The most jaw-dropping documentaries of 2025

2025 WAS one for documentaries that made me sit up, grab a coffee, and either gasp, cringe or shake my head at how wild reality can be.

- BERNELEE VOLLMER

Some had me laughing at the absurd, others left me seriously thinking about the world we live in. Here's the lineup that I couldn't stop talking about this year.

Bad Influence: The Dark Side of Kid-fluencing

This one isa real eyeopener. Watching kids being groomed for clout while parents orchestrate every moment is unsettling, addictive, and deeply uncomfortable.

You start wondering who’ really running the show: the kids, the parents or the algorithm. Watching the pressure these children face, parents scripting their lives, and the mental health toll it takes is unsettling when you realise it’s real kids behind those Instagram smiles. This doc is a must-watch because it’s a reality check: the curated, polished feeds you scroll past? There’s a cost, and it’s human.

Tiek Tok Boem

This Showmax original peeled back the filter on South Africa's Afrikaans TikTok underworld, and hooboy, it did not hold back.

Live streams full of chaos, insults, substance-use, and public freak-outs make you question the obsession with clout and clicks.

It's messy, loud, and deeply uncomfortable, but it asks real questions about fame, culture, and social media validation.

For anyone scrolling endlessly, this doc hits differently.

Beauty and the Bester

Netflix’s true-crime docuseries blew me away. Chronicling Thabo Bester, the “Facebook Rapist,” and his alleged accomplice/partner, it’s a story of manipulation, lies, prison escape, and legal battles that reads like a thriller but is all too real.

The court battles to stop it from airing only added fuel; watching it reminded me how charm, wealth and public image can hide danger. The series is raw, urgent, and impossible to ignore.

Trainwreck: Poop Cruise