The most expensive documentary ever made right now is widely reported to be Melania (2026), a feature-length documentary about First Lady Melania Trump, whose acquisition and marketing costs are estimated at around 75 million US dollars in total.

Quick Scoop: What “most expensive” means

There are actually a few different “most expensive” titles, depending on how you measure cost.

  • Highest total spend (film + marketing):
    • Melania (2026) – Amazon is reported to have paid about 40 million dollars for the film and then spent roughly another 35 million on global promotion, putting the total near 75 million dollars, which industry coverage has called the most expensive nonfiction film ever made.
  • Most expensive per minute (TV documentary series):
    • Walking with Dinosaurs (BBC, 1999) – cost about 6.1 million pounds (roughly 9.9 million dollars at the time), with production costs of about 37,654 pounds (around 61,000 dollars) per minute, earning it a Guinness World Record as the most expensive television documentary series per minute.
  • Very high-budget nature feature documentary:
    • Earth (2007) – a theatrical documentary spin-off from BBC’s Planet Earth with a reported production budget around 47 million dollars, often cited as one of the most expensive documentary films ever produced on a pure production-budget basis.

Short narrative snapshot

Imagine the “most expensive documentary ever” crown as a moving trophy:

  • In the late 1990s, Walking with Dinosaurs grabbed headlines because its dinosaur CGI made each minute of screen time astonishingly costly, setting a record on a per‑minute basis.
  • In the 2000s, big nature docs like Planet Earth and Earth pushed up overall budgets, with Earth crossing into the tens of millions just for production.
  • By the mid‑2020s, streamers and studios started treating prestige nonfiction almost like blockbuster features; Melania stands out because the combination of acquisition fee and aggressive marketing push drives its all‑in price tag far beyond what most documentaries ever see, leading trade and business outlets to label it the most expensive nonfiction film to date.

Notable big-budget documentaries (quick reference)

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Title Year Type Approx. cost / claim Why it’s notable
Melania 2026 Feature documentary ~40 million dollars acquisition + ~35 million dollars marketing ≈ 75 million dollars total spend (reported) Widely described in business and entertainment press as the most expensive nonfiction film ever made once marketing is included.
Earth 2007 Feature nature documentary Production budget reported around 47 million dollars Frequently cited as one of the costliest production budgets for a documentary film, built from years of high-end nature footage.
Planet Earth 2006 TV nature documentary series Reported total budget around 25 million dollars Landmark BBC series whose high budget set a new bar for natural history TV.
Walking with Dinosaurs 1999 TV documentary series 6.1 million pounds total; about 37,654 pounds per minute Holds a Guinness World Record as the most expensive TV documentary series per minute, due to intensive CGI and animatronics.
The World at War 1973 TV documentary series Equivalent to roughly 17.6 million dollars after inflation (estimate cited in retrospectives) Large-scale WWII series whose cost came from extensive research and interviews over several years.

Forum-style angle and “latest news”

From a “trending topic” and forum-discussion perspective:

  • Commentators and news outlets now point to Melania as the benchmark for how far streamers will go in spending to secure and launch a high-profile nonfiction title.
  • Discussions often compare it to Earth and Planet Earth , asking whether the extra tens of millions are truly on screen (production and access) or mainly in marketing and positioning in a highly competitive streaming landscape.
  • There’s also debate about what counts when we say “most expensive documentary ever made”: just the production budget, or the entire life-cycle cost including acquisition deals and global promotion.

So, if you’re writing or posting about this right now, you can accurately say:

In 2026, Melania is widely described as the most expensive documentary ever made when you factor in both the acquisition price and the massive marketing spend, eclipsing earlier high‑budget titles like Earth and record‑setting series such as Walking with Dinosaurs and Planet Earth.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.