87
Audience
94
/7054/
4.0
Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills (1996)
A horrific triple child murder leads to an indictment and trial of three nonconformist boys based on questionable evidence.
87
Audience
94
/25778/
4.0
age 14+
The Cove (2009)
The Cove tells the amazing true story of how an elite team of individuals, films makers and free divers embarked on a covert mission to penetrate the hidden cove in Japan, shining light on a dark and deadly secret. The shocking discoveries were only the tip of the iceberg.
87
Audience
85
/15057/
4.0
age 14+
The Act of Killing (2012)
Filmmakers expose the horrifying mass executions of accused communists in Indonesia and those who are celebrated in their country for perpetrating the crime.
87
Audience
90
/3390/
4.0
age 16+
13th (2016)
An in-depth look at the prison system in the United States and how it reveals the nation's history of racial inequality.
86
Audience
96
/7228/
age 16+
Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father (2008)
In 2001, Andrew Bagby, a medical resident, is murdered not long after breaking up with his girlfriend. Soon after, when she announces she's pregnant, one of Andrew's many close friends, Kurt Kuenne, begins this film, a gift to the child.
86
Audience
91
/29699/
4.0
Inside Job (2010)
A film that exposes the shocking truth behind the economic crisis of 2008. The global financial meltdown, at a cost of over $20 trillion, resulted in millions of people losing their homes and jobs. Through extensive research and interviews with major financial insiders, politicians and journalists, Inside Job traces the rise of a rogue industry and unveils the corrosive relationships which have corrupted politics, regulation and academia.
85
Audience
89
/3319/
3.5
age 14+
Tower (2016)
Combining archival footage with rotoscopic animation, Tower reveals the action-packed untold stories of the witnesses, heroes and survivors of America’s first mass school shooting, when the worst in one man brought out the best in so many others.
85
84
Audience
88
/826/
Close-Up (1990)
This fiction-documentary hybrid uses a sensational real-life event—the arrest of a young man on charges that he fraudulently impersonated the well-known filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf—as the basis for a stunning, multilayered investigation into movies, identity, artistic creation, and existence, in which the real people from the case play themselves.
84
Audience
93
/1076/
3.5
Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory (2012)
A further investigation into the arrest of three teenagers convicted of killing three young boys in Arkansas who spent nearly 20 years in prison before being released after new DNA evidence indicated they may be innocent.
83
Audience
90
/8728/
3.5
The Thin Blue Line (1988)
Errol Morris's unique documentary dramatically re-enacts the crime scene and investigation of a police officer's murder in Dallas.
83
Audience
90
/7438/
4.0
Taxi to the Dark Side (2007)
An in-depth look at the torture practices of the United States in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, focusing on an innocent taxi driver in Afghanistan who was tortured and killed in 2002.
83
Audience
87
/8842/
4.0
West of Memphis (2012)
The documentary tells the hitherto unknown story behind an extraordinary and desperate fight to bring the truth to light. Told and made by those who lived it, the filmmakers' unprecedented access to the inner workings of the defense, allows the film to show the investigation, research and appeals process in a way that has never been seen before; revealing shocking and disturbing new information about a case that still haunts the Unitedstatian South.
83
Audience
91
/24765/
3.5
age 14+
Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010)
Banksy is a graffiti artist with a global reputation whose work can be seen on walls from post-hurricane New Orleans to the separation barrier on the Palestinian West Bank. Fiercely guarding his anonymity to avoid prosecution, Banksy has so far resisted all attempts to be captured on film. Exit Through the Gift Shop tells the incredible true story of how an eccentric French shop keeper turned documentary maker attempted to locate and befriend Banksy, only to have the artist turn the camera back on its owner.
82
Audience
90
/6967/
3.5
Bus 174 (2002)
Documentary depicts what happened in Rio de Janeiro on June 12th 2000, when bus 174 was taken by an armed young man, threatening to shoot all the passengers. Transmitted live on all Brazilian TV networks, this shocking and tragic-ending event became one of violence's most shocking portraits, and one of the scariest examples of police incompetence and abuse in recent years.
81
Audience
91
/4247/
3.0
age 14+
The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz (2014)
Programming prodigy and information activist Aaron Swartz achieved groundbreaking work in social justice and political organizing. His passion for open access ensnared him in a legal nightmare that ended with the taking of his own life at the age of 26.
80
Audience
83
/203213/
3.5
age 17+
Bowling for Columbine (2002)
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.
91
80
Audience
98
/1772/
age 15+
O.J.: Made in America (2016)
A chronicle of the rise and fall of O.J. Simpson, whose high-profile murder trial exposed the extent of American racial tensions, revealing a fractured and divided nation.
80
Audience
86
/8361/
3.5
The Central Park Five (2012)
In 1989, five black and Latino teenagers from Harlem were arrested and later convicted of raping a white woman in New York City's Central Park. They spent between 6 and 13 years in prison before a serial rapist confessed that he alone had committed the crime, leading to their convictions being overturned. Set against a backdrop of a decaying city beset by violence and racial tension, this is the story of that horrific crime, the rush to judgment by the police, a media clamoring for sensational stories and an outraged public, and the five lives upended by this miscarriage of justice.
82
79
Audience
89
/19403/
age 18+
Deliver Us from Evil (2006)
Documentary filmmaker Amy Berg investigates the life of 30-year pedophile Father Oliver O'Grady and exposes the corruption inside the Catholic Church that allowed him to abuse countless children. Victims' stories and a disturbing interview with O'Grady offer a view into the troubled mind of the spiritual leader who moved from parish to parish gaining trust ... all the while betraying so many.
