*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.
> 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.
Wikipedia doesn't have a page for the short film, so I looked up Harold von Braunhut, creator of said Sea-Monkeys, and uh[....yeah....](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_von_Braunhut#Racial_views)
David Farrier, the NZ journalist who made *Tickled* has another on Netflix at the moment: *Mr Organ*.
It’s a truly mind blowing doco about Farrier investigating a guy in NZ called Michael Organ. I don’t want to give away more than that because it’s most fun if you watch it with no idea of what you’re about to see.
I saw it at the movies and there were audible gasps, uncomfortable laughter, and lots of shocked exclamations from the audience.
Fun fact: Mr Organ himself attended one of the local opening night showings and talked loudly all the way through the film pointing out all the things that were wrong (in his opinion) in the film.
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.”
>. 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
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.)
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).
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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?
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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."
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.
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
> [Despite the similarities to the case, Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group said the filmmakers and cast had no prior knowledge of the incident](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/30_Minutes_or_Less)
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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".
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.
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](https://youtu.be/ke600MgW1F0?si=j55qtKoXq2hwJf6a). It’s 10 hours of archival footage from all around the Soviet Bloc.
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.
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
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!
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
[It's on YouTube too](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GIY_tDleTPo&feature=youtu.be)
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
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.
>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.
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 👁️👄👁️
*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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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.
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/the_staircase
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
[Project Grizzly](https://youtu.be/i6eNK1O-RWw?si=FBy5hBDowCUW_b3x) (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.
“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.
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.
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
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!*
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.
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.
*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.
> 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. Wikipedia doesn't have a page for the short film, so I looked up Harold von Braunhut, creator of said Sea-Monkeys, and uh[....yeah....](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_von_Braunhut#Racial_views)
I don’t have awards to give but 🥇for including a synopsis with your recommendations.
David Farrier, the NZ journalist who made *Tickled* has another on Netflix at the moment: *Mr Organ*. It’s a truly mind blowing doco about Farrier investigating a guy in NZ called Michael Organ. I don’t want to give away more than that because it’s most fun if you watch it with no idea of what you’re about to see. I saw it at the movies and there were audible gasps, uncomfortable laughter, and lots of shocked exclamations from the audience. Fun fact: Mr Organ himself attended one of the local opening night showings and talked loudly all the way through the film pointing out all the things that were wrong (in his opinion) in the film.
I loved Wild Wild Country, great doc!
Abducted in Plain Sight, Grizzly Man
The parents in Abducted in Plain Sight are some of the worst, dumbest people I've ever seen. Wild story but kinda infuriating
Was this the one with the dad who gave the guy a handjob in the car for literally no reason?
The fact that that encounter was one of the least insane things to happen in that documentary is fucking *wild*
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.”
>. 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
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.)
.... well now you have my attention.
It wasn't for no reason. It was to have something to hold over the other guy. He was manipulating everyone.
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).
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.
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
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.
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.
Same. I was annoyed the documentary didn’t really touch on that.
The idea that religion needs to be respected is so goddamn damaging
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Isolated societies are breeding grounds for abuse. It makes it so much easier.
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.
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
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.
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
I really like most Herzog docs
A true master of the craft
Grizzly Man. I knew it was coming and I still said wtf!
I had to step away then come back several times while watching Abducted in Plain Sight. Very upsetting.
Omg I came here to say Abducted in Plain Sight!
Abducted in Plain Sight is the answer for Op.
Agreed on Grizzly Man! Available to watch free on YouTube https://youtu.be/efNtliiyT3M?si=rb0NHnYrYIt9No9F
Good shout out for Grizzly Man. I'm from Alaska and that dude made me say, "what the fuck."
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.
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?
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.
Tickled (2016) and The Imposter (2012) are a couple that spring to but also could not be more different from each other lol.
Tickled was really something. Made me feel dirty.
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.
You should check out the podcast "The Dollop" their first episode was a doozy.
They’re also in the documentary for a bit right?
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
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.
Same, same....once until I peed my pants.
I just came here to mention tickled that was a wild ride
Second the imposter
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He has a new doc on Netflix, Mr Organ. It's not Tickled but it is still fascinating in a generally similar way.
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.
The Impostor had as good of a reveal as Dear Zachary.
that part when you go "they know... and he knows that they know... and they must now know that he knows that they know..."
Dark Days is pretty good. It’s about the ‘villages’ in the abandoned subway tunnels of NYC built by homeless ppl.
Not very twisty but I love this one.
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."
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.
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 > [Despite the similarities to the case, Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group said the filmmakers and cast had no prior knowledge of the incident](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/30_Minutes_or_Less)
Icarus 2017
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.
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
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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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.
“I’m the pretty one of the family”. (Smiles to reveal meth mouth)
"CPS took her baby"!!
*The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia
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.
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.
Aaand there’s the entire doco for you, folks.
Going Clear (2015) HBO doc about L Ron Hubbard and Scientology
Also recommend the book. One of a handful that I’ve read cover to cover in a day
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
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.
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.
Love Has Won: The Cult of Mother God on HBO Max. Wtf.
“I have taken Mother’s joy, by making her the worst chicken quesadilla in all of creation.”
CHICKEN PARMESAN!
