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

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.

A love letter from a young mother to her daughter, the film tells the story of Waad al-Kateab’s life through five years of the uprising in Aleppo, Syria as she falls in love, gets married and gives birth to Sama, all while cataclysmic conflict rises around her. Her camera captures incredible stories of loss, laughter and survival as Waad wrestles with an impossible choice– whether or not to flee the city to protect her daughter’s life, when leaving means abandoning the struggle for freedom for which she has already sacrificed so much.

An engrossing portrait of the rise and untimely demise of David McComb, the virtuosic frontman of Australian rock band The Triffids.

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.

In 1964, Yuwali was 17 when her first contact with white men was filmed. Her group of twenty women and children were the last aboriginal mob living traditionally, without any knowledge of modern Australia, in the Great Sandy Desert. Now 62 she tells the story behind this extraordinary footage.