The Top 10 Hacking Documentaries In 2025

Looking for the best hacking documentaries to learn what’s going on in the dark corners of cyberspace?

In this blog, we're counting down the 10 most gripping, unsettling, and downright binge-worthy hacking documentaries that pull back the curtain on cybercrime, surveillance, whistleblowers, and the digital double lives most people never see.

Whether you're into high-stakes political drama, underground hacker culture, or just want to understand how your data gets in the hands of people you’ve never met, these documentaries deliver.

No Hollywood exaggeration.

Just real hacks, real risks, and real consequences.

Let's dive in.

Jump To The #1 Hacking Documentary To Watch

#10 Deep Web (2015)

🎬 IMDb Rating: 6.9 | 🍅 Rotten Tomatoes: 79% (Critics), 71% (Audience)

What's This Documentary About?

Kicking things off is the documentary Deep Web.

We've all heard of Silk Road, the infamous online drug bazaar run by the mysterious “Dread Pirate Roberts.” But what you probably haven't heard is the full story behind how it operated, who took the fall, and what it says about privacy, freedom, and justice in the digital age.

Deep Web unpacks the rise and fall of Silk Road, the FBI-led takedown, and the trail of Ross Ulbricht. It's all framed around thorny issues like anonymous marketplaces, cryptocurrency, and the blurry border between digital liberty and digital lawlessness.

Was Ross Ulbricht the lone mastermind? Or just the fall guy in a system that needed one?

Oh, and it's narrated by Keanu Reeves. Yes, really. Neo himself walks you through the Matrix-adjacent reality of the dark web.

Why It's Awesome

This documentary doesn't glamorize the dark web. It investigates the chaos where idealism, privacy, and power collide. It uses Ulbricht's case not to deliver a verdict, but to poke at the legal and ethical fault lines exposed by the modern internet.

Is the deep web a bold new digital frontier? Or a no-rules marketplace for crime? The film leans into the nuance, peeling back the legal, ethical, and philosophical layers of a case that still divides opinion today.

Was he running a marketplace? A drug cartel? Or just a libertarian dream that spiraled out of control?

It's gripping, complicated and full of those "wait, what?" moments.

And having Keanu Reeves narrate it? That's just digital seasoning. He adds calm, cool weight to every bombshell dropped.

Watch this, and you won't just rethink Silk Road, you'll rethink how justice works (or doesn't) when the law is always three steps behind the tech.

#9 The Cleaners (2018)

🎬 IMDb Rating: 7.1 | 🍅 Rotten Tomatoes: 93% (Critics), 76% (Audience)

What's This Documentary About?

Ever wondered who decides what stays online, and what gets deleted forever?

The Cleaners turns the lens on a hidden side of the internet most users never think about. Who are the people paid to scrub the internet clean?

This haunting doc follows outsourced content moderators in the Philippines who work for global tech giants under immense pressure.

Their job? To sift through thousands of violent, explicit, and politically charged posts a day, and decide what crosses the line.

But what is the line? The rules are vague, inconsistent, and often politically loaded.

This doc dives deep into the moral gray zone of digital censorship, mental health fallout, and how a handful of anonymous workers are shaping the digital reality for billions of people.

Why It's Awesome

This one is disturbing. It unsettles you with truth. I've seen footage from The Cleaners that will stay with me forever. And not in a good way. In a "I can never unsee that" kind of way.

Imagine what these workers see. Now imagine doing that 40 hours a week.

It’s not just the imagery that’s traumatizing. It’s the reality. These aren't actors. These are people trying to survive a job that quietly props up the internet’s illusion of “cleanliness.”

This doc doesn't ask if censorship is right or wrong. It asks who pays the price for it. It’s raw, unfiltered, and necessary.

It might not scream "hacker" at first glance, but this documentary reveals the unseen forces shaping your digital world, one removed post at a time.

So the next time you scroll past a "this content has been removed notice," you'll know there's a human, possibly breaking, behind that click.

