Film

Catfish

Name: Catfish
Genre: Documentary
Released: 2010
Cast: Nēv Schulman, Ariel Schulman, Angela Wesselman-Pierce, Melody C. Roscher, Henry Joost

Catfish is the scrappy, handheld documentary that gave the internet its favourite verb. A young New York photographer's online romance with a talented, elusive woman curdles into an amateur road-trip investigation, filmed by his own increasingly uneasy friends. It plays less like a mystery with a solution than a portrait of loneliness, longing and self-invention in the early social-media age. Funny, squirmy, oddly tender — essential for anyone curious where the term 'catfishing' actually came from.

TMDb rating

6.8

If you liked this

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Three Identical Strangers2018

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But The tonal swing is severe — if Catfish's ending unsettled you, this one goes further and offers less comfort after.

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But It's a family drama about trauma and protection rather than mystery-solving — expect tears, not detective work.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

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But Playful and digressive, allergic to a straightforward plot; if you wanted a clean mystery, this is closer to a magic trick.

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A modern-dress cousin of Catfish's central deception: a man builds entire fake identities on dating apps to defraud women of fortunes. Slick and infuriating, for anyone who wants the con-artist genre with higher stakes.

But Glossier and more Netflix-packaged than Catfish's scrappy home-movie feel — the outrage is the point, not the ambiguity.

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A father hunts for his missing daughter using nothing but her laptop and browser history, the entire film unfolding through screens. It captures that same feeling of digging through someone's online life for the truth.

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Real heist participants narrate their own botched crime alongside actors playing them, constantly undercutting each other's memories. Like Catfish, it's obsessed with how people build myths about themselves and get trapped inside them.

But The hybrid doc/drama structure can feel gimmicky, and the heist plot ends up matters more than the identity theme.

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A documentary about a man documenting Banksy spirals into questioning whether the film itself, and its maker, are an elaborate art-world prank. Same funhouse-mirror feeling of not knowing who's really behind the camera.

But Playful where Catfish is sincere — if you want emotional stakes rather than a wink, this might feel too cute.

Behind the Curve2018

A documentary that follows flat-earth believers with real warmth and curiosity, letting you see exactly how the internet builds and sustains a shared delusion. Same fascination with self-mythology, aimed at a community instead of one person.

But No mystery to solve here — it's a character study of belief, slower and stranger than Catfish's forward-driving momentum.

The Circle2018no page yet

It takes the film's central mechanism — strangers performing an invented self online to win affection — and turns it into an explicit, competitive sport.

A reality competition where contestants build entire fake profiles to manipulate strangers into trusting them, essentially gamifying the exact deception Catfish investigates in earnest. Giddy, shameless, and weirdly moving when the masks finally slip.

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The Talented Mr. Ripley1999

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