Every History Channel Documentary Series Coming to Netflix This Week (April 13–19)

History Channel is dropping five documentary series on Netflix this week (via What’s On Netflix), and they’re all short, punchy, and perfect for a weekend binge. We’re talking mob dynasties, frontier legends, Native American history, America’s vice empires, and the defining crises that shaped a nation. Each one is a single season, most run two to four episodes, so you can actually finish what you start.

The History Channel, an American pay TV network and A+E Global Media’s flagship, is known for its history-focused documentaries and real stories.

Leonardo DiCaprio produced two of the series, while Michael Imperioli narrates one. You can start with one, but chances are you’ll end up watching all five.

1 America: Our Defining Hours (2020)

A still from America: Our Defining Hours | Credits: History Channel

This one was actually made entirely during the COVID lockdown in 14 weeks. The team mailed production kits to talent and ran everything over Zoom. It covers 300+ years in three episodes: Mayflower, Civil War, 9/11, with expert interviews, live-action sequences and the whole History Channel treatment.

Leon Panetta and H.W. Brands are among the talking heads. It’s broad by design, but if you want a single binge that runs the whole American story, this is the one.

2 American Godfathers: The Five Families (2024)

Joseph Colombo in American Godfathers: The Five Families | Credits: History Channel

Narrated by Michael Imperioli, who played Christopher Moltisanti in The Sopranos, so the casting writes itself. The series is actually based on Selwyn Raab’s New York Times bestseller, covering all five families from their Sicilian roots through bootlegging, drug trafficking, omertà, and eventually their own greed tearing them apart.

If you’ve seen Fear City on Netflix, this picks up the full story with a lot more depth.

3 Sitting Bull (2025)

A still from Sitting Bull | Credits: History Channel

This one was made with serious intent. DiCaprio’s Appian Way produced it alongside IllumiNative, a Native-led advocacy group, with Lakota actors in front of and behind the camera. Mo Brings Plenty from Yellowstone narrates, Michael Spears plays Sitting Bull.

It covers Little Bighorn, the Ghost Dance movement, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show, the entire arc. It’s the History Channel doing actual justice to one of the most important figures the 1800s produced.

4 The Booze, Bets and Sex That Built America (2022)

A still from The Booze, Bets and Sex That Built America | Credits: History Channel

Part of History Channel’s “That Built America” franchise, and easily the most fun one in this drop. It covers the people behind American whiskey, beer, tobacco, gambling and the adult industry: Jack Daniel, Adolphus Busch, the founders of Las Vegas casinos, all while the temperance movement was trying to shut everything down. It’s history, but the kind that’s genuinely easy to watch on a Sunday afternoon.

5 The Men Who Built America: Frontiersmen (2018)

DiCaprio produced this in 2018 as a thematic extension to the original Men Who Built America, so if you watched that one, this is the natural next binge. It covers the first 75 years of the US: Daniel Boone in Appalachia, Tecumseh, Lewis and Clark mapping the Louisiana Purchase, Davy Crockett at the Alamo, through to the California Gold Rush.

Historians from Columbia, Yale, and Cornell show up between reenactments to explain what’s happening. Classic History Channel docudrama format, done well.

Are you starting with the mob history or the frontier legends? Tell us in the comments!

All five of these History Channel documentary series stream on Netflix starting April 13, 2026.