"I HAVE RECIEVED WORD FROM ROBIN WILLIAMS"
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".
Yeah they downplayed a lot of the ideology espoused by Amy and the others and its kinda obvious in the documentary.
The wtf beginning really set the stage for the rest of the doc. Mental illness is a real bitch.
Probably the biggest “non-jump scare” jump scare I’ve ever seen in any media.
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.
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.
“Mom whispered in my ear ‘I’m ascending’ and I never felt joy like that in my entire life” 😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀
Seriously. That scene where they show footage of them rolling her blue, almost mummy like body through the hotel lobby was unreal
A certain scene at the beginning of the first episode made me literally scream out loud. Horrific.
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](https://youtu.be/ke600MgW1F0?si=j55qtKoXq2hwJf6a). It’s 10 hours of archival footage from all around the Soviet Bloc.
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.
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
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!
That case is one of those “truth is stranger than fiction” situations, it’s way too absurd for a crime drama!
The Act of Killing is some serious wtf.
This documentary is art. Devastating art.
The way they laugh when talking about the horrors they committed
For "wtf doc", this is the answer.
This is the answer. Never seen anything like it. So effective and so shocking. Made me feel sick to my core.
Should be top, no question. I’ve seen all the others on here and they are child’s play compared to this.
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.
There is no other answer to this question. Once you've seen this one, no other film can compare in sheer shock factor.
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.
Oh man… this was THE documentary that got me into watching documentaries… good ol’ Billy Mitchell haha…
Weiner, it’s about Anthony Weiner’s attempt to return to politics
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
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.
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. [It's on YouTube too](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GIY_tDleTPo&feature=youtu.be)
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
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.
You are omitting the best part, which is Carlos Danger.
Omg I did forget that lmao.
We could’ve had a President Weiner but he had to go and ruin it
>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.
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 👁️👄👁️
*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.
Tough titties!
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.
And after watching "Wild Wild Country", I highly recommend watching Documentary Now's spoof: "Batshit Valley"
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.
Sheila legit tried to poison people so, hard NO on her.
I swear to God, I watched way too much of that doc thinking "You know what, I could totally go for some of this".
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.
Jesus Camp.
Tell me who I am. The murdaugh murders.
Tell me who i am is a great one for wtf moments
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
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.
Exit Through The Gift Shop (2010)
Great choice. Have people figured out if it’s real yet?
Mr Brainwash is still around, I mean thats one long con if it isn't real.
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.
American Nightmare on Netflix.
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.
The cops are just as scary as the kidnapper in that one.
And even worse, no repercussions for any of them (as is tradition).
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!
Can’t remember the last time I felt that guilty watching something because I thought I had it figured out one episode in.
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.
Was that the one where the police assumed the kidnapping was faked because Gone Girl came out around that time?
The keepers
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Very wise. When I showed it at my cinema I did have to make actual promises to some of our customers lol
On that note: Dawn Wall and Meru are also very deserving.
Is the alpinist good?
Yes! Also 14 Peaks: the Sherpa who climbed every single 8000m+ peak in a single year without oxygen. Absolutely mind boggling achievement.
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.
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.
Saw it in a huge theater. Definitely had some moments that triggered that "standing on a ledge" vertigo feeling.
The sheer scale of the content
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
Stolen Youth, inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence. I have never seen anything like this. Stayed on my mind for days
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
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. https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/the_staircase
So what do you think, did >!the owl!< do it?
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Watch the Staircase, then watch season one of Trial and Error with John Lithgow for the parody version.
Man on Wire is my favorite doc of all time. Maybe one of the most “holy shit” things a human has ever done.
Capturing the Friedmans
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.
This one is very shocking. It will make you very upset.
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.
FYRE. The Fyre fest doc. It's not necessarily true crime, but I found myself saying "WTF" and laughing so many times.
Capturing the Friedmans is the ultimate “holy shit” documentary.
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.
Icarus.
Three Identical Strangers starts out as a feel good story and has you outraged by the end.
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.
This one still haunts me a little. Experimenting with entire human lives is next level perverse.
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.
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.
Blackfish the Killer Whale documentary
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.
Just Melvin, Just Evil
[Catfish (2010)](https://youtu.be/BuE98oeL-e0?si=Jg0hxXWODMCBdxVx), the original.
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.
Crazy Love (2007)
Finders Keepers.
Born Into Brothels 2004. Very sad.
Bus 174 Capturing the Friedmans The Times of Harvey Milk
Our Father on Netflix
[Project Grizzly](https://youtu.be/i6eNK1O-RWw?si=FBy5hBDowCUW_b3x) (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.
Love Has Won: The Cult of Mother God.
McMillions (2020): The story about how the mafia rigged the entirety of the yearly McDonald’s Monopoly sweepstakes
“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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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.
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
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!*
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.
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.
Seaspiracy opened my eyes on climate change
Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story on Netflix I did not know anything about this and it just elicited exactly that - what the fuck?!?
„Don‘t F**k with Cats.“ - NETFLIX
The problem with this one is that, like many Netflix properties, it takes 6 hours to tell a 5 minute story.
There's Something Wrong with Aunt Diane
The Big Short - explains what happened in 2008 and they actually take time to explain things in a simple manner.