Never Forget: Best 9/11 Documentaries, Movies and Shows on Netflix

This post was originally published on here

Today marks 25 years since September 11, 2001. On this day, 25 ago, terrorist hijacked commercial planes, crashing into the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington DC . The attacks killed nearly 3,000 people and injured many more. It was the deadliest terrorist attack in U.S. history, and the ramifications are still being felt today.

While some may never want to relive that horrible day again, others may find comfort in remembering, reflecting, and re-evaluating the terrible incident that devastated so many and changed the course of the world forever.

If you’re a person who is looking to process the terrorist attacks today, and you’re looking for 9/11 movies and documentaries on Netflix, then you do have a few options. The streamer put out a new documentary film last week, Turning Point: Generation 9/11, which features heartbreaking stories from people whose families were permanently altered by the attacks on that tragic day. The streamer also recently added the Oscar-winning war drama that dramatizes the war on terror that followed the attacks, Zero Dark Thirty.

Scroll down for a list of 9/11 documentaries, movies, series, and stand-up specials you can find streaming on Netflix in September 2026.

1. In honor of the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, Netflix has released a new “Turning Point” film from director Brian Knappenberger (who also directed Turning Point: 9/11 and the War on Terror, Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War, and Turning Point: The Vietnam War). This one turns to the generation of Americans who were either very young when the planes flew into the Twin Towers, or weren’t yet born. Yet that day undeniably shaped the trajectory of their lives, whether they realize it or not, thanks to the technology, surveillance, and wars that followed.

3. In the months following September 11, 2001, attorney Kenneth Feinberg was put in charge of a seemingly impossible task: putting a dollar amount on the incalculable loss for those mourning victims of the attack. This Netflix original film stars Michael Keaton as Feinberg, who was in charge of the U.S. government’s controversial September 11th Victim Compensation Fund. Also starring Stanley Tucci and Amy Ryan, Worth is an engrossing drama featuring top-notch performances, and it tells a side of the story not often heard.

4. September 11 was a tragedy for all Americans. For Muslim-Americans, that tragedy came with the added baggage of the sudden, intense and often dangerous spike of Islamaphobia that swept the nation following the attack. In his 2017 stand-up special Homecoming King for Netflix, Hasan Minhaj offered some of that much-needed perspective in an emotional speech about how the attack and ensuing bigotry impacted his immigrant family.

5. If you’re looking for a minute-by-minute overview on the September 11, 2001 attacks and the American “War on Terror” that followed as a consequence, then you may be interested in this five-episode docuseries from director Brian Knappenberger. However, the docuseries has been controversial for its tone—Decider reviewer Joel Keller noted that “the opening segment makes it look more like a true-crime series on Investigation Discovery and not a reverent take on 9/11.”

6. For a documentary that details the lasting, devasting ripple effects of the War on Terror, try Father Soldier Son, a 2020 documentary from New York Times journalists Leslye Davis and Catrin Einhorn. The journalists began filming soldier Brian Eisch in 2010, when he was deployed to Afghanistan, as part of a multimedia story that attempted to capture the human side of President Obama’s troop surge in the region. But then they just kept filming—and the impact the war had on the Eisch family is immeasurable.

7. One week after the September 11 attacks, the already distressed American public was rocked by a new terrifying threat—people were being killed via the mail. This Netflix documentary takes a closer look at the 2001 anthrax attacks, which came in the form of threatening letters that praised Allah, referenced 9/11, and contained deadly anthrax spores that killed 5 people, and injured dozens more. Directed by Dan Krauss, the documentary reenactments stars Marvel alum Clark Gregg as the suspected perpetrator of the attacks, Dr. Bruce Ivins.

8. Though many protested that it was too soon at the time—barely a year after Osama bin Laden was killed—Oscar-winner Kathryn Bigelow delivered what now many consider to be the defining film depicting the decade-long manhunt to take down the leader of Al-Qaeda, following the September 11 attacks. Nominated for five Academy Awards, this war thriller is not an easy watch, but it is an eye-opening film, especially when it comes to the torture methods used by U.S. authorities in the so-called war on terror.