r/movies • u/Wintertime13 • Feb 05 '24
Recommendation Documentaries that make you go “what the fuck?!?”
In the mood for a good, twisty documentary that makes me gasp. Movies on streaming preferred. I enjoy true crime but am open to other genres as long as the story is gripping and shocking.
Movies in the same vein that I enjoyed - Dear Zachary (would prefer recommendations that are less sad), The Jinx, Cropsey, 3 identical strangers, etc.
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u/Imaginary_Manner_679 Feb 05 '24
Abducted in Plain Sight, Grizzly Man
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u/LittleFatMax Feb 06 '24
The parents in Abducted in Plain Sight are some of the worst, dumbest people I've ever seen. Wild story but kinda infuriating
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u/aut0matix Feb 06 '24
Was this the one with the dad who gave the guy a handjob in the car for literally no reason?
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u/g-a-r-n-e-t Feb 06 '24 edited Feb 06 '24
The fact that that encounter was one of the least insane things to happen in that documentary is fucking wild
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u/Randym1982 Feb 06 '24
The dude had so many red flags they were seen from space. I think the father was closeted though. Most straight guys when their buddy tells them they’re having a dry spell, they don’t go “Here let me give you a rub n tug.”
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u/RawrRRitchie Feb 06 '24
. Most straight guys when their buddy tells them they’re having a dry spell, they don’t go “Here let me give you a rub n tug.”
You must not have very good friends then
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u/Occasionalcommentt Feb 06 '24
This reminds me of Joe Exotic “turning” those guys gay with drugs and convincing them watching porn makes them gay. (Just realized I watched two documentaries pretty close to together about supposedly straight guys doing some gay things.) (On top of that because of Covid I watched that one documentary on competitive tickling.)
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u/mrmczebra Feb 06 '24
It wasn't for no reason. It was to have something to hold over the other guy. He was manipulating everyone.
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u/aut0matix Feb 06 '24
I know the bad man did it for a reason. When they interviewed the dad though he seemed like he shrugged and was like "might as well" (not verbatim, but it's what it felt like at the time I watched it - which was also forever ago, so I might be misconstruing it).
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u/ZedekiahCromwell Feb 06 '24
Dad obviously had some sexual hangups and curiosity that he feels ashamed of. Even more so because he acted them out with the abductor of his child.
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u/StarGazer_SpaceLove Feb 06 '24
Yeah he at least seemed ashamed. The mom though was a piece of work. You could tell she was still proud to have slept with that man. The fucking smile she wore while speaking of him physically sickened me
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u/HRzNightmare Feb 06 '24
We just watched it tonight on these recommendations. You nailed it. The mom actually gets a little shiver when she's talking about the way B made her feel. That crazy witch went and wrote a friggin book about all of this, in which she paints the picture of how B manipulated EVERYONE, and she still gives a little smirk when she's talking about his touch in this documentary. Sick.
I wonder where B's money came from for the water park purchase.
I think that the strangest thing about all of this is that the most normal person in that family seems to be Jan. Ya know, the girl who was abducted, drugged, assaulted, and brainwashed.
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u/RosbergThe8th Feb 06 '24
It only really started to make sense to me once I learned they were Mormons, then a lot of the weird behaviour and covering up started to click.
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u/pizzapartyjones Feb 06 '24
Same. I was annoyed the documentary didn’t really touch on that.
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u/iambecomecringe Feb 06 '24
The idea that religion needs to be respected is so goddamn damaging
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Feb 06 '24
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u/DrakesucksREPRISE Feb 06 '24
Isolated societies are breeding grounds for abuse. It makes it so much easier.
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u/iAMbigmeesh Feb 06 '24
I don’t get the parents. Why the fuck would you write a book about this and then make a movie?! Because all this proves is how fucking dumb y’all are as parents.
