The 40 most popular 1990s documentary TV shows, ranked. Click any show for ratings, reviews, trailers, and where to watch.


Grands Reportages
1998 · FR
No overview available


Dateline
1992 · US
Dateline NBC, or simply Dateline, is a weekly American television newsmagazine series. It was previously the network's flagship newsmagazine, but now focuses mainly on true crime stories with only occasional editions that focus on other topics.


Independent Lens
1999 · US
This acclaimed Emmy Award-winning anthology series features documentaries and a limited number of fiction films united by the creative freedom, artistic achievement and unflinching visions of their independent producers and featuring unforgettable stories about a unique individual, community or moment in history.


Unanswered Questions
1992 · KR
A current affairs/journalism program that investigates unsolved cases and looks into various problems in society, religion and more.


Intimate Portrait
1993 · US
Intimate Portrait is a biographical television series on the Lifetime Television cable network focusing on different celebrities, which includes interviews with each subject. Among the people profiled were Grace Kelly, Natalie Wood, Carly Simon, Jackie Kennedy, Katharine Hepburn, Carol Burnett, Tanya Tucker, and Marla Maples.


Eisenbahn-Romantik
1991 · DE
Railway-related documentary covering modern railway systems, museum railways and their facilities as well as items on model railway layouts. Politics and criticism is not left out; the series reports on closures, controversial model ideas, delays to reconstruction plans or smart commuter transport concepts.


Galileo
1998 · DE
This daily German magazine show delivers interesting facts on numerous topics centering around technology, life, and bizarre knowledge.


Exclusiv - Das Star-Magazin
1994 · DE
Exclusiv: das Starmagazin reports on the latest news and topics from the world of celebrities on a regular weekly basis. It covers the latest headlines relating to the stars as well as rumors and insights into the everyday lives of famous personalities around the globe. In addition to the 15-minute weekday magazine, there is a particularly detailed one-hour weekend edition on Sundays with additional reports and background reports on the celebrities.


Quarks
1993 · DE
No overview available


Behind the Music
1997 · UK
An intimate look into the personal lives of pop music's greatest and most influential artists.


It's Not Rocket Science!
1993 · FR
C'est pas sorcier is a French educational television program that originally aired from November 5, 1994 to present.


Zone interdite
1993 · FR
For thirty years, Zone Interdite has been the magazine that documents and analyzes the upheavals in French society. Conducted over time, the investigations broadcast in the program reveal the taboos, passions, and struggles of the French people at the heart of current events.


Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction
1997 · US
Can you tell the difference between fact and fiction? Several stories of strange, mysterious and incredible occurrences are chronicled during each episode. It is up to the viewer to decide which stories actually happened and which were completely fabricated by the show’s writers. The answer is revealed by Jonathan Frakes at the conclusion of each episode.


Forensic Files
1996 · US
Real crimes, disease outbreaks and accidents around the world are solved by experts using scientific laboratory analysis which helps them find previously undetectable evidence. Brilliant scientific work helps convict the guilty and free the innocent.


Australian Story
1996 · AU
Putting the "real" back into reality television, Australian Story is an award-winning documentary series with no narrator and no agendas — just authentic stories told entirely in people's own words.


Heritage Minutes
1991 · CA
Heritage Minutes, also known officially as Historica Minutes: History by the Minute, are a series of sixty-second short films, each illustrating an important moment in Canadian history. They appear frequently on Canadian television and in cinemas before movies and are now also sold on DVD. The Minutes were first introduced on March 31, 1991 as part of a one-off heavily-promoted history quiz show hosted by Rex Murphy. The thirteen original short films were broken up and run between shows on CBC Television and CTV Network. The continued broadcast of the Minutes and the production of new ones was pioneered by Charles Bronfman's CRB Foundation, Canada Post Power Broadcasting, and the National Film Board. They were devised, developed and largely narrated by noted Canadian broadcaster Patrick Watson, while the producer of the series was Robert Guy Scully. In 2009 Historica merged with The Dominion Institute to become The Historica-Dominion Institute. While the foundations have not paid networks to air Minutes, they have made them freely available, and in the early years paid to have them run in cinemas across the country. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has ruled that Heritage Minutes are an "on-going dramatic series" thus each minute counts as ninety-seconds of a station's Canadian content requirements.


