About r/Documentaries
In its own words:
tl;dw /r/Documentaries is reddit's main subreddit for documentaries. Please read our community rules.
The community was created on Mar 21, 2008, which makes it 18 years old. Since Oct 19, 2026, it has gained 1,469 subscribers (+0.01%). It sits just behind r/wallstreetbets (#39) and ahead of r/photoshopbattles (#41) in our ranking.
What sets r/Documentaries apart
Compared with other large communities, r/Documentaries leans heavily on videos (69% of recent posts; the typical Top 100 subreddit sits at 7%). Relative to its huge audience, posting is calm — around 0.7 new posts a day per million members, which puts it in the quietest fifth of the Top 100. A good post has less competition here.
Subscriber growth
Between Sep 19, 2026 and Oct 29, 2026, r/Documentaries grew from 20,356,090 to 20,362,099 subscribers (+6K, +0.03%). That is about 150 new members per day. The chart uses our weekly snapshots (8 so far), so it gets longer every week.
Top posts on r/Documentaries this week
This week’s highest-ranked posts, in Reddit’s own order (collected Oct 29, 2026).
- How Jeffrey Epstein used Woody Allen to expand his network (2026) - The millions of documents released by the US Department of Justice reveal that Jeffrey Epstein invested significant amounts of mone…u/etherandhoney · Oct 23 · video
- Trump's 40-Year Entanglement with the FBI and Organized Crime (2024) [49:52]u/PerAsperaAdMars · Oct 26 · video
- Jordan, Lebanon & Syria are ours (2026) - Young Israelis voting for a radical future [00:07:29]u/quarterchicken · Oct 24 · video
- Trump promised manufacturing jobs would come back to America. They didn't. (2026) [20:36]u/Mountain_Lab_5817 · Oct 27 · video
- My MAGA Life (2026) - An inside look at Washington, D.C. under Trump's second term from a White House-accredited US correspondent [00:50:52]u/michaelFAWADAY · Oct 26 · video
- Four Minutes to the Key Bridge (2026): how the Dali lost power and hit Baltimore's bridge, from the NTSB's final report [00:07:13]u/BasicManufacturer653 · Oct 28 · video
- Undiscovered America (2026) - 53 American landscapes proposed as national parks and the history of each campaign (CC) [02:12:00]u/spamunsubscribe · Oct 23 · video
- Recommendation Request: Looking for documentaries about people doing their jobsu/Apprehensive-Gas-321 · Oct 26 · text post
- before the light goes out (2026) [02:03:08]u/magikarpnotgyrados · Oct 29 · video
- How Roger Boisjoly Tried to Stop Challenger (2026) - A Breakdown of NASA's 1986 Flight Manifests [00:27:51]u/Alarmed_Western_9963 · Oct 23 · video
All-time top posts
The highest-ranked posts in the history of r/Documentaries, from 2016 to 2021, ranked by Reddit.
- Charge fees for documentaries and bandwith caps. Banned videos and interference from big government. Must see! (2017)u/thom_orrow · Nov 22, 2017 · 122,814 points · 1,548 comments · link
- Former Facebook exec: I think we have created tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works. The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops we’ve created are destroying how soci…u/BestEviction · Dec 26, 2017 · 66,656 points · 3,131 comments · video
- Did A Paedophile Influence Childrens Policies (2019) - Documentary about the UK Green Party and Aimee and David Challenor [00:24:01]u/humanexploit · Mar 24, 2021 · video
- TIL Mark Twain traveled extensively and once said(1904) "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, chari…u/srsdrgdf · Oct 3, 2017 · 54,566 points · 3,002 comments · link
- Proud Boys Rally (2020) - All Gas No Brakes visits a Proud Boys Rally in Portland, Oregon. [00:07:13]u/mouthofreason · Oct 4, 2020 · video
- How Sinclair Broadcasting puts a partisan tilt on trusted local news(2017) - PBS investigates Sinclair Broadcast Groups practice of combining trusted local news with partisan political opinions.[8:58]u/peterfun · Apr 1, 2018 · 50,699 points · 3,728 comments · video
- A family is being persecuted for exposing high ranking pedophiles (2018)u/kbs42142 · Mar 6, 2018 · 49,292 points · 3,903 comments · video
- 1 hour lecture by the world's leading Professor on Procrastination(2012): He claims if you know how it works, you won't do it ever. So I decide to post it on the one site meant for procrastination. R…u/usagirl6 · Jul 2, 2017 · 45,814 points · 1,832 comments · link
- They Shall Not Grow Old (2018) - A clip from Peter Jackson's new film of restored WWI footageNov 13, 2018 · 41,624 points · 2,021 comments · video
- Science Moms (2018): A group of scientist moms tackle the pseudoscience that has become endemic among mothers online.u/catcaste · Jul 6, 2018 · 42,018 points · 3,086 comments · video
What r/Documentaries talks about
Across 78 recent posts (Oct 21–Oct 28), the words that come up most are “life”, “recommendation”, “request”, “documentary” and “three”. Other frequent themes are rise, deepest, nightmares, lies, beneath and trump. Recurring phrases include “recommendation request”, “deepest nightmares”, “lies beneath” and “maga life”. By format, 69% are videos, 28% are text posts and 3% are links.
