The Best Health Documentaries of All Time, Ranked

Summary

• The Game Changers is a powerful documentary that challenges the notion that meat-based proteins are essential for recovery in athletes, showing the benefits of plant-based diets instead.
• Boy Interrupted is a heartbreaking documentary that sheds light on the mental health struggles of children, offering a raw and intimate look at the impact of depression on individuals and their families.
• The Crime of the Century exposes the disturbing truth behind the opioid crisis in America, highlighting the role of corrupt doctors, government officials, and pharmaceutical companies in fueling the epidemic.

As the global population continues to navigate the effects of the Pandemic, health has never been more important than in 2023. Whether exploring diet and nutrition, the negative impacts of obesity, the lasting ramifications of the worldwide opioid epidemic, the short and long-term aspects of mental health, or perhaps most importantly, the widespread environmental concerns regarding climate change, documentary films can help make a dramatic difference and foster inspirational change in the world.

It’s with that criteria in mind that we wholeheartedly urge readers and documentary film enthusiasts to check out the most valuable health documentaries on record. With contributions from the most acclaimed cinematic documentarians like Michael Moore, Alex Gibney, Davis Guggenheim, etc., viewers will become wiser and more empathetic by watching the best health documentaries on record.

10 The Game Changers (2018)

The Game Changers is a fascinating documentary for high-performance athletes that attempts to debunk the positive health impacts of meat-based proteins. The story chronicles Jamie Wilks, a UFC fighter who sustains an injury and attempts to learn the fastest means of recovery. Along with physicians and public health officials, Wilks begins to understand that animal-based proteins do not lead to faster recovery times than plant-based diets.

What Makes It Great

While the movie has drawn some criticism for playing fast and loose with the scientific facts, on the whole, The Game Changers has made a profound impact on many athletes around the world. For instance, action movie star Dolph Lundgren transitioned to a vegan diet after watching the movie. While meatless diets have long been suspected to improve one’s health, The Game Changers goes beyond the personal anecdotes and shows how the environmental impact of animal farming.

The Game Changers is available to stream on Netflix

9 Boy Interrupted (2009)

Boy Interrupted is a devastating documentary that explores the mental health of children, a timely topic that deserves more attention. The tragic story follows Dana Perry, a filmmaker who sets out to understand her son Evan’s suicidal depression that claimed his life at 15 years old. A sobering eye-opener and an emotional gut punch that’s hard to shake, Boy Interrupted may be a bitter pill, but it’s a necessary medicine for those in Evan’s shoes.

What Makes It Great

With candid home videos that depict the progression of Evan’s depression, there’s a raw intimacy in the film that will resonate far more than bigger-budgeted corporate documentaries. It’s one thing for a professional filmmaker to explore Evan’s life, it’s quite another to see how his own mother deals with her son’s profound sense of despair, the impacts it has on her and their family, and her attempts to give as much love to her son as possible. In 2023, mental health and depression remain salient subjects, and Boy Interrupted can help others get through their own problems by empathizing with Evan.

Boy Interrupted is available to stream on Max

8 The Crime of the Century (2021)

While technically a two-parter, HBO’s outstanding documentary The Crime of the Century is too timely, important, and comprehensive to miss. Helmed by award-winning documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney, the scathing documentary tackles the opioid crisis in America by mixing personal testimonies with how the government and large pharmaceutical companies are complicit in producing and distributing such a dangerous narcotic. Part one focuses on OxyContin and part two charts the rise of Fentanyl.

What Makes It Great

One of the biggest health crises in America today, the 4-hour documentary leaves no stone unturned in its brazen attempt to expose the criminal doctors, government officials, and corporations who care much more about money and quarterly earnings than genuinely curing patients of their chronic pain. By the time the doc is over, viewers will understand how the opioid crisis is not accidental, but flagrantly deliberate in many ways.

The Crime of the Century is available to stream on Max

7 Fed Up (2014)

From director Stephanie Soechtig, Fed Up is a highly acclaimed documentary that charts the obesity epidemic in America. Exposing an exhaustive 30-year nutritional guideline issued by the U.S. Government, the doc systematically shows how harmful the excessive consumption of sugar is to the human body and the negative health impacts sugary foods marketed to children continue to be.

What Makes It Great

Narrated by Katie Couric and featuring such esteemed panelists Bill Clinton, Michael Bloomberg, Michele Simon, Michael Pollan, and others, Fed Up both cautions against the over-consumption of sugary foods and beverages and advocates for new dietary guidelines to lead a future America into a more fit and healthy place. Between the corporate impact on school lunches and data on America’s addiction to unhealthy foods, Fed Up is a well-meaning call to action to foster change in the food industry.

Fed Up is available to stream on Tubi

6 Who Killed the Electric Car? (2006)

Aside from one’s personal physical and mental health, environmental health remains a crucial subject in 2023. As the world shifts to electric vehicles and reduces the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere from gasoline engines, electric vehicles continue to be the future. To understand the evolution of EVs, look no further than the great environmental documentary, Who Killed the Electric Car? and its follow-up, Revenge of the Electric Car.

