Netflix’s new Matthew Perry documentary arrives tomorrow, Tuesday, October 27, 2026 — one day before the third anniversary of the actor’s death. The three-part series, The One About Matthew Perry, is built around the first on-camera interview with his younger sister, Mia Perry Bowick, and never-before-seen photos and home video from the family’s private archive.
For fans who knew Perry mainly as Chandler Bing on Friends, the series promises a different portrait: the brother, friend and advocate described by the people closest to him, rather than a retelling of headlines about his addiction and death.
What is the documentary?
Directed by Emmy winner Mary Robertson and produced by Maxine Productions with Sony Pictures Television, the series traces Perry’s rise from an aspiring actor in Los Angeles to global fame across 236 episodes of Friends, alongside his long battle with addiction and his later advocacy for recovery. Netflix’s logline describes him as “generous, funny, vulnerable, larger than life” and frames the series as a record of “the battles he fought to become the man behind the icon.”
Perry spoke openly about addiction during his life, including in his 2022 memoir, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing. The documentary returns to that honesty, but through family memories: Bowick, a licensed psychotherapist, has said she entered the field partly to better understand her brother’s addiction, and that speaking on camera took time to feel ready for.
Why his sister’s interview matters
Bowick’s testimony is the series’ main new material. In interviews ahead of the premiere, reported by People and other outlets, she has reframed familiar Friends moments through family eyes. She described the Season 7 Chandler-Monica wedding as bittersweet because Perry had just returned from rehab and the family feared for his health while he filmed the scene — a detail that echoes Perry’s own memoir account of being driven back to treatment after shooting that episode.
The funeral moment fans are talking about
Another moment drawing attention before release is Bowick’s account of Perry’s private funeral, reported by Parade from the documentary and Page Six coverage. She recalls Perry’s five Friends co-stars — Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, David Schwimmer and Matt LeBlanc — arriving together, embracing her, and then gathering around his casket holding hands and crying, with an unexpected moment of laughter breaking through the grief.
How to watch
- Title: The One About Matthew Perry
- Format: three-part docuseries, about 50 minutes per episode in listings
- Premiere: Tuesday, October 27, 2026, on Netflix in the US
- Director: Mary Robertson
- Key interview: Mia Perry Bowick, Perry’s sister, on camera for the first time
- Also featured: Roger Castillo, David Pressman, Warren Littlefield, Kevin Pollak and others
Bottom line: If you watch one thing about Matthew Perry this week, this is the one made with his family’s archive and his sister’s voice at its center — arriving just as the anniversary makes his story hardest, and most human, to revisit.
If you or someone you know is struggling with addiction or a mental health crisis in the US, you can call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, or call 1-800-662-4357 for the national substance-use helpline.