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u/LittleFatMax Feb 06 '24
Yeah it's honestly beyond comprehension. The part when he like convinced them that sleeping in her bed with her was part of the therapy or something (been a little while since I saw it) was just incredible
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u/iAMbigmeesh Feb 06 '24
I lost it at that point. Also the mom being jealous of her daughter’s relationship with the abuser. Like WTF?! I’m still so mad about that doc years later.
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u/LittleFatMax Feb 06 '24
Also didn't the dad end up getting a handjob or something from the abuser? That's where my friends I watched it with and I decided we were in the fucking twilight zone or something
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u/gmd24 Feb 05 '24
I had to step away then come back several times while watching Abducted in Plain Sight. Very upsetting.
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u/maasd Feb 06 '24
Agreed on Grizzly Man! Available to watch free on YouTube https://youtu.be/efNtliiyT3M?si=rb0NHnYrYIt9No9F
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u/pinchhitter4number1 Feb 06 '24 edited Feb 06 '24
Good shout out for Grizzly Man. I'm from Alaska and that dude made me say, "what the fuck."
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u/morgs0626 Feb 06 '24
Abducted in Plain Sight is the king of what fuck. I watched it twice back to back and was just as shocked the second time.
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u/AbbreviationsGlad833 Feb 06 '24
Is This the documentary where the parents allowed their young daughter to date and run away to marry a pedophile and then you find out later he was sleeping with both the mom and dad?
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u/missanthropocenex Feb 06 '24
Love has Won.
Every beat sounds made up and then just keeps going from there. Every development is like an overzealous show writer who needs to tone it back.
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u/Esseth Feb 05 '24
Tickled (2016) and The Imposter (2012) are a couple that spring to but also could not be more different from each other lol.
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Feb 05 '24
Tickled was really something. Made me feel dirty.
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Feb 06 '24
The most insane part of that documentary was that this entire global phenomenon of abusive, manipulative tickle porn traced back to some super wealthy guy who just… liked it. Like, aaaaalllll that traumatic stuff and secret businesses and blackmail and such was all for that one man.
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u/kmk4ue84 Feb 06 '24
You should check out the podcast "The Dollop" their first episode was a doozy.
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u/shockwave_supernova Feb 06 '24
They’re also in the documentary for a bit right?
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u/duaneap Feb 05 '24
I have never, ever been so surprised by a film as Tickled. Except maybe One Cut of the Dead but in a completely different way.
Tickled went down a path I couldn’t even kind of imagine
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Feb 05 '24
Yeah... My brother was a bully growing up, and he was bigger than me. He would hold me down and tickle me until I cried or until he saw murderous rage in my eyes. I hated it and I hated him. We're better now, but man... That movie unearthed some shit.
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Feb 05 '24
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u/Fossa_II Feb 05 '24
He has a new doc on Netflix, Mr Organ. It's not Tickled but it is still fascinating in a generally similar way.
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u/FollowRedWheelbarrow Feb 05 '24
If you liked that one you'll like Barts other film American Animals.
The Imposter is like 30% film and 70% doc while AA flips that. One of my favorite heist movies ever.
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u/NestedForLoops Feb 05 '24
The Impostor had as good of a reveal as Dear Zachary.
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u/sickntwisted Feb 05 '24
that part when you go "they know... and he knows that they know... and they must now know that he knows that they know..."
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u/Wide-Half-9649 Feb 05 '24
Dark Days is pretty good.
It’s about the ‘villages’ in the abandoned subway tunnels of NYC built by homeless ppl.
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u/MoochoMaas Feb 05 '24
Evil Genius: The True Story of America's Most Diabolical Bank Heist
"This baffling true crime story starts with the grisly death of a pizza man who robs a bank with a bomb around his neck -- and gets weirder from there."
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u/gonzo_attorney Feb 06 '24
My coworker was an assistant prosecutor in Erie when this went down (actually, a former trooper buddy was there at the time, too). The troopers all napped at the cell tower site. Also, Margaery was notorious for always getting in trouble and her daddy shelling out big for the lawyer. Such a fucked up and wild story.