#8 Risk (2016)

🎬 IMDb Rating: 6.3 | 🍅 Rotten Tomatoes: 80% (Critics), 51% (Audience)

What's This Documentary About?

Imagine you get invited backstage to history. Except the band is global power, secrecy, and leaks. That's Risk in a nutshell.

Shot over several years, this documentary follows Julian Assange and his crew at WikiLeaks, as they navigate legal battles, media storms, and internal meltdowns.

You get to see and feel the legal pressure, the mounting suspicions, the fights over principles.

It's not a highlight reel of big leaks. It's a behind-the-scenes chaos that caused them. You'll see paranoia, ego clashes, questionable decisions, and moral gray zones unfolding in real time.

Assange isn't painted as a hero or a villain. He's portrayed more like a man who's gotten way too comfortable living in a pressure cooker.

Why It's Awesome

This doc isn't meant to make you like or hate Julian Assange. It's meant to rattle your expectations and make you feel a little uncomfortable.

Risk throws you behind the curtain of WikiLeaks at a time when it was under fire from every direction.

But instead of showing you conferences and news clips, it captures awkward silences, power trips, and off-the-record moments that feel a bit too on the record.

As for director Laura Poitras, you can feel her inner conflict leak into the footage as her trust in Assange frays.

What makes Risk so gripping is that it doesn't polish the story. You're not spoon-fed a moral lesson. Instead, your left wondering whether information wants to be free... or just set everything on fire.

Either way, it's compelling as hell.

#7 Citizenfour (2014)

🎬 IMDb Rating: 8.0 | 🍅 Rotten Tomatoes: 96% (Critics), 87% (Audience)

What's This Documentary About?

Imagine meeting a whistleblower in a hotel room, knowing what he says could change the world, or ruin yours.

You're watching the exact moment Edward Snowden blows the whistle on one of the biggest mass surveillance scandal in history.

This isn't dramatization. It's real-time footage, in a hotel room in Hong Kong, where Edward calmly drops NSA secrets while nervously dodging fire alarms and hotel maids.

Before the world knew his name, Edward reached out to filmmaker Laura Poitras (yep, same director from Risk) using the alias "Citizanfour." What follows is an intense, espionage-level interview with journalist Glenn Greenwald, where Edwards spills the beans on how the governments were secretly tracking calls, emails, text, webcams... You name it.

Citizenfour isn't just a documentary about the NSA leak.

This is the leak.

And now you all have front-row seats.

Why It's Awesome

This doc plays like a ticking time bomb. But instead of defusing it, Edward arms the public with knowledge the government hoped to bury.

The rawness is exhilarating. The tension is real. And the fallout? Still happening. You don't just learn what the NSA is doing in this doc. You feel the paranoia that comes with knowing how deep the rabbit hole goes.

Every silent glance at the door seems to be more suspenseful than any Hollywood thriller movie I've watched.

After watching Citizenfour, you'll stand up and double check the room for bugs. You'll rethink every phone call. Every text. Every search. Every "I don't have anything to hide" moment. It's unsettling and somewhat enjoyable.

Watch it and come join me in Paranoia City.

It's not just a documentary. It's a red pill.

#6 A Good American (2015-2018)

🎬 IMDb Rating: 7.3 | 🍅 Rotten Tomatoes: 80% (Critics), 84% (Audience)

What's This Documentary About?

What if the NSA had a tool that could’ve stopped 9/11, and shelved it instead?

This documentary digs deep into one of the biggest "what if" scenarios in intelligence history.

It follows Bill Binney, a brilliant mathematician, ex–NSA technical director, and the guy who built a surveillance tool called ThinThread. It was fast, cheap, and respected privacy by anonymizing citizen data. Until the NSA ditched it in favor of a bloated, less effective program right before the 9/11 attacks.

The twist? ThinThread worked. It flagged key connections the NSA missed... because they weren't using it.

When Binney blew the whistle, the agency raided his house and painted him as the bad guy.

It's a classic case of bureaucracy suffocating brilliance, and it will make your blood boil in slow motion.

