Science & Nature Documentaries on Netflix
Last updated April 18, 2025
The English Surgeon
2007 | NR | 3.8 out of 5 StarsBritish Brain Surgeon Henry Marsh works in a Russian KGB Hospital where patients are dying from simple brain tumors left untreated. This drama follows Marsh as he confronts the dilemmas of the doctor patient relationship on his latest mission.
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Seven Wonders of the Industrial World
2003 | NR | 3.8 out of 5 StarsThrough computer-generated and dramatic re-creations, this fascinating program reveals the stories behind seven of the most ambitious manmade achievements of the industrial age and the pioneers who helped construct them.
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One Lucky Elephant
2010 | NR | 3.7 out of 5 StarsIn this sensitive tale of one man's search to find a home for his animal companion, filmmaker Lisa Leeman documents a concerned circus producer's efforts to place his beloved 18-year-old elephant in permanent and loving care outside of the big top. His noble quest takes him to Africa but ultimately brings him back to the United States, where he's forced to decide what's best for his four-ton "daughter."
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A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash
2006 | NR | 3.7 out of 5 StarsIn this straight-from-the-headlines documentary, award-winning filmmakers Basil Gelpke and Ray McCormack examine the world's dependency on oil and the impending chaos that's sure to follow when the resource finally runs dry.
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The Quantum Activist
2009 | NR | 3.6 out of 5 StarsFilmmakers Ri Stewart and Renee Slade tackle a weighty subject -- quantum mechanics -- in this thought-provoking documentary that centers on visionary scientist Amit Goswami and his revolutionary theories about reality and consciousness. Without watering down too much of the science, the film illuminates the details of Goswami's work while putting forth challenging new ideas about mysticism, God and religious thought.
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YERT - Your Environmental Road Trip
2011 | NR | 3.6 out of 5 StarsCalled to action by a planet in peril, three friends hit the road to explore every state in America in search of the extraordinary innovators and citizens who are tackling humanity's greatest environmental crises.
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The Moo Man
2013 | NR | 3.6 out of 5 StarsChronicling a year in the life of a family-run dairy, this charming documentary centers on an optimistic English farmer who insists on thinking small when it comes to the size of his herd.
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An Inconvenient Truth
2006 | NR | 3.6 out of 5 StarsFormer Vice President Al Gore wages a passionate campaign -- not for the White House, but for the environment -- in this Oscar-winning documentary. Laying out the facts of global warming, Gore urges audiences to act before it's too late.
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The Age of Stupid
2009 | NR | 3.6 out of 5 StarsIn the desolate future of 2055, an archivist combs through a vast collection of videos to learn what went wrong with the planet. His research points to the first decade of the century, when humans blithely ignored the warning signs of climate change.
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Meltdown
2013 | NR | 3.6 out of 5 StarsThe hard-hitting earthquake that rocked Japan's Fukushima Prefecture on March 11, 2011, delivered much more than bricks-and-mortar destruction; it also triggered a nuclear meltdown and ignited the largest nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.
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SoLa
2010 | NR | 3.5 out of 5 StarsSoLa: Louisiana Water Stories is a poignant look back at a way of life that may now be gone forever, and a prescient view at exactly how the gusher in the Gulf was allowed to happen. Thanks to corruption, malfeasance and the Louisiana industrial and political climate, environmental pollution seems to be simply a cost of doing business.
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Pompeii: The Last Day
2003 | NR | 3.5 out of 5 StarsTake a step back in time via this engrossing program and visit the fabled "vanished city" on its last day, when Vesuvius erupted in a 24-hour reign of terror that covered the ancient town with tons of lava and mummified many of its inhabitants.
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Everything's Cool
2007 | NR | 3.5 out of 5 StarsIn this documentary, filmmakers Daniel B. Gold and Judith Helfand (Blue Vinyl) follow a troupe of self-proclaimed global warming "warriors" on a mission to get the world to care about rising temperatures and melting polar ice caps. Taking a topic that's inherently serious and applying their signature blend of humor and emotional heft, Gold and Helfand advance the environmental dialogue in a surprisingly entertaining way.
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To the Arctic
2012 | NR | 3.5 out of 5 StarsMeryl Streep narrates this touching chronicle of a mother polar bear and her 7-month-old cubs, who band together to survive the Arctic wilderness amidst an array of snow-white challenges.
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No Impact Man
2009 | NR | 3.5 out of 5 StarsIn this engaging documentary, a Fifth Avenue family goes green when writer Colin Beavan leads his wife, Michelle Conlin, and their baby daughter on a yearlong crusade to generate no trash and otherwise make no net impact on the environment.
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Dinotasia
2012 | NR | 3.4 out of 5 StarsBased on cutting-edge paleontology and the latest fossil records, this documentary presents a series of vignettes about dinosaurs, including some creatures that were discovered only recently.
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Universe
1960 | NR | 3.4 out of 5 StarsA triumph of film art, creating on the screen a vast, awe-inspiring picture of the universe as it would appear to a voyager through space.
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Helicopter Canada
1966 | NR | 3.3 out of 5 StarsA helicopter was used throughout this exploration of the ten provinces. The result of this off-the-ground portraiture is a view that is big and beautiful.
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A Step Towards the Arctic
2013 | NR | 3.3 out of 5 StarsIn Sachs Harbour, an Inuit village on the fringes of the Earth, filmmaker and Swiss citizen Yves Delaunay encounters a small community that struggles daily to face the challenges of modernity.
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Moving Art: Oceans
2014 | NR | 3.1 out of 5 StarsViewers will experience the power of ocean waves and the sea's underwater splendor as celebrated filmmaker Louie Schwartzberg takes his camera into the deep to unveil the mysteries and wonders of the natural world.
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Moving Art: Flowers
2014 | NR | 3.1 out of 5 StarsCelebrated filmmaker Louie Schwartzberg takes viewers on an enchanting journey, unveiling the mysteries and wonders of the natural world as elegant flowers come to life through his stunning time-lapse cinematography.
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A Sea Change
2009 | NR | 3.1 out of 5 StarsAward-winning filmmaker Barbara Ettinger puts a human face on the realities of global warming and ocean acidification in this eye-opening document of one man's quest to learn more about his generation's environmental legacy. Although he's an environmentalist, native Norwegian Sven Huseby is a grandfather, too. And he's increasingly concerned about the kind of world his 5-year-old grandson, Elias, will inherit.
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Moving Art: Deserts
2014 | NR | 3.0 out of 5 StarsRenowned filmmaker Louie Schwartzberg takes viewers on an inspiring journey, unveiling the mysteries and marvels of the Four Corners region of America -- a scenic wonderland where the night stars shine as brightly as the day's sun.
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Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands
2009 | NR | 3.0 out of 5 StarsThe future of Canada's Alberta Tar Sands is the core concern of Peter Mettler's documentary, which uses sweeping aerial photography to underscore the environmental threats posed by proposed large-scale oil extraction from the sands.
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Moving Art: Forests
2014 | NR | 2.9 out of 5 StarsViewers will marvel at the majesty of nature's gentle giants through the seasons as famed filmmaker Louie Schwartzberg journeys to California's Redwood Coast, Washington's Olympic National Park and Telluride, Colo.
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