Popular post flairs: Recommendation Request (14), History (10), Documentary Review (6), Crime (5), American Politics (5), Nature/Animals (4).
Activity and best time to post
r/Documentaries gets about 15 new posts a day. The public archive holds 330,057 posts and 4,320,671 comments in total, about 13.1 comments per post. Last week the busiest day was Monday (15 posts) and the quietest was Sunday (9). Posting peaks around 09:00 UTC and is lowest around 03:00 UTC.
Rules of r/Documentaries
The moderators of r/Documentaries list 15 rules. In short:
- Free Documentaries Only
- Post Title Format
- Post Correct Title & Description
- Submission Statements Are REQUIRED
- No Self-Promotion, YT Channel Promotion, or Solicitation
- No Bigotry, Dehumanization, or Discrimination
- No Brigading, Harassment, Trolling, Threats, False Sub Accusations, or Metadrama
- Be Respectful to Others
- Direct Documentary Video Links Only
- No Misinformation. Source with Trustworthy Links
How to join
Open reddit.com/r/Documentaries and press “Join”. Read the community rules in the sidebar before you post: every subreddit is run by its own volunteer moderators.
Frequently asked questions
How many members does r/Documentaries have?
r/Documentaries has 20,362,099 subscribers (Oct 29, 2026), which makes it the #40 safe-for-work subreddit in the SubMouse ranking. It added 6,009 members between Sep 19, 2026 and Oct 29, 2026.
How old is r/Documentaries?
r/Documentaries was created on Mar 21, 2008, so it has been around for 18 years.
How active is r/Documentaries?
Moderately: r/Documentaries gets about 15 new posts a day (average of the last four weeks). Over its lifetime the archive counts 330,057 posts and 4,320,671 comments. In a sample of 78 recent posts we counted 56 different authors.
When is r/Documentaries most active?
Based on post counts from Oct 21, 2026 to Oct 27, 2026, the busiest day was Monday and the quietest Sunday, and most posts arrive around 09:00 UTC, with the fewest around 03:00 UTC. More posts also means more competition, so a quieter hour can help a post get noticed.
What is r/Documentaries about?
The community describes itself as: “tl;dw /r/Documentaries is reddit's main subreddit for documentaries. Please read our community rules.” Recent post titles often mention life, recommendation, request, documentary and three. Most posts are videos (69%).
Is r/Documentaries safe for work?
Yes. Reddit does not mark r/Documentaries as an 18+ (NSFW) community. SubMouse lists safe-for-work subreddits only.
How do I post on r/Documentaries?
Join the community on Reddit first, then use “Create post”. r/Documentaries accepts both text and link posts. It has 15 posted rules, starting with: “Free Documentaries Only”; “Post Title Format”; “Post Correct Title & Description”. Moderators remove posts that break the rules, so read them in the sidebar before posting.
Which communities are like r/Documentaries?
Communities with similar topics include r/videos (26.9M), r/funny (67.6M), r/UpliftingNews (20.5M), r/nosleep (18.2M) and r/wallstreetbets (20.4M).
Stats from public data (data updated Oct 29, 2026; activity, rules and archive totals via the Arctic Shift archive, Oct 29, 2026; top posts from Reddit’s public feeds). Point and comment counts are archive snapshots and can be lower than on Reddit today. SubMouse is an independent directory and is not affiliated with Reddit or the moderators of r/Documentaries.