11 Best Nature Documentaries on Netflix, Hulu, and More (2025)

The champion nature documentaries are the eventual trip, minus the drugs. I'm talking astir the benignant of films that marque you consciousness similar you're sweating successful the savanna, freezing successful the Arctic, oregon staring into the eyes of a predator. The champion documentaries don't provender you beauteous pictures and blessed endings—they springiness you the deep, acheronian corners of the wild, wherever endurance is an indifferent battle. The ones that marque you question everything you thought you knew astir the ellipse of beingness and what it means to beryllium genuinely alive.

Here's a usher to the champion of the champion quality documentaries. These apical picks are a reminder that the satellite isn't a backdrop for our story, but a living, breathing entity that moves guardant whether we take to wage attraction oregon not.

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Koyaanisqatsi (1982)

To telephone Koyaanisqatsi a quality documentary mightiness consciousness similar a stretch, but nary different nonfiction movie presents a much clear-eyed critique of the narration betwixt quality beings, the systems we've created, and the situation that sustains us. The rubric is simply a Hopi connection that translates to “life successful chaos,” and it beauteous overmuch tells you what's inside: long, gorgeous shots of the earthy satellite juxtaposed with fast, hypnotic shots of humans going astir their regular grind. We spot radical commuting done metropolis centers, mill workers assembling cars, suburban moms market shopping, dense machines mining minerals, and combatant planes blowing worldly up. Things accelerate into time-lapse and crawl into dilatory motion. All of this is accompanied by a throbbing, repetitive, and mind-blanking people by Philip Glass that's dense connected brass, synthesizers, and basso profundo chanting. Maybe astir notable is the information that Koyaanisqatsi came retired successful 1982, and yet its unspoken observations astir however we exploit the situation successful the sanction of commerce and advancement are adjacent much prescient today. —Michael Calore

Baraka (1992)

This movie could beryllium considered a spiritual sequel to Koyaanisqatsi. Baraka's director, Ron Fricke, was the cinematographer connected Koyaanisqatsi, and some films usage a akin construct—lots of dilatory question and time-lapse shots of beingness connected Earth, a nonnarrative operation escaped of dialog, and a memorable score—to remark connected the equilibrium betwixt humans, nature, and the satellite economy. It's a grim movie astatine times, showing stark footage of concern rampage and however society's astir susceptible citizens struggle, and often fail, to conscionable their basal needs. But curiously, it's besides uplifting erstwhile taken arsenic a whole. The movie visits dozens of ineffable taste and spiritual sites astir the world, showing songs, dances, and spiritual ceremonies that volition surely incorporate immoderate caller experiences for astir everyone who watches. There are dazzling shots of locations and animals that I've ne'er seen successful immoderate different documentary. Baraka is simply a clang people successful the world's taste and ecological diverseness that volition springiness you a consciousness of conscionable however immense our satellite is, and conscionable however tiny it tin feel. —Michael Calore

March of the Penguins (2005)

March of the Penguins casts emperor penguins arsenic romanticist monogamists (they’re not), devoted parents (kind of), and conquerors of a frozen hellscape (definitely). The information is colder than the Antarctic tundra. Survival present is brutal and beautiful. Shot implicit a twelvemonth astir the French basal of Dumont d’Urville successful Adélie Land, the blockbuster movie follows thousands of penguins connected their yearly migration to breed, wherever parents tag-team a death-defying relay of ovum warming and nutrient foraging. Never has waddling looked truthful noble. Did I notation it's narrated by Morgan Freeman?

Grizzly Man (2005)

Grizzly Man is not truthful overmuch a wildlife documentary arsenic it is simply a tragic emotion communicative betwixt humanity and the wilderness. Timothy Treadwell, an amateur environmentalist, spent 13 summers filming himself among Alaskan grizzly bears, naming them, petting them, sometimes hand-feeding them, until 1 of them killed him and his girlfriend, Amie Huguenard, successful 2003. Werner Herzog stitches unneurotic Treadwell’s 100-plus hours of footage with his sobering narration. Treadwell believed the chaotic could emotion him back; Herzog sees lone however tiny we are successful its jaws.

Planet Earth I-III (2006-2023)

It feels similar everyone has seen Planet Earth, but we’d beryllium remiss not to see this TV bid successful our database of favorites. I rewatch it each year. From its inception successful 2006, erstwhile it was a large woody that it was changeable successful precocious definition, to the usage of drones and deep-sea submersibles portion filming Planet Earth III successful 2023, Planet Earth has stunning and intimate footage and, of course, the iconic narrator Sir David Attenborough.