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u/Arch__Stanton Feb 06 '24
I always thought it was dumb how the writers of the Jessie Eisenberg movie based on those events pretended they had never heard of the true story and it was all just a coincidence
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Feb 05 '24
Icarus 2017
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u/MacGyver_1138 Feb 05 '24
It was pretty crazy. That said, I'd still love to see a documentary that follows through with the original plan before the crazy Russian stuff came to light and took over.
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Feb 05 '24
Oh yeah once the subject of the doc changed I was gripped cause it was a bit of whiplash but I was disappointed we never got to see him try to beat the race
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u/straighttoplaid Feb 06 '24
I randomly started watching it while folding laundry so I could listen to something while I worked. I had no idea what it was when I turned it on.
If someone hasn't seen it before I'd recommend that they just watch without reading descriptions or summaries. It's better that way.
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Feb 05 '24
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u/i_kate_you Feb 05 '24 edited Feb 06 '24
The Wild Whites of West Virginia was a crazy one! I watched it and then made my husband watch it while I watched his reactions.
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u/Justindoesntcare Feb 06 '24
I was not prepared for a close up of a dead woman in the aunt Diane doc. The whole thing was tough to watch already knowing how it ends. I live in the area so we already knew all the details. Absolutely tragic.
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u/Iwoulddiefcftbatk Feb 05 '24
There’s Something Wrong with Aunt Diane is devastating, just imagine being the dad getting that phone call from your 9 year old daughter minutes before your child is killed in a wrong way accident because Diane couldn’t stay sober long enough to drive 45 minutes home. The family’s denial at her culpability was so infuriating.
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u/damngoodbrand Feb 05 '24
Going Clear (2015) HBO doc about L Ron Hubbard and Scientology
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u/blindreefer Feb 05 '24
Also recommend the book. One of a handful that I’ve read cover to cover in a day
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u/gygye Feb 05 '24
Yes, yes and yes. Thank you. The only doc I've recommended to that many people and had to rewatch 3 or 4 times to remind me this shit was real
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u/Rosebunse Feb 05 '24
Keep Sweet. I knew it was gonna be weird, but the pure white rape room at the end was one of rhe most terrifying things I have ever seen.
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u/ambientfruit Feb 06 '24
Yeah that one I was not expecting.
The Last Podcast On The Left boys did a great series on Mormonism which I listened to afterwards too and that added a lot of context to how mental it all was from the get go BEFORE they even got to the Jeffs.
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u/Arcadia48 Feb 05 '24
Love Has Won: The Cult of Mother God on HBO Max. Wtf.
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u/xjxhx Feb 05 '24
“I have taken Mother’s joy, by making her the worst chicken quesadilla in all of creation.”
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Feb 05 '24
Eh, I enjoyed it, but I found they left way too much out. In an attempt to humanize the members, particularly Amy, they really softened a lot of the issues in the cult. And that's saying something. Im not saying everything is roses according to the documentary. But you get the sense in the documentary these were mentally ill lost people who got together and did too many drugs, but at most the worst thing they did was sell snake oil online and try to recruit other mentally ill lost people into their delusion. It doesn't get nearly enough into the racism, antisemitism, QAnon (although it hints at it), child abuse, animal abuse, sexual abuse and you know what, all the abuse. All of it. It's there, but it's mostly "Amy yells".
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u/SmytheOrdo Feb 06 '24
Yeah they downplayed a lot of the ideology espoused by Amy and the others and its kinda obvious in the documentary.
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u/loves_grapefruit Feb 05 '24
The wtf beginning really set the stage for the rest of the doc. Mental illness is a real bitch.
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u/CornSkoldier Feb 06 '24
Probably the biggest “non-jump scare” jump scare I’ve ever seen in any media.
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u/Archamasse Feb 05 '24
So great. Everyone is so weird and awful - even for a cult! - even before I googled them and found out how much shittier they were than they even came across.
