Film

Bikram: Yogi, Guru, Predator

Name: Bikram: Yogi, Guru, Predator
Genre: Documentary, Crime
Released: 2019
Cast: Bikram Choudhury, Larissa Anderson, Francesca Asumah, Sarah Baughn, John Dowd

Biopic

Bikram Choudhury built a billion-dollar empire selling heated yoga to millions, then his carefully sculpted guru persona crumbled under accusations of sexual assault. This documentary follows his meteoric rise and catastrophic fall through archive footage and testimony from those closest to him—a cautionary tale about celebrity, power, and the gap between public image and private conduct.

TMDb rating

3.2

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you want an investigative portrait that builds its case from archive footage and former insiders, and you're drawn to how a magnetic personality can bend an entire community around himself.

Skip it if you came for the yoga itself or want a gentle, reflective watch; this is a sober, often grim accounting of harm, with the practice mostly serving as backdrop.

What it asks of you: It runs a brisk eighty-six minutes on talking heads and old footage, asking for steady attention to names, dates and testimony more than emotional buy-in.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

The Toys That Made Us2017

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But It's a Netflix nostalgia series. You might expect saccharine celebration rather than the sharper reckoning this doc provides, so the tone shift can feel jarring.

Fyre2019

Another charismatic fraudster sells an impossible dream to the credulous. This Netflix doc has the same momentum—watching a carefully constructed fiction implode—and the same dark comedy of delusion meeting reality.

But It's the obvious comparison point. Some viewers will feel they've seen this exact story before, just with different plumage.

Athlete A2020

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But It's harrowing and involves minors. The emotional weight is heavier. Some viewers will find it harder to watch than Bikram.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Bikram: Yogi, Guru, Predator

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Act of Killing2012

Both films center on a man who refuses to see his actions as wrongdoing, and both use performance and image-construction as the grammar of the investigation. One is a guru's YouTube videos; the other is a perpetrator's film sets. Same narcissism, different stages.

A documentary so formally inventive it feels like a different medium entirely: it asks perpetrators of genocide to stage and direct their own crimes. Like Bikram, it concerns performance, ego, and how authority figures justify the unjustifiable—but it uses surrealist cinema instead of talking heads.

But It's avant-garde and difficult. The juxtaposition of performance and atrocity is intentionally disorienting. Not for viewers wanting comfortable narrative closure.

The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley2019

Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes weaponized charisma and pseudoscience to build a multi-billion-dollar lie. Same year, same theme: how visionary rhetoric masks fraudulent emptiness.

But It's more about financial than sexual exploitation. The tone is lighter, almost comic. Some find it less morally urgent than Bikram.

The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley poster

Leaving Neverland: The Aftermath2019

Another 2019 documentary about a figure whose artistic genius and charitable image masked a predatory private life. It uses survivor testimony as the backbone of its investigation.

But It's nearly four hours, deeply upsetting, and revisits trauma in exhaustive detail. Some viewers find it exploitative despite its investigative intent.

Wild Wild Country2018

Six-part deep dive into a charismatic Indian guru who seduced thousands of American followers with promises of spiritual transformation, then revealed himself as manipulative and ruthless. The parallels to Bikram are structural.

But It's a miniseries that demands real time investment. The pacing is leisurely by modern standards, and some threads meander.

Allen v. Farrow2021

Four-part documentary examining allegations against a famous director through archival footage, interviews, and investigative detail. It's about how institutional power enables abuse.

But It's contentious—many viewers arrive with strong opinions. The film's perspective is clear rather than agnostic, which some see as either integrity or bias.

Tickled2016

Both expose underground communities built on exploitation and secrecy, where power flows through specialized knowledge and access. Both ask: what if the thing that seems ridiculous is actually a cover for systematic harm? Both find their subject remains unrepentant.

New Zealand documentary that begins as a mystery and becomes a investigation into a global network of sexual humiliation disguised as competitive tickling. It's bizarre, darkly funny, and completely unexpected—but it's also about how shame keeps victims silent.

But It sounds absurd and tabloid. It sometimes plays for laughs at moments that shouldn't be funny. If you need gravity and solemnity, this tonal register will annoy you.