12 Documentaries to Watch With Your Kids for a Fun Family Movie Night

Getting a kid to watch a documentary can go one of two ways. Either they’re completely hooked, or they’re already bored five minutes in. The difference is usually the subject. Give them a Mars rover, a real-life engineering challenge, movie magic, or something genuinely wild, and suddenly “educational” doesn’t sound quite so terrible.

We’ve picked these documentaries to watch with your kids for exactly that reason. They have big hooks, fascinating stories, and enough action, humor, or spectacle to keep kids watching, while giving you something better to put on than the same movie they’ve seen 47 times.

12 Documentaries to Watch With Your Kids that Go Beyond Cartoons

1. Good Night Oppy (2022)

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The idea of following a little rover around Mars for almost 15 years is already pretty cool. Opportunity was only supposed to last about 90 days, so watching the NASA team keep rooting for it as one thing after another goes wrong gives this documentary much more personality than you might expect from a film about a space mission.

2. The Pixar Story (2007)

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If your house has watched Toy Story approximately a million times, here’s something different. The Pixar Story goes back to the early days of the studio and shows how those movies came to exist in the first place. Kids who are curious about animation will probably get a lot out of the behind-the-scenes look.

3. Science Fair (2018)

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Science competitions don’t exactly scream “family movie night,” but this one is genuinely fun. You get ambitious teenagers, some very impressive projects, and the nerves of a real competition, so there is something to root for even if your child couldn’t care less about science class.

4. Underwater Dreams (2014)

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Four high school students decide to build an underwater robot and enter a competition against much bigger teams. There’s a very satisfying David-versus-Goliath feeling to the whole thing, and the fact that they’re figuring out the engineering themselves makes it easy for kids to get invested.

5. Hubble (2010)

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This one is almost impossible to mess up with a kid who loves space. With Hubble, you can go along on the mission to repair the telescope and see the incredible images it captures. It’s only 45 minutes, so there’s no need to negotiate a two-hour documentary.

6. Dream Big: Engineering Our World (2017)

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How do you build a bridge that can span a huge distance? How does a skyscraper stay standing? Dream Big spends its time looking at questions like these and the enormous projects built to solve them. It has plenty of big machines and structures for kids who like seeing how things work.

7. National Parks Adventure (2016)

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This one is basically an invitation to go outside. There are mountains to climb, trails to explore, and some spectacular corners of America’s national parks along the way. It’s a particularly easy documentary to put on when you’d rather show your kids something adventurous than another talking-head science film.

8. Under the Sea 3D (2009)

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There are some seriously bizarre-looking creatures hiding under the water. Under the Sea 3D gets right into that, taking kids through coral reefs and underwater habitats filled with animals they probably won’t recognize. The short runtime makes it more of a visual adventure than a sit-down lesson.

9. Monkey Kingdom (2015)

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There is a baby monkey, a protective mother, and enough squabbling within the troop to keep things moving. Monkey Kingdom happens to be a wildlife documentary, but it doesn’t feel like one where you have to patiently wait for something interesting to happen. There’s a story here, and kids can follow it.

10. Pandas (2018)

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You probably don’t need a complicated sales pitch for a documentary full of baby pandas. Follow the journey of a young panda being prepared for life in the wild (yes, there’s an actual journey to follow underneath all that cuteness). If you have younger kids, they will definitely be completely sold.

11. Babies (2010)

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Babies follows four little ones growing up in Mongolia, Namibia, San Francisco, and Tokyo. There’s no complicated story to keep track of, which is part of the charm. Kids can simply watch and notice how much is different (and how much really isn’t) from one family to another.

12. Fly Like a Girl (2019)

Watch it on Amazon Prime Video

Fly Like a Girl follows women working in different parts of aviation and the girls who are considering that world for themselves. It can also be a nice introduction to careers most kids probably haven’t thought much about yet.

There’s something nice about finding a documentary your child gets completely absorbed in, especially when you expected to hear “this is boring” within five minutes. Keep these 12 around for the next rainy afternoon, lazy weekend, or evening when you’ve run out of things to watch. You may start with one, but don’t be surprised if it sends you down a very specific rabbit hole afterward.

Dishari Sarkar

Writer. Dreamer. Journalist (maybe?). Anime lover (definitely). I turn curiosity into stories and everyday life into a narrative worth reading.

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