About a decade into its existence, Hulu became a major player in the world of nonfiction cinema, releasing some of the best documentaries exclusively on its streaming platform. Since debuting its first original documentary acquisition in 2016, with Ron Howard’s The Beatles: Eight Days a Week, Hulu has received numerous accolades. These include multiple Academy Award nominations in the Best Documentary Feature category and even an Oscar win for Summer of Soul. Hulu’s documentaries have also done well at the Emmys and the Grammys.
Additionally, Hulu features many great documentaries in its library that are not Hulu originals. Through its partnership with Disney, which owns a majority stake in the streamer, Hulu is another place besides Disney+ to find National Geographic Documentary Films selections, including more Academy Award nominees and winners. While the platform is lacking in documentaries from before the 21st century, Hulu more than makes up for its recency focus by showcasing many of the best documentaries from the late 2010s and early 2020s, some of which could be considered modern classics.
15 Cocaine Cowboys (2006)
It’s not the most acclaimed documentary, nor is it the best-looking, and it never won any awards like many others on Hulu, but Cocaine Cowboys is a landmark film and just as essential as anything else on lists recommending content for fans of nonfiction. Few documentaries have the kind of life that Cocaine Cowboys has. Directed by Barry Corben, who has since become a reliable source of Florida-based documentary stories, and fittingly scored by Jan Hammer of Miami Vice fame, the sensational first Cocaine Cowboys film focuses on Miami drug trafficker Jon Roberts and the drug war of the ’70s and ’80s. It’s a wildly fascinating and quite violent history.
The original Cocaine Cowboys spawned a sequel, a limited series spinoff, and an extended version, as demand for the film and more tales of related criminals has continued for almost two decades (Cocaine Cowboys II: Hustlin’ with the Godmother and Cocaine Cowboys: Reloaded are both also on Hulu, while the series, Cocaine Cowboys: The Kings of Miami, is exclusive to Netflix). There have even been attempts at branding other documentaries as Cocaine Cowboys sequels in other countries as was the case of Matthew Cooke’s 2012 film How to Make a Living Selling Drugs (aka Cocaine Cowboys 3). This all goes to show the popularity and cultural significance of Corben’s creation.
14 The Cave (2019)
Feras Fayyad’s Oscar-nominated film The Cave is available as one of the best documentaries on Hulu through the streamer’s partnership with fellow Disney brand National Geographic. The harrowing and purposefully hard-to-watch feature follows Dr. Amani Ballour as she operates a makeshift underground hospital during the Syrian Civil War. Like Fayyad’s previous, also Oscar-nominated documentary, Last Men in Aleppo, The Cave gives viewers a first-hand experience of the conflict and the heroes trying to save innocent lives. It’s hopeful in its display of humanity but also heartbreaking in its depiction of the opposite.
13 The Cove (2009)
The Cove didn’t make as much of an impact on the Japanese dolphin fishing industry as was intended, nor as initially thought, but sadly few issue films make a huge difference in the world. As a documentary, this Oscar-winner is still an entertaining look at the mission to expose dolphin hunting as well as the disturbing reveal of that campaign’s results, playing like a real-life spy film. While following the activists in their engrossing effort to covertly document the dolphin slaughter in Taiji — with assistance from visual effects artists who worked for Industrial Light and Magic to create special hidden cameras — The Cove at least raised awareness.
12 The Rescue (2021)
While many filmmakers have multiple great documentaries streaming on Hulu, only the married duo of Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin have two features that make the list of the best of the best. While the other one is an Oscar winner, The Rescue had to settle for just a nomination. The documentary covers the Tham Luang cave rescue of 2018, a true story that also inspired the drama Thirteen Lives, among other films. While The Rescue faced challenges due to competing projects owning the rights to particular narratives, it managed to be the most thrilling due to how it seamlessly interweaved recreations with the real footage available.
11 Aftershock (2022)
Typically, the value of a documentary is in how the film is about its subject rather than just the subject alone. However, while Hulu’s Aftershock is more than adequately put together by directors Paula Eiselt and Tonya Lewis Lee, the content of this important documentary is the reason to see it, both in terms of its participants and the devastating stories and information they provide. The truth is that Aftershock, which addresses the increase in maternal mortality in the U.S., particularly among women of color, would be worse if it wasn’t such a simple documentary in its form. Anything else would have been unnecessary and therefore distractingly overdone.
10 Fire Of Love (2022)
What would a documentary from Wes Anderson look like? The Oscar-nominated Fire of Love offers a hint thanks to its subjects: married volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft. Together, they were like the Jacques Cousteau of their area of study, making them perfect candidates for a Life Aquatic-esque narrative feature (there’s actually a dramatic remake of Fire of Love already in the works). Narrated by Miranda July and featuring an otherworldly score by Air’s Nicolas Godin, the film is anchored by tons of magnificent footage shot by the Kraffts, up until their tragic demise on the job. Fire of Love is filled with romance and adventure while also being quite educational.
9 Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room (2005)
Initially released before Hulu even existed, this Oscar-nominated documentary put its now-famous and incredibly prolific director, Alex Gibney, on the map. It also helped to pioneer a certain kind of political- and true crime-focused documentary that Gibney still does best, where complicated stories and complex information are presented in a riveting fashion. Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room adapts the book of the same name to chronicle the scandalous downfall of the titular energy corporation, and thanks to the filmmaker’s compelling execution, the documentary wound up being a surprise theatrical hit, grossing almost $5 million off a budget of just $700,000.
