Browse documentary movie and series in New Zealand
Dive into the world of documentary movie and series in New Zealand. From timeless classics to trending hits, explore an exciting collection of titles that define the documentary genre.
Explore critically acclaimed blockbusters, hidden gems, and trending new releases that showcase the diversity and creativity of documentary storytelling. Use our filters to find top-rated titles, recent hits, or beloved classics tailored to your taste.
With Popcorn Time, uncover your next favorite movie or TV show and enjoy the best of documentary entertainment. Start browsing now and bring documentary into your watchlist today!
TV Show
Hannah Gadsby is a closet art scholar. Armed with her rapier wit and a desire to pick beneath the paint, she will travel across the continent on a mission to debunk the myths of the Australian identity as defined by our art.
Hannah Gadsby's OZ (2014 )
TV Show
Rome, 1983. After leaving a music lesson, 15-year-old Emanuela Orlandi vanishes — embroiling the Vatican in a decades-long mystery.
Vatican Girl: The Disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi (2022 )
Movie
Under the loving but firm guidance of an old fan turned director and cultural diplomat, and to the surprise of a whole world, the ex-Yugoslavian cult band Laibach becomes the first rock group ever to perform in the fortress state of North Korea.
Liberation Day (2016 )
TV Show
Discover a side of Abraham Lincoln you've never seen before. In this four-part docuseries, a diverse panel of historians and rare archival materials offer a more nuanced look into the man dubbed the Great Emancipator.
Lincoln's Dilemma (2022 )
TV Show
Insiders recount the events, controversies and lingering effects of the accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania.
Meltdown: Three Mile Island (2022 )
Movie
When Lena and Ulli start the engine of their old Land Rover, Lady Terés, they have a plan: to drive from Hamburg to South Africa in six months. What they don't know yet is that they won't ever get there. Two totally different characters, jammed together in two square meters of space for almost two years, they experience what it really means to travel: leaving your comfort zone for good.
Break Free - Two People. Two Years. One Dream (2019 )
Movie
Documentary on the life of ghazal samrat Jagjit Singh, who changed the landscape of Indian Music.
Kaagaz Ki Kashti (2016 )
Movie
In the Californian part of the Sonoran desert, in the close vicinity of military bases, there is a “wild” town called Slab City inhabited by the refugees from the American Dream. Of different age, they brought with them various stories, but all chose freedom, even for the price of the most basic comforts. The only place equipped with electricity is a makeshift Internet café run by Rob which serves “the best coffee in the neighbourhood”.
Desert Coffee (2017 )
Movie
See the monumental 1975 London concert and the never-before-seen documentary that digs deep into the archives to tell the story of Queen, featuring newly discovered interviews with all four members of the band, unseen live performance footage and so much more.
Queen: A Night in Bohemia (2016 )
- Free
Movie
Selling God is a whimsical look at the Contemporary Evangelical Movement. It offers a satirical perspective on the many absurdities that arise when religion and popular culture collide and features interviews with Dr. Noam Chomsky as well as many other scholars and religious leaders. Written by Shoreline Entertainment
Selling God (2009 )
TV Show
When a suspect is found in a journalist's murder, the case is considered closed until a secret diary suggests 13 more victims — and possible cannibalism.
Indian Predator: The Diary of a Serial Killer (2022 )
Movie
James Lavelle played his first DJ set at 14, launched pioneering record label Mo'Wax at 18 and released the genre defining UNKLE album Psyence Fiction at 22. His phenomenally rapid rise seemed limitless, but it's only when you're going so fast that the wheels fall off. The Man from Mo’Wax tells the remarkable story of one of the most enigmatic yet influential figures in contemporary British culture. Unearthed from over 700 hours of footage including exclusive personal archive spanning three decades, we get the rare opportunity to watch a boy become a man in the world of music. The result is an exhilarating, no holds-barred ride into the life of an extraordinary man and an equally extraordinary era, taking in some decidedly flawed decision-making (both personal and professional), Lavelle emerges as an innovative artist who thinks big and consistently overcomes adversity.
The Man from Mo'Wax (2016 )
TV Show
Comedian Nick Helm narrates this bold new documentary series exploring the dramatic history of British cinema. Discover how cinema held a mirror up to society from 1960 through to the 00s.
Reel Britannia (2022 )
TV Show
In 1971, a skyjacker parachutes off a plane with a bag of stolen cash — and gets away with it. Decades later, his identity remains a compelling mystery.
D.B. Cooper: Where Are You?! (2022 )
TV Show
A series of mutilated bodies and taunting notes left outside a Delhi jail sends police hunting for a seasoned killer with a grudge against the system.
Indian Predator: The Butcher of Delhi (2022 )
Movie
One of the original members of the band Chicago, Terry Kath has been praised by icons like Jimi Hendrix and Joe Walsh for his voice and guitar playing. Michelle Sinclair, first-time filmmaker and Terry's daughter, searches for the truth surrounding the life and untimely death of her father, in this look at one of the most underrated guitarists in rock history.
The Terry Kath Experience (2016 )
- Free
Movie
A documentary about Doris Day and the question where she is today.
What a Difference a Day Made: Doris Day Superstar (2009 )
- Free
Movie
Adele has recieved iconic status from fans and industry proffesionals alike. With sold out concerts around the world and multiple awards to her name Adele came from humble beginnings and has gone on to be one of the biggest Artists in the world.
Adele: Someone Like Me (2016 )
Movie
Esther Johnson’s film uses local archive footage to convey the story of Sunderland's involvement in the First World War, from the men who fought in the fields to those who stayed behind to work in the region’s shipyards and munitions factories.
