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AARP's Movies for Grownups Highlights the Year's Best Documentaries for 50+ Viewers

Why watch make-believe movies when the best stories are in these current and upcoming docs?

Tim Appelo,

AARP

Published June 25, 2025

Marlee Matlin in the documentary 'Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore'

‘Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore’ arrived in theaters on June 20.

Jon Shenk/Actual Films

The kind of Hollywood feature films that appeal to viewers age 50 and older are having a hard time lately, as budgets shrink and the industry struggles with a changing market. But the good news is, for documentaries it’s a golden age. And many of the year’s docs are squarely aimed at the AARP audience. Here’s the best of what to watch now and what’s coming right up.

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My Mom Jayne

Law & Order: SVU’s Mariska Hargitay, 61, makes her film-directing debut with My Mom Jayne (on Max June 27), her deeply moving investigation of the life of the mother she can't remember, sex-symbol movie star Jayne Mansfield. In 1967, Mansfield died in a car crash that left Hargitay, then three years old, seriously injured in the back seat. It’s a totally fascinating story about a smart, ambitious star, with some eyebrow-raising news — she reveals (spoiler alert!) that the beloved parent who raised her, Mickey Hargitay, wasn’t her biological dad, and she finds Jayne’s long-lost 1956 Golden Globe, an award Mariska won 49 years later.

Watch it: on Max

Caregiving

Bradley Cooper, 50, a nominee for 12 Oscars (for best actor, supporting actor, screenplay and best picture) was the caregiver for his late father, Charles, who had lung cancer. The experience inspired him to produce this absorbing PBS documentary about family caregivers. It’s narrated by triple Emmy winner Uzo Aduba (Orange Is the New Black), who was the caregiver for her late mother, who also had cancer.

Watch it: on PBS.org

Don’t miss this: Bradley Cooper tells AARP about his documentary: ‘We need to care for caregivers better.’

Titan: The OceanGate Disaster

Few fictional movie villains can hold a candle to Stockton Rush, the arrogant rule- and reality-defying plutocrat CEO of OceanGate, who fired or vindictively sued the experts he employed who warned him that his submarine Titan’s hull was dangerously cracking. He recklessly took four customers to view the Titanic wreck in the sub; it imploded in 2023 and killed all of them, including him. This doc shows how the calamity happened.

Watch it: on Netflix

Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore

Don’t miss this documentary, which The Hollywood Reporter calls “an engaging, exuberant portrait of the relentlessly likable Matlin as she enters her 60s.” She’s the first deaf actor to win an Oscar (for Children of a Lesser God) and a star of CODA, which won the best-picture Oscar and an AARP Movies for Grownups Award in 2022. She is Hollywood’s leading voice for the deaf community in America.

Watch it: in theaters

Don’t miss this: Marlee Matlin: ‘Don’t think of me as different from you,’ in AARP Members Edition.

Pee-wee As Himself

The performance artist and comedian Paul Reubens hid his real self behind his brilliant creation, Pee-wee Herman, which he parlayed into an incredibly subversive and marvelous kids’ show that grownups also watched rapturously. Director Matt Wolf gets past the mask to the truth about Reubens, who explains his life (and unfair press persecution) while trying to seize creative control of the documentary. This is the only recent documentary with a perfect 100 percent score from critics on Rotten Tomatoes.

Watch it: on HBO Max and other streamers

America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, Season 2

Get out your pom-poms and your short shorts, the country’s most famous star-spangled cheer squad is back for a second season. This behind-the-scenes look at the hard work, dedication and backbiting that goes into representing one of the NFL’s most storied franchises has more on its mind than exposed flesh and football. It’s a real-life workplace drama that just happens to get played out in front of millions of viewers at home and in the stands every Sunday.

Watch it: on Netflix

Sally

National Geographic’s new documentary film about pioneering astronaut Sally Ride splashes down on Hulu as space tourism is starting to take off in 2025. It’s the perfect occasion to celebrate the first American woman in space (in 1983; she was also the youngest) and witness her ascent against sexist headwinds.

Watch it: on Hulu

Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything

From newsy nose-to-noses with Fidel Castro and Anwar Sadat to revealing showbiz celeb exclusives, Barbara Walters remains without peer — plus, she inspired Gilda Radner’s immortal spoof of her on SNL. Now the broadcast pioneer gets a much-deserved documentary on her groundbreaking career from producer and director Jackie Jesko, who gathers female icons Connie Chung, 78, Oprah Winfrey, 71, Cindy Adams, 95, Cynthia McFadden, 69, and Joy Behar, 82, to speak to Walters’ outsize legacy.

Upcoming documentaries for grownups

Billy Joel: And So It Goes

This Tom Hanks–produced doc on the Piano Man got rave reviews when it opened the Tribeca Film Festival on June 4, both for its insights into his music, his extraordinarily tough early career challenges and his tumultuous personal life. “What took me by surprise was its emotional gravity,” wrote Variety’s Owen Gleiberman.

Watch it: on HBO and Max, summer 2025

Don’t miss this: Billy Joel on battling brain disease: ‘Getting old sucks [but] I’m not dying.’

The American Revolution

If you liked Ken Burns’ The Civil War, you’ll want to watch his 12-hour doc on the battle that created our nation — which was a civil war, a war for independence and a world war all in one. It arrives on PBS this fall, and the filmmakers are holding public screenings around the country July through October.

Watch it: on PBS Nov. 16

Tim Appelo covers entertainment and is the film and TV critic for AARP. Previously, he was the entertainment editor at Amazon, video critic at Entertainment Weekly, and a critic and writer for The Hollywood Reporter, People, MTV, The Village Voice and LA Weekly.

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