The 21 most revealing celebrity documentaries, ranked

There’s a pattern to even the best celebrity documentaries: glimpses of the star’s past, the (slow or sudden) onset of stardom, the fallout of their fame, the revelations (sometimes carefully parsed, and sometimes unexpectedly candid), the archive footage, and the efforts to wrestle it all down to feature length. checks every box, letting the notoriously private Taylor Swift—as she shifted from superstar to megastar—share as much as she cares to and humanizing her in the process. She’s funny and sweet and ambitious and opinionated, and it’s fascinating to watch as she decides to use her platform to support the LGBTQ+ community and fight for their rights. It’ll be interesting to see if she ever participates in another documentary, as she’s now an ever bigger and more influential star.

The “Free Britney” campaign was in full swing when this unauthorized documentary debuted, and it galvanized public sentiment for Britney Spears, who’d long felt captive by the conservatorship overseen by her father, Jamie Spears—the last person on Earth she wanted handling her affairs. Produced by The New York Times, touches on the singer’s raw talent, child stardom, hyper-sexualization, and love-hate relationship with the paparazzi, along with the cruel jokes made at her expense, her umbrella-wielding breakdown in 2007, and the long conservatorship (which has since ended). Jamie Spears, Diane Sawyer, and Justin Timberlake come off terribly—as they should. And it’s all presented in a taut, unshowy 74 minutes.

At the apex of Pamela Anderson’s fame, few people took her seriously. She was the blonde from Baywatch and Playboy who filled out her red bathing suit like no one since Farrah Fawcett, then she married rocker Tommy Lee, and then she exploded as a tabloid favorite thanks to a private sex tape featuring her and Lee that went very public. , pegged to her memoir (Love, Pamela: A Memoir of Prose, Poetry, And Truth), lets Anderson tell her tale. She comes across as sympathetic, smart, world-weary, and resilient. Her time prepping to star on Broadway in Chicago feels triumphant, and the moments when she talks candidly with her son, Brandon (who produced the doc), are unforced and humanizing.

Liz Garbus had quite the year in 2015, directing two acclaimed documentaries, Cousteau and In the latter, Garbus celebrates Nina Simone in all her facets as a singer, a human (dealing with racism, mental issues, and physical abuse), and an activist. So distraught was Simone—born in 1933 in North Carolina as Eunice Kathleen Waymon—over the treatment of African Americans in America that she left the country for good in 1973. Simone died in 2003, so Garbus relies on talking heads (including Simone’s daughter, Lisa), archival interviews with Simone, journal entries, letters, concert footage, and the like to tell the weighty story. It would eventually be nominated for a Best Documentary Academy Award and six Emmys and win a Peabody Award.

Four years after the death of comedy legend Robin Williams, director Marina Zenovich and producer Alex Gibney set about making , a respectful, insightful documentary. Zenovich elicits revealing comments from Williams’ family and colleagues (among them Whoopi Goldberg, Steve Martin, Pam Dawber, and Billy Crystal), and includes rarely-seen or never-seen clips that imbue the project with freshness. Still, the viewer more accurately sits beside Williams’ head rather than enters his mind, as we get glimpses of what drove his comedy, addictions, warmth, and manic energy.

Beyoncé herself directed, wrote, and produced , which celebrates the fact that, in 2018, she became the first Black woman to headline Coachella. It borders on hagiography, as she shares precious little about her life or family, and it’s more or less a concert film. But as a look at one of the biggest stars on the planet, at the height of both her talent and power, it’s fascinating. She wants everything perfect when she hits the stage and she makes it happen. And, during her show, and thus, in the documentary, she pays tribute to Black culture, Black schools, and the Black female dynamos who inspired her, among them Maya Angelou and Toni Morrison.

