What do you want to watch tonight?
Each title says who it's good for, and who it isn't. Tap what you want tonight, or say no to one and why.
Closest to Wild Wild Country first
Making a Murderer 2015
Documentary
Filmed over 10 years, this real-life thriller follows a DNA exoneree who, while exposing police corruption, becomes a suspect in a grisly new crime.
The sides of Making a Murderer
- A man freed by DNA after 18 years in prison
- A new murder charge two years later
- A nephew's confession and the trials that follow
Good for you if
- you want to weigh the evidence in the Steven Avery case yourself.
- you like seeing how a county police force and a court work up close.
- you like a case followed over ten years, hearing by hearing.
Bad for you if
- a real young woman's murder and a teenager's interrogation are too much for you.
- you need some hope, and a family's ten-year fight through prison visits and appeals wears you down.
About: justice · doubt · family
The Jinx 2015
Documentary
Robert Durst, scion of NY's billionaire real-estate family, has been accused of three murders but has evaded justice for over 30 years. Durst speaks in this true crime series, revealing secrets of a case that has baffled authorities.
The sides of The Jinx
- Robert Durst answering questions on camera
- Three deaths across New York and Texas
- Old letters and a handwriting match
Good for you if
- you like a New York real-estate heir who seems out of reach of the law.
- you like a cold case reopened piece by piece.
- you like watching a man answer questions he could have refused.
Bad for you if
- you can't sit through real murders and grieving families.
- you need momentum, and long interviews lose you.
About: wealth · guilt · justice
Oppenheimer 2023
Film
The story of J. Robert Oppenheimer's role in the development of the atomic bomb during World War II.
The sides of Oppenheimer
- The man who built the bomb
- A secret town in the desert
- A hearing that decides his fate
Good for you if
- you like a lead performance carried by the eyes.
- you like rooms full of brilliant people arguing.
- you want to feel the first test in your chest.
Bad for you if
- three hours of talking is too much for one evening.
- you want action. It's mostly meetings and hearings.
- you want a story told in order. It jumps between periods.
About: guilt · power · science
Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief 2015
Documentary
The film profiles eight former members of the Church of Scientology, shining a light on how they attract true believers and the things they do in the name of religion.
The sides of Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief
- Eight former members of the Church of Scientology
- How a science fiction writer founded a religion
- Testimony about abuse inside the church
Good for you if
- you like hearing people explain how they came to believe, and how they left.
- you want to know how an organisation keeps control of its members.
- you like long testimonies where people choose every word.
Bad for you if
- you can't listen to accounts of psychological abuse and broken families.
- you lose track when names pile up. Eight former members, two church leaders and a few film stars come and go.
About: belief · control · leaving
Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich 2020
Documentary
Stories from survivors fuel this docuseries examining how convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein used his wealth and power to carry out his abuses.
The sides of Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich
- Survivors telling their own stories
- A billionaire's homes in Palm Beach and New York
- A 2008 plea deal and its consequences
Good for you if
- you want to hear the survivors in their own words.
- you want to understand how money and connections protected one man for years.
Bad for you if
- you can't hear accounts of the sexual abuse of teenage girls.
- you need some hope, and justice here comes late and incomplete.
About: abuse of power · justice · survivors
Icarus 2017
Documentary
While investigating the furtive world of illegal doping in sports, director Bryan Fogel connects with renegade Russian scientist Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov—a pillar of his country’s “anti-doping” program. Over dozens of Skype calls, urine samples, and badly administered hormone injections, Fogel and Rodchenkov grow closer despite shocking allegations that place Rodchenkov at the center of Russia’s state-sponsored Olympic doping program.
The sides of Icarus
- An amateur cyclist doping himself to test the system
- A Russian scientist on Skype calls
- Russia's state doping programme at the Olympics
Good for you if
- you like a film that starts as a stunt and turns into a political thriller.
- you want to know how athletes beat the drug tests.
- you like a true story told by the man who ran Russia's anti-doping lab.
Bad for you if
- you want an easygoing sports film. Icarus is about doping, lies and a whistleblower who fears for his safety.
- you want more than calls, documents and interviews.
About: cheating · courage · the state
Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel 2021
Documentary
The notorious Cecil Hotel grows in infamy when guest Elisa Lam vanishes. A dive into crime's darkest places.
The sides of Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel
- A downtown Los Angeles hotel with a dark past
- A young guest who disappears in 2013
- Elevator footage that went around the internet
Good for you if
- you like a disappearance that seems to have no explanation.
- you like a hotel where every floor seems to hide something.
Bad for you if
- a real young woman's disappearance and her family's pain are too much for you.
- you need momentum, and four episodes circle one case through the hotel's past and online theories.
