The world is full of people who spend their free time playing video games or taking dance lessons. The docs on this list...aren’t about them. That’s not to disparage these activities or the films that cover them. Popular hobbies are popular for a reason, and many of the features that have explored them are entertaining as heck. However, some of the best documentaries, and biopics too, center on people whose leisure activities are weirder and wackier than most.
The debate on which is superior, the biopic or the documentary, may rage on, but these eight documentaries prove that some hobbies really are stranger than fiction. These docs, which can all be found on YouTube or one of the popular streaming platforms, are about hobbies that are outside the norm. By introducing viewers to the charming, passionate people who take part in these unusual pastimes, each of these movies helps its audience understand how something like, say, table-setting could become an obsession.
Set! (2021) - Discovery+
Even for those who don’t know a shrimp fork from a salad fork (or the proper placement of either), “Set!” is a wildly entertaining look at the world of table-setting competitions. Tasked with designing tablescapes on a theme, the contestants utilize materials as disparate as taxidermy animals and blown-up condoms to turn their visions into ribbon-worthy entries at the Orange County Fair in Costa Mesa, California.
In Set!, the hobbyists featured are charmingly self-aware about the quirkiness of their chosen “sport." They also take their designs very seriously, which leads to some truly inspired displays. It’s art that just happens to involve perfectly placed cutlery.
Chicken People (2016) - Prime Video
“Glamorous” isn’t necessarily a word that springs to mind when people think of chickens. Yet, the show-chickens in this delightful documentary have such carefully blow-dried plumage and buffed toenails that they’re basically the supermodels of fowl. For the poultry breeders of Chicken People, this level of bird-grooming meticulousness is necessary if they are to have a chance at winning a prize at the Ohio National Poultry Show.
The interviewees’ enthusiasm for breeding and showing chickens is infectious, and it’s genuinely moving to hear how this pursuit has helped them overcome past traumas. Plus, watching a woman tenderly rub her nose against a chicken’s beak is a sight both heartwarming and suspenseful, with noses being such delicate things and beaks being so sharp.
Somm (2012) - Hulu
Having an interest in wine is fairly commonplace. But being so into wine that you study for years to earn a Master Sommelier diploma, an achievement accomplished by fewer than 300 people in the test’s 50-year existence, is a fairly niche obsession. Somm focuses on four applicants’ preparation for an exam that involves knowledge of the world’s wine regions, wine service etiquette, and a blind taste test.
The number of flash cards and spitting buckets the candidates go through is impressive, as is the originality of their descriptors of wine flavors, which range from “baking spices” to “freshly opened can of tennis balls.” Whether the viewers themselves have an affinity for fermented grapes, the interviewees’ enthusiasm for wines, as well as their stress at trying to acquire the most prestigious wine-related certification possible, is palpable.
Pucker Up: The Fine Art of Whistling (2005) - YouTube
A lot of folks can whistle, but very few can do the kind of lip calisthenics that the entrants to North Carolina’s National Whistling Competition achieve. These competitors come from places as far as the Netherlands to oodle and trill (both whistling flourishes described in the doc) for a panel of judges.
As the contestants, who include a New Jersey poultry services worker and a D.C. exec of a private equity firm, prepare to whistle a classical and a popular tune each, the doc gives viewers glimpses of a bygone era in which whistling was far more prominent an art form than it is today. There are a lot of things the average listener doesn't know about Elvis Presley, and clips of him whistling to his audiences prove there was more to "The King" than met the eye. Clips of him and other performers, like Al Jolson, are juxtaposed with the bird-like talents of these modern-day puckerers, showing doc-viewers that this niche talent might be one worth bringing back into mainstream pop culture.
Palindromists (2020) - Prime Video
For viewers who enjoy words and phrases that read the same way forward and backward but are bored with the humdrum likes of “wow,” “race car,” and “Madam, I’m Adam” comes this hoot of a documentary. Celebrities like Wonder Years ingénue Danica McKellar and musician “Weird Al” Yankovic (whose song “Bob” is composed exclusively of palindromes) pop in to extol the virtues of these quirky little word-puzzles. Daniel Radcliffe is set to play Weird Al in an upcoming biopic, and here's hoping we'll see a bit on the hours spent palindroming.
Meanwhile, competitors of a yearly palindrome-crafting competition talk about the history of the form and their personal relationships to the hobby. In response to the palindromes that contestants conjure up on a 90-minute deadline, audience members hold aloft signs that say “Wow” or “Huh?” Audiences will have similar opinions of the wordy offerings, and no doubt will feel the zap of inspiration to come up with some of their own.
Stacker (2013) - YouTube
Stacking plastic cups into a pyramid might seem like more of a frat house activity than a sport. Yet, when viewers see how quickly the participants competing in the World Sport Stacking Championships stack and unstack their cup configurations, it becomes obvious that the lickity-split creation and breakdown of these designs is a legitimate skill, and a mesmerizing one at that.
The fact that primarily children and teens are doing the stacking makes the movie all the more enjoyable, as it’s pretty hard not to root for adorable kids who are scary-good at their chosen activity. The doc teaches viewers that stacking improves eye-hand coordination and reaction time, and that the process actually burns more calories than one might suspect. Nifty as that information is, it’s really the gasp-worthy speed of the pyramid-making and satisfying “thwack” of cups hitting tables that makes this documentary so riveting to watch.
Well-Groomed (2019) - HBO Max
There are people who see dogs as fluffy canvases on which to create masterpieces, and thank goodness there’s a documentary devoted to them. The goal of these “creative groomers” is to win the grand prize at the Groom Expo in Hershey, Pennsylvania, and they certainly aren’t unambitious in their visions for their pets’ coats. A SoCal groomer plans to paint into her dog’s fur a collection of colorful dinosaurs (dubbed “Jurassic Bark”), while a South Carolinian kennel owner carves “Alice in Wonderland” characters into her pooch’s curls.
The competitors’ affection for their pups is evident, and the animals themselves seem perfectly content to let their humans adorn their coats with dye and sparkly doo-dads. Most film-viewers probably don’t spend their time coming up with ways to manipulate dog-fur into resembling Pokémon creatures, but they’ll be glad, for 90 minutes, to be immersed into the world of folks who do.
Air Guitar Nation (2006) - Prime Video
Anyone who insists that they’ve never performed on an imaginary Stratocaster while listening to a particularly delicious guitar lick is probably lying. Even if not, it’s the first thing they’re going to want to do after watching this movie. At a Manhattan lounge, hundreds of air-guitarists compete to be the official American contender to air-shred for their nation at the World Air Guitar Championships in Finland.
The competition proves fierce, especially between rivals David “C-Diddy” Jung and Dan “Björn Türoque” Crane, whose approaches to the imaginary axes differ but who share a passion for performing and the rock and roll genre. Even if the majority of folks don’t strum air guitars for a crowd, Crane’s statement that “sometimes it’s just easier to play a character than, like, to be yourself, you know?” is relatable to nearly everyone.