Film
Tabloid
Errol Morris's gleeful deep-dive into Joyce McKinney, a former beauty queen at the centre of a 1977 British tabloid scandal involving a kidnapped Mormon missionary. It's a darkly comic portrait of delusion, media hysteria, and a woman utterly convinced of her own narrative. For anyone who finds real-life absurdity more compelling than fiction.
Should you watch it?
Watch it if you like documentaries where a sharply stylish filmmaker lets an unreliable, self-mythologising subject talk at length in her own words, and the telling matters as much as the tale.
Skip it if you want a tidy account of what happened, since this stays deliberately murky and spends long stretches letting one woman's version play unchallenged before the questions catch up.
What it asks of you: Settle in for a brisk 87 minutes of talking heads, sharp cutting, and a subject who keeps performing for the lens; you'll need to keep your own judgment running throughout.
Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.
If you liked this
The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst2015
A prestige documentary series that builds genuine suspense around an unreliable subject. Like Tabloid, it lets a fascinating person implicate themselves while you watch, wrestling with sympathy and revulsion.
But Six hours is a commitment, and the final episodes traffic in real grief rather than camp. The tone shifts from funny to genuinely dark.
Capturing the Friedmans2003
Andrew Jarecki's masterpiece about a family destroyed by accusation. It shares Tabloid's fascination with competing narratives and the impossibility of establishing truth when everyone involved is a unreliable narrator.
But It's far more distressing. There are no laughs here, and the ambiguity about what actually happened becomes genuinely painful.
Tickled2016
Starts as a silly internet rabbit-hole and becomes genuinely sinister. Like Tabloid, it's about obsession, humiliation, and a story that gets weirder the deeper you dig, but it goes to darker places.
But The compulsive quality becomes oppressive. By the end you feel complicit in voyeurism rather than entertained by it.
Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Tabloid
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Eadweard Muybridge, Zoopraxographer1975
Both are fascinated by historical figures whose notoriety has obscured what they actually did or believed. Both ask whether we can separate the person from the act, or the myth from the fact.
A Thom Andersen experimental film about the photographer whose motion studies changed cinema—and who killed his wife's lover, then was acquitted in court. Like Tabloid, it's about a brilliant, unstable figure whose genius and violence are inseparable. Told in fragmented, obsessive detail rather than conventional narrative.
But It's avant-garde. If you expect talking heads and a clear story, this will frustrate you. It demands active interpretation and patience with formal strangeness.
More like this (7)
The Queen of Versailles2012
Another portrait of delusional wealth and ego, filmed with affectionate exasperation. It has Tabloid's gift for finding dark comedy in a subject's inability to see themselves clearly.
But It's less about crime and more about tasteless excess. If you want real stakes, this feels lighter and less consequential.
Best Worst Movie2009
A documentary about Troll 2, following its accidental cult status. It shares Tabloid's love of the unintentionally absurd and people who are utterly sincere about ridiculous things.
But The tone is gentler and more affectionate. There's no scandal or real harm, so it lacks the edge that makes Tabloid uncomfortable.
Catfish2010
An internet mystery that unfolds in real-time, built on questions of identity and deception online. Like Tabloid, it's about believing what someone tells you and learning that reality is messier.
But It's quieter and more melancholic than Tabloid's circus energy. Some find it slow; others find it pretentious.
Fyre2019
A recent documentary about a catastrophic fraud that somehow remained charismatic. It captures that same energy: how do obviously crazy things attract believers? Why are we laughing and horrified at once?
But It relies heavily on talking heads and feels more conventional in its approach. The subject is less interesting as a person than as a failure.
The Toys That Made Us2017
If you liked how Tabloid traces the gap between marketing and reality, this series does similar archaeology with consumer culture. Each episode is a contained story with weird characters driving history.
But It's considerably gentler. These are nostalgia pieces, not dark excavations. There's no scandal to unearth.
The Act of Killing2012
Both place us in the position of filming someone telling their version of an atrocity. Both ask what responsibility we have when we listen and record. Both are about the stories people tell themselves to survive.
A documentary that asks Indonesian death-squad leaders to act out their own killings on camera. It's Tabloid inverted: instead of a subject in denial, you have subjects in full confessional mode. The result is deeply unsettling and philosophically radical.
But It deals with real mass murder and real evil. There's nothing funny about it. Also nearly two hours and requires emotional stamina. Not for a casual evening.
Synecdoche, New York2008
Both are about people who have completely rewritten their own histories into forms that suit them emotionally. Both see this as both tragic and darkly funny. Both suggest that there might be no objective truth to recover—only competing versions of events.
Charlie Kaufman's fiction film about a theatre director whose obsessive reconstruction of his own life becomes indistinguishable from reality. It's Tabloid as baroque fiction: all the same themes of delusion, self-mythologizing, and the impossible gap between who you think you are and what you've actually done.
But It's nearly two-and-a-half hours and abstract. No clear plot, deliberately difficult. Some experience it as pretentious; most either love it passionately or find it exhausting.
People
Cast
Directing
- Errol MorrisDirector
Recommended by
Scandalous: The Untold Story of the National Enquirer, Cheaters, True Stories