GETTING REAL
Documentaries based on real-life events are booming in popularity
Pushing play on crime docs
It’s been five years since Robert Durst made a shocking apparent confession in the final episode of HBO’s The Jinx. Months later, Netflix’s flawed but engrossing Making a Murderer became a streaming sensation. Television’s true-crime space has exploded in the years since, with documentaries tackling some of the darkest, most confounding aspects of human nature.
THE KEEPER S (2017)
This gripping Netflix docuseries explores the murder of Catherine Cesnik, a beloved teacher and nun who was found dead eight weeks after she mysteriously disappeared from a Baltimore suburb in 1969. The Keepers puts forward a haunting theory — related to the Catholic high school where Cesnik taught English — as it lays out the details of the still-unsolved case. But unlike many true-crime efforts, the series keeps its victim (and those who loved her) at the centre of its story.
WILD WILD COUNTRY (2018)
This addictive six-part Netflix series recalls the tension between the Rajneeshpuram, a religious movement founded by controversial guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, and government officials in 1980s Oregon. It’s a wild ride that involves sex, guns, a mass poisoning attack and figures charismatic enough to attract seemingly ordinary people to a cult.
THE STAIRCASE (2018)
French director Jean-Xavier de Lestrade won a Peabody award in 2005 for his pioneering true-crime documentary The Staircase, which recalled the suspicious death of Kathleen Peterson and the ensuing high-profile trial that sent her husband, Michael Peterson, to prison for life. But his conviction, nearly two years after Kathleen died in what he said was an accidental fall down the stairs, was just the beginning of a long legal battle. Lestrade brought an expanded, 13-episode version of his chilling documentary — with updates on Michael and his family — to Netflix in 2018.
WHO KILLED GARRETT PHILLIPS? (2019)
In this HBO documentary streaming on Crave, Liz Garbus (There’s Something Wrong With Aunt Diane) examines the 2011 murder of 12-year-old Garrett Phillips, who was found strangled in his Potsdam, N.Y., home. The film unpacks the deep racial division that led to the arrest and trial of Nick Hillary — a former boyfriend of Phillips’s mother and one of the town’s few black residents — despite questionable evidence (and Hillary’s self-proclaimed innocence.)
LORENA (2019)
This Amazon Prime docuseries, co-produced by Jordan Peele, revisits the infamous Lorena Bobbitt case with an emphasis on what was largely obscured by cruel latenight humour in the 1990s: the sexual and physical abuse Bobbitt (now known as Lorena Gallo) allegedly suffered at the hands of her then-husband, John Bobbitt.
THE MOST DANGEROUS ANIMAL OF ALL (2020)
This FX docuseries (available on FX Now Canada) follows Gary L. Stewart’s all-consuming quest — already the subject of a bestselling book — to uncover the identity of his biological father, who he comes to believe is the infamous Zodiac killer.
O.J.: MADE IN AMERICA (2016)
Ezra Edelman’s Oscar-winning ESPN documentary goes beyond the heinous crime for which O.J. Simpson was tried in 1994, taking an exacting look at how race played into Simpson’s unique brand of celebrity and why his murder case divided the nation. It’s worth a watch (now streaming on Crave) even if you can remember the sensational murder trial.
THE PHARMACIST (2020)
After his son was killed in a botched drug deal, pharmacist Dan Schneider embarked on an exhaustive (and risky) search for his son’s murderer. This Netflix docuseries, based on a 2017 Times-Picayune article, follows Schneider as he turns his efforts to another drug-related issue plaguing his hometown of New Orleans: the opioid crisis.
DON’T F**K WITH CATS: HUNTING AN INTERNET KILLER (2019)
It would appear that Netflix + cats of any size = documentary gold. Before Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness, there was this cult-favourite docuseries about amateur internet sleuths hunting for a brazen animal abuser.
TIGER KING: MURDER, MAYHEM AND MADNESS (2020)
Just in case you haven’t seen the series everyone is talking about, let us catch you up. Everyone is a character in this irreverent Netflix docuseries, which follows the murder-for-hire case that resulted from an escalating feud between private zoo owner Joe Exotic (also known as Joseph Maldonado-Passage) and animal rights activist Carole Baskin. In some ways, the series epitomizes the ethically murky territory that taints true crime as entertainment as it explores the unsettling world of animal trade.