Mapping the World
1990 · FR
Then complex world of geopolitics broken down into ten minute, bite-sized chunks. You'll never sound uninformed at the dinner table ever again.


Modern Marvels
1993 · US
HISTORY’s longest-running series moves to H2. Modern Marvels celebrates the ingenuity, invention and imagination found in the world around us. From commonplace items like ink and coffee to architectural masterpieces and engineering disasters, the hit series goes beyond the basics to provide insight and history into things we wonder about and that impact our lives. This series tells fascinating stories of the doers, the dreamers and sometime-schemers that create everyday items, technological breakthroughs and manmade wonders. The hit series goes deep to explore the leading edge of human inspiration and ambition.


Antiques Roadshow
1997 · US
Based on the popular BBC series running since 1979, the PBS Antiques Roadshow combines history with discovery. Each year, the show visits a handful of cities to appraise items brought in by viewers. Are these items worth a lot of money, more than the visitors expect?


Globe Trekker
1994 · AU
Globe Trekker is an adventure tourism television series produced by Pilot Productions. The British series was inspired by the Lonely Planet travelbooks and began airing in 1994. Globe Trekker is broadcast in over 40 countries across six continents. Each episode features a host, called a traveller, who travels with a camera crew to a country—often, a relatively exotic locale—and experiences the sights, sounds, and culture that the location has to offer. Special episodes feature in-depth city, beach, dive, shopping, history, festival, and food guides. The show often goes far beyond popular tourist destinations in order to give viewers a more authentic look at local culture. Presenters usually participate in different aspects of regional life, such as attending a traditional wedding or visiting a mining community. They address the viewer directly, acting as tourists-turned-tour guides, but are also filmed interacting with locals and discovering interesting locations in unrehearsed sequences. Globe Trekker also sometimes includes brief interviews with backpackers who share tips on independent travel in that particular country.


To Remember
1993 · RU
No overview available


Grand Designs
1999 · UK
British television series which features unusual and often elaborate architectural homebuilding projects.


Classic Albums
1997 · UK
A documentary series about pop and rock albums that are considered the best or most distinctive of a well-known band or musician or that exemplify a stage in the history of music.


Twice in a Lifetime
1999 · CA
Prematurely deceased people are given the opportunity to correct something that went wrong in their lives and thus change them for the better.


The Human Animal
1994 · UK
The Human Animal: A Personal View of the Human Species is a BBC nature documentary series written and presented by Desmond Morris, which focuses on the behaviour of homo sapiens, examining areas such as love and sex, baby rearing, the importance of urban habitat and the roots of our creativity.


Storyville
1997 · UK
Showcasing the best in international documentaries, Storyville has developed an enviable reputation since its inception more than a decade ago. Screening over 340 films, from some 70 different countries, the strand has garnered a staggering array of awards: five Oscars, 15 Griersons, three Peabodys and two International Emmys. In true, unique, Storyville style, the new series promises to deliver the strand's usual eclectic mix of compelling stories from across the globe.


House Hunters
1999 · US
Hosted by Suzanne Whang, the show takes viewers behind the scenes as individuals, couples and families learn what to look for and decide whether or not a home is meant for them. Focusing on the emotional experience of finding and purchasing a new home, each episode follows a prospective buyer and real estate agent through the home-buying process, from start to finish.


Bill Nye the Science Guy
1993 · US
It's "Mr. Wizard" for a different decade. Bill Nye is the Science Guy, a host who's hooked on experimenting and explaining. Picking one topic per show (like the human heart or electricity), Nye gets creative with teaching kids and adults alike the nuances of science.


