed a new career achievement spotlight called the Cinema Eye-Con Award, which is going to editor Janus Billeskov Jansen. Among the essential documentaries he edited, we recommend The Act of Killing (Kanopy and Fawesome), Strong Island (Netflix), Flee (Tubi), Putin’s Kiss (Kanopy and Tubi), and Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country (VOD).
Critics Group Winners
We’ve reached the part of the awards season where regional critics groups are trying to differentiate themselves with their nominees and winners. This is most evident with the Boston Society of Film Critics, which recognized Albert Serra’s Afternoons of Solitude (now on Mubi) for their Best Documentary award and Endless Cookie (in theaters) for Best Animated Feature. Also with the Indiana Film Journalists Association, which chose The Tenderness Tour (unavailable) as Best Documentary Film, with Orwell 2+2=5 (on VOD) as the runner-up.
The San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle, meanwhile, named Orwell 2+2=5 (on VOD) Best Documentary Feature, with The Alabama Solution (HBO Max) being called out as the runner-up for the award. The St. Louis Film Critics Association and the San Diego Film Critics Society also picked Orwell 2+2=5 for their Best Documentary award. The latter chose Billy Joel: And So It Goes (HBO Max) as their runner-up. The Seattle Film Critics Society, meanwhile, went with something more locally relevant: WTO/99 (in theaters).
The Chicago Film Critics Association, the Phoenix Critics Circle, the Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association, the Austin Film Critics Association, and the Southeastern Film Critics Association all went with the more mainstream choice of The Perfect Neighbor (Netflix). The New York Film Critics Online also recognized The Perfect Neighbor, but only as its runner-up. Their primary pick was BLKNWS: Terms and Conditions (in theaters). The Southeastern Film Critics Association named Predators (Paramount+) as their Best Documentary runner-up.
Documentary Release Calendar 12/19/25 - 12/25/25
Friday, December 19, 2025
Beautiful Budapest (1939) - A short documentary installment of James A. FitzPatrick’s TravelTalks travelogue franchise that explores the titular Hungarian city. (TCM)
Born to Be Wild (2025) - A docuseries narrated by Hugh Bonneville following endangered baby animals. (Apple TV)
Breakdown: 1975 (2025) - An essay film directed by Morgan Neville (Piece by Piece) about the titular year, comprised of footage from movies of the time. *NONFICS PICK* (Netflix)
Cover-Up (2025) - A documentary feature by Laura Poitras and Mark Obenhaus about reporter Seymour Hersh. *NONFICS PICK* (In Theaters)
Death Cap: The Mushroom Murders (2025) - A true-crime documentary about three men killed with beef wellington. (CNN)
Murder at the Motel Season 2, Episode 7: “Davis Motel” - The latest episode of this true-crime docuseries focuses on a murder in Utica, New York. (A&E)
Timestamp (2024) - A documentary feature on school life in Ukraine during the present wartime. (OVID)
The Unbelievable with Dan Aykroyd Season 3, Episode 7: “Dodging Death” - The latest installment of a docuseries about mysterious and bizarre people and things. (History)
Saturday, December 20, 2025
Accident, Suicide, or Murder Season 6, Episode 5: “Left to Unrest” - The latest episode of this true-crime series involves a woman who seemed to die from natural causes. (Oxygen)
Judy Garland Sings “Silent Night” (1937) - A short film starring Judy Garland as she sings the titular Christmas carol. (TCM)
Toronto Airport: Uncovered Season 1, Episodes 9 & 1: “Runway Ready” & “Against the Clock” - The latest two installments of a docuseries that offers a behind-the-scenes look at the Toronto Pearson Airport. (National Geographic)
Sunday, December 21, 2025
Gadgets Galore (1955) - An Oscar-nominated short documentary about the impact of the invention of the automobile. (TCM)
Killer Grannies Season 1, Episode 7: “Granny’s Killer Gravy” - The latest installment of a true-crime series hosted by June Squibb about elderly woman killers. (Oxygen)
Killer Relationship with Faith Jenkins Season 4, Episode 7: “Deadly Delusion” - The latest installment of a true-crime docuseries about romances gone tragically wrong. (Oxygen)
Snapped: Behind Bars Season 3, Episode 7: “Danielle Hudson and Chaz Blackshear” - The latest installment of a true-crime docuseries featuring interviews with murderers who appeared on the show Snapped. (Oxygen)