What Makes It Great

With a stellar 89% Rotten Tomatoes score, Who Killed the Electric Car? documents how General Motors launched the exciting new concept of the EV1, only to abandon plans and destroy all 1,117 prototypes and halt the advancement of environmentally beneficial technology. Given how Tesla’s recent starts and stops with the Cybertruck have played out publicly, the documentary is even more poignant now than it was in 2006. The confluence of political influence, corporate greed, and public misinformation has kept EVs from proliferating as much as they could to forge a healthier environment, and the doc shows exactly how and why.

Who Killed the Electric Car? is available to rent on Prime Video

5 76 Days (2020)

While there’s no shortage of superb COVID-19 documentaries, 76 Days is a definitive must-see. The sobering account tracks the early days of the pandemic in Wuhan, China, where confused patients and healthcare professionals try to make sense of the generational world-changing event live in real-time. The tension and suspense are downright riveting and the scientific revelations that come to light are absolutely jaw-dropping.

What Makes It Great

Boasting a perfect 100% Rotten Tomatoes Score on over 100 reviews and an 84 Metascore, the all-time great documentary does not judge any of its subjects and instead gives viewers a fair-and-balanced fly-on-the-wall perspective of healthcare workers risking their lives on the frontline to save the lives of others. The jarring sense of urgency and immediacy is as unflinching and visceral as can be. In the end, it’s impossible not to feel terror, uncertainty, empathy, and even a profound sense of hope for humanity’s cooperative triumphs.

76 Days is available to stream on Paramount+

4 Food, Inc. (2008)

Nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 82nd Academy Awards, Food, Inc. is another all-time great health doc. Narrated by authorities Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Diet) and Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), the movie chronicles the negative impact of factory farming, sugar and soy as a means of growing vegetables, corporate malfeasance, and the influence of agribusiness in America.

What Makes It Great

A gripping glimpse into the modern-day food industry, Food Inc. is an educational cautionary tale that exposes the immoral business practices of large corporations like Monsanto, Tyson Foods, Perdue Farms, etc. Whether exposing the ill effects of genetically modified foods (GMOs), the lack of safe testing and regulation, or political lobbyists working for laxer food laws, the documentary covers the full gamut of health issues relating to diet. Food Inc. remains such an important cultural landmark that a sequel is slated for release in late 2023.

Food, Inc. is available to stream on Prime Video

3 Super Size Me (2004)

Morgan Spurlock notoriously shook the fast-food industry up with his critically adored doc Super Size Me. The personal portrait concerns Spurlock charting the bodily effects of eating only food from McDonald’s three times a day for 30 days. Despite the food chain’s insistence that their food isn’t unhealthy, Morgan’s rapid weight gain and crashing health point to the contrary in the surprisingly uplifting documentary.

What Makes It Great

Beyond the sheer entertainment value of making the documentary format fun, fast-paced, and engaging, Super Size Me was praised for exposing the hypocrisy of the fast-food industry. As a health documentary, it also shines the light on a person’s own responsibility regarding the food they consume on a regular basis related to their socioeconomic status. Super Size Me takes a serious topic and handles it with a light comedic touch, underscoring the trade-off for fast food convenience and the ill effects it can have long term.

Super Size Me is available to stream on Prime Video

2 Sicko (2007)

Preeminent documentary filmmaker Michael Moore is never afraid to confront the most difficult subjects in America. In his brilliant 2007 doc Sicko, Moore takes on the U.S. healthcare industry that is marked by untold corruption, corporate avarice, and a business mantra that seemingly puts financial profits over the health of its people. Balanced by personal testimonies and interviews with the most important players in the healthcare industry, everyone will come away wiser after seeing Sicko.

What Makes It Great

Whether comparing the U.S. healthcare system with Canada, tracing the history of HMOs back to the ’70s, or contextualizing contemporary healthcare practices as seen in European countries like England and France, Moore goes to great lengths to drive his point home. In addition to earning an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary Feature, it’s hard not to view Sicko as helping to rapidly overhaul the U.S. healthcare system, with the Affordable Healthcare Act being enacted in 2010.

Sicko is available to stream on Paramount+

1 An Inconvenient Truth (2006)

When it comes to world health and environmental protectionism, An Inconvenient Truth remains the all-time best documentary film. Written by Al Gore and directed by Davis Guggenheim, the movie helped to educate the public about the harmful effects of greenhouse gasses like carbon dioxide and methane, which directly contribute to climate change and affect ecosystems around the globe.

What Makes It Great

Essentially functioning as an illustrated TED Talk with cinematic visual slides, Gore makes the case that climate change is a profound existential crisis for the future of not just America, but the entire world, and should not be seen as a political issue. With much left to do, the environmental strides made as a result of An Inconvenient Truth are immeasurable. Although the acclaimed documentary won an Oscar for Best Documentary Feature, its most lasting legacy is raising awareness about the harmful health effects of rising temperatures.

An Inconvenient Truth is available to stream on Paramount+