20 Great Documentaries To Watch on Netflix Instant (2012)

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Last year, we looked at 20 Great Documentaries to Watch on Netflix Instant, but as the movie service is constantly updating its offerings, we decided to update the list with 20 different documentaries that are available now.

A handful of documentaries from last year’s list are still available as well: Restrepo, God Grew Tired of Us, Client 9, Exit Through the Gift Shop, The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia, No End In Sight and No Direction Home.

10. Cave of Forgotten Dreams
Director: Werner Herzog
3-D skeptics might have to rethink their stance after witnessing Werner Herzog’s stunning tour of the oldest cave drawings ever found.—Josh Jackson

9. Best Worst Movie
Director: Michael Paul Stephenson
The 1990 horror flick Troll 2 features listless acting, klutzy special effects and not a single troll. It stars a whiny 10-year-old named Michael Paul Stephenson—who, two decades after the movie’s release and titanic flop, is still grappling with that disastrous first brush with stardom. Only a few years ago did Stephenson—by then an aspiring filmmaker—realize how oddly popular the movie had become, winning the strange hearts of B-movie aficionados worldwide. They’d thrown costume parties, hosted public screenings, even dubbed it the “best worst movie of all time.” This unlikely cult following is part of what Stephenson chronicles in his directorial debut, a kind of laughing-with approach to reconciling Troll 2’s disastrous beginnings and unlikely cult following. He also tracks down a number of his co-stars to gauge their enduring relationship to the film; obscurity, thwarted ego and general mental illness plague some, but George Hardy—the actor turned small-town dentist who played Stephenson’s father in Troll 2—becomes the documentary’s de facto star with his guileless, picket-fence grin. It’s a tale of despair, redemption and transcendence—like all the best movies, and all the worst.—Rachael Maddux

8. Into the Abyss
Director: Werner Herzog
Like all Herzog’s work, the film looks far beyond a single idea and, despite a transparent agenda, never sermonizes. Herzog merely puts his belief that capital punishment is wrong to the test, examining it from several angles. In typical Herzog fashion, he explores his subject through conversations between the filmmaker, whom we of course never see, and a plethora of related interviewees. Because it avoids didactic narration and biased statistics, this approach feels honest and reliable and, thus, humanistic.—David Roark

7. The September Issue
Director: R.J. Cutler
Filmmaker R.J. Cutler demonstrates once again that—as well as anybody—he can capture the interpersonal dynamics that drive a team of headstrong individuals. Or at least he can shape his raw footage so it seems so. He produced The War Room about Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign, and he pioneered reality TV with an innovative series called American High. His latest, The September Issue, documents the internal machinery of Vogue magazine as run by its editor-in-chief, Anna Wintour—tastemaker of the fashion world and the inspiration for The Devil Wears Prada’s title character. She’s a peach. As she assembles the magazine’s big September issue, she squares off against factions within the industry and within her own editorial staff. When designers and photographers parade their latest creations before her harsh gaze, the film feels like a real-life version of Project Runway or The Apprentice. I’m not sure the film will offer viewers a better idea of what makes Wintour and Vogue tick, but Cutler knows how to entertain, usually by selectively humanizing his characters. Even for those who don’t follow the industry, it’s great fun rooting for creative director Grace Coddington, who steadfastly defends her turf. Cutler makes her the film’s quiet hero.—Robert Davis

6. American: The Bill Hicks Story
Directors: Matt Harlock and Paul Thomas
Some say that real humor is usually fueled by strong emotions. That may help explain why Bill Hicks was one of the best comedians our country’s ever seen, since at his best his comedy was fueled by his rage, ripping apart a world he saw as full of inescapable stupidity and laziness. One of the main questions being asked by American: The Bill Hicks Story is how exactly Hicks became so angry, not to mention how much of the anger was an act and how much was genuinely who he was. There’s more than a touch of hagiography in American, which isn’t surprising since the film is made for fans. But there’s also enough of Hicks’ actual material to illustrate why he’s so well-regarded, and while the film occasionally skims through years of his life a little quickly, it’s simply because what needs to be said about that period is said best through his jokes.—Sean Gandert