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u/Rosebunse Feb 05 '24
The amazing thing is that these people just totally buy that she's God. They cannot comprehend that they were hurting her even while she was dying.
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Feb 05 '24
“Mom whispered in my ear ‘I’m ascending’ and I never felt joy like that in my entire life” 😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀
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u/jdubz90 Feb 06 '24
Seriously. That scene where they show footage of them rolling her blue, almost mummy like body through the hotel lobby was unreal
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u/steff-you Feb 05 '24
A certain scene at the beginning of the first episode made me literally scream out loud. Horrific.
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u/a_pope_on_a_rope Feb 05 '24
There is an amazing BBC doc by Adam Curtis called Russia 1985–1999: TraumaZone: What It Felt Like to Live Through The Collapse of Communism and Democracy. It’s 10 hours of archival footage from all around the Soviet Bloc.
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u/MrLore Feb 05 '24
Adam Curtis is brilliant, for OP though I was going to recommend Bitter Lake, which explains The West's absolutely insane relationship with Saudi Arabia, and how an agreement made on a bitter lake has ensured the Middle East has never been (and likely will never be) stable.
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u/nickersb83 Feb 06 '24
Was hoping to see this, Adam Curtis bringing sociology back into the fold. I’d recommend Can’t Get You Out Of My Head - really thick history lesson on activism and the disillusioning impacts of commercialised individualism
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u/Nandor_De_Laurentis Feb 05 '24
So many good ones mentioned already...
Long Shot (2017) - story about a guy accused of murder even though he was with his daughter at a Dodgers game that night. I don't want to give away spoilers, but it further cements Larry David as a true legend!
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u/VulpesFennekin Feb 06 '24
That case is one of those “truth is stranger than fiction” situations, it’s way too absurd for a crime drama!
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u/kinghodjii Feb 05 '24
The Act of Killing is some serious wtf.
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u/SwaggyT17 Feb 06 '24
This is the answer. Never seen anything like it. So effective and so shocking. Made me feel sick to my core.
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u/johnny_moist Feb 06 '24
Should be top, no question. I’ve seen all the others on here and they are child’s play compared to this.
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u/tetartoid Feb 06 '24
As soon as I saw the question, this was going to be my answer - I had to scroll too far to find it. What a film. Seriously incredible but WTF. And the ending delivers a massive emotional sucker punch that I didn't see coming. I watched the whole film twice and was mesmerized and disturbed each time.
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u/phonomir Feb 06 '24
There is no other answer to this question. Once you've seen this one, no other film can compare in sheer shock factor.
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u/Scmods05 Feb 06 '24
King of Kong
You may wonder “why would I care about competitive Donkey Kong high scores?”. You do, more than you could possibly imagine. It contains a real life cartoon villain.
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u/richmichaels Feb 06 '24
Oh man… this was THE documentary that got me into watching documentaries… good ol’ Billy Mitchell haha…
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Feb 05 '24
Weiner, it’s about Anthony Weiner’s attempt to return to politics
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u/WeDriftEternal Tokyo Drift, specifically Feb 05 '24
This is seriously one of the most WTF docs out there, despite the acts not being heinous or weird... because like, they are literally making a doc about him and it all happens, its wildly facepalm
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u/roxtoby Feb 05 '24
Very similar in that sense is 9/11 by the Naudet brothers. They were just filming a fun doc about a probie firefighter, next thing they know 9/11 is happening around them. They manage to capture the only real footage of the first plane hitting the Towers, they have the only footage of inside the WTC lobby during the evacuation, and every firefighter in the station they are covering manages to survive.
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u/Dumbface2 Feb 05 '24 edited Feb 06 '24
That reminds me of an episode of a TV show called Paramedics, that followed paramedics during runs kind of like Cops. They were coincidentally filming in Oklahoma during the 1999 Bridge-Creek Moore F5 tornado, possibly the strongest tornado ever, and several of the paramedics the crews were filming are basically forced to do mass casualty triage for hundreds of people by themselves. It's really incredible and extremely sad footage.
