The Best Documentary Series of 2021:

Docuseries mushroomed in 2021 as streamers ramped up their offerings, and viewers were the beneficiaries. The wide array of series ran the gamut from investigative to ruminative, tackling sports, crime and music. At their best, they stood tall against the year’s top TV series overall — Variety TV critic Caroline Framke chose Netflix’s “High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America” as her favorite — while Peter Jackson’s “The Beatles: Get Back” was hailed as one of the best rock documentaries ever.

Documentaries frequently blur categories between film and TV so it should come as no surprise that there’s overlap within the non-fiction realm as well. Variety staffers debated whether “Get Back,” originally planned as a feature-length movie, should be considered a doc feature or doc series, but the fact remains it was streamed over three nights as a miniseries. Similarly, “Listening to Kenny G” debuted at the Toronto Film Festival, and has received kudos recognition as a feature, but aired on HBO as part of its new “Music Box” series from Bill Simmons. That series also included a provocative doc about Alanis Morissette that the singer disavowed before its debut at the same fest, plus a look at the disastrous Woodstock music festival in 1999.

Other selections on this list, arranged alphabetically by title, examine a seminal year in rock history, a pyramid scheme and a cursed fashion brand. They represent a fraction of the docuseries offerings available for small-screen viewing.

1971
(Apple TV Plus)

In “1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything,” a team of British filmmakers made the case not that ’71 was the best year for rock ‘n’ roll and R&B, but the most socially relevant one. Can’t it be both? “1971” was ambitious enough to try to tie together the classic albums that marked the end of the counterculture and the beginnings of glam-rock, punk, reggae and hip-hop. That the Brits managed to pull it off without any narration or on-screen talking heads was all the more remarkable — and allowed all the more time to explore deep pockets ranging from Marvin Gaye to T. Rex to the Last Poets. — Chris Willman

Allen v. Farrow
(HBO)

With unprecedented access to the Farrow family and their archives, documentarians Amy Ziering, Kirby Dick and Amy Herdy produced the definitive investigation into Dylan Farrow’s 1992 allegation that her father, Woody Allen, sexually abused her when she was 7 years old. In this four-part HBO series, Dylan and Mia Farrow are interviewed, along with other family members and witnesses. Home movies and never-before-heard audio (between Allen and Mia Farrow) enhance the filmmakers’ layered probe. — Kate Aurthur

The Beatles: Get Back
(Disney Plus)

Although there are those – even among Variety staffers – that consider Peter Jackson’s Beatles opus to be a very long movie rather than a docseries, the fact remains that it debuted on Disney Plus as a miniseries and was released sequentially over a three-day period around the Thanksgiving holiday. There is much to be gained from digesting “Get Back” in pieces: the famed rooftop concert that closes Part 3 is even more rewarding after watching the band struggle to get its groove and overcome deep fissures within the group. Jackson recovers the joy that was missing from Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s original documentary from the 1969 “Let It Be” recording sessions, rewarding Beatleologists with a spotlight on the creative process and amazing fashion of the era. — Diane Garrett

The Curse of the Von Dutch: A Brand to Die For
(Hulu)

A tale of ambition, ego, drugs and murder, all wrapped up in a fashion brand that was cursed from the start (thanks to its enigmatic namesake, the free-spirited artist Von Dutch, who, on closer inspection, was likely a racist), the three-part Hulu series is a time stamp of the early 2000s. That’s when the likes of Paris Hilton and Dennis Rodman, both featured in the doc, wore the popular trucker caps in the paparazzi-abetted pages of tabloid weeklies, helping Von Dutch become the “it” fashion symbol — to the tune of $33 million in sales at its 2003 height — until it wasn’t. As these things go, the crash is as fascinating and fantastical as the rise. — Shirley Halperin

Exterminate All the Brutes
(HBO)

Filmmaker Raoul Peck’s four-part examination of the history of subjugation among mankind is proof of a polymathic genius. Peck uses literary allusions and powerful staged scenes, featuring Josh Hartnett playing an archetypal white Western man overtaking indigenous populations throughout time, in order to draw in and engage the viewer. And Peck’s points, about the manner by which slavery and conquest reoccur throughout time, land with startling directness. — Daniel D’Addario

High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America
(Netflix)

Four luminous episodes cover the background of how Black food traditions made their way to America in this lushly-produced series hosted by Stephen Satterfield. Starting in Benin, West Africa, the segments use the work of historian Jessica B. Harris to inform the difficult but joyful stories of the food and people from the Gullah Geechee region to Texas cowboys. — Pat Saperstein

The Lady and the Dale
(HBO)

