10 Best Documentaries to Watch on Netflix

Four exceptional women mount grassroots campaigns against powerful incumbents in Knock Down the House, an inspiring look at the 2018 midterm elections that tipped the balance of power. When tragedy struck her family in the middle of the financial crisis, Bronx-born Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had to work double shifts as a bartender to save her home from foreclosure. After losing a loved one to a preventable medical condition, Amy Vilela didn't know what to do with the anger she felt about America's broken health care system. Cori Bush, a registered nurse and pastor, was drawn to the streets when the police shooting of an unarmed black man brought protests and tanks into her neighborhood. A coal miner's daughter, Paula Jean Swearengin was fed up with watching her friends and family suffer from the environmental effects of the coal industry.

In post-industrial Ohio, a Chinese billionaire opens a new factory in the husk of an abandoned General Motors plant, hiring two thousand blue-collar Americans. Early days of hope and optimism give way to setbacks as high-tech China clashes with working-class America.

TONY ROBBINS: I AM NOT YOUR GURU, a feature documentary film about internationally renowned life and business strategist Tony Robbins, is a revelatory cinéma vérité film that goes behind the scenes of his mammoth seminar "Date With Destiny," attended by over 2,500 people in Boca Raton, Florida, each year, to give an insider look at how one man can affect millions. Granted never before seen access to the behind the scenes modus operandi of this enormous event, this film captures both the immense effort of producing this live seminar, as well as the life-changing transformations of the participants in real time. Embedding with Tony Robbins and his team over the course of six days, Academy Award nominated filmmaker Joe Berlinger turns an unflinching eye on Tony Robbins' powerful and uncompromising approach to achieving success, ensuring the attendees leave "Date With Destiny" with new perspective on the forces, thoughts, and feelings that motivate their behavior and help them take control of their lives. Pulling back the curtain on Tony Robbins, a man that traverses the globe and counsels over 200,000 people annually, including world leaders, pundits, entrepreneurs, CEOs, athletes and celebrities, through interviews and unprecedented access, TONY ROBBINS: I AM NOT YOUR GURU is an emotional tour de force that unveils the inner-workings of this mega event, the zealous participants and the man himself.

I'll Sleep When I'm Dead, directed by Justin Krook, is a heart-pumping yet heart-wrenching documentary about one of the most eminent DJs working today: Steve Aoki. In the lead-up to Aoki's biggest show of his career, this introspective doc examines the driving force behind his passion: Rocky Aoki, daredevil showman, Benihana founder, and Steve's looming father figure. From producers David Gelb (Chef's Table, Jiro Dreams of Sushi), Matthew Weaver (Rock of Ages), Matt Colon, Happy Walters, Executive Producer Michael Mailis and Co-Producer Susan Wrubel.

A behind-the-scenes look at how

A look at the unforeseen consequences of advanced technological devices used in the medical field.

In the age of social media, nearly every day brings a new eruption of outrage. While people have always found something to be offended by, their ability to organize a groundswell of opposition to-and public censure of-their offender has never been more powerful. Today we're all one clumsy joke away from public ruin. Can We Take A Joke? offers a thought-provoking and wry exploration of outrage culture through the lens of stand-up comedy, with notables like Gilbert Gottfried, Penn Jillette, Lisa Lampanelli, and Adam Carolla detailing its stifling impact on comedy and the exchange of ideas. What will future will be like if we can't learn how to take a joke?

Writer/director Ted Braun follows controversial hedge fund titan Bill Ackman as he puts a billion dollars on the line in his crusade to expose Herbalife as the largest pyramid scheme in history.

The trial between Hulk Hogan and Gawker Media pitted privacy rights against freedom of the press, and raised important questions about how big money can silence media. This film is an examination of the perils and duties of the free press in an age of inequality.

SAVING CAPITALISM is a documentary film that follows former Secretary of Labor and Professor, Robert Reich, as he takes his book and his views to the heart of conservative America to speak about our economic system and present big ideas for how to fix it.

The Red Pill chronicles filmmaker Cassie Jaye's journey following the mysterious and polarizing Men's Rights Movement. The Red Pill explores today's gender war and asks the question "what is the future of gender equality?"

Flat Earthers, a term synonymous with conspiracy theorists who wear tinfoil hats. Meet real Flat Earthers, a small but growing contingent of people who firmly believe in a conspiracy to suppress the truth that the Earth is flat. One of the most prominent Flat Earthers is Mark Sargent who, in the midst of the upcoming Solar Eclipse, proudly speaks at the first Flat Earther conference.

A group of citizens in West Virginia challenges a powerful corporation to be more environmentally responsible.

The film's title was inspired by the popular maxim "Less is more," popularized by architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969), who used this aphorism to describe his design aesthetic; his tactic was one of arranging the necessary components of a building to create an impression of extreme simplicity. The Minimalists have reworked this phrase to create a sense of urgency for today's consumer culture: now is the time for less.

Jen Senko, a documentary filmmaker, looks at the rise of right-wing media through the lens of her WWII vet father who changed from a life-long, nonpolitical Democrat to an angry, right-wing fanatic after his discovery of talk radio on a lengthened commute to work. In trying to understand how this happened, she not only finds this to be a phenomenon, but also uncovers some of the forces behind it: a plan by Roger Ailes under Nixon to create a media for the GOP; the Lewis Powell Memo, urging business leaders to influence institutions of public opinion - especially the universities - the media and the courts; and under Reagan, the dismantling of the Fairness Doctrine - all of which helped to change the entire country's direction and culture, misinformed millions, divided families and even the country itself.

What kind of future do we want to live in? Jeff Bridges presents this beautifully photographed 4K tour de force of original thinking on who we are and the life challenges we face. This film upends our way of thinking and provides original insights into our subconscious motivations, the unintended consequences, and how our fundamental nature influences our future as mankind.

June 12, 2019 From the Maui Film Festival's Celestial Cinema. Imagine an organism that feeds you, heals you, reveals secrets of the universe and could help save the planet. Fantastic Fungi is a revelatory time-lapse journey, from 2019 Maui Film Festival Visionary Award honoree and director Louie Schwartzberg, about the magical, mysterious and medicinal world of fungi and their power to heal, sustain and contribute to the regeneration of life on Earth that began 3.5 billion years ago.

The pressure to achieve more, do more, and be more is part of being human - and in the age of Adderall and Ritalin, achieving that can be as close as the local pharmacy. No longer just "a cure for excitable kids," prescription stimulants are in college classrooms, on Wall Street, in Silicon Valley...any place "the need to succeed" slams into "not enough hours in the day." But there are costs. In the insightful Netflix documentary TAKE YOUR PILLS, award-winning documentarian Alison Klayman (Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry) focuses on the history, the facts, and the pervasiveness of cognitive-enhancement drugs in our amped-up era of late-stage-capitalism. Executive produced by Maria Shriver and Christina Schwarzenegger, TAKE YOUR PILLS examines what some view as a brave new world of limitless possibilities, and others see as a sped-up ride down a synaptic slippery slope, as these pills have become the defining drug of a generation.