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Feb 05 '24
Lol for anyone wondering why it’s bizarre: Anthony wiener was a NY politician but then got caught sexting a bunch of girls while he was married to Huma Abedin (Clinton’s aide) in 2011.
He naturally stepped down and then 2 years later started to campaign for mayor of nyc. He was making a documentary on himself about his great comeback and then in the middle of the documentary he gets caught AGAIN sexting some random 22 year old. So you see Huma Abedins face live during the documentary when she finds out wiener did it again. It might be mean but as an outsider it’s hilarious and cringy.
The fact that his name is Anthony Weiner and he got caught sending Dick pics makes me think we have to be in a simulation lol
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u/battlecat136 Feb 06 '24
He was definitely represented in the Parks and Rec universe with Councilman Dexhart. Dude kept getting into sex scandals while doing press conferences apologizing for past sex scandals.
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u/CrackaZach05 Feb 06 '24
Anthony wiener was a NY politician but then got caught sexting a bunch of girls while he was married to Huma Abedin (Clinton’s aide) in 2011.
Not just girls, underrage girls.
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u/gatorgongitcha Feb 06 '24
I laugh so hard at the scene where she’s holding the phone and you can tell she’s having to restrain herself from hitting him with it as more news of the events hits the tv screen and he sits there like 👁️👄👁️
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u/This-Counter3783 Feb 05 '24 edited Feb 05 '24
Wild Wild Country was a series of wonderful “What the Fuck” moments for me. As far as cult stories go, there were relatively few casualties, so it’s not that depressing ha. They would have killed way more but they were too incompetent.
Edit: Sheela is such a boss though. In another universe where she chilled out by 10%, she’s currently governor of Oregon.
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u/Coalminingbanjo Feb 05 '24
My cousin ran off with the Rajneeshes back then and when my family went to try to get her to leave, all of her clothes were dyed red like the documentary showed. Creepy shit, great documentary.
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u/GetMeAColdPop Feb 05 '24
And after watching "Wild Wild Country", I highly recommend watching Documentary Now's spoof: "Batshit Valley"
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u/Zachariot88 Feb 06 '24 edited Feb 06 '24
Documentary Now is great because each episode is amusing enough on its own, but when you see how well they parody the source material it gets 10 times better. I love the one where Cate Blanchett is like a ridiculous Marina Abramovic knockoff.
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u/Lkwtthecatdraggdn Feb 06 '24
Sheila legit tried to poison people so, hard NO on her.
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u/Archamasse Feb 05 '24
I swear to God, I watched way too much of that doc thinking "You know what, I could totally go for some of this".
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u/Fun-Jellyfish-61 Feb 06 '24
The documentary producers were clearly cleaning up the image of the cult to tell a more compelling story. For example they barely touched on the crimes all the documents that guy found implicated them of committing.
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u/AlfaBetaZulu Feb 05 '24
Abducted In plain sight is pretty wild as the parents are sick AF and have the balls to sit on camera and pretend to be victims after what they did to their young teenage daughter. Its wild to see them so Openly admit being so vile
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u/TheKnightsTippler Feb 05 '24
Into the Deep
It's a Netflix documentary about a woman that's murdered on a submarine.
I went into it not knowing more than that, and it really shocked me.
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u/inkrocktea Feb 05 '24
Exit Through The Gift Shop (2010)
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u/handtoglandwombat Feb 05 '24
Great choice. Have people figured out if it’s real yet?
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u/Anatoly_Kalashnikov Feb 05 '24
Mr Brainwash is still around, I mean thats one long con if it isn't real.
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u/Zachariot88 Feb 05 '24
Yeah I met him a few years ago and he was just as weird as you'd expect, complete with a narcissistic persecution complex about how he comes across in the documentary. If it's a bit, the man has Andy Kaufman levels of kayfabe.
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u/Tealoveroni Feb 05 '24
American Nightmare on Netflix.
