Credit: Lucas Gouveia/How-To GeekIf you can tear yourself from the Big Brother live feeds and are all caught up on Lioness‘s third season premiere, give yourself a break from the reality TV mayhem and the intensity of Zoe Saldana’s covert ops with something from Paramount+‘s solid library of documentaries and docuseries.
This weekend brings a mix of great new August docs and one older-but-fascinating rewatch. Billie Eilish’s stunning concert film that she co-directed with James Cameron is newly streaming, as is my top pick, a firsthand account of the military’s most secretive missions. The palate cleanser this month is a wild look at the obsessive fandom of Eminem.
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Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour (Live)
Inside the pop superstar’s world tour, James Cameron style
No one had “Billie Eilish and James Cameron, co-directors” on their 2026 bingo card, but here we are. As the pop superstar further advances her push into making motion pictures—she’s currently filming her first major dramatic film, The Bell Jar, in Toronto—her gorgeous new documentary/concert film, Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour (Live), has finally hit Paramount+.
More of a concert film than a documentary (by no means is that a bad thing), get ready to have your living room turned into the front row standing-room-only section of Billie’s sold-out Manchester tour stops on her world tour last year, as Cameron’s arsenal of 3D and moving cameras (one of which Billie runs around with) captures it all in stunning detail—to be clear, though, it is not streaming in 3D on P+. The documentary part is compelling, too, as Cameron interviews Eilish and hangs out with her behind the scenes along the way, and takes cameras through the labyrinthine tunnels under the massive stage, and up in the scaffolding for a look that feels like being there with Billie as she performs.
Quiz
The best music documentaries and biopics
Trivia challenge
From Woodstock to Walk the Line — how well do you know the films behind the
music legends?
BiopicsDocumentariesMusic IconsFilm FactsBehind the Scenes
Documentaries
The 2015 documentary Amy, about Amy Winehouse, was directed by which filmmaker?
from archival footage and audio interviews. The documentary won the Academy Award for Best Documentary
Feature in 2016.
documentaries Senna and Diego Maradona. The film won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature in 2016.
Biopics
In Walk the Line, which actor portrayed Johnny Cash and won a Golden Globe for the
role?
the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy. Notably, Phoenix and co-star Reese Witherspoon
performed all of their own vocals in the film.
even performed all his own singing, which impressed June Carter Cash’s real-life family enormously.
Biopics
In the 2004 film Ray, Jamie Foxx portrayed Ray Charles. Which major award did Foxx
win for this performance?
portrayal of Ray Charles. Remarkably, Foxx was also nominated for Best Supporting Actor that same year
for Collateral, making him one of very few actors nominated twice in the same ceremony.
Ray. His performance was widely praised for its physical and emotional depth, particularly his depiction
of Charles’s blindness and struggles with addiction.
Documentaries
Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck was released in 2015 and directed by Brett Morgen. What
made it particularly unique among Cobain documentaries?
officially authorized by the Cobain estate, giving director Brett Morgen unprecedented access to
personal diaries, home recordings, and family footage. This made it a uniquely intimate portrait of
Cobain’s life.
it was the first documentary officially authorized by the Cobain estate. This gave filmmaker Brett
Morgen extraordinary access to private materials, including journals, artwork, and home videos.
Documentaries
Taylor Swift’s documentary Miss Americana, released on Netflix in 2020, covers a
pivotal period in her life. Which major personal decision is a central theme of the film?
long public silence on politics, particularly her endorsement of Democratic candidates during the 2018
Tennessee midterm elections. The film explores the personal and professional risks she felt came with
that choice.
to speak publicly about politics for the first time, including endorsing candidates in the 2018
midterms. The film reveals how she wrestled with breaking from her carefully maintained public
neutrality.
Documentaries
Summer of Soul (2021), directed by Questlove, focuses on a legendary 1969 music
festival. What is the festival’s official name?
a series of free concerts held in Marcus Garvey Park. The footage had been locked away in a vault for
over 50 years before Questlove brought it to the world, earning the film an Academy Award for Best
Documentary Feature.
Cultural Festival, held in 1969. Remarkably, the footage sat unseen in a basement for more than five
decades before Questlove used it to create this celebrated documentary.
Music Icons
In the biopic Walk the Line, which legendary musician and close friend of Johnny
Cash is portrayed as a major influence on his early career?
