The Best YouTube Documentaries You Don’t Need A Subscription To Watch
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Vote up the YouTube docs that keep you on the edge of your seat
No Hulu? No Max? Not even Netflix? No problem. Although you might feel overwhelmed or too financially strapped for keeping up with all the paid streaming services, YouTube, which does have a subscription option, also offers tons of free content. Yes, you'll find (and should watch) cat videos and how-to-fix-a-faucet clips, but the platform also offers longer quality content, including full-length documentaries.
Whether you're interested in thought-provoking deep dives into unsolved missing persons cases, or world champion board game players battling against machines, these free-to-watch YouTube documentaries will keep you entertained and educated.
- 117 VOTES
The Kennedy Assassination: Inside the Book Depository
Runtime: 1 hour, 38 minutes
The Premise: Ever since the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, a cloud of controversy has hovered over how it happened, and who was involved. This LEMMiNO documentary explores the mysteries and conspiracy theories surrounding the historic event, tracing the sequence of events that transpired on that dark day in 1963.
The Deep Dive: LEMMiNO provides compelling transcripts from people who were in the Texas School Book Depository - where Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly fired shots from - on the day of the assassination. For decades, speculation has circulated that Oswald did not act alone. Although this documentary explores many different theories, it also offers the possibility of a “benign conspiracy," adding another perspective on one of history's most complex cases.
- 226 VOTES
The Search for D.B. Cooper
Runtime: 29 minutes
The Premise: In 1971, a man known only by his alias, D.B. Cooper, parachuted out of a hijacked plane with $200,000 in ransom money. Although the money and his belongings were recovered, Cooper was never found or identified.
The Deep Dive: This LEMMiNO YouTube channel documentary offers an in-depth breakdown of the mysterious hijacking case that remains unsolved today. The animated visuals and slick production quality has all the trappings of a Netflix documentary (maybe even better), and the storytelling is nothing short of captivating. Divided into five parts, the investigative documentary features a final chapter that explores various suspects, inviting the viewer to decide which suspect - if any - is the elusive D.B. Cooper.
- 316 VOTES
Disney's FastPass: A Complicated History
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Runtime: 1 hour, 43 minutes
The Premise: This in-depth history of Disney park ticketing systems, from ticket books to the FastPass, meticulously explores attempts to cut down on wait times at the famous theme parks.
The Deep Dive: Raise your hand if you’ve ever had an existential crisis waiting in a Disney park line. With this documentary clocking in at just over 100 minutes, you could likely watch it waiting in line for Space Mountain and still not make it to the front. Better yet, skip the ride, and have fun watching this instead. This surprisingly gripping feature-length documentary delves into the mechanics of Disney’s defunct ticketing systems, how they worked (or didn’t work), and the modern time-saving solutions implemented after the fall of the FastPass.
- 418 VOTES
The Atomic Café
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Runtime: 1 hour, 26 minutes
The Premise: Added to the National Film Registry in 2016, a full-length restoration of this 1982 cult classic documentary is now available on YouTube. With dark humor, it deconstructs a dark chapter in history.
The Deep-Dive: Weaving together Cold War archival footage consisting of newsreels, commercials, government propaganda, and military training videos, The Atomic Café depicts the startling misinformation being fed to the public regarding the dangers of nuclear war. There are even clips from instructional videos telling people to “duck and cover” in the event of a nuclear explosion. This blast from the problematic past pairs well with a viewing of Oppenheimer.
- 520 VOTES
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Runtime: 1 hour, 30 minutes
The Premise: The world champion of a complex Chinese board game plays against an AI-generated opponent. Man and machine are put to the test in this documentary that is more than just fun and games.
The Deep Dive: Believed to have been created 2,500 to 4,000 years ago, the chess-like board game Go is as competitive as it is challenging. This award-winning 2016 documentary digs into the history of the popular game, highlighting its intricacies and the brilliant minds who have mastered it. Because the game relies heavily on human intuition, the ability for a machine to master it is considered a technological achievement. Chronicling the lead-up to a definitive face-off between South Korean Go champion Lee Se-dol and his computerized opponent, AlphaGo, the burning question is: Does artificial intelligence threaten to replace every uniquely human quality?
- 612 VOTES
In Search of a Flat Earth
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Runtime: 1 hour, 16 minutes
The Premise: This documentary explores the archaic conspiracy theory that the Earth is flat rather than spherical.
The Deep Dive: Flat out: this documentary by the Folding Ideas channel isn't flat-Earther friendly. Creator Dan Olson takes viewers on a journey to Lake Minnewanka in Alberta, Canada - revered as a specific spot that supports the flat-Earth theory - to debunk the theory himself. It's a fascinating experiment that illustrates not only the curvature of the Earth, but also the details of an infamously divisive topic.
- 710 VOTES
RUIN: Money, Ego and Deception at FTX
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Runtime: 1 hour, 47 minutes
The Premise: This feature-length documentary narrated by Bloomberg journalists follows the rise and fall of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried's cryptocurrency exchange.