8 MLK/FBI (2020)
From Oscar-nominated director Sam Pollard (co-director of Spike Lee’s 4 Little Girls), MLK/FBI is an essential work of historical documentary, among the best that Hulu currently has to offer. The film chronicles the work of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. with newly declassified documents informing of how he was under surveillance and being harassed by the FBI during this time. It was near-unanimously praised by critics resulting in a 98% score on Rotten Tomatoes. As an editor-turned-filmmaker, Pollard does an exceptional job piecing together a compelling story from all the resources at hand.
7 Collective (2019)
Alexander Nanau’s Collective had the rare distinction of being nominated in both the Best Documentary Feature and Best International Film categories at the Academy Awards while also becoming the first Romanian film honored with an Oscar nomination. The film highlights the continued importance of journalists by following reporters for the Gazeta Sporturilor newspaper as they uncover government corruption following the Colletiv nightclub fire of 2015. Nanau presents these journalists’ coverage and discoveries about Romania’s mishandled healthcare system as it happened, giving it the feel of a thriller. Given all that’s exposed in the documentary, Collective plays even scarier in the years since its release due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
6 Free Solo (2018)
Winner of the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature, Free Solo is a remarkably tense film about Alex Honnold’s climb of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park — without the support of ropes, harnesses, or other protective equipment. While there are plenty of documentaries about rock and mountain climbing and even free solo achievements, this one stands out in part thanks to its attention to the character-driven story and what makes Honnold so determined to accomplish such a dangerous feat. There’s also the impressive cinematography, led by co-director Jimmy Chin, who is a climber himself and who goes to great lengths to capture the majesty and mastery of El Capitan.
5 Apollo 11 (2019)
Even with its inclusion of previously unseen 70mm footage, Apollo 11 had the challenge of appealing to audiences familiar with one of the greatest and most well-documented events of all time. Amazingly, Todd Douglas Miller’s Emmy-winning film proved engaging despite its commonly depicted subject, the 1969 Apollo 11 launch and Moon landing, enough to be one of the best documentaries on Hulu through the streamer’s partnership with Neon. Apollo 11 is a brilliantly edited feature compiled solely from archival footage, requiring no narration, interviews, or other new material to supplement what was shot in the moment, making the event feel as fresh as it did 50 years earlier.
4 Minding The Gap (2018)
Hulu received its first Oscar nomination for Best Documentary Feature with Minding the Gap, which also marked the feature directorial debut of Bing Liu. This personal, semi-autobiographical effort uses home video footage and interviews to chronicle a story of three friends — including Liu — who grew up skating together in Rockford, Illinois. More than a simple coming-of-age film about these specific young men, who are also revealed to have survived abusive homes, Minding the Gap touches on a lot of broader themes such as systemic racism and modern ideas of masculinity. It’s a thoughtful and heartfelt documentary that rightfully has a perfect 100% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes.
3 Flee (2021)
Available on Hulu through a streaming deal with its distributor, Neon, Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s Flee is an animated documentary presenting an emotional true story of a gay refugee from Afghanistan. The film chronicles the life of its anonymous narrator as he recounts his flight from his native country as a child and eventual settlement as a refugee in Denmark. Flee was the first ever film to receive Oscar nominations for Best Documentary Feature, Best Animated Feature, and Best International Feature. While it lost in all three categories (the first one to the next documentary on this list), it deserves to be watched, probably with a box of tissues at hand.
2 Summer Of Soul (2021)
The filmmaking debut of musician Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) is a documentary that was jointly acquired by Hulu and Searchlight Pictures following its acclaimed Sundance premiere. The film went on to sweep its six categories at the 2021 Critics Choice Documentary Awards and later won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. Summer of Soul presents previously unseen footage from the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, but it’s more than just a nostalgic concert film with a terrific, Grammy-winning soundtrack, as it provides rich historical context about the performers, their songs, and the era, relating it all to a modern perspective.
1 Man On Wire (2008)
Not only is James Marsh’s Man on Wire the best documentary available to stream on Hulu, but it’s one of the greatest documentaries ever made. The Oscar-winning film may seem more commonplace today in its structure and style, especially for its use of certain orchestral pieces by Erik Satie and Edvard Grieg, but it’s still a perfect specimen of its form. Man on Wire was one of the first documentaries to be recommended by critics as playing out like a “narrative” feature, specifically one in the heist film genre. It’s definitely an entertaining biography with a thrilling pace, resulting in the documentary being a hit at the box office.
With its mix of well-produced dramatizations and archival footage centered around an interview with its charming main subject, Philippe Petit, the documentary immerses the audience in its storytelling. Man on Wire builds to a spectacular telling of Petit’s famous 1974 high-wire walk between the Twin Towers. More than that, the film stands out for its deeper meaning. Released just seven years after 9/11, Man on Wire pays tribute to the fallen buildings of the World Trade Center and to a New York City of a bygone era. While it’s not exclusive to Hulu, Man on Wire is without a doubt the best documentary the streaming service has to offer.
