Nowadays, it’s tough to tell what’s real anymore. Artificial intelligence threatens to replace us. Every image on social media needs extra verification, and it’s growing increasingly more difficult to spot if any actual humans took part in the media you consume. But there’s still one art form where everything is 100 percent real: documentary film.
This year alone, we’ve already seen over a dozen documentaries that celebrate people and illuminate injustice. Mr. Nobody Against Putin and The Alabama Solution take on underdogs fighting against corrupt institutions. Rafa and Miracle: The Boys of ’80 follow athletes with inspiring stories, and Man on the Run shows a side of one of the world’s most famous musicians that many fans have never seen before.
If you’ve had your fill of binge-watching shows that feel written by AI, check out one of the documentaries below for a story about the real world.
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Rafael Nadal in Rafa / Netflix
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Rafa
Rafael Nadal retired from tennis in 2024 following a record-setting 22 Grand Slam titles. Alongside Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic, he is one of the greatest athletes the sport has ever seen. In Rafa, his four-episode documentary series about the road to retirement, audiences witness a man who refuses to accept that his body just can’t compete anymore. It’s heartbreaking to watch Nadal struggle to play on through his injuries, but the tennis player offers a rare vulnerability about the end of his career that most athletes rarely ever allow on camera.
The Alabama Solution
Following his work on The Jinx, filmmaker Andrew Jarecki turns his attention toward the abuses inmates face in Alabama prisons. Combining footage shot on contraband cellphones and interviews with an allegedly murdered inmate’s family, The Alabama Solution seeks to expose the corrupt practices and correctional guards who silence the injustices from getting out.
Marty, Life Is Short
The title for Martin Short’s documentary, Life Is Short, was originally meant to serve as a joke on the comedian’s stature. But after his daughter, Katherine, took her own life, the then-finished film took on a new meaning. Though the documentary is still a celebration of Short’s career, it’s also about the many family members he lost along the way. “It’s about love, loss and survival,” Short told NPR. “We must figure a way to survive through grief without denying it or without in any way undermining its importance.”
Mr. Nobody Against Putin
In the BAFTA-winning movie Mr. Nobody Against Putin, Pavel “Pasha” Talankin uses his day job as a schoolteacher and videographer in rural Russia to carry out acts of resistance against Putin during the invasion of Ukraine. An unexpectedly funny and sweet study in political rebellion, Mr. Nobody Against Putin shows that heroes don’t always wear capes.
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Paul McCartney in Man on the Run / Prime Video
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Fukushima: A Nuclear Nightmare
Part epic disaster movie and part pressure-cooker thriller, Fukushima: A Nuclear Nightmare collects stories and memories surrounding those who were tasked with a suicide mission: prevent an even bigger nuclear catastrophe in the immediate aftermath of a 9.0 earthquake and tsunami that rocked Japan in 2011. Fukushima: A Nuclear Nightmare is an alarming reminder of how close we are to an apocalypse.
Man on the Run
Paul McCartney is still processing why the Beatles broke up. So the 83-year-old musician talked to Won’t You Be My Neighbor? director Morgan Neville about the tumultuous years after the Beatles ended, which is explored in a new documentary titled Man on the Run. Over archival footage and new interviews, McCartney provides insights into why he escaped to Scotland in 1970 to start Wings, making for the perfect spiritual sequel to Peter Jackson’s Get Back. “There’s still this process of Paul reevaluating what he did in that time,” Neville told Esquire. “When you hold up a mirror to people and say, ‘This is what I see,’ then they can see themselves in a different way.”
André Is an Idiot
After calling himself “an idiot” for never going to get a colonoscopy, former adman André Ricciardi learns that he’s developed terminal cancer. Filmmaker Tony Benna spends time with André as he processes the end of his life—hearing his eccentric stories and painfully honest thoughts about his mortality. “His dying wish was to roast himself mercilessly and go into that good night as a cautionary tale by way of comic relief,” Anthony Breznican wrote in his review. “Believe it or not, this movie made me laugh more than any film in recent memory.”
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Kate O'Flynn in Widow's Bay / Apple TV
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Are you watching Widow’s Bay? The Apple TV comedy-horror series about a small island mayor trying to fix up his cursed town is taking off with audiences. I’ve told everyone to watch the show since it premiered in late April, so I’m so happy to see that everyone’s finally on board. It’s easily one of my favorite new shows of the year so far.
Check out our interviews so far with lead actors Stephen Root and Kate O’Flynn, and let me know what you think of the series so far by writing to me at josh.rosenberg@hearst.com.
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The Continuing Adventures of the Esquire Entertainment Desk
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Horror movies are having a moment. As Obsession and Backrooms dominate the box office, we took the time to share our favorite horror films of the year so far—including the underrated jump scare-fest Hokum starring Severance’s Adam Scott. Check out our picks here.
Masters of the Universe rocks, according to Eric Francisco. Read his review of the He-Man franchise’s fantasy adventure film, which he calls “more profound than its plastic surface implies.”
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New York Knicks fans at Madison Square Garden / photo by: Seth Wenig/Getty Images
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The Cliff-Hanger's Winners and Losers of the Week
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Winner: Jalen Brunson
The basketball star lifted the New York Knicks to a commanding 2-0 lead over the San Antonio Spurs in the NBA Finals this past weekend. Here’s what he told The Athletic about his mentality heading into Game 3 tonight. It’s good advice for anyone facing an anxious situation. “Sometimes you might not get the end result you want, but you know you gave it everything you got. Just control what you can control.”
Loser: The Swift-Kelce Madison Square Garden Wedding
Rumor has it that Taylor Swift and her fiancé, Travis Kelce, plan to tie the knot at Madison Square Garden in New York City. My money was on Cinderella’s Castle at Walt Disney World, but I can’t think about this deranged extravaganza right now. MSG belongs to the Knicks!
Winner: Snakes
According to Dutton Ranch star Cole Hauser, production on the Yellowstone spinoff series was briefly delayed because the crew found a den filled with 40 to 50 rattlesnakes at one of their filming locations. “Eight months, 3,400 rattlesnakes we caught,” he told Kelly Clarkson on her daytime talk show. I hope he’s exaggerating!
Loser: Tom Brady
If I ever retired after making Tom Brady money from winning seven Super Bowls, you would never hear from me again. I’d sip cocktails at my luxurious beach house for the rest of my life. Tom Brady doesn’t share this opinion. Instead, he’s launching an organic coconut water with a terrible name: Good Nut. “The punchline, of course, is the name he refuses to say!” the press release read … Like I said, couldn’t be me.
Winner: Scooby Doo
Netflix unveiled the latest star of its upcoming live-action Scooby Doo series: a real puppy. It’s the first time in the franchise’s history that Scooby is played by a real dog, and not animation or CGI, and he’s quite possibly the cutest dog on the planet.
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