A thrill-ride of a docuseries takes us behind the scenes of the Twentieth Century Motor Car Corporation and into the world of its founder, Elizabeth Carmichael. In the 1970s, this entrepreneur attempted to market a three-wheeled car on the basis of its fuel efficiency. Carmichael’s rabid self-belief came with a sophisticated ability to reinvent; her personal history as a pioneering trans woman and a true character comes to define this odd and compelling annal of automotive history. — Daniel D’Addario

LuLaRich
(Amazon Prime Video)

With “LuLaRich,” Jenner Furst and Julia Willoughby Nason — the directors behind the 2019 Hulu documentary “Fyre Fraud” — delved into the fertile territory of LulaRoe, the clothing company/billion-dollar pyramid scheme. The centerpiece of the four-part series, which includes interviews with the retailers the company scammed, is a wild interview with company co-founders, DeAnne and Mark Stidham. Their brightly lit cheer stands in stark contrast with footage of the Stidhams being deposed by the state of Washington in its successful lawsuit against their company. — Kate Aurthur

Music Box series
(HBO)

HBO has been making waves with documentary series created by Bill Simmons and produced by The Ringer. It kicked off this summer with “Woodstock ‘99: Peace, Love and Rage,” an outgrowth of a podcast about the disastrous music festival, then resumed in November with a slate including “Jagged,” a documentary about Alanis Morissette that the singer disavowed prior to its Toronto International Film Festival debut, and “Listening to Kenny G,” a comic look at the smooth jazz musician’s popularity that also debuted in Toronto. “Mr. Saturday Night” looks at “Saturday Night Fever” impresario Robert Stigwood, while additional installments spotlight DMX and Juice WRLD. Each feature length documentary has its own filmmaker, and the series was recently renewed for a second season. — Diane Garrett

Nuclear Family
(HBO)

So much of indie director Ry Russo-Young’s life has been captured on film, but all those home movies — plus an earlier doc, Meema Spadola’s “Our House,” in which she talks candidly about being raised by a lesbian couple — tell a much different story from her scripted features. Now, with this intensely personal three-part HBO project, the filmmaker unpacks her own upbringing, interrogating her two moms about their precedent-setting legal battle. Rather than being “too close” to the subject, Russo-Young challenges the narrative of her own origins while exploding myths about same-sex parenting in the process. — Peter Debruge

Philly DA
(PBS/Topic)

This series looks at the contentious political career of Larry Krasner, a reform-minded lawyer whose mission to reimagine how justice is served in one of the nation’s largest cities has inspired both praise and harsh criticism. We see Krasner’s approach play out in his office, in the local news media, and on the streets, getting a prismatic understanding of just how challenging it is to arrive at a new, less punitive society, and of the sort of personality that tries to push for it. — Daniel D’Addario

Pretend It’s a City
(Netflix)

This bittersweet ode to Manhattan debuted on Netflix in early January, when so much of the country was once again hunkered down due to a surge in the pandemic, and struck a chord among viewers who welcomed Fran Lebowitz’s nostalgic stories about New York City. Lebowitz, famously afflicted with writer’s block for decades, made the series with her pal Martin Scorsese, an appreciative audience behind the camera and sometimes before it in this series. Lebowitz’s book sales took off around the world following the series debut but told Variety she attributed that to love of the city – and what it has meant to viewers over the years. — Diane Garrett

This Is a Robbery: The World’s Biggest Art Heist
(Netflix)

The four-part series revisits the enduring mystery of the 1990 robbery of Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and the priceless art works, including a Rembrandt, that were stolen. “This Is a Robbery” does a good job of recounting the details of the crime that unfolded when two men dressed as police talked their way into the museum after hours. Producers also made a smart choice of embracing the fact that there are no explosive new revelations about the crime. “This is a Robbery” is a study of past investigations gone wrong, the criminal underbelly of New England in that era and the holes in various theories of the case that have emerged over the past 30 years. The episodes also reflect how the jolt of the theft forever changed the lives of those who were involved in the museum. — Cynthia Littleton

Watch the Sound With Mark Ronson
(Apple TV Plus)

Mark Ronson is a companionable, erudite guide to the world of music-making on this series. The producer and songwriter walks viewers through various aspects of the recording process, drawing in celebrity guests who speak with knowledge and passion about their work. By the end, music seems at once somewhat demystified and endlessly more intriguing than one might have imagined: Who might have guessed that so many moving parts go into making the songs we hear sound precisely the way they do? — Daniel D’Addario

The Way Down

(HBO Max)

Marina Zenovich’s series focuses on two obsessions in this country — weight and religion — and Gwen Shamblin, who made millions off a diet plan (“The Way Down”) that told people they were fat because they had turned their backs on God. It worked incredibly well and built the lucrative foundation for Shamblin-led Remnant Church. The series delves into Shamblin’s and the church’s alleged cult-like practices, with shocking twists that make the “Lion King” guys look like amateurs. — Carole Horst

View this article at Variety.