Popularity ranking · United States

The 52 most popular Documentaries in United States

This curated ranking covers the 52 largest documentaries in United States, ordered by estimated audience size from Rascasse's anonymized search-behavior signals. FRONTLINE, Yves Saint Laurent (film) and Inside Edition lead the list with a combined estimated audience of 9M people. Across all 52 entries the average audience size is 353k, and the largest, FRONTLINE, reaches around 6.6M people in United States. Audience size is the estimated number of unique people in United States who actively engage with each documentary, derived from search demand signals. Rankings reflect search-behavior signals collected across United States and are updated quarterly.

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How to read this list

Rank

Position in the Top 52, sorted by audience size from largest to smallest. Updated quarterly.

Audience size

Estimated number of unique people in United States who actively engage with this audience, derived from anonymized search-behavior signals.

Country share

Share of the global audience that is active in United States. A higher value means the audience is more locally concentrated here.

Avg age

Average age in years across the people who engage with this audience in United States, derived from anonymized search-behavior signals. A dash means demographic data is not yet available.

Female share

Share of women among the people who engage with this audience in United States. 50% is gender-balanced; values above mean female-skewed, below mean male-skewed.

Ranking

Rank Audience Audience size Avg age Female share Subtype
1 FRONTLINE 6.6M 43.7 49.4% Documentary
2 Yves Saint Laurent (film) 1.2M 32.3 56.5% Documentary
3 Inside Edition 1.2M 40.1 63.6% Documentary
4 Vice (TV series) 1M 34.1 47.2% Documentary
5 POV (TV series) 856k 44.2 59.1% Documentary
6 The Original Kings of Comedy 720k 40.5 45.8% Documentary
7 Pumping Iron 626k 45.7 43.5% Documentary
8 Finding Your Roots 582k 47.5 58.9% Documentary
9 Oddities (TV series) 519k 34.6 65.3% Documentary
10 Silent Voices (2005 film) 470k 39.6 80.7% Documentary
11 Land and Sea 366k 49.4 63.8% Documentary
12 Roadkill (Internet show) 341k 43.9 6.7% Documentary
13 Hard Knocks 327k 36.4 11.1% Documentary
14 American Experience 312k 51.0 43.1% Documentary
15 The Last Waltz 277k 50.9 26.5% Documentary
16 The Thin Blue Line (1988 film) 261k 43.0 34.1% Documentary
17 Walking with Dinosaurs 256k 34.3 44.0% Documentary
18 Bowling for Columbine 232k 30.8 47.8% Documentary
19 Pina (film) 198k 35.6 66.8% Documentary
20 Restrepo (film) 174k 36.5 16.4% Documentary
21 Fahrenheit 9/11 156k 49.4 52.1% Documentary
22 Earthling 146k 37.5 57.5% Documentary
23 Man on Wire 141k 28.5 46.6% Documentary
24 March of the Penguins 138k 40.5 48.2% Documentary
25 Blue Planet 130k 34.8 56.2% Documentary
26 Deadly Women 126k 37.7 87.5% Documentary
27 The War Room 96k 43.1 30.5% Documentary
28 Miss Representation 95k 35.1 64.1% Documentary
29 Scared Straight! 94k 28.5 48.8% Documentary
30 The Blue Planet 93k 40.9 47.0% Documentary
31 A Football Life 83k 40.6 59.1% Documentary
32 What the Bleep Do We Know!? 76k 43.9 56.9% Documentary
33 Aluna 71k 41.0 59.7% Documentary
34 Hail Satan 53k 35.2 40.1% Documentary
35 The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus 52k 56.8 14.6% Documentary
36 The Story of Stuff 45k 41.0 48.3% Documentary
37 Racing Extinction 45k 43.4 69.9% Documentary
38 Living Proof (film) 31k 43.4 90.8% Documentary
39 I-Witness 30k 42.1 52.5% Documentary
40 Elvis in Concert 20k 56.0 54.3% Documentary
41 Vegucated 20k 40.4 54.5% Documentary
42 Extreme Engineering 14k 37.5 32.8% Documentary
43 Frozen Planet 14k 41.9 45.6% Documentary
44 Seconds From Disaster 11k 26.3 13.1% Documentary
45 Light Fantastic (TV series) 10k 42.9 65.1% Documentary
46 The Acting Class 7.6k 34.2 64.8% Documentary
47 GMO OMG 5k 34.1 51.4% Documentary
48 Living with Wolves 3.2k 34.0 47.1% Documentary
49 Zone Interdite (TV program) 1.4k 35.7 50.0% Documentary
50 Beyond Scared Straight on A&E 990 24.2 50.7% Documentary
51 México Pelágico 777 44.3 46.1% Documentary
52 LA EDUCACIÓN PROHIBIDA 387 41.8 90.8% Documentary

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Frequently asked questions

How is this list of the most popular documentaries compiled?

Rascasse aggregates anonymized search-behavior signals across United States and ranks each documentary by its estimated audience size. Only entries with at least 5 measured entities are listed.

How often is the list updated?

The ranking is updated quarterly from the latest search-behavior data and re-published as a static page.

What is the largest documentary in United States?

FRONTLINE currently leads with an estimated audience of 6.6M people in United States.

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