The 10 best documentaries on Peacock

Fact is often stranger than fiction, and this is especially true in the case of a great documentary. While the NBC-owned streaming service Peacock is full of fantastic shows and films, it also has a wealth of brilliant real-life content available to browse and binge, covering topics that are both incredibly important and a little ridiculous. The best thing about a good documentary isn’t just what it can teach you, but how it can offer an insight into something in a way that no other format can thanks to its rawness and the inability of its subjects to hide (most of the time, anyway). If you’re in the mood to explore a new and interesting topic, then check out our list of the 10 best documentaries on Peacock!

10. Sour Grapes

Audacious fraudsters make for fantastic documentary fodder, and in Sour Grapes this truism certainly holds true. The makers of the film tell the story of Rudy Kurniawan, an innovative Indonesian who in the 2000s became the man to know in the vintage wine world. However, it was soon revealed that in many cases he was passing off inexpensive bottles as rare burgundies, and he was eventually arrested by the FBI and imprisoned before being deported back to his native land as he was doing all this while an illegal immigrant. The documentary is compelling and it has to be, as Kurniawan’s victims aren’t the most sympathetic, with one even being the genuinely evil monster/businessman Bill Koch. Perhaps if Kurniawan had scammed poor people, he might have gotten away with it.

9. A Most Beautiful Thing

A more uplifting movie than the fast-paced mystery that was number ten on this list, A Most Beautiful Thing chronicles the story of the first ever all-black high school rowing team in the U.S. The documentary is narrated by Common, and uses a mixture of archival footage from the ’90s as well as some modern-day interviews and sequences with the members as they reunite to compete in a 2019 race. The rowers were originally all based at Manley High School in Chicago, and many were from rival gangs, which only adds to the depth and texture of the story. Plus, half of the film’s profits were donated to charity. What’s not to love?

8. Rewind

From ultra positivity to the very worst in humanity: Rewind is a harrowing but ultimately rewarding autobiographical documentary by filmmaker Sasha Neulinger about the abuse he suffered at the hands of various prominent members of his local community. Neulinger utilizes his own family’s home video footage and interviews with those closest to him to reconstruct the past and try to make sense of the horrors that he suffered, all while exploring how what happened influences the now. A crime documentary that’s also a journey of personal discovery, this is not an easy watch but it is a brilliant one.

7. 5B

This inspiring documentary tells the story of nurses and other caregivers who were at the forefront of the AIDS crisis, as these heroes staffed the very first ward unit for the disease that ripped through America. First-person testimonies make up the bulk of the footage, and throughout the movie you learn more and more about what it was like to be in Ward 5B at San Francisco General Hospital, whether it be from the perspective of those caring for the patients, or from those who cruelly lost people they loved. The humanity on display in this film is the opposite to the political reaction at the time, with senile president Reagan and his “traditional” wife Nancy not just ignoring the crisis, but callously letting old friends from Hollywood die horrifically too. Thankfully, some good people were around at that time, and they deserve to be celebrated as they are in this moving documentary.

6. Hoop Dreams

There’s just something about sport that makes for compelling documentaries, but Hoop Dreams is on another level of brilliance thanks to the way it weaves in so much else. This 1987 film is nearly three hours long, but it truly flies by thanks to a compelling story filled with dramatic twists and turns. It follows the story of William Gates and Arthur Agee, two black Chicago teens recruited by a prestigious, predominately white high school to play basketball and possibly earn college scholarships. The filmmakers not only follow on-court action, but also get into the home lives of the boys, including the increasingly tumultuous one of Agee. This is a tale of talent, expectation, and economic/racial divides, all elevated by the drama and passion of the sport it revolves around.

5. The Imposter

Wild doesn’t begin to cover this tale about a French conman who convinced a Texan family that he was their long-lost son. With a combination of interviews, archival footage, and re-enactments, director Bart Layton tells the unbelievable story of Frédéric Bourdin – who through trickery and cosmetic changes successfully pretended to be a missing child named Nicholas Patrick Barclay, having found out about the case by cold-calling various sheriff’s offices around the U.S. Bourdin maintains that the Barclays were so happy to accept him — despite his French accent, outlandish story about being trafficked, and the fact his hair and eyes were the wrong color — because they actually killed their son, but nobody has been convicted of that crime.

4. The Act of Killing

Legendary filmmakers Errol Morris and Werner Herzog were executive producers on this disturbing yet enlightening documentary about the genocidal murder of left-wing and indigenous groups in Indonesia over the course of 1965 to 1966. Director Joshua Oppenheimer and his unnamed Indonesian co-director have one of the leaders of the death squad — Anwar Congo — reenact his crimes in the style of different genres of films, including westerns and gangster movies. Congo and his team are said to have killed a million or more people in that short period of time, but remain free today as the Indonesian right has a stranglehold on the country, with politicians from parties that grew from the death squads holding office. Of course, America didn’t just know about the genocide, but actively funded death squads and sold weaponary to them under the guise of “fighting Communism,” so as always the States has a part to play in the atrocities too.

3. I Am Not Your Negro

This powerful documentary is based on an unfinished manuscript by the influential black writer James Baldwin and is narrated by Samuel L. Jackson. It ties together various aspects of the black experience, including a lack of representation in key areas, the historical and present animosity of white populations toward integration and equality, the way elites whip up racial tensions for political ends, and the commodification of black bodies. Baldwin, and by extension the documentary, argues that America will only survive if it deals with its past and learns to accept the fact it isn’t a totally white space. We’re not holding our breath.

2. The Cove

Dolphin hunting has a long history in Japan, but this 2009 documentary revealed the criminal brutality of this cultural practice in vivid, shocking detail – winning an Academy Award in the process. Filmmaker Louie Psihoyos follows the former dolphin trainer turned activist Ric O’Barry as he chronicles the annual dolphin hunt in Taiji in Japan. Members of the town have long captured and sold dolphins all over the world, but as the documentary reveals they also massacre thousands of the creatures in frankly inhumane ways, aided by the local government and police officials. Even Japanese officials on a national level are keen to minimize the horror, which the wider public in the country is unaware of. An important but sad watch.

1. Taxi to the Dark Side

Another Oscar winner, Taxi to the Dark Side chronicles the sad story of an Afghan taxi driver named Dilawar, who was mistakenly captured by American forces and sent to a government black site, before being illegally tortured and killed. A combination of corruption, negligence, and poor planning allowed Dilawar — and possibly dozens of others like him — to be murdered in truly evil ways by the U.S, not just in Afghanistan but also Iraq and Guantanamo Bay. The film delves into how illegal torture has been normalized, and other terrifying aspects of the so-called “war on terror.”