Ten Great Documentaries to Watch on Netflix

As much as I love my silent films, as much as I love my golden age cinema, I also adore Netflix just like a lot of other people. I tend to use Netflix for watching Netflix original content such as crime shows, documentaries etc. Whereas, I use Amazon Prime to actually watch old movies I come across which have not yet been restored and I think that is adorable. Anyways, documentaries on Netflix become fairly popular and I, for the past few weeks, have been doing so much digging into these that I may need a few weeks off - turn back to my silent films - and just switch Netflix off for a while.

There are some great Netflix documentaries out there and since I have been digging around, I wanted to share with you ten that I have watched either recently or not, what they regard and why they are s interesting. The new-age documentary is really a piece of stunning cinema, it incorporates this almost revolutionary pose whilst also maintaining this eerie and uncomfortable atmosphere, normally surrounding the subject matter.

Let us take a look then, at some great documentaries you can watch on Netflix.

The list is in no particular order

Ten Great Documentaries to Watch on Netflix

The Night Stalker

About the serial killer who murdered in more than one home per night and terrorised California for the latter half of the 1970s, Richard Ramirez is not actually that apparent in this documentary. The documentary itself focuses more on the police work that was done to stop him and the fact that once, he took his risks by breaking into the house of the man who was hunting him down. It explains to us how he was caught and what this case did for police work in general. It is a brilliantly interesting thing to watch because eventually, Ramirez got sloppy and his freedom suffered as a result. He was sentenced to death by gas chamber upon his trial.

The Ripper

About the Yorkshire Ripper who terrorised parts of England, this documentary tells the stories of the women who were hunted and killed by him, the police work used to catch him and the children of the women who are now grown up and watched this monster get brought to justice. This documentary is incredibly interesting because it tells us about the little bits and pieces used to catch him and finally, when he is caught, his own father cannot even believe it because there is nothing remarkable about him at all. Nothing that makes him stand out amongst the rest, nothing that makes him different or would make someone uncomfortable. That is probably the scariest thing about it.

Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel

I think many of us remember hearing the story of Elisa Lam on 4Chan and then a lot of people started making conspiracy theories about her. Personally, when she disappeared and I heard about it, I thought she was murdered. Ultimately though, there were inconsistancies that you just do not notice at the time with what you hear and what actually happened. Things such as the lid to the water tank, the nature of Lam's mental health and other things were left out even though they were crucial pieces of information. The faults were actually due to failures in police work and I think that this documentary was actually made to put to rest all of those theories wild and crazy that circulated around the internet all those years ago and pay homage to a bright, young girl who died in tragic and upsetting circumstances.

Don't Fuck With Cats

"Don't Fuck With Cats" is probably one of the most intriguing documentaries I have seen about the internet. Again, I actually remember when this took place and the world was hunting the murderer of a beautiful Asian boy, his picture smiling on the television. What I did not know back then was that there were internet videos connected to this, even though I too, had seen the videos. This documentary is structured in a style which is not only chronological, but explains why it actually happened. The reason, though kind of sickening, was analysed in full detail. I believe it is one of those documentaries which revisits the internet when it was still building up and people therefore, believed that because there was little policing, that you could do whatever you wanted. Obviously though, that was not the case.

Murder Among the Mormons

This documentary is basically one of those documentaries that you watch when you already know the answer. Even years after this happened, this was a very big case because it was to do with forgery and exactly how good you could do it if you tried. One man, three bombs, over a dozen forged documents related to Mormonism that he had created himself. This piece shows us exactly the kind of surreal police work that was done to keep a man like this in their sights whilst they build up a case to prove him with and thus, bring him to justice. There were things throughout that did not quite add up and people who suspected things but were too scared to say anything. It was quite fantastical actually - and when you remember that it actually happened, it scares the hell out of you.

Wild Wild Country

When it comes to documentaries about cults, there are not many like this one since there were wrongs on both sides of the argument. On one side, we had people who were coming into a quiet town for the elderly and making a lot of noise, building a lot of things and being pretty inconsiderate to others. Whereas, on the other side, we had the unwelcoming nature of older white people who were practically disliking the nature of other's belief systems. That's something we now call racism and discrimination. From India to America and all over the world, this idea expanded and continues to do so to this day. The philosophies, the systems, the lifestyle and everything in between. Honestly, as an Indian, I have heard so much about these people that I was immediately interested because they finally spoke for themselves and explained how it was all going so well until it wasn't.

Roll Red Roll

Rape culture exists. This is something male and female, we cannot deny. But not many people actually know what rape culture is. "Roll Red Roll" explains that perfectly because if I am going to be perfectly honest, I had heard about this case happening when it happened but I still had not got a clue what rape culture was. The sexual assault of an underage girl at a party leads the police on a chase up of a High School Football Team. After this, since there is hardly anything done about it - the internet blows up on the topic and that is where I remember hearing about it and seeing the video on the activism that was going on. Yes, the video - the one where it got so bad that Anonymous got involved and turned up to small town America in search of answers. A compelling documentary that teaches us so much about the way in which our culture is repeatedly wronging underage girls - it tells the story of pressure, forcem coersion and so much more. We need to be reminded constantly to stand up for children of this kind of violence.

Challenger: The Final Flight

A lovely young teacher is about to take the journey of a lifetime and teach science from space to her students back on earth. That would have happened if everything had gone to plan but with the setbacks and the uncertainties with the equipment, it unfortunately exploded in mid-air. Everyone aboard the Challenger died. A game-changer in space travel, this air explosion forced NASA to confront themselves about safety, about effienciency and about the value of human life. They confronted it so much that space travel itself was put on hold for a while as the world tried to come to terms with all the wonderful minds they had just lost in this tragic accident. An accident that you learn, in this documentary, could have been prevented. An incredibly documentary exploring the lives of the people aboard the Challenger and everything that happened afterwards, this is a reminder that sometimes even the best of us, the smartest and the most qualified, make mistakes that they cannot erase.

Evil Genius

I was young when I first saw the horrible video that would scare my mind for life. It was the one of Brian Wells - a pizza boy with a bomb strapped to his chest. The bomb exploded on camera, throwing his body outwards and inwards. It was gory to say the very least and in the most part, it was so entirely saddening that there were so many people who failed to do anything about it - I guess it just really depressed me after a while. The documentary though, is not just about that. It is about everything else that happened afterwards, everything that happened before, everything that happened in between and a woman who would have her name pop up in every single second of the madness. An incredible documentary into the mind of a killer, into the mind of a weird, twisted event that would finally take a maddening turn for the worst. It is a compelling though intensely frightening documentary when you remember that this actually happened in real life.

The Disappearance of Madeline McCann

I think we all remember when she went missing. In England where I live, it was a huge, massive case and I remember watching the story the day or so after she had disappeared on the television and everyone thinking and saying 'this is going to be huge'. I was eleven when she went missing and the picture of her that they used, this photograph with a little opened mouth and huge, cartoon-like eyes would be etched on everyone's brain but we would not know the half of it. The documentary covers the police reports, the search and the strange accusations against the parents which I thought were absolutely disgusting. To this day, people are still talking about this and in 2017, it had been about ten years since she had gone missing. I think everyone needs to watch this documentary to see the truth behind all the failings of all the police forces when it came to finding this small child. To this day, she has not been located.