Why It's Awesome

This doc doesn't need all the Hollywood flair. A Good American delivers its gut punches in silence. No explosions, just revelations.

You're watching a man calmly explain how the U.S had the tech to prevent the worst terrorist attack in modern history... and it got ignored.

Binney's tool didn't require mass surveillance or privacy trade-offs. It was built with ethics baked in. But it got buried in red tape, while the world paid the price.

This doc isn't just about missed signals. It's about willful ignorance. And once you've heard Binney spell it out, you'll never hear the phrase “national security” the same way again.

#5 Terms and Conditions May Apply (2013)

🎬 IMDb Rating: 7.3 | 🍅 Rotten Tomatoes: 84% (Critics), 72% (Audience)

What's This Documentary About?

Ever actually read those never-ending "Terms and Conditions" before clicking 'I agree?' Of course you haven't. No one has.

This doc politely slaps you across the face for that.

Terms and Conditions May Apply pulls back the curtain on what happens when we blindly tap through privacy policies. It's not just about annoying legalese. It's about how those tiny checkboxes quietly give away your rights, your data, and your digital freedom.

All while you're just trying to download that flashlight app.

It covers how companies (and governments) scoop up your info under the friendly guise of convenience.

Turns out, the trade off for "personalized experiences" is often full blown surveillance.

Why It's Awesome

This doc hits like a warning label you wished you had read before clicking "I agree" to everything.

It's sharp, it's funny, in a "well, this is terrifying” kind of way, and packed with real-life examples on just how far these terms go.

You don't need your tinfoil hat. You just get the cold, hard truth about how easy it is to give up control without even realizing it.

What I like is that it doesn’t overwhelm you with jargon and doom-and-gloom predictions.

Instead it hits you with "Hey, remember that thing you agreed to in 2014? Well... they're still tracking you."

After watching this, you'll never breeze through another privacy policy again.

It's the documentary equivalent of Ctrl+Z for your online habits.

Watch it.

#4 We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists (2012)

🎬 IMDb Rating: 7.2 | 🍅 Rotten Tomatoes: 75% (Critics), 79% (Audience)

What's This Documentary About?

They started as pranksters. They ended up on FBI watchlists.

This is the story of Anonymous, the internet's most unpredictable hacktivist collective.

This doc dives into the chaotic birth of Anonymous. A group that started with online pranks and ended up crashing websites, exposing corruption, and showing the world what happened when the hive mind gets pissed off.

From the Church of Scientology to PayPal and governments across the globe, We Are Legion takes you inside the evolution of digital protest, where cyberattacks replace sit-ins and social justice meets “for the lulz” culture.

Why It's Awesome

This one feels like a rollercoaster built on Reddit threads and IRC logs.

You'll hear from actual Anons (voices are distorted, of course), activists, and cyberlaw experts who help make sense of how this digital mob turned into a global movement.

There's no leader. No rules. Just raw internet power being pointed at anything that smells like censorship, corruption, or abuse of power.

What makes this documentary so unforgettable is that it shows just how loud anonymous voices can get and how messy, righteous, and unpredictable cyber-rebellion really is.

By the end, you'll be wondering whether Anonymous are heroes, villains, or just really organized chaos with good internet.

Either way, you'll never look at a Guy Fawkes mask the same again.

#3 Zero Days (2016)

🎬 IMDb Rating: 7.7 | 🍅 Rotten Tomatoes: 90% (Critics), 75% (Audience)

What's This Documentary About?

Zero Days focuses on Stuxnet, the world's first publicly known digital weapon.

No, not ransomware. Not spyware. This was code designed to destroy real-world infrastructure.

We're talking about a piece of malware allegedly built by the U.S and Israel to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program... and it worked.

Stuxnet didn’t just steal data. It spun uranium centrifuges out of control and physically broke machines.

But this doc goes beyond the code. It investigates who built it, how it spread beyond its intended target and what happens when cyberweapons don't stay in their sandbox.

Imagine living without power, water, or basic infrastructure? All brought down by invisible code.

