Today, we shall focus on the gold. There’s a lot to know in this world, a lot to learn, and thanks to the internet, many many mediums to reach that goal – reading classic out-of-copyright books on your Kindle, reading long-form articles on your Kindle, listening to awesome podcasts, watching movie adaptations etc. In this post, we talk about the most visual of the mediums. Documentaries, and the top 10 places to watch the best of them for free.
1. Top Documentary Films
This website could not have a more appropriate name. If you are new to the docu-game or identify yourself as a knowledge junkie, Top Documentary Films will satisfy all your urges. Go to the Browse Documentaries section and sort by Rating to get started with the best documentaries out there.
2. Documentary Storm
I don’t know what catwomen told you but there really is no storm coming. Winter though? That totally is. Documentary Storm is one of the newer sites and easily the best designed website here. The Top 100 Documentaries list is a good place to start. If you are feeling a little more adventurous, click the Surprise Me! link and how can you not, after I gave you Batman and GoT reference in one sentence.
3. Documentaries on Vimeo
Vimeo is like YouTube’s hotter sister you always had a crush on but she was so out of your league, you just didn’t know how to talk to her. I’m here to give you an in. Vimeo’s lack of cat videos is more than fulfilled by its collection of utterly gorgeous and high quality videos. Its Documentaries section is filled with 26,000+ such instances.
4. PBS Frontline
Who doesn’t know PBS. The public broadcasting network that brings us knowledge and interesting production when other channels can’t get over their Big Bang Theory re-runs. PBS’s online adventure called Frontline offers the same depth of knowledge online. Their YouTube Idea channel is awesome as well.
5. Watch Documentary
Watch Documentary allows you to watch documentaries online. Their featured section helps you find documentaries that are currently trending. Like to get your documentary fix on the go? They have an app for that as well.
6. Hulu Documentaries
Hulu is one of the big online streaming sites. It’s a paid service but you do get an ad-supported free account. Hulu’s documentary collection might not be as big as some of the above sites, but it does offer documentaries in HD.
7. One Big Torrent (Download)
If you have a slower connection that can’t support streaming services, One Big Torrent is here to help. You can download documentaries with any BitTorrent client on your PC.
8. Vice Video
Vice is one of the big names in online journalism. Their in-house video content is top-notch, so when it comes to their Documentary section, you can’t expect anything less. If you go into the categories view you might even find an indie gem you never heard of. I was pleasantly surprised while browsing the site.
9. YouTube
This goes without saying. You’ll find that most of the websites above are merely curators. They ultimately embed a YouTube video of the documentary. But the huge size of YouTube means discovering new and interesting documentaries is hard. If you know what you are looking for, hit YouTube first. Chances are you’ll find what you are looking for there. Side note: When it comes to video quality, Vimeo almost always beats YouTube.
10. Documentary Heaven
If a documentary ends up in the Documentary Heaven has it actually been good? Yes. That is how this works. You live your life in a certain way, be good, truthful, clear, controversial, outspoken, support subtitles, shoot in HD and you might just, just end up in the documentary heaven, the place all documentaries someday hope to end up at. Clear-speak: It’s a really good site when it comes to finding the more famous documentaries. The kind of Must Watch list you find on IMDB, it’s all here.
Discovering new content
Reddit is the place for discovering new content and the same holds true for documentaries. Check out the subreddits for Documentaries, Lectures, Science Documentaries and Art Documentaries. Top Image Credit: Loy9.