Top 10 Best Free Sites To Watch Documentaries
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Top 10 Best Free Sites To Watch Documentaries |
Table of Content |
The documentary genre is experiencing a second golden age thanks to streaming. Watching documentaries is a great way to educate yourself about world issues, get inspired about the world around you, and learn more about your history.
Documentaries offer a combination of entertainment and education. They are based on true stories, telling compelling stories about real people and events.
In fact, platforms like Hulu let you watch most of their documentaries absolutely free, just in exchange for a user's subscription. The internet is full of free and legal material, ready to share without limits, from small amateur shorts with a handheld camera to industrial classics. Let's explore now!
Top 10 Best Free Sites To Watch Documentaries
1. Top Documentaries Films
Top Documentaries Films provides complete documentaries by citing reviews from trusted sources. Documentaries are categorized by genre, making it easy to find movies on your favorite topics. You can also add comments about documentaries you've seen, providing comments other viewers can read about the movie to see if they'd like to see it.
An account is unnecessary, so you can start streaming these movies right away. If you find documentaries that you really like, you can decide to buy them from the Top Documentary Store.
Website: https://topdocumentaryfilms.com/
2. Documentary Heaven
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Photo: netted |
There are thousands of free documentaries at Documentary Heaven that can be viewed by category, popularity, and Top 100. Movies can also be sorted by rating, newest to oldest, comments, or title. The videos are submitted by anyone, which means there are loads of public documentaries that can be viewed.
There's also a single, one-page list of all the documentaries you can watch here, which makes it easy to read through the categories and titles. Some of the dozens of categories include Mystery, Science, Philosophy, Countries, Business, Drugs, Celebrity, Archaeology, 9/11, Art and Artists, Space, Music, and Spiritual.
Streaming is open to anyone, but you'll need to make a free account to post comments and tag videos as favorites. You can provide your email address to get new documentary alerts sent to you over email, or subscribe to their RSS feed.
Website: https://documentaryheaven.com/
3. Archive.org
When you land on the main page of archive.org, it’s hard to know where to begin. The range of content on the site is overwhelming, so I recommend starting in the “Arts & Music” section and just diving in at first to familiarize yourself with the different ways the site works.
The next thing you can try is to simply run a search via the main search bar for ‘documentary.’ Be warned – this turns up 85,846 results when I looked!
The cool thing is that you can filter by year – 2021 has 5,245 results, for example. And also by media type: selecting movies takes the archive down to 52,458 results when I looked.
Website: https://archive.org/
4. Freedocumentaries.org
Freedocumentries.org streams full-length, thought-provoking, educational, and entertaining documentary films for free, with no registration required. They have searched the web for well-produced videos and gather them onto one site. For some films, you can even watch trailers or download the film. Some films on the site have widespread distribution, but others are created by independent filmmakers, who depend on sites like Freedocumentaries.org to get their information out to the public.
Website: http://freedocumentaries.org/
5. Indocus
Indocus exclusively lists indie documentaries that you can stream for free on YouTube. These range from award-winning titles made on shoestring budgets to some longer videos from popular YouTube creators that could ostensibly be called documentaries.
The main page lists the top-rated documentaries currently on the website and the latest to be added to the directory. The Discover section is a better way to explore the directory. You can filter by categories like money, self-help, psychology, crime, math and science, design and art, creating, personal stories and vlogs, and history. You can also sort by short, medium, or long video length. All entries are listed by their upvote rank.
Website: https://www.indocus.site/
6. Films For Action
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Photo: weinspiremovement |
Films For Action is a site solely focused on documentaries’ social elements. The site is completely free and is all about content uploaded by creators for the sole purpose of social change and impact.
Films For Action has more than 2,000 free documentaries available for viewing. The site frequently adds new features and content, including opportunities for social activism.
Sort videos to find the best documentaries and sign up for weekly email alerts to get notified about new content. Subscribe to the RSS feed for daily updates.
Website: https://www.filmsforaction.org/
7. Documentary.net
Documentary.net offers a large catalog of full-length, free documentaries on a wide range of topics, such as nature, politics, science, and history. You can browse by category, sort by top films, by length (short, mid, and long, which are less than 10, 11-30, and 30+ minutes, respectively), and even watch mini-documentaries about the making of the documentaries themselves. The documentaries are available worldwide, without any territory restrictions.
Website: https://documentary.net/
8. Freevee
Amazon Freevee (previously called IMDb TV) is a great place for free movies, and there's an entire section dedicated just to documentary movies. All 100% free, supported by ads.
After selecting the documentary genre, you can filter the list by subject to see just those movies, such as Art & Artists, Biography, Crime, History, Science & Technology, Travel, Music & Performing Arts, and more.
There's even a filter for subtitles so you can ensure that the movies will have captions in the language you prefer.
Website: https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/storefront/?contentType=subscription&contentId=freewithads&benefitId=freewithads
9. Documentary-Log.com
Documentary-Log.com was founded by fans of documentaries who gather the very best films from around the web. They focus on science documentaries because this seemed to be the most underrepresented genre on the web, but they also offer films covering other genres. Feel free to add comments about films you watch on their site and to rate the films, as well.
Website: https://www.hugedomains.com/domain_profile.cfm?d=documentary-log.com
10. Documentary24
Documentary24 has several categories of free documentaries, such as War, Business, Religion, Politics, and Culture. Or, browse videos by tags like Internet, Ships, BBC, Asia, Banks, Africa, Sport, Terror, and others.
The site has a section for the most popular documentaries as well as newly added films. Every category list has useful sorting options like popularity and date, but also by what was most popular in the last 7 days only, and review score.
The portal notes that it strives to offer only prejudice-free and unbiased films.
Website: https://www.documentary24.com/
Conclusion
This list should assist you in locating free, interesting, and informative documentaries that interest and motivate you. Please share any more helpful websites that you may know of in the comments if you want to locate free and legally available films.
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