The title of Ava DuVernay’s extraordinary and galvanizing documentary refers to the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which reads, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States.” The progression from that second qualifying clause to the horrors of mass criminalization and the sprawling American prison industry is laid out by DuVernay with bracing lucidity. Also if you are a parent or teacher, please check the ratings so that you can make informed choices for your students and children. Subtitles in more than a dozen languages will be available later this week. Note these documentaries are currently available in English. We hope this will, in a small way, help teachers around the world.

See the full list of documentary films and series below.Įach title also has educational resources available, which can be used by both students and teachers - and we’ll be doing Q&As with some of the creators behind these projects so that students can hear from them firsthand. So at their request, we have made a selection of our documentary features and series available on the Netflix US YouTube channel.

However, this isn’t possible with schools closed. For many years, Netflix has allowed teachers to screen documentaries in their classrooms.

Netflix documentaries