The Unexplained
1996 · US
The Unexplained is an American paranormal television series that originally aired from January 2, 1996 to May 7, 2000 on A&E and is currently being broadcast on the Biography Channel. The program features various mysteries, paranormal, psychic phenomena, and other topics that are considered to be "unexplained." Earlier episodes of the series are narrated by Bill Kurtis


360° Reportage
1999 · DE
Stories of extraordinary lives and extraordinary lands across the globe.


Modern Times
1995 · UK
Documentaries showing faces and places that make up the way we live today.


HBO First Look
1992 · US
HBO First Look is an American television show on HBO that chronicles up and coming movies. It first started in 1992 with a documentary on A League of Their Own starring Tom Hanks, and still airs today. The series shows behind-the-scenes looks at the filming and interviews with the actors. The show is part documentary and part advertisement. It airs on HBO with no set schedule.
Where Are They Now?
Where Are They Now?
1999 · US
Where Are They Now? was a television series on VH1 that featured past celebrities and updated on their current professional and personal status. Each episode was dedicated to another genre. Though not always in sequence, some episodes were a continuation of the motif of episodes from the past. Those episodes sometimes had Roman numerals in their title to signify their sequel status.


Des racines & des ailes
1997 · FR
A magazine show with each segment telling the story of a country, a civilization, a period or emblematic characters, rich in iconography and archival images.


Time Team
1994 · UK
Time Team is a British television series which has been aired on British Channel 4 from 1994. Created by television producer Tim Taylor and presented by actor Tony Robinson, each episode featured a team of specialists carrying out an archaeological dig over a period of three days, with Robinson explaining the process in layman's terms. This team of specialists changed throughout the series' run, although has consistently included professional archaeologists such as Mick Aston, Carenza Lewis, Francis Pryor and Phil Harding. The sites excavated over the show's run have ranged in date from the Palaeolithic right through to the Second World War.


Gladiators
1992 · UK
Gladiators is a British television entertainment series, produced by LWT for ITV, and broadcast between 10 October 1992 and 1 January 2000. It is an adaptation of the American format American Gladiators. The success of the British series spawned further adaptations in Australia and Sweden. The series was revived in 2008, before again being cancelled in 2009. The series was originally presented by John Fashanu and Ulrika Jonsson, however, Fashanu was replaced by Jeremy Guscott in 1997. Guscott left the series in 1998, and subsequently, Fashanu returned for the final series in 1999.


Sightings
1992 · US
Sightings is an American paranormal and news television series that originally aired from April 17, 1992 to August 1, 1997. The program began as a special titled The UFO Report: Sightings on October 18, 1991. The original Concept Creator and Supervising Producer of that hour special produced by Paramount for Fox TV was Linda Moulton Howe, an Emmy Award-winning TV producer and documentary filmmaker of TV specials about science and the environment. One of her Emmy award-winning broadcasts was A Strange Harvest, about the worldwide animal-mutilation mystery linked by law enforcement to extraterrestrial biological entities.


Get Real
1999 · US
Get Real was a short-lived comedy-drama on the FOX Network centering on the fictional Green family of Los Angeles. It ran from September 1999 to April 2000. It starred Eric Christian Olsen and Anne Hathaway in very early roles, as the older siblings to central character of the series, youngest child, Kenny.


True Life
1998 · US
True Life is a documentary series running on MTV since March 24, 1998. Each episode follows a particular topic, such as heroin addiction as in the first episode, "Fatal Dose." The show is created by following a series of subjects by a camera crew through a certain part of their lives.


Baseball
1994 · US
The history of the sport of baseball in America, told through archival photos, film footage, and the words of those who contributed to the game in each era. Writers, historians, players, baseball personnel, and fans review key events and the significance of the game in America's history.
1990s television was the last era of true mass audiences, when a network sitcom or a season finale could be a shared national event.
Documentary series use length the way films can't — returning to subjects, following developments, and building cases across many hours. Streaming turned the format into a genuine cultural force.