Best Netflix documentaries

Wait up. Before you scroll past Senna because you’re not in F1, you don’t need to be to enjoy this film. It charts the career of Formula One legend Ayrton Senna, but is more concerned with his psyche and contentious relationships with team mates and the sport’s overseers than his driving techniques. Told largely through the wealth of footage from the time, Senna is a gripping, human drama.
Duration: 106 minutes

A true Netflix sensation, Making a Murderer is responsible for awakening as many true crime obsessions as podcast super-hit Serial. Series one asks, did Steven Avery really kill Teresa Halbach? And was his nephew Breandan Dassey an accessory? It finds holes in the evidence used in the real-world trial, and almost saw one of the defendant’s prison sentences overturned. It’s worth a watch for all comers, particularly crime fans.
Duration: 10 x 60 minutes (approx.)

The most powerful documentaries can change how you think. Blackfish’s subject is Tilikum, a SeaWorld killer whale. What many of us, perhaps as children, used to think of as a happy home for orcas is revealed as something else entirely. And it eventually led to SeaWorld stopping its killer whale performances altogether. A powerhouse documentary.
Duration: 90 minutes

If you’ve ever messed up something real bad, watch Fyre and you can’t help but feel a bit better about yourself. A festival so badly run, it never happened, tickets cost £1000 upwards and the organiser ended up in prison. Steeped in ineptitude and the brazen chancery of the most dubious of influencers, Fyre is a schadenfreude-fest.
Duration: 97 minutes

Nature programmes often used to offer a form of escapism. You’d marvel at how animals’ relationships intersected and differed from our own, took in the bright colours and amazing natural architecture after a day in a grey office. Planet Earth II has all that, but is also a stark and intensely disturbing reminder of how human civilisation has already had huge effects on these natural habitats.
Duration: 6x 50 minutes (approx.)

The title here refers to the 13th Amendment in the US constitution, ratified in 1865 as slavery was abolished. This documentary is not directly about that historic legal change, but today’s prison system in the US. It posits a hole left in the amendment that allows for servitude of a prison population. And in the US black men are statistically hugely over-represented. The 13th is an intelligent and thought-provoking look at an important issue.
Duration: 100 minutes

To most, Alexander McQueen was a provocative fashion designer. Until he committed suicide in 2010, you may have known him only as a clothing brand or for this 90s fashion stunts. McQueen explores the person behind the name. It's a touching biopic that is downright heartbreaking at points. The depression, loneliness and raw drive of the man paint the picture of a troubled and fascinating individual. You don't need to care about couture to enjoy McQueen.

Trump’s associates can seem like the cast of a Batman comic. And we’re talking about the bad guys. Long-term advisor Roger Stone the worst offender, often to be seen trussed up like The Pegnuin. Get me Roger Stone is an eye-opening account of quite how low this self-identifying “dirty tricker” was, and is, willing to go.
Duration: 92 minutes