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.
If you liked this
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.

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.

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.

The wildcard
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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

People
Cast
Production
- Trevor GrothCo-Executive Producer
- Tristen TuckfieldCo-Executive Producer
- Cassie SagnessCo-Producer
- Steven MurphyConsulting Producer
- Boyd VicoExecutive Producer
- Brad StevensExecutive Producer
- Chris SmithExecutive Producer
- Eric GoodeExecutive Producer
- Fisher StevensExecutive Producer
- Joel GallenExecutive Producer
- Rebecca ChaiklinExecutive Producer
- Rick AustinExecutive Producer
- Kevin BraussProducer
- Michelle WilkerProducer
Recommended by
Blackfish, Wild Wild Country, Casting JonBenet, Class Action Park, Grey Gardens, Grizzly Man, Gates of Heaven, Evil Genius: The True Story of America's Most Diabolical Bank Heist, McMillion$, Evil Genius, Bringing Up Baby, Dark Side of the Ring, Fierce Creatures, Meerkat Manor