Asunder (2016 )
- Free
Movie
Music producer, Apple executive and N.W.A. rapper recently announced that he would be releasing his first album since 1999, featuring guests such as Eminem, Kendrick Lamar, Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg amongst many others. From his humble beginnings with the World Class Wreckin’ Cru, to his brash coming out party with N.W.A., and now as a mentor to some of the greatest recent talent in rap, the Compton-born producer has never eased his stranglehold on the game. Ranked at the top of the Forbes rich list in 2014, Andre Romelle Young, aka Dr. Dre is set to become one of the first hip-hop billionaires in the world! . Follow the inside story of how it all began for Dr. Dre as we take a journey though his pinnacle producer years right through to his lucrative partnership with Apple.
Dr. Dre: Another Beat (2016 )
Movie
Filmed over three years in various locations, from the Fiji Islands to the Bahamas, Wonders of the Sea 3D is an underwater tour of the most obscure parts of our planet's oceans, revealing images so spectacular that they border on the fantastic.
Wonders of the Sea 3D (2017 )
- Free
Movie
In 1948, French singer Charles Aznavour (1924-2018) receives a Paillard Bolex, his first camera. Until 1982, he will shoot hours of footage, his filmed diary. Wherever he goes, he carries his camera with him. He films his life and lives as he films: places, moments, friends, loves, misfortunes.
Aznavour by Charles (2019 )
Movie
Julita expressed her three greatest wishes shortly after getting married: lots of children, a monkey and a castle she can call her own. That all of these wishes have become a reality is probably down to the immense stubbornness of this charismatic and equally hilarious matriarch who has a weakness for collecting crazy objects. When financial circumstances force the family to sell their castle, her adult children are left sifting through a lifetime of peculiarities in search of a few lost bones… Spanish actor and neo director Gustavo Salmerón paints a deliciously absurd family portrait that just happens to reveal a lot about Spain, Catholicism and the economic crisis.
Lots of Kids, a Monkey and a Castle (2017 )
Movie
Aging fashion model Benedetta Barzini strives to escape the world of images and disappear for good, but her son’s determination to make a final film about her sparks an unexpected collaboration and confrontation with the camera’s gaze.
The Disappearance of My Mother (2019 )
- Free
Movie
Jason Marriner was one of Britain's most feared football hooligans. Known as 'The General' he was a key member of the notorious Chelsea Head Hunters and was jailed for 6 years after the BBC's Donal MacIntyre infiltrated his Firm. Now Jason tells the story of his brutal life on the Terraces. The Fights, the Firms & what he really thinks of MacIntyre! It's a Riot!
Jason Marriner Football Hooligan (2009 )
Movie
Talal Derki returns to his homeland where he gains the trust of a radical Islamist family, sharing their daily life for over two years. His camera focuses on Osama and his younger brother Ayman, providing an extremely rare insight into what it means to grow up in an Islamic Caliphate.
Of Fathers and Sons (2017 )
Movie
More than 65 million people around the world have been forced from their homes to escape famine, climate change and war, the greatest displacement since World War II. Filmmaker Ai Weiwei examines the staggering scale of the refugee crisis and its profoundly personal human impact. Over the course of one year in 23 countries, Weiwei follows a chain of urgent human stories that stretch across the globe, including Afghanistan, France, Greece, Germany and Iraq.
Human Flow (2017 )
Movie
Never before have we watched as much porn as today yet the traditional porn industry is dying. The arrival of web sites showing amateur clips has transformed the way porn is made and consumed. Behind this transformation lies one opaque multinational.
Pornocracy: The New Sex Multinationals (2017 )
Movie
How can structures, which take up defined, rigid portions of space, make us feel transcendence? How can chapels turn into places of introspection? How can walls grant boundless freedom? Driven by intense childhood impressions, director Christoph Schaub visits extraordinary churches, both ancient and futuristic, and discovers works of art that take him up to the skies and all the way down to the bottom of the ocean. With the help of architects Peter Zumthor, Peter Märkli, and Álvaro Siza Vieira, artists James Turrell and Cristina Iglesias, and drummer Sergé “Jojo” Mayer, he tries to make sense of the world and decipher our spiritual experiences using the seemingly abstract concepts of light, time, rhythm, sound, and shape. The superb cinematography turns this contemplative search into a multi-sensory experience.
Architecture of Infinity (2019 )
TV Show
Mussolini seized power in Italy in 1922, after his March on Rome. He would hold it in his grasp until his death in 1945, establishing a dictatorship that lasted more than 20 years. Long considered a buffoon and a second-rate dictator, Il Duce invented fascism that was imitated by Hitler, who viewed the Italian as his political master. He wanted to transform his country into a warrior nation and promised Italians a return to the grandeur of the Roman Empire. He governed by violence and trickery and was one of the first populist leaders of modern times, leading his country into the catastrophe of the World War II. But who was Mussolini, this former teacher who came from the extreme left to become a newspaper editor and creator of the Fascist Party? Why did he ally himself with Hitler? Were the Italians really behind him? With archives and interviews with the last-surviving witnesses of the era, this portrait takes a look back at one of the most notorious dictators of the 20th century.
Mussolini: The First Fascist (2022 )
TV Show
History By The Numbers is an energetic, fast-paced series that takes a global dive into the extraordinary and often overlooked numbers that have created our world’s history. Each episode delves into the numbers and over-the-top stats behind a different subject such as the massive growth of the global fast food empire, the wealth and bloodshed of the world’s top crime bosses, the herculean numbers behind Mount Everest, and the lives of the richest people on earth.
History by the Numbers (2021 )
Expedition Antarctica (2009 )