r/Documentaries vs r/movies

Side-by-side using public descriptions, members, growth and rule titles from SubMouse. Missing fields show as n/a. Adult communities are excluded.

Swap sides New comparison Related to r/Documentaries Related to r/movies

Documentaries room vs movies discussion room

r/Documentaries’ public description calls itself Reddit’s main subreddit for documentaries. r/movies describes itself as a large online film community for talking about movies.

In our directory, movies is much larger (about 37.7M, rank #9) than Documentaries (about 20.4M, rank #40). Activity samples show movies posting far more often (~200 posts/day vs ~15). Documentaries’ sample is video-heavy with history, recommendation, review, nature and crime flairs; movies’ sample mixes text with images/links and uses discussion, news, question, review and trailer flairs.

Rule titles: Documentaries requires free documentaries only, title format, submission statements, direct video links and bans self-promo and misinformation; movies bans image/meme posts, ambiguous clickbait titles, spoilers, piracy encouragement and comic-book-movie spam floods. SubMouse already compares movies with television; this pair is specifically documentaries versus general films.

Choose r/Documentaries for free documentary links under its format and submission-statement rules.
Choose r/movies for film news, discussion and recommendations under its no-meme and spoiler rules.
Both are inside the current Top 100 live window. movies-vs-television is a separate curated page.

Written comparison based on public descriptions and rule titles · updated 2026-11-07.

r/Documentaries

Documentaries

tl;dw /r/Documentaries is reddit's main subreddit for documentaries. Please read our community rules.

Members: 20.4M
7-day growth: +904
Posts/day: 14.7
Directory rank: #40
Created: Mar 21, 2008
Submissions: Text or links

Sample mix: videos 71%, text posts 24%, links 6%

Topics: Documentaries

Rule titles (short names we collected)

Free Documentaries Only
Post Title Format
Post Correct Title & Description
Submission Statements Are REQUIRED
No Self-Promotion, YT Channel Promotion, or Solicitation
No Bigotry, Dehumanization, or Discrimination
No Brigading, Harassment, Trolling, Threats, False Sub Accusations, or Metadrama
Be Respectful to Others
Direct Documentary Video Links Only
No Misinformation. Source with Trustworthy Links
No File Lockers, Linkjacking, or Torrents
Do Not Delete Popular Submissions

Open r/Documentaries on SubMouse

r/movies

Movie News and Discussion

/r/movies is the world's largest online film community, with over 37,000,000 members. Come on in and talk about movies with us!

Members: 37.7M
7-day growth: +9.8K
Posts/day: 199.8
Directory rank: #9
Created: Jan 25, 2008
Submissions: Text or links

Sample mix: text posts 52%, images 20%, links 17%

Topics: Movies, News

Rule titles (short names we collected)

Do Familiarize Yourself With Our Rules.
No Intentional Antagonism or Negative Attention Whoring
No Spam & Self-promotion - Same Source Posts
No Image Posts & Memes
No Ambiguous/Misleading/Inaccurate Information or Clickbait in the Submission Title
No Extraneous Comic Book Movie Submissions
No Repost or Discussion Threads of New Releases
No Spoilers
No Encouraging Piracy
No Subreddit Brigading
AI Generated Garbage
No Low Effort Posts

Open r/movies on SubMouse

Supported differences

Aspect	r/Documentaries	r/movies
Public focus (from each community’s public description)	tl;dw /r/Documentaries is reddit's main subreddit for documentaries. Please read our community rules.	/r/movies is the world's largest online film community, with over 37,000,000 members. Come on in and talk about movies with us!
Size r/movies is larger in our directory (about 1.9×).	20.4M members	37.7M members
Posting activity (our sample)	14.7/day	199.8/day
Common post types in our sample	videos 71%, text posts 24%, links 6%	text posts 52%, images 20%, links 17%
Topic tags on SubMouse	Documentaries	Movies, News
Selected rule titles (short names we collected)	Free Documentaries Only; Post Title Format; Post Correct Title & Description; Submission Statements Are REQUIRED; No Self-Promotion, YT Channel Promotion, or Solicitation	Do Familiarize Yourself With Our Rules.; No Intentional Antagonism or Negative Attention Whoring; No Spam & Self-promotion - Same Source Posts; No Image Posts & Memes; No Ambiguous/Misleading/Inaccurate Information or Clickbait in the Submission Title

Rules and posting patterns we can verify

Documentaries short titles include: free documentaries only; post title format; correct title and description; submission statements required; no self-promotion or YT-channel spam; no bigotry; no brigading/harassment; be respectful; direct documentary video links only; no misinformation. Our sample is video-forward with topic flairs.

movies: know the rules; no intentional antagonism; no spam and self-promotion; no image posts and memes; no ambiguous/misleading titles; no extraneous comic-book movie dumps; no spoiler/piracy/brigading issues called out in short titles. Our sample mixes discussion text with news and media posts.

Where this comparison comes from

Public descriptions and member counts from SubMouse’s safe-for-work directory. Short rule titles and activity samples SubMouse collected. Short titles only. Related curated page: movies-vs-television.

Members and public descriptions come from SubMouse's safe-for-work directory (as of 2026-11-02 UTC); 7-day growth measured from 2026-10-26. Posts/day and post-type mixes appear when we have an activity sample. Rule lines are short titles, not the full sidebar. Directory rank is listing order — communities outside the current Top 100 open in the info tool instead of a full community page.