Line, depicted as a peer and inspiration to the young Johnny Cash during their shared time at Sun
Records. The film portrays Cash’s ambition as partly fueled by seeing Elvis’s explosive early success.
Walk the Line, with both artists having recorded at Sun Records in Memphis during the same era. The film
depicts their camaraderie as part of Cash’s formative years as a performer.
Film Facts
Which of these music documentaries won the Academy Award for Best Documentary
Feature?
for Best Documentary Feature at the 2022 ceremony. It also won the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award
at the Sundance Film Festival, making it one of the most acclaimed music documentaries in recent memory.
the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2022. Directed by Questlove, the film also swept major
awards at Sundance, cementing its place as a landmark music documentary.
Your Score
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Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour is, of course, also full of the Grammy-winning singer’s hits like Bad Guy, What Was I Made For?, and my favorite, The Greatest. Her brother and collaborator, Finneas, while absent for the bulk of the tour, joins Billie on stage late in the show for a medley of Lovely, I Don’t Wanna Be You Anymore, and Ocean Eyes, and to close out with Happier Than Ever and Birds of a Feather. It’s one of the best concert docs I’ve seen in recent memory, and it has a 91% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour (Live in 3D)
Release Date
May 6, 2026
WHERE TO WATCH
Cast
James Cameron, Billie Eilish, FINNEAS, Maggie Baird
Runtime
114 minutes
Director
James Cameron, Billie Eilish
Producers
Billie Eilish, James Cameron
Main Genre
Documentary
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Stans
Marshall Mathers’ superfans take the spotlight in this interesting doc
There aren’t too many songs that have inspired words being added to the dictionary, but “Stan,” derived from the name of one of Eminem’s most famous songs from his 2000 album The Marshall Mathers LP, did just that. The word, used to describe “An overzealous or obsessive fan of a particular celebrity,” according to the official Oxford Dictionary entry, is what anchors this 90% fresh 2025 documentary.
Directed by Emmy winner Steven Leckart (Challenger: The Final Flight) and produced by Eminem himself, Stans is less about the iconic rapper himself than it is about the stories of some of his real-life superfans and how his lyrics and music affected their lives, helping them through struggles and their worst chapters.
The 102-minute film is assembled using a mixture of new interviews with the stans in question, some rare archival footage, and some moody and stylized recreations. But, of course, the most compelling subject is Mathers himself, who sits for a candid interview as he shares his perspective on what it’s like to have a persona that is publicly owned while trying to keep a private life for himself.
Director
Steven Leckart
Main Genre
Documentary
1
Special Ops: True
The military’s most secret missions, straight from the source
My top documentary pick this week is from the same CBS News unit behind Paramount+’s popular and long-running series FBI True, but instead aims the cameras at the members of some of the country’s military elites—Navy SEALs, Delta Force, Rangers, and Green Berets—and some of their most incredible (and most notable) missions.
Not to be confused with Paramount+’s Zoe Saldaña scripted series Lioness (formerly titled Special Ops: Lioness), there’s no fiction involved in Special Ops: True, as real members who were on the ground, at sea, or in the air in some of the country’s most consequential missions share their true stories firsthand. Two seasons and 20 episodes were all dropped on Paramount+ at once, and include some insane testimony and never-before-seen mission footage and photos from missions including the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, the Black Hawk Down incident, and the 2022 rescue of Fox News correspondent Benjamin Hall from a Ukrainian war zone.
Much of Special Ops: True feels like watching a video game, with loads of green-tinged night vision footage and satellite imagery, and the stories that go along with it all are truly remarkable. No Taylor Sheridan required here.
Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K
Operating System
Fire OS
Resolution
4K
For just a little more money than the Fire Stick TV Lite, you can get the Fire Stick TV 4K, which offers a Dolby Vision upgrade and TV controls on the Alexa remote. With 4K streaming, it’s much more futureproof.
Audio codecs
Dolby Atmos, 7.1 surround sound, 2-channel stereo, and HDMI audio pass through up to 5.1
RAM/storage
8 GB
A really real weekend
That’s a lot of realness packed into the weekend, so pace yourself—maybe save Billie for last. And if none of these picks are in your wheelhouse, we have plenty more watch suggestions in the streaming section of How-To Geek.
Subscription with ads
Yes, $8/month
Simultaneous streams
3
Live TV
Select live sports (NFL on CBS & UEFA Champions League)
Price
Starting at $8/month or $60/year
