The Best How It Works Documentaries

How Things Work - 132 free documentaries about how it works.

Start with How Weed Eaters Work (at 62,000 FRAMES PER SECOND) - Smarter Every Day 236 (19 min, Smarter Every Day), then How Do Cicadas Make Noise? (In Slow Motion) - Smarter Every Day 299 (23 min, Smarter Every Day). All 132 documentaries here are free to watch from their makers' official uploads. To read deeper, the top-rated book on how it works is The Way Things Work Now by David Macaulay.

How Weed Eaters Work (at 62,000 FRAMES PER SECOND) - Smarter Every Day 236 (19 min, Smarter Every Day)
How Do Cicadas Make Noise? (In Slow Motion) - Smarter Every Day 299 (23 min, Smarter Every Day)
How Does NASA Practice Landing on the Moon? - Smarter Every Day 252 (27 min, Smarter Every Day)
How Air Ambulances (Don't) Work (23 min, Wendover Productions)
How ICE's Surveillance System Works (21 min, Wendover Productions)
How the YouTube Creator Economy Works (19 min, Wendover Productions)
How Ocean Shipping Works (And Why It's Broken) (19 min, Wendover Productions)
How does a whip break the sound barrier? (Slow Motion Shockwave formation) - Smarter Every Day 207 (11 min, Smarter Every Day)
How a quartz watch works - its heart beats 32,768 times a second (18 min, Steve Mould)
Why are people mean on Twitter? - Smarter Every Day 214 (21 min, Smarter Every Day)
What is a Fourier Series? (Explained by drawing circles) - Smarter Every Day 205 (8 min, Smarter Every Day)
How Will the Golden Dome Work? (23 min, Real Engineering)
How Nebula Works (20 min, Real Engineering)
How Shazam Works (10 min, Real Engineering)
Why Snatch Blocks are AWESOME (How Pulleys Work) - Smarter Every Day 228 (17 min, Smarter Every Day)
How the US' Only District Works (19 min, Wendover Productions)
How an Amusement Park Works (22 min, Wendover Productions)
How Amazon's Super-Complex Shipping System Works (19 min, Wendover Productions)
What’s Inside a Manhole? (13 min, Practical Engineering)
How French Drains Work (17 min, Practical Engineering)
How Railroad Crossings Work (18 min, Practical Engineering)
How the Boeing 787 Works (66 min, Real Engineering)
Why Are There so Many Types of Screws?! (8 min, Real Engineering)
INSIDE a Nuclear Reactor Core - Smarter Every Day 317 (44 min, Smarter Every Day)
Tensegrity Explained (11 min, Steve Mould)
How the Vatican's Embassies Work (21 min, Wendover Productions)
How the Korean DMZ Works (22 min, Wendover Productions)
Every Type of Railcar Explained in 15 Minutes (17 min, Practical Engineering)
How Do We Pump Sewage? (12 min, Practical Engineering)
How Does Permeable Pavement Work? (10 min, Practical Engineering)
How the Warhead on the AIM-9 Sidewinder Works - Smarter Every Day 282 (8 min, Smarter Every Day)
How Modern Treasure Hunting Works (23 min, Wendover Productions)
How Water Recycling Works (17 min, Practical Engineering)
Why Are Texas Interchanges So Tall? (13 min, Practical Engineering)
Flow and Pressure in Pipes Explained (13 min, Practical Engineering)
Why Do Backwards Wings Exist? (13 min, Real Engineering)
Gravity defying lip gloss explained (10 min, Steve Mould)
How to move one eye on its own (and the science of eye movement) (14 min, Steve Mould)
Inductors Explained - The basics how inductors work working principle (10 min, The Engineering Mindset)
How Inland Waterways Work (22 min, Wendover Productions)
How Do Flood Control Structures Work? (11 min, Practical Engineering)
How Do Substations Work? (13 min, Practical Engineering)
How Do Seatbelts Work? (11 min, Real Engineering)
The SLS is Outdated. Why Does it Exist? (9 min, Real Engineering)
How do you make a Virtual Reality Glove? - Smarter Every Day 191 (17 min, Smarter Every Day)
How backspin ACTUALLY works - in super slow motion (16 min, Steve Mould)
Diodes Explained - The basics how diodes work working principle pn junction (12 min, The Engineering Mindset)
How the Navajo Nation Works (A Country Within a Country?) (17 min, Wendover Productions)
How Do Spillways Work? (8 min, Practical Engineering)
Why Does Wing Dihedral Make Planes Stable? (10 min, Real Engineering)
How diodes, LEDs and solar panels work (12 min, Steve Mould)
Bizarre liquid jets explained - the Kaye effect (10 min, Steve Mould)
How Long-Haul Trucking Works (13 min, Wendover Productions)
How Overnight Shipping Works (11 min, Wendover Productions)
How Different Spillway Gates Work (15 min, Practical Engineering)
How Do You Steer a Drill Below The Earth? (15 min, Practical Engineering)
How LED Works - Unravel the Mysteries of How LEDs Work! (19 min, The Engineering Mindset)
Variable Frequency Drives Explained - VFD Basics IGBT inverter (15 min, The Engineering Mindset)
Star Delta Starter Explained - Working Principle (11 min, The Engineering Mindset)
How Living at the South Pole Works (15 min, Wendover Productions)
Mini Countries Abroad: How Embassies Work (14 min, Wendover Productions)
Transformers Explained - How transformers work (17 min, The Engineering Mindset)
Programable Logic Controller Basics Explained - automation engineering (15 min, The Engineering Mindset)
Power Inverters Explained - How do they work working principle IGBT (14 min, The Engineering Mindset)
How the US' Hospital Ships Work (11 min, Wendover Productions)
Living Underwater: How Submarines Work (12 min, Wendover Productions)
Cities at Sea: How Aircraft Carriers Work (12 min, Wendover Productions)
How Fighting Wildfires Works (10 min, Wendover Productions)
Small Planes Over Big Oceans (ETOPS Explained) (9 min, Wendover Productions)
How does a Tank work? (M1A2 Abrams) (10 min, Jared Owen)
Why is this Epoxy Glowing? (27 min, Tech Ingredients)
Power Factor Explained – Your Electricity Bill Money Drain (Reactive Power) (16 min, The Engineering Mindset)
How Potentiometer Works - Unravel the Mysteries of How potentiometers Work! (18 min, The Engineering Mindset)
Sub Panels Explained - Why are neutral and ground separated? (16 min, The Engineering Mindset)
How Optocouplers work - opto-isolator solid state relays phototransistor (18 min, The Engineering Mindset)
Ohms Law Explained - The basics circuit theory (10 min, The Engineering Mindset)
Power Factor Explained - The basics what is power factor pf (11 min, The Engineering Mindset)
The World's Shortcut: How the Panama Canal Works (11 min, Wendover Productions)
How Air Traffic Control Works (16 min, Wendover Productions)
How a VPN Works (9 min, Animagraffs)

Top-Rated Books About How It Works

The Way Things Work Now by David Macaulay (4.3/5) - View on Amazon
How Things Work by Louis A. Bloomfield - View on Amazon
Thing Explainer by Randall Munroe (4.2/5) - View on Amazon
What If? by Randall Munroe (4.3/5) - View on Amazon