5. Anvil: The Story of Anvil
Director: Sacha Gervasi
I’ll admit, when I first started hearing word of a documentary about a hugely influential but largely forgotten Canadian heavy-metal band now in their fifties, I suspected a hoax. Seeing the film only brought the Spinal Tap comparisons into clearer focus-the aging rockers suffering through demeaning gigs, the memory of the big show in Japan, the visit to Stonehenge, even an amp that actually goes to 11. But director Sascha Gervasi is playing those cards very deliberately—and very well. And his Anvil! The Story of Anvil is moving and very real. But don’t just take my word for it; Dustin Hoffman told the director: “This is the most inspirational, moving, beautiful film I think I’ve ever seen. I hated heavy metal until tonight.”—Michael Dunaway

4. Grizzly Man
Director: Werner Herzog
This profile of nature lover Timothy Treadwell, who unwisely tried to live among wild bears in Alaska until he was devoured, cuts a Herzogian swath across the hillside: A man attempts to find harmony with nature but instead finds, as Herzog puts it, “chaos, hostility and murder.” Looming over the film is not only the horror of Treadwell’s demise but also an audio recording of the tragedy, taped inadvertently by the video camera in Treadwell’s tent. Herzog tastefully omits it from the film, but he makes the viewer aware of its existence. “The question of the tape which recorded Timothy Treadwell’s death and Amie Huguenard’s death is something that I had to address,” Herzog told Paste in 2007. “So I listened to it, and that’s the only time I appear in the film. You only see me from behind, listening to it with earphones. The interesting thing is that Jewel Palovak who was working with Treadwell and living with Treadwell for 20 years tries to read my face, and it’s very, very intense and moving for her. The moment I heard the tape it was instantly clear: Only over my dead body is this tape going to end up in the movie. I’m not into doing a snuff film, and I have to respect the dignity and privacy of two individuals’ deaths.”—Robert Davis

3. Exit Through the Gift Shop
Director: Banksy
When renowned graffiti artist Banksy took the camera away from the man shooting his biopic and decided that the subject would become the documentarian (and the documentarian, the subject), the zaniest doc in years was born. Was it Banksy’s own attention and the pressure of the film that motivated Mr. Brainwash to become an international sensation in his own right, with his inaugural show in Los Angeles becoming the largest and most profitable in street-art history? Or was the artist born, not made? Or is his whole career just part of the whole huckster atmosphere of the film? Banksy’s not saying. But it’s certainly a wild ride to watch.—Michael Dunaway

2. Senna
Director: Asif Kapadia
Kapadia was already a BAFTA-award-winning narrative director, but there are plenty of narrative directors who haven’t made the transition to documentaries effectively. He doubled the degree of difficulty by deciding to use all period footage of his subject, ’80s and ’90s Gran Prix legend Aryton Senna. He pulled it off in spades, and Senna is one of the greatest sports documentaries of all time, and one of the three best docs of the year.—Michael Dunaway

1. Waiting for “Superman”
Director: Davis Guggenheim
In a year that gave us three major documentary features about the glaring need for educational reform in America, Davis Guggenheim’s Waiting for “Superman” presents the most unavoidably compelling argument. In one of the biggest eye-openers, he shows that housing a man in prison (where inner city high school dropouts are statistically likely to wind up) costs three times as much per year as sending them (as kids) to even the most exclusive private school. Another—in order to bring the U.S. from close to last in developed-world education to close to first, we’d only have to get rid of the worst 10% of teachers. Like his previous epic An Inconvenient Truth, it’s not the most balanced picture, but he does give the largest teachers’ union their say. They’re on the wrong side of history, however, and one day this film, like An Inconvenient Truth, will be seen as one of the turning points in the conversation.—Michael Dunaway