What Documentary Movies to watch on Tubi
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The Hurricane
Denzel Washington is Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, a man whose dreams of winning the middleweight boxing title were destroyed when he was arrested along with another man for the murders of 3 people in a New Jersey bar. Wrongfully accused, Carter and John Artis were sentenced to 3 life terms in prison.

- Metascore74
- 1999
Judy
Thirty years after starring in The Wizard of Oz (1939), beloved actress and singer Judy Garland (Renée Zellweger) arrives in London, England to perform sold-out shows at the Talk of the Town nightclub. While there, she reminisces with friends and fans and begins a whirlwind romance with musician Mickey Deans (Finn Wittrock), her soon-to-be fifth husband.

- Metascore66
- 2019
Shock and Awe
The film is based on the true events of Knight Ridder journalists who were the only ones who “got it right” in the lead-up to the 2003 Iraq War when they questioned the true nature of the Bush White House’s justification for the conflict.

- Metascore47
- 2017
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
Tom Hanks portrays Fred Rogers in a timely story of kindness triumphing over cynicism, based on the true story of a real-life friendship between him and journalist Lloyd Vogel. After a jaded magazine writer (Matthew Rhys) is assigned to do a profile of Fred, he overcomes his skepticism, learning about empathy, kindness, and decency from America's most beloved neighbor.

- Metascore80
- 2019
Genius
A stirring drama about the complex friendship and transformative professional relationship between book editor Maxwell Perkins (who discovered F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway) and Thomas Wolfe.

- Metascore56
- 2016
Kent State
Based on the true story of the student protests at Kent State University in Ohio. This film focuses on the four students who were killed when the National Guard attempted to quell the riots that began on May 4, 1970, after President Nixon announced that American troops would begin bombing the heretofore neutral country of Cambodia.

- 1981
The Conspirator
In the wake of Abraham Lincoln's assassination, seven men and one woman are arrested and charged with conspiring to kill the President, the Vice-President, and the Secretary of State. The lone woman charged, Mary Surratt, 42, owns a boarding house where John Wilkes Booth and others met and planned the simultaneous attacks. Against the ominous back-drop of post-Civil War Washington, newly-minted lawyer, Frederick Aiken, a 28-year-old Union war-hero, reluctantly agrees to defend Surratt before a military tribunal. As the trial unfolds, Aiken realizes his client may be innocent and that she is being used as bait and hostage in order to capture the only conspirator to have escaped a massive manhunt, her own son.

- Metascore55
- 2010
Wyatt Earp
Wyatt Earp is a movie about a man and his family. The movie shows us the good times and the bad times of one of the West's most famous individuals.

- Metascore47
- 1994
A Night to Remember
A successful attempt at an even-handed portrayal of the White Star Line's (later part of Cunard) luxury liner R.M.S. Titanic's sinking from the standpoint of Second Officer Charles Herbert Lightoller, himself the most senior of the ill-fated ship's Deck Officers to survive the disaster (Lightoller later went on to distinguish himself as a line British Naval Officer during the First World War and served as a Senior Naval Staff Officer on convoys during World War II. Between wars, he owned and operated a successful family business producing pleasure craft). His own survival of the sinking, along with several others, is shown atop one of the liner's two "collapsible" lifeboats which were capsized in floating off the liner as it sank. The picture depicts then known facts (1958) as reported after the sinking--such as the woeful lack of adequate lifeboats, the ship's band playing true to the very end, White Star's co-owner Bruce Ismay's somewhat less-than-chivalrous departure from the sinking vessel, and the Titanic's designer's (Thomas Andrews) revelation that due to the severity of below-the-water-line damage and that the vaunted watertight compartments were not designed to nor sealed up to the weather deck, would only delay the inevitable as sea water spilled over the top of one to the next from the bows to the stern. It also addresses the mysterious ship seen from the Titanic's bridge stopped some 12-19 miles off and depicts it as being the S.S. Californian, whom - if that steamship had responded, the loss of life could have been far, far less. The Californian is seen stopped due to the ice warnings, the same alerts whose import were undervalued by Captain Edward J. Smith. She herself had shut-down wireless operations, nominally at 11:00pm as her sole operator retired for the evening, this before the iceberg was struck and the first distress calls were made by Titanic. It also addresses somewhat the coal fire in one of Titanic's bunkers - apparently not uncommon back in those days, before her departure into the Atlantic and potential for damage to steel plates below the water line (This picture predates the calling-into-question of the quality of rivets [metalurgy] which has since come to the fore). The film also shows the class distinction and its impact as to whom - of the "women and children first", got a seat in a boat; the fact that the first/earliest lifeboats launched were not at full capacity; and that the boats launched from the port and starboard side held to different criteria as to loading. The latter allows the viewer an inference as to the importance for crew and passenger alike as to lifeboat drills which were then (1912) neither required nor ever held aboard Titanic. One of several movies on the subject, it stands well the test-of-time for its "just the facts" approach in the telling and avoidance of conjecture or added melodrama.

- 1958
Parkland
A recounting of the chaotic events that occurred at Dallas' Parkland Hospital on the day U.S. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

- Metascore51
- 2013
The Bling Ring
Inspired by actual events, a group of fame-obsessed teenagers use the internet to track celebrities' whereabouts in order to rob their homes.