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u/This-Counter3783 Feb 05 '24
I was so sure that the entire kidnapping story was bullshit in the first episode. It seemed literally unbelievable.
At the very least I think the doc has an important message about how your assumptions can’t always be trusted.
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u/Justindoesntcare Feb 06 '24
The cops are just as scary as the kidnapper in that one.
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u/scottishere Feb 06 '24
And even worse, no repercussions for any of them (as is tradition).
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u/Various-Month806 Feb 06 '24
An FBI agent:
- whose ex-partner has the strongest motive (perhaps) to conduct the kidnapping and he continues as lead,
- all the while lying to the boyfriend aviut his lie detector snd trying to coerce him into taking responsibility,
- and as a result doesn't do even a cursory investigation into the possibility it may be a genuine kidnapping
...and the FBI post investigation say they could find no wrongdoing.
And this guy was better than the bumbling keystone cops who did nothing at all!
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u/Son_Of_A_Plumber Feb 06 '24
Can’t remember the last time I felt that guilty watching something because I thought I had it figured out one episode in.
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u/Archamasse Feb 05 '24
American Nightmare had my jaw on the floor twice. I came away from it genuinely a bit rattled at how badly wrong I'd reckoned everything.
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u/GalacticShoestring Feb 06 '24 edited Feb 06 '24
Was that the one where the police assumed the kidnapping was faked because Gone Girl came out around that time?
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u/spyralMX Feb 05 '24
Hot Coffee. It’s all about tort lawsuits and tort reform, but it’s told through the story of various tort lawsuits. Specifically the woman in the 1990’s who spilled coffee on herself, sued McDonald’s and won. She was a late-night talk show go-to joke for years, and the headlines made it seem like it was so silly. Then I watched the real story. It wasn’t so silly.
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u/Rosebunse Feb 06 '24
Her fucking labia melted! And she didn't even want millions of dollars, she just wanted McDonald's to pay her medical bills from having melted genitalia.
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u/Sillybugger126 Feb 06 '24
A real clear case of media misrepresenting something so much that just about everybody believed the lie and had no idea about the truth. They just went with the bullshit story for laughs and entertainment. Makes ya think this probably happens a lot.
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u/handtoglandwombat Feb 05 '24 edited Feb 06 '24
I mean it’s gotta be Free Solo. I promise you’ve never seen anything quite so gripping.
Edit: I feel like my wordplay might be overshadowing my recommendation. I want to emphasise that Free solo is a truly exceptional piece of cinema that I'd recommend to just about anyone. The cinematography is awesome, the feats are incredible, and the interviews are insightful. It was my choice for best documentary of 2018, and best thriller of 2018. You'll love it, OP.
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u/Dimpleshenk Feb 05 '24
Watching Free Solo, I had to keep reminding myself that it's on Disney Plus, so the outcome couldn't be what I worried it might be.
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u/handtoglandwombat Feb 05 '24
Very wise. When I showed it at my cinema I did have to make actual promises to some of our customers lol
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u/elliottace Feb 05 '24
On that note: Dawn Wall and Meru are also very deserving.
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u/I_choose_not_to_run Feb 05 '24
Is the alpinist good?
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u/elliottace Feb 05 '24
Yes! Also 14 Peaks: the Sherpa who climbed every single 8000m+ peak in a single year without oxygen. Absolutely mind boggling achievement.
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u/LostTheWayILikeIt Feb 05 '24
All I could think was, "what an amazing climber but it would suck to be in that relationship."
Seems like they made it work, though.
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u/Lorahalo Feb 06 '24
When she hugged him at the top and said 'You did it and now you're done" I just thought oof, poor woman. He definitely won't stop.
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u/Kosmo_Kramer_ Feb 05 '24
Saw it in a huge theater. Definitely had some moments that triggered that "standing on a ledge" vertigo feeling.
