June 8th, 2024
By Mateo Sol
Guest writer for Wake Up World
The world is currently going through a tremendous amount of spiritual shifts and awakenings.
From understanding how old inherited social structures affect the world around us to exploring new ways to live or inquiring about the nature of the self, many questions are surfacing in our collective lives and inviting us to learn more about the universe and within us.
These spiritual documentaries may not provide a clear definite answer, but they create the space necessary to reflect, expand your awareness, change your perspective and direct your life so that you’re closer to allowing the answer to reveal itself.
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What Makes a Good Spiritual Documentary?
We live in the golden age of entertainment with endless choices available to us, and tons of different spiritual documentaries out there available on the many streaming platforms.
But which ones do we choose?
With the precious limited time we have on this planet, how do we know what makes a ‘good’ spiritual documentary?
As someone who has watched a lot of documentaries and cinema (it’s one of my favorite ways to relax, unwind, and open my mind), I’m here to offer my assistance.
To help you understand my choices of what I believe makes a good spiritual documentary, I’ve used the following criteria:
- It must be enlightening: it must open our eyes in a down-to-earth way to our place in this world and juxtapose that with different ways of experiencing life.
- It must be inspirational: it needs to be able to expand our minds and fill us with awe and wonder at the interbeing of life.
- It must be motivational: it needs to motivate us to make changes in our lives that better ourselves and the whole.
The documentaries I’ve hand-picked and curated for this article have met at least one (usually multiple) of the above criteria to be worth including here.
9 Best Spiritual Documentaries To Watch
Here are my top nine picks for the best spiritual documentaries to watch out there:
1. Samsara (2012)
Samsara explores the wonders of our world, from the mundane to the miraculous, looking into the unfathomable reaches of humanity’s spirituality and the human experience. Neither a traditional documentary nor a travelogue, Samsara takes the form of a nonverbal, guided meditation.
2. My Octopus Teacher (2020)
A heartwarming look at the way a meaningful bond can transcend just about any barrier, this documentary show Craig Foster’s growing intimate relationship with an octopus as he follows her around for nearly a year. They form a bond where she plays with Foster and allows him into her world to see how she sleeps, lives, and eats.
Foster describes the effect of this mentorship-like relationship the octopus provided him, teaching him a lesson on the fragility of life and humanity’s connection with nature.
3. I AM (2010)
Tom conducts interviews with scientists, religious leaders, environmentalists, and philosophers, including Desmond Tutu, Noam Chomsky, Lynne McTaggart, Elisabet Sahtouris, David Suzuki, Howard Zinn, and Thom Hartmann. The film asks two central questions: “What’s Wrong With the World?” and “What Can We Do About it?”.
4. InnSaei (2016)
The ancient Icelandic word for intuition is “InnSæi,” but in Iceland, it has multiple meanings. It can mean “the sea within” which is the borderless nature of our inner world, a constantly moving world of vision, feelings, and imagination beyond words. It can also mean “to see within” which means to know yourself and to be self-aware enough to be able to put yourself in other people’s shoes. And finally, it can mean “to see from the inside out” which is to have a strong inner compass to navigate your way in our ever-changing world.
In this inspiring and thought-provoking documentary about InnSæi: the Power of Intuition, Hrund Gunnsteinsdottir, and Kristín Ólafsdóttir go on a soul-searching, global journey to uncover the art of finding connection within and between ourselves in today’s world of distraction, disconnection, and stress.
5. Kumaré (2011)
6. Mantra: Sounds into Silence (2017)
This documentary explores the growing music and social phenomenon of chanting mantras and the electric power of kirtan (or community-based devotional singing). It’s a film about spirituality not religion, about sincere people reconnecting with their true selves and with others.
Mantra: Sounds into Silence features interviews and music by Deva Premal and Miten with Manose, Krishna Das, Snatam Kaur, Lama Gyurme and Jean-Philippe Rykiel, Jai Uttal, and more.
7. Happy (2011)
Directed, written, and produced by Roko Belic, Belic spent several years interviewing over 20 people, ranging from leading happiness researchers to a rickshaw driver in Kolkatta, a family living in a “co-housing community” in Denmark, a woman who was run over by a truck, a Cajun fisherman, and more.
8. Human (2015)
From stories of everyday experiences to accounts of the most unbelievable lives, these poignant encounters share a rare sincerity and underline who we are – our darker side, but also what is most noble in us, and what is universal.
9. Unity (2015)
Just imagine a world that doesn’t rely on opposites (us/them, rich/poor, black/white, gay/straight, human/animal, etc.) but rather a world that perceives only wholeness. UNITY presents the notion of a world in which we are all equally valued, even though we are not the same: Human, Animal, and Tree.
Bonus – Honorable mention: Home (2009 film)
Watch Now
If you’d like to explore more free spiritual documentaries, I recommend visiting our curated LonerWolf Videos section!
About the author:
Mateo Sol is a spiritual counselor, bibliophile, entrepreneur, and cofounder of one of the most influential and widely read spiritual websites on the internet. Born into a family with a history of drug addiction and mental illness, he was taught about the plight of the human condition from a young age. His mission is to help others experience freedom, wholeness, and peace in all stages of life. See more of his work at lonerwolf.com and his premium offerings here.
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