Our documentary picks: July 2025

Whether you watch documentaries for the facts, the feels, the drama – or just to feed your history obsession – you’re in luck, because there’s been a wave of standout new releases. From heart-wrenching stories of tragedy and hope to nostalgic Americana, shocking social injustice, and even some toilet humour (and hey, maybe that’s your thing), here are six must-watch documentaries to stream right now.

Grenfell: Uncovered

This Netflix doccie is absolutely worth watching, though be warned, it’s tragic and deeply emotional too. It explores the chain of events – shocking cost-cutting and careless decisions by both government and private companies – that led to the Grenfell Tower fire in London in 2017. It covers what happened on the night of the fire, as well as the aftermath and ongoing public inquiry.

Grenfell Tower, a 24-storey residential block in North Kensington, caught fire due to highly flammable cladding that had recently been added to improve the building’s appearance. Outdated firefighting systems, poor emergency protocols, and inadequate escape routes made the disaster even worse.

But this documentary is more than just an explanation of a tragic event; it gives life to the 72 residents who died, most of whom were black, Asian, migrants or from minority backgrounds. It gives a platform to survivors, grieving families and deeply traumatised firefighters who were on the ground that night. It also lays bare the devastating impact of racial and class inequality, racial capitalism, poor governance and the dangers of putting profit above human life. And perhaps most disturbingly, it highlights the fact that – despite a public inquiry – no criminal charges have been laid to date. Highly recommended.

Quilters

If you’re looking for something hopeful, sensitive and short (a very manageable 33 minutes), Netflix’s new documentary Quilters is just right. This charming film centres on long-serving inmates at a maximum-security prison in Missouri who sew custom quilts for foster children and weighted jackets for autistic kids.

The documentary introduces us to the men behind the programme, the beautiful quilts they create, and the profound impact this creative outlet – and the good it does out in the world – has had on them.

You’ll meet Chill, who specialises in butterfly-themed quilts that remind him of his mother; Ricky, who also thinks of his loving mom as he teaches fellow inmates to quilt; and Fred, who’s working on a psychedelic, 1960s-inspired design.

The detailed, colourful, and intricately planned quilts – all made from donated fabrics –are awe-inspiring. And the emotional weight a simple thank-you letter carries for these men is deeply moving. This gentle documentary will leave you reflecting on second chances, the role of incarceration, the power of art in rehabilitation, and the true meaning of healing.

Slice of Life: The American Dream. In Former Pizza Huts

This heart-warming and unexpectedly hopeful documentary explores a beloved slice of Americana: former Pizza Hut buildings across the U.S. that have found new life. Once home to the pizza empire, these iconic standalone structures – complete with trapezoidal windows and red, hut-like roofs – now house everything from karaoke bars to churches.

South Africans might not fully grasp just how central Pizza Hut was to American life. Founded in Wichita, Kansas in 1958 by two brothers who were decidedly not Italian, Pizza Hut became a cultural institution. The film takes a quick, fun detour into the chain’s history, featuring interviews with its now nonagenarian co-founder.

But the real focus is on what these buildings have become – quirky, deeply personal spaces that reflect today’s America. Among the transformations: a vibrant LGBTQ+ church in Florida with stained glass in the original Pizza Hut windows; a nostalgic karaoke bar in Texas; a trendy seafood joint in South Carolina; a cannabis dispensary in Colorado; a black-owned BBQ spot in Illinois; and a lively Mexican eatery in Virginia.

Slice of Life isn’t just about architecture or nostalgia, it’s about community, reinvention and the strange ways physical spaces carry meaning. Inclusive, optimistic and delightfully quirky, this film invites us to rethink what the American Dream looks like today.

The Lost Music of Auschwitz

When British composer Leo Geyer uncovered over 200 forgotten scores in the Auschwitz archives, each a faded fragment of prisoner-composed music, it set him on an eight-year journey to bring them back to life.

These pieces, created inside the camp, somehow survived even as the Nazis tried to erase everything else. The music was written and performed by prisoners in six orchestras, commissioned by SS guards. These musicians lived slightly apart, given marginally better conditions, and were forced to play as trains arrived, prisoners marched to daily labour, or guards relaxed. Instruments such as accordions, rarely used in orchestras, added to the unsettling soundscape.

In the documentary, Geyer and his orchestra restore and perform these works – some of which were being heard for the first time in 80 years – exactly as they would have sounded at Auschwitz. Interviews with survivors of both the Holocaust and the camp orchestras deepen the emotional impact. The Lost Music of Auschwitz is chilling, beautiful, and a rare chance to hear history through music.

Sally

Her legacy feels especially relevant now, in the wake of 2025’s headline-grabbing Blue Origin flight with Katy Perry and Lauren Sánchez – a celebrity spectacle compared with Ride’s grounded brilliance. Where that mission felt performative, Sally Ride represented the true spirit of exploration.

The new documentary Sally tells the story of Sally Ride: physicist, astronaut and the first American woman in space. In 1983, at just 32, she became the youngest American to fly beyond Earth, watched by half a million people and celebrated as a national hero. She was the real deal – a NASA-trained astronaut with a PhD in physics who has been a role model for generations.

But Sally goes beyond her spaceflight. It reveals the private life Ride kept hidden for decades; her 27-year relationship with Tam O’Shaughnessy, a scientist and writer she’d known since childhood. In an era hostile to LGBTQ+ visibility, Ride chose silence, even marrying a fellow astronaut to maintain appearances. Only while battling cancer did she name Tam as her partner.

Through Tam’s candid reflections – and voices like Billie Jean King’s and those of Sally’s mother and sister – the film tells a powerful, tender story of love, sacrifice and a life shaped by both public achievement and private constraint. After Sally’s death in 2012, Tam accepted her Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama, calling it “a public coming out”.

Sally, streaming on Disney+, is a moving portrait of a complex woman and a reminder that love really is love.

Trainwreck: Poop Cruise

While this Netflix doccie has gone viral and is definitely a conversation starter, it’s maybe not one for the dinner table as its subject matter is, well… pretty disgusting.

Told in an oddly comical tone, Trainwreck: Poop Cruise revisits the infamous 2013 disaster aboard the Carnival Triumph. What was supposed to be a routine round-trip cruise from Texas to Mexico turned into a full-blown nightmare when an engine room fire left the ship stranded in the Gulf of Mexico – sorry, the Gulf of America, as President Trump might prefer – with no power, no water, no air conditioning, minimal contact with land and yes… overflowing toilets.

With raw sewage backing up, limited food and sweltering heat, 4000 passengers were trapped in a surreal and increasingly unhygienic situation. And in true cruise-ship chaos fashion, the bar was kept open – because nothing says “disaster management” like unlimited drinks and broken plumbing.

The doccie leans into the absurdity, featuring a trio of former hen-party attendees doing shots while recounting their story a decade later. But the standout moment? A quote from the ship’s chef that’s both revolting and iconic: “People were pooping on top of toilet paper, then pooping on top of that. It was layer after layer after layer. It was like a lasagne.”

This isn’t in the same calibre as more serious, thoughtful documentaries on this list like Sally or Grenfell: Uncovered. But as a bizarre, gross-out slice of pop culture, it’s sure to spark conversation – just maybe not with anyone who has a weak stomach.