Netflix has built an impressive reputation for documentaries, offering everything from gripping true-crime stories to acclaimed sports, nature and cultural deep dives. Whether you're revisiting global sensations like Tiger King and The Last Dance or discovering lesser-known gems, there's no shortage of compelling real-life stories to explore.
A recent addition to the streamer is Mourinho, which follows the extraordinary career of legendary football manager José Mourinho, charting his rise from Porto and Chelsea to Inter Milan and Real Madrid through archive footage and interviews with players, rivals and the man himself. This insightful sports documentary offers a behind-the-scenes look at one of football's most successful and controversial figures
Sticking with the profile theme, there's also intimate three-part documentary Kylie, which traces Kylie Minogue’s journey from Neighbours star to international pop princess, using archive footage and candid interviews. With contributions from Dannii Minogue and Nick Cave, it’s an absorbing look at fame, reinvention and personal resilience.
Meanwhile, Michael Jackson: the Verdict revisits the 2005 criminal trial of the global superstar. The series features jurors, attorneys, and pivotal witnesses recounting proceedings that cameras never captured, using archival footage to reconstruct the case and its lasting controversy.
If you're a nature fan, A Gorilla Story: Told by David Attenborough is a moving documentary that revisits the naturalist's first encounter with a baby gorilla in 1970s Rwanda, following the animal’s descendants today in a moving, conservation-led story of family, legacy and survival.
There's also Louis Theroux's latest documentary, Inside the Manosphere; thought-provoking film MH370: the Plane That Disappeared, which looks into the theories surrounding the vanishing of the Malaysian flight in 2014 and stranger-than-fiction tale Sweet Bobby: My Catfish Nightmare, which tells the story of Kirat Assi, a woman who lost a decade of her life to a catfishing ordeal.
If those don't appeal, you could try Homicide: New York, the series that follows detectives and prosecutors as they revisit their most challenging homicide cases? Or how about Can I Tell You a Secret?, a chilling three-part series about the UK's worst cyber-stalking case? Or if natural history is more your thing, then Our Universe narrated by Morgan Freeman should hit the spot.
Whatever you're after, there are so many great factual programmes to choose from on Netflix and we've listed our favourites below for you to start watching.
For those wanting something a bit different, we’ve also created lists of the best Netflix movies and the best Netflix series, as well as the best Netflix comedies.