Television series

Wild Wild Country

Wild Wild Country is a six-part Netflix documentary about Rajneeshpuram, the Oregon commune built by followers of guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh in the 1980s, and the spiraling war it fought with its rural neighbors. It's sprawling, archive-rich, and refuses easy villains — by the end you'll have switched allegiances at least twice. Best for anyone who likes their true stories morally slippery rather than neatly resolved.

TVMaze rating7.4

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The Vow2020

Same slow-motion unraveling of a self-improvement group that becomes something much darker, told from inside by the people who were seduced by it. Just as long, just as hard to look away from.

But It's heavier on courtroom process and slower to build than Wild Wild Country's operatic sprawl.

The Vow poster

Waco2018

A dramatized version of another American religious community that ended in catastrophe, with the same interest in how a siege mentality forms on both sides of a standoff.

But It's scripted drama rather than documentary, so you lose the eerie authenticity of real archival footage.

Waco poster

Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief2015

A tighter, angrier look at a movement built around one magnetic founder and the loyalty he commanded, with former insiders describing exactly how the machine worked on them.

But Less ambivalent than Wild Wild Country — this one wants you to land firmly on one side.

Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief poster

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Marjoe1972

Both films are fascinated by charisma as a performable skill rather than a mystical gift — Marjoe shows you the mechanics from inside a true believer turned operator, decades before Rajneeshpuram's cameras rolled.

A prescient, Oscar-winning documentary from decades earlier, following a former child evangelist as he cynically works a Pentecostal circuit — an unnervingly honest look at charisma as a con.

But It's a character study of one man, not a sprawling communal drama, and its 1970s pacing is much slower.

Marjoe poster
More like this (8)

Holy Hell2016

Made by a man who spent twenty years inside a Los Angeles cult, using his own home movies — an intimate, unsettling view of devotion from someone who lived it.

But Much smaller and sadder in scope; it doesn't have the town-versus-commune drama that makes Wild Wild Country so propulsive.

Holy Hell poster

Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness2020

Different subject entirely, but the same taste for a magnetic, quotable, possibly dangerous main character and a legal fight that swallows a whole rural community whole.

But It's trashier and far less interested in nuance — pure spectacle where Wild Wild Country wants you to think.

Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness poster

The Family2019no page yet

A quieter, stranger documentary about a secretive Christian network with real political reach, built on the same interest in how belief and power quietly fuse together.

But Slower and more diffuse, without a single charismatic figure to hang the story on.

Heaven's Gate: The Cult of Cults2020no page yet

A four-part look at the group whose mass suicide became a cultural punchline, told with real sympathy for how ordinary, searching people ended up there.

But Grimmer ending, less back-and-forth intrigue — this one is tragedy from the start rather than a slow-building standoff.

LuLaRich2021

Swap the desert commune for a legging pyramid scheme and you get the same anatomy: charismatic founders, true believers, and a media reckoning that arrives too late.

But Much lighter stakes — nobody's building an armed compound, just losing their savings on printed leggings.

LuLaRich poster

Behind the Curve2018

A small, oddly moving documentary about flat earth believers that shares Wild Wild Country's real curiosity about why smart people commit fully to an unlikely belief.

But No conflict on this scale — it's a character study of true belief, not a war between two communities.

Behind the Curve poster

The Master2012

Where Wild Wild Country tracks a real guru's followers through archive footage, The Master imagines the one-on-one hold a leader has over a single susceptible man — same engine, fictionalized and turned inward.

Paul Thomas Anderson's fictional, Philip Seymour Hoffman-led drama about a charismatic movement leader gives you the psychology of devotion as intimate character study rather than history.

But It's opaque and ambiguous by design — don't expect the plot momentum or answers that Wild Wild Country provides.

The Master poster

Wanderlust2012no page yet

Wild Wild Country plays the commune-versus-outsiders culture war as high tension; Wanderlust takes the exact same setup — utopian dreamers, skeptical locals — and mines it purely for absurdity.

A broad studio comedy about a stressed-out couple who stumble into commune life, packed with the same culture clash between free love idealists and bewildered outsiders — just played for big laughs.

But It's a silly, R-rated comedy with none of the real stakes, violence, or moral weight of the actual story.

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