The Top 25 Reads of 2025

What stories and documentaries captured readers’ interest in 2025? We did our annual drilldown of the top POV stories of the year. (Hopefully this list helps prospective writers with pitches, or informs doc makers about the stories/films that capture audiences’ interest.)

The trends somewhat reflect in numbers what the doc community already says anecdotally: people love true crime and music docs. The top read of the year is Netflix streaming sensation and Oscar frontrunner The Perfect Neighbor, which was reviewed by Jason Gorber out of Sundance. The top spot also reflects the annual showing for Sundance docs on the list, partly because the January publication date racks up the hits, while the nature of the festival circuit means that these films have the most repeat viewings. Other Sundance docs on the list are André Is an Idiot, Come See Me in the Good Light,  Middletown (now released as Teenage Wasteland), Mr. Nobody Against Putin, The Stringer, and the overall festival report.

Other true crime docs on the list include two Canadian stories with Prime Video’s two-parter ROM CON and TVO’s Shamed, the latter of which notably scored the only spot in the top 25 for a story from our print issues. Shamed‘s place on the list also marked a rebound for Hot Docs titles after an off-year in 2024. Fellow Hot Docs reviews on the list include Assembly, Ultras, and Agatha’s Almanac, while Come See Me in the Good Light got a second wind there when it won the Audience Award.

The sad news of the passing of DOC’s first executive director and Hot Docs co-founder Debbie Nightingale was our top news story of 2025, while the doc scene’s biggest controversy, The Road Between Us, scored two spots on the list with the review clocking in at number seven and the news of TIFF reversing the film’s acceptance coming in at number seventeen. (Although our interview with director Barry Avrich didn’t even crack the top 50 despite being one of few conversations with him published out of the festival.) And on the music doc front, EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert scored the number five slot thanks to its thunderous TIFF premiere. Rounding out the list for TIFF docs are The Eyes of Ghana and A Life Illuminated, again showing how the festival circuit remains key to getting eyes on docs.

Here are the top 25 reads at POV Magazine published in 2025:

1. The Perfect Neighbor Review
2. ROM CON: Who the F** Is Jason Porter? Review
3. The Best Documentaries of 2025
4. Hot Docs Co-Founder Debbie Nightingale Passes Away at 71
5. EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert Review
6. Assembly Review
7. The Road Between Us Review
8. Andre Is an Idiot Review
9. Come See Me in the Good Light Review
10. How Lucy: The Stolen Lives of Elephants Is Making Changes
11. Middletown Review
12. Mr. Nobody Against Putin Review
13. Omar and Cedric: If This Ever Gets Weird Review
14. Do We Need a “Two Doc Solution” When It Comes to Israel/Palestine?
15. The Eyes of Ghana Review
16. 50 Docs that Defined TIFF: Looking Back at the Festival of Festivals
17. Barry Avrich’s Road Between Us Has TIFF Acceptance Reversed
18. The 2025 Hot Docs Report: A Confident Return
19. The Stringer Reframes a Photo that Shaped History
20. To Catch a Predator: On Shamed, Outrage, and Empathy
21. Diving Deep with A Life Illuminated’s Dr. Edie Widder and Tasha Van Zandt
22. 2025 TIFF Docs Preview with Thom Powers
23. Ultras Review
24. Agatha’s Almanac Review
25. The 2025 Sundance Documentary Report: See Them in a Good Light

For our best docs of 2025, see here.