- Metascore66
- 2013
The Buddy Holly Story
The musical career of rock and roll pioneer Buddy Holly is chronicled, from the days when "Peggy Sue" was "Cindy Lou", a song about his first girlfriend, to the meteoric run of "That'll Be the Day" up the charts, to his marriage, breakup with the Crickets, reunion with the Crickets, and untimely death.

- Metascore78
- 1978
Ike: Countdown to D-Day
This is the story of the senior-level preparations for the D-Day invasion on June 6, 1944 from the time of Dwight D. Eisenhower's appointment as the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, to the establishment of the beachhead in Normandy. The film recounts many of the trials and tribulation Ike had to face, not the least of which were the many prima donnas surrounding him (Patton, Montgomery and especially de Gaulle) and the need for tact and diplomacy to bring all sides together for what would be the largest amphibious assault ever attempted.

- 2004

- Metascore94
- 1984
The Mission
Jeremy Irons plays a Spanish Jesuit who goes into the South American wilderness to build a mission in the hope of converting the Indians of the region. Robert De Niro plays a slave hunter who is converted and joins the Jesuit in his mission. When Spain sells the colony to Portugal, they are forced to defend all they have built against the Portuguese aggressors.

- Metascore55
- 1986
Catch Me If You Can
A true story about Frank Abagnale Jr., who, before his 19th birthday, successfully conned millions of dollars' worth of checks as a Pan Am pilot, doctor, and legal prosecutor.

- Metascore75
- 2002
Beyond the Sea
The life of crooner/actor Bobby Darin is presented as part fact, part fiction and much fantasy. It is framed around a biopic being filmed about and starring Darin as himself, with he being surrounded by many of his lifelong entourage from the Bronx. In that fantasy, the young actor portraying him as a child in the biopic emerges as his true younger self, questioning, knowing all, if his adult self wants the biopic to be all sugar and roses, as is the want of his manager, Steve Blauner, or if he wants to tell the truth. Regardless, what is presented of his life includes: his sickly childhood - where he was not expected to survive past his teens - with his vaudevillian mother, Polly Cassotto, his musical mentor, and his much older sister, Nina Cassotto, both who ultimately lived vicariously through his fame; his early singing career where the ultimate goal was not to rival but surpass the fame of Frank Sinatra; the meeting of who would become his wife, already famous actress Sandra Dee - his costar in his first movie role - he needing to win over her protective stage mother, Mary Douvan, to get to Sandra; their turbulent marriage due to the competing priorities of work and family, and their respective egos not allowing each to celebrate the other's success; his turn to political activism in the late 1960s during the changing times when his style of music was no longer in vogue; what affected his thoughts of running for political office himself; and how he tried to reinvent his singer self in the early 1970s.

- Metascore46
- 2004
Chariots of Fire
During the post-World War I era, Britons Harold Abrahams and Eric Liddell are both naturally gifted fast sprinters, but approach running and how it fits into their respective lives differently. Harold, the son of a Lithuanian Jew, lives a somewhat-privileged life as a student at Cambridge and uses being the fastest to overcome what he sees as the obstacles he faces in life as a Jew despite that privilege. In his words to paraphrase an old adage, he is often invited to the trough, but isn't allowed to drink. His running prowess does earn him the respect of his classmates, especially his running teammates, and to some extent the school administration, if only he maintains what they consider proper gentlemanly decorum, which isn't always the case in their minds. Eric Liddell, a Scot born to Christian missionaries in China, is a devout member of the Church of Scotland who hopes to eventually return to that missionary work. He sees running as a win-win: the notoriety of being fast gives him an added outlet to spread the word of God, while he sees his speed as being a gift from God, and he wants to run to honor God and that gift. This view does not sit well with his sister Jennie, who sees his running as only taking away time from his work to God. Harold and Eric's lives intersect in national races, but it is the 100-meter track event at the 1924 Paris Olympics which the two men and their supporters most anticipate. Beyond the fact that Americans Charles Paddock and Jackson Scholz are favored in the event, the much-anticipated head-to-head between Harold and Eric could be further shadowed by other issues, especially as it affects Eric's Christian beliefs.

- Metascore78
- 1981
The Linda McCartney Story
A dramatization of the life of Linda Eastman McCartney in her early years photographing for Rolling Stone magazine and rubbing elbows with much of Hollywood's elite. The story follows her meeting and falling in love with Paul McCartney, their marriage, and what followed.

- 2000
Square Grouper
A colorful portrait of Miami's pot smuggling scene of the 1970s, populated with redneck pirates, a ganja-smoking church, and the longest serving marijuana prisoner in American history.

- Metascore55
- 2011
Boudica
The eponymous Celtic warrior who rules the Iceni people alongside her husband, Prasutagus. The King dies at the hands of Roman soldiers, leaving Boudica's kingdom without a male heir, and the Romans seize her land and property.

- 2023
Joe Bell
The true story of a small-town, working-class father who embarks on a walk across the U.S. to crusade against bullying after his son is tormented in high school for being gay. Meanwhile, he realizes he is instead missing out on his son's life back at home.

- Metascore54
- 2020
Wild Bill
Jeff Bridges is Wild Bill Hickok, the hard-drinking, quick-shooting gunslinger who faces the showdown of his life in this exciting, visually stunning tale that co-stars Ellen Barkin as Calamity Jane.

- Metascore51
- 1995
Amistad
About a 1839 mutiny aboard a slave ship that is traveling towards the northeastern coast of America. Much of the story involves a court-room drama about the free man who led the revolt.

- Metascore64
- 1997