Film

Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr.

Errol Morris investigates Fred Leuchter, an engineer who became America's execution expert before lending his credibility to Holocaust denial. It's a meticulous, unsettling portrait of how a decent man's desire for relevance led him catastrophically astray. Morris examines the machinery of both death and delusion—and the terrible cost of expertise untethered from moral judgment.

TMDb rating3.5

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you are drawn to documentaries that let an unsettling subject talk for itself, where the interviewer's patient, sly questions do the work and the audience is left to judge the man on screen.

Skip it if you want a brisk explainer on capital punishment, since this one stays with a single odd figure and his fussy, meandering detail rather than the wider debate.

What it asks of you: Ninety-one unhurried minutes of mostly seated interviews and a few stark archival images, a shape that rewards close listening over spectacle and lets silences do real work.

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

If you liked this

The Thin Blue Line1988

Morris's masterpiece about wrongful conviction. Hypnotic style, rigorous investigation, and a man whose life hinges on a detail everyone missed. If you felt the weight of *Mr. Death*, this will haunt you differently.

But A brutal true crime that doesn't resolve neatly. The moral clarity you want doesn't arrive. Some find the stylization at odds with the gravity.

The Thin Blue Line poster

Capturing the Friedmans2003

Andrew Jarecki's documentary about a family destroyed by accusations—some proven, some disputed, all devastating. Like *Mr. Death*, it refuses easy villains and asks what we owe to complexity.

But Genuinely difficult to watch. No redemption arc, no catharsis. The ambiguity will frustrate you if you came for answers.

Capturing the Friedmans poster

The Act of Killing2012

Joshua Oppenheimer lets Indonesian death-squad leaders reenact their own killings. Horrifying and hypnotic. Like Morris's film, it trusts the audience to sit with moral horror without flinching away.

But Extremely graphic. The subjects are unrepentant. If you need closure or justice, this will feel obscene.

The Act of Killing poster

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Come and See1985

Both are interrogations of atrocity: one debunks denial, one forces you to *feel* denial's opposite. They're inverse approaches to the same moral abyss.

A Soviet film following a boy through Nazi-occupied Belarus. Not a Holocaust documentary—a sensory, hallucinatory immersion in what war does to a mind. Where *Mr. Death* examines the lie, this shows what the truth feels like.

But Horrifyingly graphic. Agit-prop in structure. Non-linear and cryptic. Some view it as propaganda, others as unbearable.

Come and See poster
More like this (6)

The Act2019

Gypsy Rose Blanchard's story: a son, a mother, Munchausen by proxy. Like *Mr. Death*, it's about how proximity to manipulation warps judgment. You'll feel complicit just watching.

But Stylized to the point of camp. Some will read it as exploitative. The true events are darker than the drama.

The Act poster

In Cold Blood1967

Richard Brooks's adaptation treats the Kansas murders and their aftermath with documentary precision. A founding influence on true crime: compassionate toward a killer, unflinching about motive and psychology.

But Deliberately paced. Black-and-white austerity. The sympathy given to murderers disturbs some viewers.

In Cold Blood poster

The Keepers2017

A nun's unsolved murder, a Catholic school's abuse, institutional cover-up. It has the same methodical unwinding as *Mr. Death*—following threads into darkness, finding no easy rest.

But A slow investigation across seven hours. Religious trauma depicted plainly. Some threads remain dangling.

The Keepers poster

Shoah1985

Lanzmann's nine-hour testimony from Holocaust survivors and perpetrators. The antithesis of Leuchter's pseudoscience. A rebuke to anyone who claims the inconvenient disappeared.

But Nine hours. No reenactments, no music. Just voices and faces and the weight of memory. Demands everything from you.

Shoah poster

Tickled2016

A competitive tickling fetish rabbit hole becomes an investigation into coercion, exploitation, and how the internet enables hidden cruelty. Bizarre, then darkening—the trajectory mirrors *Mr. Death*.

But The sexual content will make some deeply uncomfortable. The twist might feel manipulative. Lighter tone early on jarring against later gravity.

Tickled poster

Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present2012

Both films are portraits of singular people whose life's work is questioned—Leuchter's expertise was misapplied, Abramović's integrity is constantly interrogated. Both are about the gap between intention and impact.

A documentary about a performance artist, but really about witnessing, complicity, and the vulnerability of being seen. Like Leuchter, Abramović asks uncomfortable questions about attention and presence—but through art, not engineering.

But Slow, meditative, and abstract. No plot. Some will read it as pretentious navel-gazing. The art itself provokes eye-rolling in many.

Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present poster

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