A cult above: These documentaries stand out
Stories unfold about high-control groups, religious movements and spiritual sects
A decade after TV’s truecrime renaissance began, the cult documentary is having a breakout moment. For those who can’t get enough, we’ve compiled a list of the best documentaries on the subject you can stream right now.
‘Love Has Won: The Cult
of Mother God’: This documentary opens with bodycam footage of police discovering the mummified body of a woman named Amy Carlson, wrapped in a sleeping bag and Christmas lights — and it only gets more disturbing from there. Better known to her followers as “Mother God,” Carlson led a small, cult-like group called Love Has Won. Directed by Hannah Olson, this riveting three-episode series chart’s Carlson’s strange journey from Kansas-born mother of three and McDonald’s manager to self-proclaimed spiritual guru. (Max)
‘Jonestown: Life and Death of Peoples Temple’ and ‘Jonestown: Terror in
the Jungle’: It has been 45 years since more than 900 members of Peoples Temple died by ingesting cyanide-laced fruit punch in the jungles of Guyana in a mass murder-suicide. The question of how Jim Jones, a power-mad con artist, was able to persuade them to do the unthinkable sits at the heart of these documentaries. Directed by filmmaker Stanley Nelson, the former is effective at demonstrating how the charismatic preacher built a large, diverse congregation. The latter also examines the painful aftermath for traumatized survivors. (Kanopy and AMC+)
‘Escaping Twin Flames’ and ‘Desperately Seeking Soulmate: Escaping Twin Flames Universe’:
Twin Flames Universe is a spiritual community and self-help program that promises to help singles find their “twin flame,” or ideal romantic partner.
Two documentaries center on Jeff and Shaleia Ayan, the married couple who started TFU. Directed by Cecilia Peck, the former focuses more on former members traumatized by their involvement with TFU. The latter reveals more about the Ayans’ back story and how two utterly average millennials harnessed the power of the internet to become wealthy, self-styled dating gurus. (Netflix and Amazon Prime Video)
‘Stolen Youth: Inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence’:
This series tells the baffling, heartbreaking story of how Larry Ray, a middleaged father, moved into his daughter’s dorm at Sarah Lawrence College in suburban New York, befriended her roommates and proceeded to coerce and abuse them for the next decade. Directed by Zach Heinzerling, “Stolen Youth” doesn’t really explain what made Ray so alluring, and viewers are left to contemplate the mystery of why these young people derailed their lives for such an obvious charlatan. (Hulu)
‘Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family
Secrets’: This four-part documentary peels back the Duggars’ wholesome reality TV facade to explore the infamous family’s connections to the Institute in Basic Life Principles, an ultraconservative, highly influential religious ministry that many former adherents have described as a cult. Directed by Julia Willoughby Nason and Olivia Crist, “Shiny Happy People” makes the case that “19 Kids and Counting” and spinoff “Counting
On” put an anodyne gloss on the Duggars’ extreme fundamentalism and served as a televised ministry. (Amazon Prime Video)
‘Wild Wild Country’:
Rajneeshees, devotees of an Indian mystic named Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, came to national attention in the mid-1980s when they were accused of poisoning hundreds of people via restaurant salad bars. The hit documentary turned the forgotten cult into a pop culture obsession. Over six engrossing episodes rich with archival footage, directors Chapman and Maclain Way tell the story of how the Bhagwan’s followers took over a 65,000-acre ranch near the tiny town of Antelope, Oregon, and transformed it into Rajneeshpuram, a thriving village with its own pizza parlor and bank. (Netflix)
‘Heaven’s Gate: Cult of
Cults’: In 1997, 39 members of Heaven’s Gate, a celibate religious sect, died in a mass ritual suicide timed to the approach of the HaleBopp Comet. “Heaven’s Gate: Cult of Cults,” a fourpart series directed by Clay Tweel, tells the story of how Bonnie Lu Nettles and Marshall Herff Applewhite, spiritual seekers who befriended each other in the 1970s, renamed themselves “Ti” and “Do” and attracted a devoted following through beliefs that melded apocalyptic Christianity with the spaceships and extraterrestrials of science fiction. (Max)
‘The Vow’ and ‘Seduced: Inside the NXIVM Cult’:
These docuseries took very different approaches to telling the story of NXIVM, a self-help multilevel marketing company turned “sex cult,” and its leader, Keith Raniere, who was accused of coercing women into sexual servitude. Directed by Jehane Noujaim and Karim Amer, the former follows NXIVM members Mark Vicente, Bonnie Piesse and Sarah Edmondson over the course of several years as they extricate themselves from the group. Directed by Cecilia Peck, the latter is more linear and direct — and faster to reveal the severity of Raniere’s crimes. (Max and Starz)
‘Keep Sweet: Pray and
Obey’: This four-part docuseries offers an in-depth look at the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, a polygamist sect whose leader and prophet, Warren Jeffs, is serving a life sentence plus 20 years for the sexual assault of two girls. “Keep Sweet” focuses on the stories of survivors — impossibly brave women like Elissa Wall, who was married off to her abusive 19-year-old cousin at the age of 14 but later escaped and testified against Jeffs. (Netflix)
‘Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief’:
The Church of Scientology has been viewed with skepticism since the 1950s, when L. Ron Hubbard decided to repackage the contents of his selfhelp bestseller “Dianetics”
as a religion. Though Alex Gibney’s eye-opening documentary paints Hubbard as an abusive scam artist, it makes the case that successor David Miscavige, who successfully battled the IRS to obtain tax-exempt status for the church, might be even worse. (Max)
‘The Way Down: God, Greed and the Cult of
Gwen Shamblin’: Director Marina Zenovich was nearly done with postproduction on a docuseries about Gwen Shamblin Lara when the religious leader and diet guru died in a plane crash in May 2021. The first three episodes of the series examine Lara’s controversial weight-loss program and the allegedly abusive practices within her church. The final two installments look at how her unexpected death threw her religious and wellness empire into upheaval. (Max)
‘Krishnas: Gurus. Karma.
Murder.’: This three-part series explores a dark chapter in the story of the Hare Krishnas. Kirtanananda Swami, who ruled over New Vrindaban, a community in a remote corner of West Virginia, pushed his followers to build a palace of gold in what was once a wilderness, but also inspired more sinister behavior — including murder, domestic violence and child abuse. (Peacock)
‘Born in Synanon’: Synanon was founded by Chuck Dederich in the 1950s as an unorthodox drug rehabilitation program. Within two decades, it had morphed into a violent, military-style cult. Directed by Geeta Gandbhir, this four-part documentary follows Cassidy Arkin, who was raised in the group, and her mother, Sandra RogersHare, a former member, as they grapple with its legacy. (Paramount+)