Anime Like Encounters
If you loved Encounters's Documentary storytelling, these anime deliver a similar experience — selected for art style, narrative depth, and emotional impact. Each includes where to stream it now.
★ Top Picks

Ancient Aliens
Did intelligent beings from outer space visit Earth thousands of years ago? From the age of the dinosaurs to ancient Egypt, from early cave drawings to continued mass sightings in the US, each episode gives historic depth to the questions, speculations, provocative controversies, first-hand accounts and grounded theories surrounding this age old debate.

One Strange Rock
A mind-bending, thrilling journey exploring the fragility and wonder of planet Earth, one of the most peculiar, unique places in the entire universe, brought to life by the only people to have left it behind – the world’s most well known and leading astronauts.

The Manhattan Alien Abduction
A woman claims to have been abducted from her bedroom in Manhattan. This docuseries explores whether it was an elaborate hoax — or proof of alien life.

NASA's Unexplained Files
Dive into the mysteries of some of NASA’s most curious missions and explore stories of engineering achievement and human endurance. Each episode offers first hand testimony from astronauts, NASA mission footage, plus beautifully rendered CGI to bring to life these voyages that reveal unexplained sightings that have dogged many of NASA’s most famous missions.

Investigation Alien
In this gripping docuseries, legendary reporter George Knapp travels the globe to uncover new evidence about UFOs and investigate their presence on Earth.

Our Universe
Witness the remarkable story of our universe over billions of years and its inextricable link to life on Earth in this sweeping documentary series.

Hangar 1: The UFO Files
Delve deep into a vast archive of over 70,000 UFO files gathered over nearly half a century in Hangar 1. MUFON, an independent organization dedicated to investigating UFOs, has compiled these archives looking for connections, clues, and evidence to find the truth about UFOs.

History's Greatest Mysteries
Investigates a wide range of historically compelling topics and the mysteries surrounding each including the Titanic, D.B. Cooper, Roswell, John Wilkes Booth, and more. Fresh, new evidence and perspectives will be showcased, such as never-before-released documents, personal diaries and DNA evidence.
More Anime Like Encounters

Through the Wormhole
Hosted by Morgan Freeman, Through the Wormhole explores the deepest mysteries of existence - the questions that have puzzled mankind for eternity. What are we made of? What was there before the beginning? Are we really alone? Is there a creator? These questions have been pondered by the most exquisite minds of the human race. Now, science has evolved to the point where hard facts and evidence may be able to provide us with answers instead of philosophical theories. Through the Wormhole brings together the brightest minds and best ideas from the very edges of science - Astrophysics, Astrobiology, Quantum Mechanics, String Theory, and more - to reveal the extraordinary truth of our Universe.

Earth at Night in Colour
Filmed across six continents, this docuseries uses cutting-edge camera technology to capture animals' nocturnal lives, revealing new behaviours filmed in full color like never before.

Superpowered: The DC Story
This docuseries takes an unprecedented look at the enduring and influential legacy of DC, allowing fans to rediscover the universe of characters, as well as the iconic comic book company’s origins, its evolution and its nearly nine-decade cultural impact across every artistic medium.

MythBusters
MythBusters is a science entertainment television program created and produced by Australia's Beyond Television Productions for the Discovery Channel. The show's hosts, special effects experts Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman, use elements of the scientific method to test the validity of rumors, myths, movie scenes, adages, Internet videos, and news stories.

Marvel Studios Legends
Revisit the epic heroes, villains and moments from across the MCU in preparation for the stories still to come. Each dynamic segment feeds directly into the upcoming series — setting the stage for future events. This series weaves together the many threads that constitute the unparalleled Marvel Cinematic Universe.

A Haunting
These are the true stories of the innocent and the unimaginable. Based on true events, A Haunting dramatises some of the scariest stories, revealing a world in which tragedy, suicide and murder have left psychic impressions so powerful that innocent people become forced to deal with them decades later. Through mesmerizing first-person accounts, the mystery and origin of each haunting is powerfully revealed and leaves a lingering sense that life—and death—are much stronger then anyone could have possibly imagined.

The Blue Planet
Sir David Attenborough narrates this critically acclaimed series that dives deep into the marine environment of Planet Earth. Although two-thirds of the world's surface is covered with water, scientists know less about the oceans than they do about the surface of the moon. This limited series travels from various coasts to the poles to examine watery denizens ranging from the gigantic blue whale to microscopic coral polyps.

Planet Earth
David Attenborough celebrates the amazing variety of the natural world in this epic documentary series, filmed over four years across 64 different countries.

How the Universe Works
A users' guide to the cosmos, from the Big Bang to galaxies, stars, planets and moons: where did it all come from and how does it all fit together? A primer for anyone who has ever looked up at the night sky and wondered.

The Life of Mammals
David Attenborough presents a nature documentary series looking at why mammals are the most successful creatures on the planet.

Life on Our Planet
Life's extraordinary journey to conquer, adapt and survive on Earth across billions of years comes alive in this groundbreaking nature docuseries.

The Seventies
A documentary series focusing on the ongoing Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal, evolving music industry, the Iran Hostage Crisis, the sexual revolution, and the rise of foreign and domestic terrorism.
Why These Anime Are Similar
These recommendations share core qualities with Encounters (2023): Documentary themes, comparable animation style, and similar narrative pacing. NoBadPicks uses TMDB collaborative filtering, genre matching, and AI analysis to surface anime most likely to resonate with fans of Encounters.
See full details for Encounters (2023)