Words + Music Season 1, Episode 4: “Alanis Morissette” - The latest episode of a music docuseries in which artists perform and discuss their hit songs. (MGM+)
Monday, December 22, 2025
Elway (2025) - A documentary feature about the former Broncos quarterback John Elway. (Netflix)
Here Come the Irish Season 2, Episode 3: “Fight or Flight” - The latest installment of a docuseries that follows the Notre Dame football team. (Peacock)
Ice Antics (1939) - A short film showcasing ice skaters and spotlighting scenes from the movie The Ice Follies of 1939. (TCM)
Judy Garland Sings “Silent Night” (1937) - A short film starring Judy Garland as she sings the titular Christmas carol. (TCM)
Moment of Contact: New Revelations of Alien Encounters (2025) - An expanded edition of a 2022 documentary directed by Ufologist James Fox about the latest information on alien encounters. (VOD)
Tuesday, December 23, 2025
Beyond the Gaze: Jule Campbell’s Swimsuit Issue (2024) - A documentary feature about the longtime editor of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. (Blu-ray)
Canadian Carnival (1955) - A short documentary about carnival celebration in Quebec. (TCM)
Hard Knocks: In Season with the NFC East Episode 4 - The latest installment of a docuseries that goes behind the scenes of NFL teams. (HBO Max)
Judy Garland Sings “Silent Night” (1937) - A short film starring Judy Garland as she sings the titular Christmas carol. (TCM)
Mysteries Unearthed with Danny Trejo Season 2, Episode 7: “Divine Discoveries” - The latest installment of a docuseries exploring hidden worlds. (History)
Wednesday, December 24, 2025
Judy Garland Sings “Silent Night” (1937) - A short film starring Judy Garland as she sings the titular Christmas carol. (TCM)
Thursday, December 25, 2025
The American Runestone (2020) - A docuseries starring actor Peter Stormare about a runestone left by Viking explorers in Minnesota in the 14th century. (Viaplay)
Happy and You Know It (2025) - A documentary feature directed by Penny Lane (Listening to Kenny G) about children’s music. *NONFICS PICK* (HBO Max)
Judy Garland Sings “Silent Night” (1937) - A short film starring Judy Garland as she sings the titular Christmas carol. (TCM)
Sneak Peek At What’s Coming Soon
12/27 - #RUNSEOKJIN_EP.TOUr the MOVIE - A concert film starring BTS member Jin during his first solo tour. (In Theaters)
12/28 - Adventure in Wonder - A docuseries following a Texas family as they sail the Croatian seas. Watch the new trailer for the series here. (Wonder Project)
12/30 - Evil Influencer: The Jodi Hildebrandt Story - A true-crime documentary about the titular therapist who aided Ruby Franke in child abuse. Watch the new trailer for the film below. (Netflix)
1/7 - Unlocked: A Jail Experiment Season 2 - The return of a docuseries about new approaches to rehabilitation for the incarcerated, this time in Arizona. (Netflix)
1/8 - The Tale of Silyan - A documentary feature by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Tamara Kotevska (Honeyland) that follows a struggling North Macedonian farmer. *NONFICS PICK* (National Geographic)
1/16 - Seeds - A Critics Choice-nominated documentary feature about Black generational farmers. *NONFICS PICK* (In Theaters)
1/30 - Melania - A documentary feature directed by Brett Ratner about current U.S. First Lady Melania Trump. Watch the new trailer for the film below. (In Theaters)
1/30 - Natchez - A documentary feature about the historical legacy of the titular town in Mississippi. See where the film ranks on our list of the best documentaries of 2025. *NONFICS PICK* (In Theaters)
2/4 - Nature: Parenthood - A docuseries narrated by Sir David Attenborough showcasing animal parents around the world. (PBS)
2/23 - The Inquisitor - A documentary feature about Texas congresswoman Barbara Jordan. (PBS)
The parrallels between Hersh's work and today's issues land hard, especially with the ICE comparison. I've noticed how investigative journalism feels more fragmented now compared to the pre-digital consolidation era. That bit about cutting from Kim Richards' ice cream scenes in two different 1975 films is brillant visual storytelling. Curious if Neville explored any of the failed films from that year too, not just the canonical ones, sincethey often reveal just as much about cultural anxieties.