Television series

Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness

Tiger King is the show that ate the internet in lockdown week one: a sprawling, gloriously unhinged true-crime docuseries about Joe Exotic, a mulleted, gun-toting big-cat breeder locked in a decades-long feud with animal-rights rival Carole Baskin, which somehow ends in a murder-for-hire plot. It's trashy, addictive, and genuinely stranger than fiction. Watch it for the spectacle, not the moral clarity — there isn't any.

TVMaze rating6.3

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Wild Wild Country2018

Another Netflix docuseries about a magnetic, self-mythologising leader building an empire in the American wilderness while a small town loses its mind around him. Same breathless, jaw-drop momentum.

But Six hours long and slower-burning than Tiger King — it earns its madness rather than front-loading it.

Wild Wild Country poster

The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst2015

A wealthy eccentric, a trail of dead bodies, and a documentary crew who get closer to a confession than anyone thought possible. Pure charismatic-monster true crime.

But More procedural and less zoo-based chaos — it's a slow tightening of a noose, not a carnival.

The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst poster

Don't F**k with Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer2019

Internet sleuths hunting a cat-killing sociopath before he escalates. Same online-obsessive, feud-fuelled energy as the Joe-versus-Carole saga, with a much darker undertow.

But Genuinely upsetting in places — the animal cruelty here isn't played for absurdist comedy.

Don't F**k with Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer poster

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Something you would not have found on your own.

The Act of Killing2012

Both are studies of people performing self-justifying mythology directly to a camera, letting the footage of their own bragging become the evidence against them.

Indonesian death-squad leaders re-enact their own genocide-era murders for the camera, styling themselves as movie heroes. It's the same idea at the heart of Tiger King — a monster narrating his own myth — pushed to its most horrifying, serious extreme.

But This is not entertainment in the way Tiger King is entertainment. It's devastating, and it will sit with you for weeks.

The Act of Killing poster
More like this (8)

Making a Murderer2015

Small-town America, a family patriarch everyone has an opinion about, and a justice system that seems to be improvising. The gateway drug for this entire genre.

But No exotic animals, no glitter — it's grimmer, more procedural, and asks you to actually think about evidence.

Making a Murderer poster

LuLaRich2021

A cult-of-personality business docuseries about leggings, delusion, and a founder who genuinely believes his own myth. Same queasy comedy of American self-invention.

But Financial fraud instead of murder plots — the stakes are ruined lives and bank accounts, not big cats.

LuLaRich poster

Love Fraud2020

A serial con man, the women he scammed, and the bounty hunter who teams up with them to catch him. Deranged real people doing deranged real things, told with real style.

But Fewer tigers, more marriage fraud — the chaos is emotional rather than criminal-underworld.

Love Fraud poster

Abducted in Plain Sight2017

A single unbelievable true story told with the same gobsmacked energy — you'll keep pausing to say 'wait, what?' out loud to an empty room.

But It's one film, not a series, and the subject matter is a child abduction case — heavier than its jaw-dropping reputation suggests.

Abducted in Plain Sight poster

American Murder: The Family Next Door2020

Told entirely through texts, police footage and social media, it's a masterclass in how ordinary-seeming people perform normalcy for a camera while hiding something monstrous.

But Dead serious throughout — there's no camp here, and the true story it tells is genuinely tragic.

American Murder: The Family Next Door poster

Soupçons2004

The original fly-on-the-wall courtroom docuseries, following a novelist accused of killing his wife. Ambiguous, absorbing, and it invented half the tricks this genre still uses.

But Older and slower than modern true crime — no memes, no viral moments, just patient, uncomfortable doubt.

Soupçons poster

Grizzly Man2005

Same raw material — a self-mythologising eccentric whose identity is completely fused with dangerous exotic animals — filtered through a wholly different, mournful register.

Werner Herzog's documentary about Timothy Treadwell, who lived among Alaskan grizzlies convinced he understood them, until one didn't return the favour. A quieter, sadder cousin to Joe Exotic's animal obsession.

But Meditative and melancholy where Tiger King is loud and gleeful — Herzog is interested in tragedy, not spectacle.

Grizzly Man poster

Sunset Boulevard1950

Both are portraits of a grandiose, self-invented celebrity performing stardom for an audience that's really just watching them fall apart.

A faded star clings to a fantasy of her own fame until it curdles into obsession and violence. Black-and-white Hollywood noir, but it's got the exact same DNA as Joe's rhinestone empire of ego.

But Scripted, seventy-plus years old, and slow by modern standards — no docuseries thrills, just a slow-motion character study.

Sunset Boulevard poster

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