About: disappearance · rumor · mental health
Citizenfour 2014
Documentary
In June 2013, Laura Poitras and reporter Glenn Greenwald flew to Hong Kong for the first of many meetings with Edward Snowden. She brought her camera with her.
The sides of Citizenfour
- Edward Snowden in a Hong Kong hotel room
- Journalists deciding what to publish
- A fire alarm that makes everyone freeze
Good for you if
- you like the days before a leak, filmed as they happen in one hotel room.
- you want to watch Snowden explain, in his own words, why he did it.
- you like seeing how governments watch their own citizens.
Bad for you if
- you need momentum, and most of it is people talking at a desk.
- you want scale and sound, not a laptop and a hotel bed.
About: surveillance · privacy · courage
The Imposter 2012
Documentary
In 1994, a 13-year-old boy disappeared without a trace from his home in San Antonio, Texas. Three-and-a-half years later, he is found alive in a village in southern Spain with a horrifying story of kidnap and torture. His family is overjoyed to bring him home. But all is not quite as it seems.
The sides of The Imposter
- A Texas boy missing for three years, found in Spain
- A family welcoming him home
- A man telling the camera how he lied
Good for you if
- you like a story that gets stranger every ten minutes.
- you like an investigation where the questions keep changing.
- you like hearing a con man explain his con himself.
Bad for you if
- you can't take a real missing child and a grieving family.
- you can't stand not knowing who to believe. Each witness tells the story their own way.
About: identity · lies · grief
Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer 2021
Documentary
Beneath the sunlit glamour of 1985 L.A. lurks a relentlessly evil serial killer. In this true-crime story, two detectives won't rest until they catch him.
The sides of Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer
- Los Angeles in the summer of 1985
- Two detectives on a serial killer's trail
- Witnesses and survivors telling what they saw
Good for you if
- you like a manhunt where the city waits for the next attack.
- you like the feel of 1980s Los Angeles in archive footage.
- you want the detectives who worked the case to tell it.
Bad for you if
- you can't hear survivors recall attacks in their own homes.
- you can't look at crime scene photos.
About: fear · the hunt · justice
Spotlight 2015
Film
The true story of how the Boston Globe uncovered the massive scandal of child molestation and cover-up within the local Catholic Archdiocese, shaking the entire Catholic Church to its core.
The sides of Spotlight
- Journalists investigating abuse in the Church
- Interviews with survivors
- A city that looked away
Good for you if
- you like a story told through interviews and documents.
- you want to see how a true investigation was done.
- you like slow-building pressure on the powerful.
Bad for you if
- child abuse, even described, is too much tonight.
- you want action. It's phone calls and paper.
About: truth · power · complicity
Tiger King 2020
Documentary
A zoo owner spirals out of control amid a cast of eccentric characters in this true murder-for-hire story from the underworld of big cat breeding.
The sides of Tiger King
- A private zoo full of tigers in Oklahoma
- A feud between Joe Exotic and Carole Baskin
- A murder-for-hire plot
Good for you if
- you can laugh at how far a feud between zoo owners goes.
- you like a real story stranger than anything you'd make up.
- you like a cast of big cat breeders who each seem invented.
Bad for you if
- you can't watch big cats kept in cages and badly treated.
- you need answers, and the disappearance of Carole Baskin's husband is never solved.
About: obsession · rivalry · greed
Unsolved Mysteries 2020
Documentary
Real cases of perplexing disappearances, shocking murders and paranormal encounters fuel this gripping revival of the iconic documentary series.
The sides of Unsolved Mysteries
- Real disappearances and unsolved murders
- UFO sightings and ghost stories
- Families still waiting for answers
Good for you if
- you like a case you can try to solve in an hour.
- you can live with an episode that ends without an answer.
- you like UFO lights in the sky between two murder cases.
Bad for you if
- you can't watch real families still grieving a loved one.
- you can't take paranormal episodes next to real crimes.
About: disappearance · the unexplained · grief
Chernobyl 2019
Series
The true story of one of the worst man-made catastrophes in history: the catastrophic nuclear accident at Chernobyl. A tale of the brave men and women who sacrificed to save Europe from unimaginable disaster.
The sides of Chernobyl
- The night a reactor exploded
- Scientists against the lies of a state
- Men sent onto the roof
Good for you if
- you like dread that never lets go.
- you want to understand a real disaster.
- you can take a grim, unflinching story.
Bad for you if
- radiation sickness shown in detail is too hard for you.
- you can't watch animals being shot. Soldiers clear the zone of the pets left behind.
