2025 Favorite Things: Documentaries
My favorites are in bold. Note: Just because I watched something in 2025 does not mean it came out this year.
| A Deadly American Marriage | Molly Marten, Tom Marten, Sarah Corbett, Jack Corbett | Netflix | 2 kids in the middle of a horrible situation where the dead mother is replaced by an American au pair in Ireland. They move to the US. Molly and her father beat husband Jason to death. |
| Abducted in Plain Sight | Netflix | True crime doc about Jan Broberg being kidnapped twice by fellow LDS member. | |
| Buy Now! The Shopping Conspiracy | Nic Stacey | Netflix | The documentary Buy Now on Netflix has a great part about companies lying about what packaging or products are recyclable. Also seeing others talk about the right to repair products we own satisfied. The scenes of what happens when you “donate” back clothes to places like H&M was alarming.Interviews with employees who realized their employers don’t have the principles they pretend to. Info about how we are lied to about donating & recycling. |
| Cooking Up Murder: Uncovering the Story of César Roman | Netflix | 3 part doc about an extremely narcissistic, psychopathic chef who killed his girlfriend in Spain. | |
| Fit for TV (The reality of The Biggest Loser) | former contestants, the doctors, a former host, the producers | Netflix | Everything I suspected about the show was correct. It was horrible, abusive, unhealthy, and everyone gained back weight. Even the male trainer had a massive heart attack after the show while working out, was unconscious for 2 days, and (what a shock) had to learn some shit. The only person who kept her weight off became a doctor on the show because the trainers & producers refused to listen to Dr. H. |
| Glitter & Greed: The Lisa Frank Story | Former employees & ex-husband/CEO. | Prime | Oof… hard, but not surprising, to see that the people behind a brand are awful, unfriendly, paranoid. |
| Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer | Netflix | 3 part docu-series on the Gilgo Beach murders. | |
| Grenfell: Uncovered | Netflix | In case you missed the Grenfell tragedy when it happened (I remember seeing the posts as it happened), this shows how the greed of deregulation 100% leads to deaths regardless of country or industry. | |
| Into the Fire: The Lost Daughter | directed and produced by Ryan White (14 producers) | Netflix | A 10-month old baby was given up for adoption. When she was 14, she disappeared and wasn’t searched for by her adoptive parents for 21 years. Her birth mother got a letter asking for a DNA test in a Jane Doe case. That wasn’t her daughter, but it whipped up into a cold case active investigation. |
| Investigation Shark Attack | diverse cast with specialties: Dr. Megan Winton, Gibbs Kuguru, Mike Heithaus, Candace Fields | Hulu | NatGeo’s SharkFest |
| Martha | Martha Stewart | Netflix | I watched the “Martha” documentary on Martha Stewart. I was always a fan though I’d never want to work for her. She’s like an Alpha Male energy and she doesn’t apologize for it; nor should she. When men rise to the top and become billionaires, they have that personality and it’s just a given. But the documentary shows how even Oprah questioned why people “hated Martha’s perfection.” Was she setting ideals that no one could possibly match? I’m quite sure that if Martha’s perfection had been in a different industry other than homemaking, she would not have been judged like that. If she had created a social media empire or a cell phone company or engineered a new wind mill for sustainable energy, she would not have been held up to other women as comparison. The fashion/beauty/fame/influencer world does that easily with a lot of lies and photoshopping. |
| Mike Mignola Drawing Monsters: The Secret Origin of Hellboy | Mike Mignola, Christine Mignola | Prime | Funded through Kickstarter; thankfully only a few seconds of Neil Gaiman in it as this was created well before that scandal made it into the public; the documentary features a lot of Mignola and his rise to fame including his troubled working relationship with director Guillermo Del Toro. |
| Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields | Brooke Shields, Laura Linney | Hulu | 2 part documentary that shows how skeevy Hollywood and ambition of a stage mom cared more about money than the mental and physical well-being of a young girl with no sexual experience in a lot of sexualized jobs on camera. |
| Sharks Up Close with Bertie Gregory | Bertie Gregory | Hulu | Launching NatGeo’s SharkFest series for 2025; it looked like responsible filmmaking which featured scientists and shark spotters in South Africa. |
| Stephen King: A Necessary Evil | Prime | Old interview clips; not the best presentation. | |
| The Diamond Heist | Lee Wenham, Beth Wenham, Tim Thorn, directed by Guy Ritchie | Netflix | The robbers, London police, and DeBeers security head give their details from each perspective about the attempted Millennium Dome Diamond Heist. It does play just like a Guy Ritchie movie but not violent which actually was part of the criminals’ defense in court – they planned the theft not robbery in a way to avoid violence. |
| The Liver King | Brian Johnson “the liver king” | Netflix | Exposing this jackass and his wife who are clearly abusing their children and committing fraud while making millions. |
| The Quilters | Directed by Jenifer McShane | Netflix | a small group of volunteer incarcerated men in a max security prison get to work in a special workshop making quilts for foster children; all the fabric comes from donations; they have deadlines and control over their designs; they have to have no infractions or write-ups to be part of this tight knit group. They also make weighted vests and blankets for autistic kids. |
| The Search for Instagram’s Worst Con Artist | Belle Gibson, Richard Guilliat, Bryce Corbett, Clair Weaver, Nick Gibson, Rebecca Jones | Netflix | 2 part documentary that is easier and faster to watch than Apple Cider Vinegar which is a fictionalized TV series. This is much better despite ACV being uniquely filmed and creative. It’s just not the best version or most inclusive of the con. |
| The Tylenol Murders | Netflix | 3 part doc | |
| Titan: the Oceangate Submersible Disaster | Netflix | Another example of 1% billionaires trusting more in their egos than reports from testing right in front of them. OceanGate also called its tourists “mission specialists” because if they used “passenger,” they had to follow different laws that weren’t about science & exploration anymore. After one very experienced pilot saved their asses on a dive, he was cut off by CEO Stockton Rush. The Head of Engineering used fresh graduates with no experience as his team. The sub was carbon fiber which is not strong enough and held together with epoxy which I’ve had fail on home projects. | |
| Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror | Prime | It did a good job of showing sources in Europe then crossing to Colonial America. What the genre often has in common through the plots of movies, books, and plays is that colonizers and Christianity have always had a spectacular way of turning anything unlike them into things that should make you terrified. |
Other 2025 Favorites
Founder and Editor-in-Chief of AmberUnmasked.com and Vodka O'Clock Podcast. Author of The Farrah Wethers Mysteries, comic book short stories, prose, and non-fiction. Cosplayer and figure model.