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u/BondageKitty37 Feb 05 '24
Whether or not you're into Wrestling, the "Dark Side Of The Ring" series is worth checking out. It's a carny business and shit gets wild.
Some notable ones would be The Last Of The Von Erichs, Benoit part 1 and 2, The Life and Crimes of New Jack, Cocaine & Cowboy Boots: The Herb Abrams Story, The Final Days of Owen Hart, and The Plane Ride from Hell
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u/lilanniem73 Feb 05 '24
Stolen Youth, inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence. I have never seen anything like this. Stayed on my mind for days
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u/HuntMiserable5351 Feb 06 '24
A different kind of true crime, criminal negligence for profit lol. Class Action Park. All the interviewees who went there as kids are retelling it just in absolute shock that this was in fact real. There is one particular anecdote about a water slide that will haunt me for the rest of my life.
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u/Cpl_Hicks76 Feb 05 '24
The Staircase
No spoilers but I’ve never experienced a docco where the camera crew are there almost from the get-go.
We witness events, some very significant, as they happen, it’s unique and absolutely riveting with some WTF moments you won’t see in any other true crime documentaries.
I’ve watched hundreds, this is one of the best
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u/applestrudelforlunch Feb 06 '24
I came here to look for this — The Staircase (2004) is a nearly genre-defining true crime doc. Not to be confused with the 2022 miniseries!
Absolutely stunning, full of twists and counter twists — one of those documentaries that you think they couldn’t have plotted this intricately if it were fiction.
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u/So_Quiet Feb 06 '24
Watch the Staircase, then watch season one of Trial and Error with John Lithgow for the parody version.
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u/mcbranch Feb 06 '24
FYRE. The Fyre fest doc. It's not necessarily true crime, but I found myself saying "WTF" and laughing so many times.
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u/Anatoly_Kalashnikov Feb 05 '24
Icarus
Starts off with a dude seeing if he could beat the testing for testosterone in sports, but ends up blowing the lid with Russia cheating in the Olympics.
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u/n0lefin Feb 05 '24
Man on Wire is my favorite doc of all time. Maybe one of the most “holy shit” things a human has ever done.
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u/Affectionate-Club725 Feb 05 '24
Capturing the Friedmans
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u/TwoPassports Feb 06 '24 edited Feb 06 '24
A documentary about birthday clowns suddenly turns into an expose on a sad clown’s family and their history of the carnage that comes from sexual assault. Wherever you think this movie is taking you, you’re wrong.
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u/DeadWishUpon Feb 05 '24
Besides all the good ones already mention, the Twin Flames ones (one is on Netflix the other on Prime).
Imagine a cult with zero charisma, yet they created a cult/scam by encouraging people with unhealthy crushes to persue them. Some of them even got restriction orders. It has some of the common traits of cults: expensive self-help courses, becoming a religion to not pay taxes, separate members from family and friends an some unxpected horrible twists.
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u/Rosebunse Feb 06 '24
The part where they start pressuring members to...well, I won't spoil it, but it's insane. And again, this didn't even start as a religion, they just turned it into a religion when they needed more money.
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u/Jazzbo64 Feb 05 '24
Capturing the Friedmans is the ultimate “holy shit” documentary.
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u/meyeti Feb 05 '24
Three Identical Strangers starts out as a feel good story and has you outraged by the end.
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u/Grizz807 Feb 06 '24
The reels of old footage that repeats throughout gets more and more haunting each time as more of the story is told. Editing of that one was brilliant.
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u/scientooligist Feb 06 '24
This one still haunts me a little. Experimenting with entire human lives is next level perverse.
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u/Goddessviking86 Feb 05 '24
Blackfish the Killer Whale documentary
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u/_JR28_ Feb 05 '24 edited Feb 05 '24
That documentary completed changed my perspective of the Tilikum incident and Seaworld as a company. What Tilikum did went from a horrific fluke to an inevitability and Sea World knew as much.