About: truth · sacrifice · lies
The Wire 2002
Series
Told from the points of view of both the Baltimore homicide and narcotics detectives and their targets, the series captures a universe in which the national war on drugs has become a permanent, self-sustaining bureaucracy, and distinctions between good and evil are routinely obliterated.
The sides of The Wire
- Baltimore cops wiretapping a drug crew
- The docks, the schools, City Hall and the newspaper
- Dealers and detectives seen from both sides
Good for you if
- you like seeing how police, politics and schools keep a city stuck.
- you like a case built patiently over a whole season.
- you want people like Omar, Stringer Bell and McNulty to stay with you.
Bad for you if
- you lose track with dozens of characters on both sides.
- you need some hope. Baltimore rarely changes here.
About: institutions · the drug war · loyalty
BlacKkKlansman 2018
Film
Colorado Springs, late 1970s. Ron Stallworth, an African American police officer, and Flip Zimmerman, his Jewish colleague, run an undercover operation to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan.
The sides of BlacKkKlansman
- A Black cop infiltrating the KKK
- A Jewish partner playing his body
- Phone calls with the Grand Wizard
Good for you if
- you like absurd true stories told with humour.
- you like stories that really happened.
- you like undercover scenes that could go wrong.
Bad for you if
- real racist violence shown at the end is too much tonight.
- you'd rather keep politics out of your evening. It ends on Charlottesville in 2017.
About: racism · identity · resistance
Fahrenheit 9/11 2004
Documentary
Michael Moore's view on how the Bush administration allegedly used the tragic events on 9/11 to push forward its agenda for unjust wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The sides of Fahrenheit 9/11
- The 2000 election and September 11
- A president in a classroom after the attacks
- A mother from Flint who lost her son in Iraq
Good for you if
- you want news footage and interviews from the Bush years in one film.
- you like following money and oil between Washington and Saudi Arabia.
- you like Michael Moore's mocking edits and pop songs over politicians.
Bad for you if
- a mother reading her dead son's last letter is too much for you.
- you can't watch real footage of wounded civilians and soldiers in Iraq.
About: war · grief · politics
The Tinder Swindler 2022
Documentary
Posing as a wealthy, jet-setting diamond mogul, an Israeli conman wooed women online then conned them out of millions of dollars. Now, some victims plan for payback.
The sides of The Tinder Swindler
- A man posing as a diamond heir on a dating app
- Private jets paid for with other women's loans
- Three women who decide to fight back
Good for you if
- you like seeing exactly how a con works, message by message.
- you like hearing the women he fooled tell it themselves.
- you like the moment the money runs out and the threats start.
Bad for you if
- you came for a love story. This is about how one was faked.
- you can't watch real people sink into debt and fear.
About: trust · money · betrayal
Pablo Escobar: The Drug Lord 2012
Series
Pablo is a man with a natural ability for business. Early in his life, Pablo is introduced to the business of cocaine and the power it yields. A young life of crime lands Pablo in and out of jail as he builds his criminal empire. Pablo expands his power through politics but it is not long before his conflicts as a Congressman and a drug lord collide. Pablo has his enemies executed, but not before the United States activates its own war on the Medellin cartel.
The sides of Pablo Escobar: The Drug Lord
- The life of Pablo Escobar from petty crime to cartel boss
- A drug lord elected to Congress
- Colombia under the Medellín cartel's war
Good for you if
- you want the story of Pablo Escobar told from Colombia, about the country that lived through him.
- you like following how a cocaine empire was built, step by step.
- you like watching money buy politics until the state fights back.
Bad for you if
- you won't read subtitles for a Spanish-language series.
- you can't watch bombings and murders that happened to real people.
- a telenovela with daily-length episodes is too much for you.
About: power · violence · memory
Bowling for Columbine 2002
Documentary
This is not a film about gun control. It is a film about the fearful heart and soul of the United States, and the 280 million Americans lucky enough to have the right to a constitutionally protected Uzi. From a look at the Columbine High School security camera tapes to the home of Oscar-winning NRA President Charlton Heston, from a young man who makes homemade napalm with The Anarchist's Cookbook to the murder of a six-year-old girl by another six-year-old. Bowling for Columbine is a journey through the US, through our past, hoping to discover why our pursuit of happiness is so riddled with violence.
The sides of Bowling for Columbine
- A bank that hands out a rifle when you open an account
- Columbine security camera footage
- An interview with Charlton Heston at his home
Good for you if
- you want a road trip through America asking why it has so many shootings.
- you can laugh at a cartoon history of America while the subject is gun deaths.
- you like a sardonic narrator who questions everyone from Marilyn Manson to Charlton Heston.
Bad for you if
- a school shooting and a six-year-old girl's death are too much for you.
- you can't watch real footage from inside a school during a shooting.
About: guns · fear · violence