That's the terrifying reality this doc puts under the microscope.

Why It's Awesome

Zero Days is the perfect mix between Mr Robot and Tom Clancy, except the stakes are real and no one's giving a dramatic monologue.

Instead, you get NSA whistleblowers, cybersecurity insiders, and cloak-and-dagger testimonies that make you feel like you're one clearance level away from leaking national secrets.

What makes it unforgettable is how it turns quiet lines of code into weapons of mass disruption, with all the collateral damage and plausible deniability you'd expect from modern warfare.

Zero Days doesn't just show how vulnerable infrastructure is, it proves how quickly a digital threat can become a national crisis.

#2 The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz (2014)

🎬 IMDb Rating: 8.0 | 🍅 Rotten Tomatoes: 93% (Critics), 91% (Audience)

What's This Documentary About?

What if one of the brightest minds of the internet tried to free information, and paid the ultimate price?

This doc follows the life and tragic death of Aaron Swartz.

He was a programming prodigy, open-access crusader, and political activist who co-founded Reddit, helped invent RSS, and fought for a freer internet before being consumed by algorithms and ads.

It goes back to his early genius, his bold efforts to make academic knowledge public, and the US government’s relentless prosecution after he downloaded millions of journal articles.

He faced as much as 35 years behind bars, the maximum sentence for the charges, all for what was essentially a digital Robin Hood stunt.

And the pressure ultimately broke him.

Why It's Awesome

This one pulls at the heartstrings.

Swartz wasn't your typical hoodie wearing hacker, chasing IPOs. He was a digital idealist who believed information should be free, and he put that belief into action.

And what was the price? His freedom, his future and his life.

You'll hear from a powerful mix of people who knew Aaron Swartz personally and professionally, including friends, family, lawyers, journalists, and activists.

Each one helping paint a picture of a mind that was way ahead of its time, and a legal system that couldn’t keep up.

It’s not just a cautionary tale. It’s a wake up call.

By the end of it you'll be asking yourself who controls the internet, who benefits from it, and who gets crushed when they try to change it.

#1 The Great Hack (2019)

🎬 IMDb Rating: 7.0 | 🍅 Rotten Tomatoes: 85% (Critics), 67% (Audience)

What's This Documentary About?

Coming in hot at number one, The Great Hack earns the crown as the must-watch hacking documentary of 2025.

The Great Hack is an intense documentary that dives into the explosive Cambridge Analytica scandal.

The one where your Facebook likes were turned into psychological weapons, and micro-targeted ads became mind-control experiments.

It follows whistleblowers, data rights activists, and the unsettling reality of how your personal info was weaponized to sway elections across the globe.

This isn't just a tech story. It's a political thriller, a privacy wake-up call, and a lesson on how not to underestimate what you give away when you scroll.

Why It's Awesome

After watching The Great Hack, I had that "mind blown" kind of feeling.

It's sleek, modern, and terrifyingly relevant.

Watching it feels like realizing the villain in your cyber-thriller is... you.

Or at least your digital footprint.

It doesn't just point fingers and make claims. It shows receipts.

This doc gives you behind-the-scenes access to the rise of surveillance capitalism, the marketing psychology behind manipulation, and the scale of what happens when your online life becomes a weaponized profile.

What I liked most about this doc is it's presented like a thriller. But the horror is all real.

You’ll never look at a “personalized ad” the same way again.

And once you've seen how your clicks, likes, and scrolls were quietly turned into ammo, you'll start to question just how much of your digital life is really yours.

Wrapping up

So there you have it!

The top 10 hacking documentaries to watch in 2025.

Whether you're into cyberwarfare, whistleblowers, internet chaos, or you just want to feel a little less safe about your Wi-Fi, this list has you covered.

These aren't just documentaries. They're digital wake-up calls.

Some will make you paranoid. Some will piss you off. Some might even inspire you.

So the next time you're doomscrolling or hovering over an “I agree” button, maybe watch one of these instead.

Welcome to the rabbit hole.

You're in it now.