Interesting Netflix Documentaries to Watch

While I continue to savor multitude of lovely K-drama (a new review is coming!) and branching out (or back) to broad diverse of series, lately I have felt a crave of intellectual nourishment and as am not yet a converted podcast listener (perhaps it’s an age thing), I found I am fed this hunger with Netflix documentaries. I will share some of what I have recently watch and let me know if you have your favorite documentaries !

To be smarter 

I enjoy Bill Gates series as well as Explained series. Bill Gate series focuses on bigger saving the world agenda while Explain help me understand bite-sized topics. Bill Gates series is created by Davis Guggenheim who is an award-winning producer, director and screenwriter. I enjoy his Inconvenient Truth documentary. Given that he is also working on Alias, The Shield, ER and 24, the narrative is fast-paced and emotionally thrilling. This is not documentaries that is in-depth. Explained series produced by Vox and Ezra Klein. Ezra Klein is a renown columnist and political analyst and thus while the episodes are all bite-size (sometime less than 30 minutes) but there is sufficient depth in the analysis that help the audience gain quality insight on the topics. Additionally, Lisa Nishimura, who has been called by Vanity Fair as “The Queen of the Docu-series” is also one of the producers, adding the quality of the episodes in the documentary Explained series have gone into 3 seasons now and covered a wide range of topics from water crisis to stock market to plastic surgery to cryptocurrency to cults (if you’re interesting in cult, there is another interesting documentary on it!), all in a bite size and narrated by famous people (Rachel Mc Adam to Christian Slater to Ethan Hawke among others). Absolutely both are great choices to help you catch up with what’s happening in the world.

To be healthier 

Self-disclosure, I have been a fan on the Blue Zone book. It is easy to read and informative. This is one of the documentaries that gets rave reviews in X (previously Twitter), one of which attested that it is one of the most inspiring TV Shows the audience has ever watch. The stories focus on longevity study promoted by Dan Buettner who also narrate the documentary, identified areas where there are cluster of oldest people in the world and identified the positive habits that help these people to stay healthy and have long life. Definitely a good choice to watch to inspire all of us to be healthier. 

To be more informed foodie

I am a K-food lover and thus K-food Rhapsody documentary series are very difficult to resist. It talks about cold noodles, fried chicken and Jjajangmyeon among others. The beautiful frame-by-frame shots, details for each type of foods (include how many types of Korean fried chicken) and entertaining narrators (including the famous Paik Jong Won). For sure it makes me hungry and wanting to order food delivery!

For sure documentaries help us to engage our brain to be more active especially if we are reflecting what it means to our life, I have just committed that on monthly basis I will read more and watch more nourishing program and reduce my social media time. Since then I am absolutely behind in my social media, not only I am not feeling FOMO at all but actually feeling great that grey cells in my brain sparks again a bit more. It can also be your 2025 commitment to help your brain stay sharp. Enjoy !