# Top 24 Technology Documentaries of All Time

> Whistleblowers, startup wreckage, rogue code and machines that learned to win: these films show what screens have done to us.

*By YPB Team · Published October 31, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/top-24-technology-documentaries-of-all-time*

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## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **General Magic** — score 1000/1000
   2018 documentary on the 1990s Apple spin-off that dreamed up the smartphone decades too early.
2. **Citizenfour** — score 862/1000
   Laura Poitras's Oscar-winning 2014 film shot in the Hong Kong hotel room where Edward Snowden revealed NSA mass surveillance.
3. **The Social Dilemma** — score 812/1000
   2020 Netflix documentary in which former tech insiders explain how social media is engineered for addiction.
4. **The Great Hack** — score 756/1000
   2019 Netflix documentary on the Cambridge Analytica scandal and the harvesting of Facebook data.
5. **The Inventor** — score 611/1000
   Alex Gibney's 2019 HBO film on Elizabeth Holmes and the Theranos blood-testing fraud.
6. **Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine** — score 611/1000
   Alex Gibney's 2015 critical look at the life and legacy of Apple's co-founder.
7. **AlphaGo** — score 517/1000
   2017 documentary following DeepMind's Go-playing AI in its historic match against champion Lee Sedol.
8. **Indie Game: The Movie** — score 517/1000
   2012 documentary following the makers of Super Meat Boy and Fez through the stress of shipping a game.
9. **Revolution OS** — score 517/1000
   2001 documentary on the history of GNU, Linux and the free and open-source software movement.
10. **Triumph of the Nerds** — score 402/1000
   Robert X. Cringely's 1996 PBS series on the rise of the personal computer, featuring Jobs and Gates.
11. **We Steal Secrets** — score 402/1000
   Alex Gibney's 2013 documentary on Julian Assange and the rise of WikiLeaks.
12. **Coded Bias** — score 402/1000
   2020 film following MIT researcher Joy Buolamwini's discovery of racial bias in facial recognition.
13. **Startup.com** — score 402/1000
   2001 fly-on-the-wall film tracking a dot-com startup's rise and implosion.
14. **Silicon Cowboys** — score 402/1000
   2016 documentary on how Compaq took on IBM and helped build the PC clone industry.
15. **Do You Trust This Computer?** — score 402/1000
   Chris Paine's 2018 documentary on the promise and danger of artificial intelligence.
16. **The Internet's Own Boy** — score 402/1000
   2014 portrait of programmer and activist Aaron Swartz, co-creator of RSS and Reddit.
17. **The Cleaners** — score 402/1000
   2018 documentary about the Manila content moderators who decide what disappears from social media.
18. **Downloaded** — score 402/1000
   Alex Winter's 2013 documentary on Napster and the file-sharing revolution.
19. **iHuman** — score 402/1000
   Tonje Hessen Schei's 2019 documentary on artificial intelligence, power and surveillance.
20. **Terms and Conditions May Apply** — score 0/1000
   Cullen Hoback's 2013 investigation into what users give away when they click 'I agree'.
21. **Zero Days** — score 0/1000
   Alex Gibney's 2016 investigation into Stuxnet, the cyberweapon that sabotaged Iran's nuclear centrifuges.
22. **Print the Legend** — score 0/1000
   2014 Netflix documentary on the race to bring 3D printing to the desktop.
23. **Lo and Behold** — score 0/1000
   Werner Herzog's 2016 meditation on the internet, from its birth at UCLA to robots and solar flares.
24. **Deep Web** — score 0/1000
   Alex Winter's 2015 documentary on Silk Road, Bitcoin and the trial of Ross Ulbricht.

Tags: movies, documentary, tech, ai, internet