78
Audience
78
/93724/
The Imposter (2012)
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 thousands of miles away 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.
78
Audience
84
/3604/
3.0
Paradise Lost 2: Revelations (2000)
Revisiting the 1994 Arkansas murder of three 8-year-old boys and the three teenagers convicted of the crime. A follow up to Paradise Lost, Revelations features new interviews with the convicted men, as well as with the original judge and police investigators.
76
Audience
76
/732/
3.0
Tales of the Grim Sleeper (2014)
When Lonnie Franklin Jr. was arrested in South Central Los Angeles in 2010 as the suspected murderer of a string of young black women, police hailed it as the culmination of 20 years of investigations. Four years later documentary filmmaker Nick Broomfield took his camera to the alleged killer’s neighborhood for another view.
75
Audience
74
/3684/
3.0
Dirty Wars (2013)
Investigative journalist, Jeremy Scahill is pulled into an unexpected journey as he chases down the hidden truth behind America's expanding covert wars, and examines how the US government has responded to international terrorist threats in ways that seem to go against the established laws of the land.
76
75
Audience
76
/8647/
Into the Abyss (2011)
We do not know when and how we will die. Death Row inmates do. Werner Herzog embarks on a dialogue with Death Row inmates, asks questions about life and death and looks deep into these individuals, their stories, their crimes.
74
Audience
57
/690/
3.5
Strong Island (2017)
Examining the violent death of the filmmaker’s brother and the judicial system that allowed his killer to go free, this documentary interrogates murderous fear and racialized perception, and re-imagines the wreckage in catastrophe’s wake, challenging us to change.
74
Audience
73
/7294/
3.5
Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer (2003)
British documentarian Nick Broomfield creates a follow-up piece to his 1992 documentary of the serial killer Aileen Wuornos, a highway prostitute who was convicted of killing six men in Florida between 1989 and 1990. Interviewing an increasingly mentally unstable Wuornos, Broomfield captures the distorted mind of a murderer whom the state of Florida deems of sound mind -- and therefore fit to execute. Throughout the film, Broomfield includes footage of his testimony at Wuornos' trial.
72
Audience
74
/70741/
3.5
age 14+
Capitalism: A Love Story (2009)
Michael Moore comes home to the issue he's been examining throughout his career: the disastrous impact of corporate dominance on the everyday lives of Americans (and by default, the rest of the world).
72
Audience
71
/1202/
3.0
age 16+
Amanda Knox (2016)
This gripping, atmospheric documentary recounts the infamous trial, conviction and eventual acquittal of Seattle native Amanda Knox for the 2007 murder of a British exchange student in Italy.
72
Audience
67
/7132/
3.0
The Big One (1997)
The Big One is an investigative documentary from director Michael Moore who goes around the country asking why big American corporations produce their product abroad where labor is cheaper while so many Americans are unemployed, losing their jobs, and would happily be hired by such companies as Nike.
72
Audience
79
/77133/
Cocaine Cowboys (2006)
In the 1980s, ruthless Colombian cocaine barons invaded Miami with a brand of violence unseen in this country since Prohibition-era Chicago - and it put the city on the map. "Cocaine Cowboys" is the true story of how Miami became the drug, murder and cash capital of the United States, told by the people who made it all happen.
69
Audience
74
/374/
age 16+
Abducted in Plain Sight (2018)
In 1974, 12-year-old Jan Broberg is abducted from a small church-going community in Idaho by a trusted neighbour and close family friend.
68
Audience
61
/2710/
3.0
Cropsey (2009)
Realizing the urban legend of their youth has actually come true, two filmmakers delve into the mystery surrounding five missing children and the real-life boogeyman linked to their disappearances.
73
64
Audience
66
/2073/
Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer (1992)
Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer (1993) is a documentary film about Aileen Wuornos, made by Nick Broomfield. It documents Broomfield's attempts to interview Wuornos, which involves a long process of mediation through her adopted mother Arlene Pralle and lawyer, Steve Glazer.
58
Audience
76
/148/
1.5
Soaked in Bleach (2015)
Twenty years ago, Kurt Cobain was found dead of an apparent gunshot wound to the head. The world was told it was a suicide, but evidence would lead many people to believe it might be otherwise. The film investigates the possibilities that exist that Kurt Cobain's death might not have been a suicide, that the Seattle Police Department rushed their verdict, and the global media perpetuated lies and misinformation fed to them by Courtney Love that created the belief in many that Cobain killed himself—but when revealed to be lies—lead many to now question what happened.
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Golden State Killer : Main Suspect (2018)
Hosted by NBC News investigative journalist Stephanie Gosk, this brand new two-hour special will offer an intimate look into the life of Joe DeAngelo, the suspect in custody, through new and exclusive interviews from those who were closest to him and offering a gripping depiction of the prime suspect in a decades-long manhunt. To his family, friends, and former colleagues, DeAngelo lived the life of the classic “average Joe” - a father, grandfather, veteran, and even former police officer. DeAngelo now stands accused of being the man behind one of the most ruthlessly enduring crime sprees of all time and is believed to have raped more than 45 women and murdered at least 12 people. He is currently charged with 12 counts of first degree murder and has so far not entered a plea. Joining Gosk is Bay Area detective Paul Holes, who helped search for the Golden State Killer for nearly a quarter-century and played a key role in the arrest of Joe DeAngelo.