All the best Documentary Movies Streaming on SBS On Demand in January 2025

Ngāti Manu woman Isey Cross and her youngest son James prepare for the party of a lifetime to celebrate Isey's 100th birthday in Kawakawa, New Zealand.

Ophir tells the story behind the likely birth of the world’s newest nation on Bougainville Island, Papua New Guinea. The story of an unknown indigenous revolution for humanity, land, and culture and a decade long war. The film documents its origin and aftermath, where antagonistic visions of the world collude and collide. A poetic yet dramatic ode to the indelible thirst of a peoples for freedom, culture and sovereignty; it offers a gripping exposition of the visible and invisible chains of colonisation and its enduring cycles of physical and psychological warfare.

Four generations of song women from The Central Australian Aboriginal Women's Choir travel to Germany, where they sing German hymns in their native languages.

Wide Open Sky follows the heart-warming story of an outback Australian children's choir. Chronicling their journey from auditions to end-of-year concert, the trials of trying to run a children's choir in a remote and disadvantaged region are revealed. Here, sport is king and music education is non-existent. Despite this, choir mistress Michelle has high expectations. She wants to teach the children contemporary, original, demanding music. It becomes clear for the children to believe in themselves, they all need someone who believes in them. Set against a landscape of devastating beauty, Wide Open Sky is a moving portrait of the fragile world of possibility that is childhood and reminds us why no child, anywhere, should grow up without music.

Recounted mostly through animation to protect his identity, Amin looks back over his past as a child refugee from Afghanistan as he grapples with a secret he’s kept hidden for 20 years. A thrilling documentary made with a blend of animation and archive footage tells an immensely powerful tale of a gay Afghan survivor and his need to confront his past in order to truly have a future. Amin arrived as an unaccompanied minor in Denmark from Afghanistan. Today, at 36, he is a successful academic and is getting married to his long-time boyfriend. A secret he has been hiding for over 20 years threatens to ruin the life he has built for himself. For the first time he is sharing his story with his close friend. FLEE weaves together a stunning tapestry of images and memories to tell the deeply affecting and original story of a young man grappling with his traumatic past in order to find his true self and the meaning of home.