Best Streaming Services for Documentaries

A prime destination for documentaries, Curiosity Stream offers nothing but edutainment-style content across multiple topics. You’ll find thousands of movies and series divided into genres such as tech, originals, nature, crime and biographies, and there’s even a section for kids. Topics span dinosaurs, Wall Street, oceans, spy missions, art heists and an array of figures in politics, film, history and beyond. A subscription is required, and pricing starts at $5 per month.

The app is available on a range of smart TVs and devices, including Amazon Fire Sticks, Xbox, Roku, Android and Apple phones and web browsers. You can also get Curiosity Stream as an add-on channel via Prime Video, Comcast/Xfinity, Sling TV for Fubo. Check the company’s site to verify whether your device is supported.

From gripping, in-depth features to the strange and quirky, Netflix has a varied selection of docuseries and films in its catalog. Titles like Making a Murderer, Tiger King, 13th, Beckham and My Octopus Teacher have won audiences over. Like Max, the streamer consistently releases new documentaries every month.

Whether you like nature, true crime, personal stories or investigative series, Netflix carries a multitude of niche titles. The service offers originals and award-winning pieces too, and starts at $7 a month to watch with ads.

If you don't have access to your local PBS station, you can get the PBS app to watch shows, films and its stock of documentaries. There's a collection of Ken Burns releases, as well as a roster of docs that showcase nature, space, international travel, lifestyle and American culture throughout time.

You'll need to sign up for a PBS account if you download the app to your streaming device like Roku, and Prime Video offers a separate PBS documentaries app as an add-on. It's free to access, and you can stream on multiple devices. One thing to note is that you must have a Passport subscription if you want to access additional titles, including premium documentaries. That requires a donation to your local PBS.

MagellanTV strictly offers documentaries, with 3,000-plus titles available. Whether you're watching on the website or its app, the content is easy to find because it's organized into subcategories. You can opt for a curated playlist or click on genres and stream a batch of titles that cater to your interests.

New releases are added weekly to the ad-free platform, with shows and movies that range from under 60 minutes to feature length. Stream biographies, historical series, space and nature docs and more. It costs $5 per month or you can get an annual plan for $60. The service has free trials available.

Prime Video blends content from its own library along with Amazon's free streaming service, Freevee. That grants easy access to both libraries for anyone with a Prime account, and there are lots of documentaries you can watch if you feel like doing some digging. Amazon originals, celebrity tales, urban legends, social issues, sports, nature, crime and other themes are ripe for exploring.

Watch releases such as Lucy and Desi, Hot Potato: The Story of The Wiggles, Coach Prime and Airbnb Nightmares. There is a documentary category within the Prime Video app, and if you drill further, you can check out a few subgenres.

A combination of films and episodic docuseries are available to stream on Tubi, with roughly 600 on-demand titles in the lineup. If you like stories about celebrities, true crime, humanitarians or deep dives into various industries (like cat pageants), there is plenty to explore. The service also has live channels -- like BBC Earth -- featuring content about true crime, nature, travel and space.

You can browse two categories for the genre or scan the movies or TV shows tab in the app and check out Tubi's original documentaries. The platform is free, easy to navigate and available on most devices.

Kanopy costs nothing and is an ad-free streaming platform available via your local library. Among the documentaries you'll find are Waste Land, Trouble the Water, Motherland, The Witness and They Call Us Monsters. There are titles from indie filmmakers as well as PBS, and Sundance Award winners too. One downside of Kanopy is that you are limited in how many titles you can watch per month. It's typically no more than 10, but it depends on your library.

Sign up through your library and install the app on your iOS or Android device, smart TV, or through media players like Roku and Amazon's Fire Stick. You can also stream on a laptop or computer.

Hulu has a little under 200 documentaries/series available to stream, covering subjects such as crime, cults, celebrities, social issues and travel. You can click on the documentary genre under its TV or movie menus to choose from shows or films. Some of Hulu's newest releases include The Lady Bird Diaries, A Compassionate Spy, and Harvard Park, and the platform also streams The Jewel Thief and The Last Tourist. Although there are some National Geographic titles available, I would not recommend Hulu as the first stop for family-friendly documentaries.

Get Hulu as a standalone subscription, which starts at $8 a month, or as part of the Disney Bundle.