Without asking for pity or sympathy, Michael J. Fox introduces us to his life—the good, the bad, and the tragic—in Davis Guggenheim’s honest and heartbreaking Fox, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease in 1991 at age 29, seems to spare very little as we watch him occasionally stumble and search for words as an awful, degenerative condition slowly overwhelms his body. Guggenheim also takes us through Fox’s career on Family Ties and Back To The Future, and it’s not lost on the viewer that such a boyish, smiling, and perpetually moving actor would be brought low in this way. Guggenheim also introduces us to Fox’s wife and children, who prove themselves to be the rock that Fox can steady himself upon whenever needed. The intimate and poignant Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie shows this 5-time Emmy award winner moving in different—yet more important—ways.

Michael Jackson wanted his kids to see their dad perform live, so he pushed himself to prepare for a run of shows at the O2 Arena in London during the summer of 2009. Director-choreographer Kenny Ortega collaborated with Jackson and filmed endless hours of rehearsals at the Staples Center in L.A. After Jackson died on June 25, Ortega—controversially—culled the footage into Michael Jackson’s This Is It, something resembling a concert film, or at least a dress rehearsal film. Though exhausted and frightfully thin, Jackson summoned his old magic whenever a beat dropped. However, the Jackson family was never happy with the doc, claiming that it tastelessly exploited the late singer who had died only four months earlier. Still, as a document of what might have been, This Is It shows MJ singing, dancing, and bonding with his band and dancers, who all look crestfallen when word reaches them that Jackson died.

captures Billie Eilish as she exploded on the scene as music’s dark, snarky, opinionated, and supremely talented teen sensation. R.J. Cutler’s cameras witness it all: the first blushes of success, the pressure-induced meltdowns, the boy trouble, the conversations with her parents, her maiden drive in her first car, fangirling over Justin Bieber, and especially her close bond with brother Finneas, her biggest supporter and closest collaborator. Speaking of bond, or Bond, watching Eilish and Finneas work together to craft the 007 theme song “No Time to Die” is a thrill.

“Sometimes I feel like an accident/people look when they’re passin’ it,” Gomez sings in the documentary ’s titular tune. “Never check on the passenger/they just want the free show.” This doc, with the pop star and actress front and center, checks on the passenger. What started out as a Gomez film akin to Madonna: Truth Or Dare or Gaga: Five Foot Two, evolved into something more, with director Alek Keshishian—who directed Truth Or Dare three decades ago—delivering something much richer, touching, and informative. Gomez—dealing with lupus, bipolar disorder, and ex-boyfriend Justin Bieber’s engagement to Hailey Baldwin—reveals herself as vulnerable as hell, brave, relatable, and … hopeful. The last lyrics of “My Mind & Me” say it all: “If somebody sees me like this, then they won’t feel alone now.”

Brett Morgen (The Kid Stays In The Picture, Moonage Daydream) directed this tough-love doc about the late, great, and deeply troubled Nirvana frontman, Kurt Cobain. Frances Bean Cobain, the singer’s daughter with Courtney Love, executive produced it and gave Morgen access to unreleased music and previously unseen journal entries and home movies. Cobain spun all sorts of wild stories about himself during his brief 27 years on Earth, so he’s a bit of an unreliable narrator. And Morgen focuses a great deal on Cobain’s final chapters rather than his creative peak with Nirvana. Still,  packs a punch.

Equally adept at features (The Warrior) and documentaries (Senna), director Asif Kapadia—with the Oscar-winning —set his sights on capturing the essence of the deeply troubled and seemingly doomed singer Amy Winehouse. Comments from family, friends, and associates paint a picture of a sweet young woman in way over her head and prone to self-destructive choices, while concert footage and previously unheard songs and unseen videos confirm Winehouse’s prodigious talent. It’s heartbreaking to watch Winehouse pull it together just long enough to record a duet with the late Tony Bennett, only for her to fall apart again soon thereafter. And, daringly, Kapadia doesn’t flinch from examining Winehouse’s final days, her death, and what was and wasn’t done to prevent it.