Television series

American Vandal

Name: American Vandal
Genre: Comedy, Crime
Released: 2017
Cast: Tyler Alvarez, Griffin Gluck, Jimmy Tatro, Travis Tope

A mockumentary true-crime satire that treats a high school dick-drawing scandal with the same hushed gravity as a murder trial. Shot exactly like Making a Murderer, it's funnier than that sounds and, by the back half, sneakily moving about reputation, adolescence and what cameras do to truth. For anyone who likes their comedy dry and their satire structurally faithful.

TVMaze rating

6.7

If you liked this

Making a Murderer2015

The actual documentary American Vandal is dead-on impersonating — same slow zooms, same ominous score, same faith that enough footage will reveal the truth. Watching it after is genuinely funnier.

But It's a real, grim case with real stakes and no jokes; tonal whiplash if you go in expecting comedy.

Documentary Now!2015

Fred Armisen and Bill Hader spoof a different iconic documentary every episode with terrifying precision. Same appetite for nailing the genre's tics, just in twenty-minute doses instead of eight episodes.

But You need to know the documentaries being parodied for some episodes to land; a few are more niche than others.

Summer Heights High2007

Chris Lilley's mockumentary about an Australian high school gets at the same target — teenage self-mythology and small-scale scandal treated as world history — with a rawer, meaner edge.

But One performer plays multiple roles across race and gender lines in ways that read very differently, and less comfortably, today.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Thin Blue Line1988

Every dolly shot and hushed talking-head interview in American Vandal is descended from this film's technique — it's the true-crime grammar being spoofed, at its origin.

Errol Morris's documentary basically invented the stylized reenactment and interview grammar that Making a Murderer and, by extension, American Vandal are both quoting. See where the visual language actually came from.

But Slow, formal, and completely serious — a wrongful-conviction case with no jokes and no satire, just the real weight Vandal is riffing on.

PEN152019

The mirror image of American Vandal's ironic distance: two adult women playing thirteen-year-olds with zero irony, all cringe, all heart. Same obsession with how mortifying being a teenager actually is.

But The premise (adults playing kids) is a big ask, and the secondhand embarrassment is genuinely hard to sit through sometimes.

Cobra Kai2018

Also takes something trivial — a karate rivalry — and plays it with soap-opera sincerity, finding real stakes in teenage nonsense the way Vandal does with a vandalism case.

But It's a legacy sequel banking on Karate Kid nostalgia, so a chunk of the pleasure depends on caring about that already.

Big Mouth2017

Same raunchy, deeply earnest fascination with what puberty actually does to kids, just animated and turned up to eleven. Filthy and oddly tender in the same breath.

But Talking hormone monsters and literal ghost of Duke Ellington — the animated absurdity is a hard swerve from Vandal's dry realism.

The Inbetweeners2008

British teen humiliation comedy at its purest — no true-crime framing, just relentless, well-observed cruelty and stupidity among school friends. A good chaser if you want the comedy without the format gimmick.

But Broader and cruder than Vandal, with none of its structural cleverness — pure sitcom, not satire.

Freaks and Geeks1999

No mockumentary trick at all, just the most honest, unglamorous depiction of American high school ever made. Where Vandal earns its emotional moments through parody, this earns them straight.

But Cancelled after one season, so it ends abruptly with threads left dangling — no tidy resolution to any of it.

Wet Hot American Summer2001no page yet

A different flavour of deadpan absurdity about teenage institutions — summer camp instead of high school — played with a straight face despite being completely unhinged.

But It's broader, sillier, and much less interested in earnestness than Vandal ever gets; pure spoof, no heart underneath.

Drop Dead Gorgeous1999

Same structural joke: small-stakes small-town institution, filmed with total mockumentary sincerity, escalating into something absurdly high-stakes.

A mockumentary about a small-town teen beauty pageant that turns murderous, played with the same flat, confessional-interview deadpan Vandal uses — just aimed at a different slice of Americana.

But Broader, meaner, and more overtly farcical than Vandal — it wants to be a black comedy first, a documentary parody second.

Catfish: The TV Show2012no page yet

Strip away Vandal's scripting and satire and you get this: real amateurs with cameras chasing the truth about people their own age, format played completely straight.

MTV's real, unscripted version of amateur-investigator-solves-a-mystery, with actual teenagers and twentysomethings doing the digging themselves. Trashier, messier, and unnervingly close to what Vandal is satirizing.

But It's genuinely trashy reality television with none of Vandal's writing or craft — the entertainment is the mess, not the cleverness.