The Deep Dive: The title of the documentary might sound like a tabloid headline, but unfortunately, it's absolutely true, because FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried, initially heralded as a crypto-genius, created massive crypto-ruin. Released the week before Bankman-Fried took the stand at his fraud trial, the documentary offers a walk-through of the events that turned his financial legacy into a cautionary tale. Whether or not you actually comprehend how cryptocurrency functions (or doesn't function), you'll be astonished by the greed and arrogance that brought down this man and his company.
- 810 VOTES
The Man Who Tried to Fake an Element
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Runtime: 1 hour, 19 minutes
The Premise: This documentary tells the story of an Italian physicist and his mission to create a new element on the periodic table.
The Deep Dive: This science-heavy, intriguing documentary delves into the history of the Cold War race to discover a new periodic element. YouTube's BobbyBroccoli gives viewers an informative, research-based look at physicist Victor Ninov's quest to form the superheavy element 118, and how he - almost successfully - faked the whole thing.
- 95 VOTES
The Dark Side of the Silk Road
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Runtime: 1 hour, 14 minutes
The Premise: Contrary to the title, this isn't a documentary about the ancient Chinese trade route. It's about something much darker: the online black market.
The Deep Dive: This investigative documentary tells the story of Ross William Ulbricht, the founder of a digital black market site called Silk Road that used Bitcoin for money laundering and illegal drug transactions. YouTube creator Barely Sociable dives deep into the sordid tale, showing all the receipts, and asking viewers to “hold all opinions” and what they've previously read about the unraveling of the Silk Road until the end of the video.
- 107 VOTES
Inside the Wellness Festival for Millionaires
Runtime: 22 minutes
The Premise: This bite-sized Vice documentary captures A-Fest, an invite-only four-day festival for millionaires and aspiring millionaires with a desire to change the world while transforming their own lives. It's described in the film as “somewhere between Burning Man and a TED Talk.”
The Deep Dive: The documentary shows clips of an optimistic crowd of self-proclaimed visionaries pepping each other up in a five-star hotel conference room and learning self-improvement techniques like how to breathe orgasmically. A co-host announces at the opening event: “This is not a normal conference. This is a serendipity accelerator, pressure cooker, social-connecting portal of transformation.” Founded by online personal growth entrepreneur Vishen Lakhiani, the festival costs a pretty penny ($3,000 a ticket). Luckily, it's free to watch the documentary.
- 113 VOTES
The Quest to Beat abney317
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Runtime: 55 minutes
The Premise: A secret shortcut in the popular video game Mario Kart 64 is revealed, blowing the mind of a seasoned gamer.
The Deep-Dive: Even if you know nothing about video games, this documentary is a fun, wild ride: the surprisingly intriguing story of Mario Kart 64 world record breaker abney317. When a mysterious gamer with the username forest64 tells abney317 about a shortcut in the popular Royal Roadway racetrack, it proves to be a literal game changer. Take a scroll through the YouTube comments to see how abney317's world record is holding up.
- 123 VOTES
The Pemberton Incident - An Unsolved Mystery
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Runtime: 48 minutes
The Premise: Deep in the Canadian back country, hikers find a burned car along with personal items that belong to a missing person named Marshal Iwaasa. The discovery links his disappearance to the case of another missing person, Daniel Reoch, yet neither of them are any closer to being found.
The Deep-Dive: Intriguing from start to finish, this investigative documentary explores two disappearances in harrowing detail. Riddled with suspicious evidence, inconsistent narratives, and incompetent authorities, the story is as compelling as it is frustrating. Perhaps if the police put as much time into solving the case as Barely Sociable put into making this documentary, the case would be solved.
- 133 VOTES
Arctic Sinkholes
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Runtime: 53 minutes
The Premise: This NOVA documentary, which originally aired on PBS, explores a mysterious phenomenon: methane sinkholes in the Arctic.
The Deep Dive: Scientists in Alaska and Siberia study the source of these sinkholes, finding that they are a result of thawing permafrost and greenhouse gasses causing explosions. While certainly not light-hearted, it's an environmentally enlightening account of the rapid effects of climate change.
- 146 VOTES
Deep Blue | Down the Rabbit Hole
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Runtime: 2 hours, 8 minutes
The Premise: Chronicling the history of early chess computer programs, this feature-length documentary centers on the creation of Deep Blue, an IBM software program designed to beat the world chess champion.
The Deep-Dive: The quest to design a “chess machine” dates back decades. In 1997, when IBM's Deep Blue supercomputer played a six-match game against world chess champion Garry Kasparov, it was a monumental advancement in computer science. This in-depth documentary offers a captivating narrative on the rivalry between human and machine.
- 151 VOTES
Disastrous Indifference: The Loss of SS El Faro
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Runtime: 1 hour, 13 minutes
The Premise: This documentary tells the tragic tale of the SS El Faro, a ship that sailed directly into a Category 4 storm near the Bahamas in 2015. Perhaps even more tragic - and infuriating - is that the incident could have been avoided.
The Deep Dive: This high-quality documentary delves not only into the mechanics of the ship, but also the human complacency that steered it to its doom. The detailed breakdowns and thoughtful animations make it easy to follow, even if you're afraid to see the perilous ending. It may have you yelling at the ship's captain on your screen, but it's certainly worth a watch.
