10 creative documentaries to watch on YouTube

Once, documentaries were only of interest to academic and intellectual types. In the 2000s, though, they went mainstream, with slickly produced docu-movies like Bowling for Columbine and An Inconvenient Truth scoring big at the box office. Since then, the trend has only heightened, and nowadays documentaries regularly top the charts on streaming services like Netflix and Amazon.

Even if you have no money right now, you don't have to miss out. Here, we've rounded up the 10 best creative documentaries currently available to watch YouTube for free. So whatever your discipline, you're sure to find something to entertain, inform and inspire you.

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Tom May
Freelance journalist and editor

Tom May is an award-winning journalist and author specialising in design, photography and technology. His latest book, The 50th Greatest Designers, was released in June 2025. He's also author of the Amazon #1 bestseller Great TED Talks: Creativity, published by Pavilion Books, Tom was previously editor of Professional Photography magazine, associate editor at Creative Bloq, and deputy editor at net magazine.