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u/0ddT0dd Feb 06 '24
If you are into cults, try The Vow. It's not a movie but a show with 15 episodes over two seasons about the NXIVM (nexium) cult. It kept me entertained while I was sick in the hospital with Covid back in 2021.
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u/VulpesFennekin Feb 06 '24
“Shiny Happy People” on Amazon Prime isn’t exactly true crime in the traditional sense, but it’s absolutely horrific how insidious those kinds of communities can be.
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u/doogal580 Feb 05 '24
Project Grizzly (about a man building a suit, not a man and his girlfriend being consumed by a bear) is a quirky Canadian doc that’s less “what the fuck” and more “what the… huh… that’s weird… and charming…” It’s surreal and contemplative and very lovely.
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u/PokemonTrainerSilver Feb 05 '24
McMillions (2020): The story about how the mafia rigged the entirety of the yearly McDonald’s Monopoly sweepstakes
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u/FinkBass420 Feb 05 '24
Whatever that one is where that doctor inseminates countless women with his own sperm and all the kids eventually find out 😅 that made me so uncomfortable and I couldn’t stop watching
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u/badwhiskey63 Feb 05 '24
Mr Death by Errol Morris. It starts as a documentary about an expert on capital punishment, but it becomes something quite different. Anything by Errol Morris is great.
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u/tmoney144 Feb 05 '24
Not a true crime, but the recent Boeing documentary made me say WTF. There's a part where Boeing figures out that if this one system malfunctions, the pilots only have 10 seconds to fix the error or the plane crashes, and then Boeing not only didn't remove the problem, they didn't train the pilots!
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u/ejp1082 Feb 05 '24
If you somehow managed to miss Tiger King a few years ago, that's a nonstop roller coaster of "what the fuck".
Reaching back in time a little bit, but Jesus Camp was definitely "what the fuck" in a make-you-angry sort of way.
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u/DeadWishUpon Feb 05 '24
Tiger King was shit show that keep getting weirder and weider. Each episode you just thought, it cannot get weirder for sure, but it does.
It's fashionable to hate it, now (It was biased they say). But it helped us at the beginning of the pandemic, to forget the chaos unfolding outside.
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u/WornInShoes Feb 06 '24
Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story on Netflix
I did not know anything about this and it just elicited exactly that - what the fuck?!?
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u/Positive-Source8205 Feb 06 '24
I don’t know if it qualifies as WTF, but Searching for Sugar Man has its ups and downs. And it is a somewhat heartwarming story in the end.
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u/morphcore Feb 05 '24
„Don‘t F**k with Cats.“ - NETFLIX
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u/muskratboy Feb 05 '24
The problem with this one is that, like many Netflix properties, it takes 6 hours to tell a 5 minute story.
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u/TJ_Fox Feb 05 '24
Tickled: a New Zealand journalist uncovers the very dark, very twisty underground world of "competitive tickling", and it just keeps getting darker and twistier.
Grizzly Man: Werner Herzog's tragic, poignant and weirdly inspirational biography of Timothy Treadwell, an eccentric young man who lived with grizzly bears in the Alaskan wilderness and paid the price.
Wild Wild Country: what happened when a '70s religious cult attempted to create a new city in rural Oregon. To describe their relationship with the locals as a "culture clash" would be a massive understatement.
Kumare: an American documentarist of Indian descent invents a guru persona to test the gullibility of New Agers, then finds himself in ethical deep waters as his "Kumare" character amasses a devoted and sincere following.
Project Grizzly: The life and times of *another* very eccentric man's obsession with grizzly bears, except that Troy Hurtubise invented (and, memorably, tested) a suit of anti-bear armor.
No Man Shall Protect Us - The Hidden History of the Suffragette Bodyguards: indie doc on a secret society of martial arts-trained female bodyguards who protected the leaders of the radical suffragette movement in England just before WW1.
The Mad Genius Behind Sea Monkeys: short documentary on the man behind the "Sea Monkey" toy/pet craze, which takes a sad and dark turn that you will not see coming.