Film

Crazy, Not Insane

A psychiatrist's decades-long investigation into the minds of violent criminals and serial killers, challenging conventional wisdom about what drives human brutality. Dorothy Lewis argues passionately that violence stems from neurological damage, abuse, and trauma rather than pure evil. Cerebral, unflinching, occasionally frustrating—a portrait of an iconoclast convinced she has solved murder itself.

TMDb rating3.6

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you are drawn to portraits of a single stubborn mind chasing an unpopular idea, and you don't mind the científic dust-ups that come with it.

Skip it if you want a documentary that keeps its distance; this one sits close to its subjects and their family, and some of the case material is hard to sit through.

What it asks of you: Just under two hours of talking heads and archival material, unhurried and conversational, so it rewards patience more than quick cuts or a fast pace.

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

If you liked this

Making a Murderer2015

Ten-part series challenging a murder conviction through meticulous investigation and troubling questions about evidence, motive, and institutional bias. Genuinely unsettling.

But Occasionally manipulative editing; the counterarguments are less visible than the case for innocence.

Making a Murderer poster

Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal2023

Recent case of a prominent family's collapse, traced through financial crime, betrayal, and alleged murder. Vivid and immediate in a way older cases cannot be.

But Still developing and contested; lacks the closure that hindsight provides to older investigations.

Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal poster

I'll Be Gone in the Dark2020

Michelle McNamara's obsessive hunt for the Golden State Killer, interwoven with her own story. A documentary about obsession as much as crime.

But Grief-heavy; McNamara died before the killer was caught, and that loss permeates every episode.

I'll Be Gone in the Dark poster

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Crazy, Not Insane

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Act2019

Both Lewis and this series grapple with the question of how trauma rewires someone's sense of self and agency. Lewis explores it clinically; *The Act* shows it lived.

Dramatization of Gypsy Rose Blanchard's case—a woman conditioned by her mother into faked illness, leading to murder. Explores how abuse distorts identity and agency in ways pure documentary cannot.

But Gypsy's story has become tabloid fodder; the dramatization can feel exploitative, and she profited from telling it.

The Act poster
More like this (3)

The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst2015

HBO's masterclass in letting a subject incriminate himself through candid interview. Durst's own voice is the most disturbing element.

But Durst is a wealthy white man whose conviction took decades; the system's passivity is infuriating.

The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst poster

Dominion2018

Both films ask why humans are capable of casual brutality toward vulnerable beings. Lewis focuses on those who act out; this focuses on systems that enable mass harm.

Alex Gibney's documentary about factory farming and animal treatment—brutal, systemic dehumanization on industrial scale. Explores how we normalize violence against the powerless.

But Extremely graphic; not about crime, so the shift in subject feels abrupt unless you're already animal-rights adjacent.

Dominion poster

Requiem for a Dream2000

Like Lewis's work, *Requiem* argues that human destruction stems from neurological and chemical reality, not moral failure. It's *her* thesis dramatized rather than argued.

Darren Aronofsky's narrative film about addiction's grip on four people—a mother, a boxer, a dealer, and his girlfriend. Visual and psychological destruction unfolds with nightmarish precision.

But Fictional rather than documentary; genuinely difficult to watch due to graphic drug use and psychological deterioration.

Requiem for a Dream poster

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