Help! I'm stuck in Netflix documentary land!

[SsnakeBite, the No1 Frenchman]

So I've been hearing a lot about these docs for a while now, and with fellow FAN users mentioning some that sounded particularly interesting, namely the Fyre festival one and Abducted in Plain Sight, I decided to give them a try and now I can't stop watching them; they're fascinating! So what are some other good ones?

I just finished the Ted Bundy series and just found one about Rajneeshpuram, which I especially want to see because I saw the Down the Rabbit Hole episode about it and I already could barely believe what I heard from that, so I'm hoping to get more details from this series.

[Clash, Never a Meter Maid]

Feb 18, 2019 6:58:48 GMT -5 SsnakeBite, the No1 Frenchman said:

So I've been hearing a lot about these docs for a while now, and with fellow Cracked users mentioning some that sounded particularly interesting, namely the Fyre festival one and Abducted in Plain Sight, I decided to give them a try and now I can't stop watching them; they're fascinating! So what are some other good ones?

I just finished the Ted Bundy series and just found one about Rajneeshpuram, which I especially want to see because I saw the Down the Rabbit Hole episode about it and I already could barely believe what I heard from that, so I'm hoping to get more details from this series.

You mean Wild Wild Country? Yeah, that one is insane. You couldn’t script an epic tale like that.

[El Pollo Guerrera]

I don't Netflix, do they have "Electric Boogaloo", the one about Cannon Films? You should see that if so. It may start you on a Cannon Films Mick, though...

[King Boo]

If you're still feeling a true crime vibe, there's also Evil Genius and The Innocent Man.

[Tenshigure]

Hell, you could do what my wife does and just marathon the hell out of Forensic Files if murder mysteries are your MO...

[Perd]

The Keepers - Doc Series about the murder of a nun. Very disturbing subject matter. But it’s really good.

[SsnakeBite, the No1 Frenchman]

Feb 18, 2019 7:28:22 GMT -5 Clash, Never a Meter Maid said:

Feb 18, 2019 6:58:48 GMT -5 SsnakeBite, the No1 Frenchman said:

So I've been hearing a lot about these docs for a while now, and with fellow Cracked users mentioning some that sounded particularly interesting, namely the Fyre festival one and Abducted in Plain Sight, I decided to give them a try and now I can't stop watching them; they're fascinating! So what are some other good ones?

I just finished the Ted Bundy series and just found one about Rajneeshpuram, which I especially want to see because I saw the Down the Rabbit Hole episode about it and I already could barely believe what I heard from that, so I'm hoping to get more details from this series.

You mean Wild Wild Country? Yeah, that one is insane. You couldn’t script an epic tale like that.

Yeah, that's the one. I literally just finished marathonning it. Highly recommended to anybody who even has a passing interest on the subject, or cults in general. I actually did find out a lot of details that weren't in the Down the Rabbit Hole episode, although oddly it also seems to lack some details that were in there (like Sheela supposedly having a woman's uterus removed for criticizing her in a letter to Rajneesh). I was very pleasantly surprised by the neutral tone of the documentary as well, as it did seem to want to give all major figures a chance to give their point of view, which really strengthened the doc in my opinion, even showing how the commune helped repair the local environment, bringing back flora and fauna that were almost extinct in the area.

It didn't change my mind about that cult and its leaders, but it was at least interesting to hear how they viewed things, why they believed in the commune and how blinded some of them were by Rajneesh (to say nothing of how borderline brainwashed the members of the commune were). Speaking of that, I was especially surprised to find they even got to interview Sheela herself, and she seems like such a sweet old lady too, but even as she speaks while being interviewed, I felt barely contained rage behind her words at times. However, I ended up being very happy for Jane Stork in the end, that she was able to move past all that and get her life back to normal (albeit in a very sad context), as not only did she serve her time but of the leaders of the commune, she seems to be the only one who seems genuinely repentant, isn't making excuses, takes full responsibility for what she did and wants nothing more than to make amends.

Honestly, even outside of the topic, it's just a really damn good, very well made documentary. Lots of different points of view, very matter of fact retelling of the events and really covers not only what happened, but what happened before, giving you context explaining how it was allowed to happen, and what the aftermath was. And it's one of those that really needed to be a series, all the information given is crucial to understand what went on and why it matters. And like you said, if it were a work of fiction, it would be dismissed as completely unbelievable. Hell, it's hard to believe even knowing for a fact that it's true.

[Cranjis McBasketball]

Evil Genius was great, could have been a few episodes shorter or at least more concise, but it’s still great.

[Ishmeal Loves Kaseyhausen]

Another vote for Evil Genius.

[KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!!]

Holy Hell is a pretty good one if you’re fascinated by cults. The big thing with this one is how much access and material the filmmaker had to work with. Basically the cult had a documentarian as a member for 20 years. He then became disenchanted and made this documentary.

[Cranjis McBasketball]

I haven’t seen it yet but heard an interview with Gilbert Gottfried and Larry Charles: Dangerous World of Comedy sounds very interesting.

[SsnakeBite, the No1 Frenchman]

Lots of very interesting suggestions already. THanks, eveyrone, keep 'em coming if you've got more! I'm especially glad for your input some of those showed up in my suggestions but I wasn't sure about them, so your approval seals the deal for me.

[sfvega]

Oklahoma City is pretty good, and without getting political, the themes present there are aging depressingly well.

[abjordans]

I second Evil Genius, it is nuts, I was surprised it didn’t go kind of viral like Abducted in Plain Sight and Making a Murderer.

[Ultimo Gallos]

100 years,about a First Nations woman suing the US government for misusing money owed to various Native Americans. Really well done. And unlike some other documentaries I have seen recently, this one isn't a bloated mess. It is 1 hour and 10 minutes.

42 pages.. is a fun documentary about Highlights magazine. I don't know how much appeal it will have for anyone that didn't grow up reading Highlights.

A Band Called Death. ..A amazing documentary about a band from Detroit in the early 70s. Death was/is a proto punk band that were unknown until over 30 years after they formed. If you like bands like MC5,The Stooges and The Who you will love Death.

[Cranjis McBasketball]

Feb 19, 2019 5:41:18 GMT -5 abjordans said:

I second Evil Genius, it is nuts, I was surprised it didn’t go kind of viral like Abducted in Plain Sight and Making a Murderer.

Well it did have the maybe they knew the story, maybe not movie “30 Minutes or Less” but that was before Evil Genius.

[Deleted]

Evil Genius was good, but it was clearly designed to absolve Wells of any complicity in the heist, which I have a hard time believing. I think that he thought that the bomb was a fake for sure, but have trouble believing he wasn’t involved when he took the cane shotgun into the bank and was super calm during the entire robbery and after he was captured by the police. We’ll never know for sure though.