There’s something about a cult documentary that is guaranteed to draw me in – whether it’s the fascinating original footage (for some reason, these organisations often seem to have members who are also film-makers), the shocking, true-crime stories or the bingeable cliffhanger formats.
Most of all, though, what is so intriguing and terrifying about these programmes is how normal and down-to-earth the survivors of the cults are. The thought process is natural: could I – would I – be sucked in?
Good news, then, that today Trust Me: The False Prophet arrives on Netflix. It’s an investigation into (and attempt to expose) the new so-called “prophet” at the heart of the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints, a polygamist Mormon sect. It’s made by cult expert Christine Marie and her videographer husband, Tolga Katas, who were also behind the 2022 series on the FLDS, Keep Sweet: Prey and Obey, an investigation into the group before the imprisonment of its former leader, Warren Jeffs.
The core fascination of cults is simple: through stories of power, control, sex, money and spirituality, we learn an awful lot about human nature. Here are eight of the best cult documentaries.
The Vow
The NXIVM cult was set up at an ‘executive success programme’ (Photo: HBO)
I devoured all 15 hours of this comprehensive deep-dive into the deeply disturbing NXIVM cult in just one week. It was set up as an “executive success programme” in the late 90s, for its leader, Keith Raniere, to lure thousands of innocent people into his orbit, including the rich and famous, such as Smallville actor Allison Mack. As things became increasingly sinister, Mack would go on to become a key player in the establishment of the master-slave pyramid scheme “DOS”, which involved women having Raniere’s initials branded on their bodies.
The first series features NXIVM defectors attempting to bring it down, and the second gives a detailed account of the 2018-2020 court case. Both are shocking and sickening – but it’s worth watching it all, if only to see the interviews with Raniere’s right-hand woman Nancy Salzman, and those who are still faithful to Raniere even in the face of overwhelming evidence.
Streaming on HBO Max
Holy Hell
This one-off documentary made a splash when it landed in 2016. Created by Will Allen, a film-maker who was a member of the Buddhafield cult in California for more than two decades, it shows through first hand footage the intoxicating experience of being near a man who claims to be God. That man, who was born Jaime Gomez but goes by many names (Michel in this film), is a creepy, magnetic presence made distinctive by his disregard for clothing and penchant for black eyeliner.
What begins as new-age spiritualism and creative expression soon turns to hysteria and shocking sexual abuse. As ever, it is not an easy watch, but it is a fascinating and desperately sad first hand account from someone on the inner circle – and who was appointed, at the time, as the leader’s official filmographer.
Streaming on Amazon Prime Video
Wild Wild Country
Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh’s group started in India at the peak of the New Age movement in the 1960s (Photo: Netflix)
This fantastic Netflix series about the followers of the Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh – better known as Osho – is unique in that it not only details the descent of a spiritual organisation into financial and sexual misdemeanours, but looks outside it to the effect the group had on those around it. The group started in India at the peak of the New Age movement in the 1960s, but in the 1980s decided to set up a commune in Oregon – “Rajneeshpuram” – for them all to live together. They bought a ranch in a small town of Antelope – and a war soon ensued between Osho’s followers and the locals, some of whom are interviewed here.
Also interviewed is Osho’s right-hand woman, Ma Anand Sheela, who upholds that she’s innocent. No spoilers, but what unfolds, even when you’ve watched plenty of other cult documentaries, is genuinely jaw-dropping – and the more zoomed-out approach is utterly fascinating.
Streaming on Netflix
Dancing For the Devil
There is something especially creepy about seeing the real content 7M was uploading to TikTok (Poto: Netflix)
People have sought to brainwash and exploit others since the dawn of time – but there is something particularly sinister about seeing this process brought quite so crudely into the modern day. This series from 2025 is about the TikTok dance management company 7M, run by a pastor named Robert Shinn, who manipulated dancers in a strange communal-house-cum-church-cum-talent-agency. The main focus of the programme is on the Wilking family. Their daughter Miranda, formerly part of an online dance duo with her sister Melanie, was lost to the cult and the narrative follows them trying to get her back.
Shinn forces them to chase money and God at the same time, putting all their trust in him for both their career and their salvation. There is something especially creepy about seeing the real content 7M was uploading to TikTok and Instagram, knowing that it’s the sort of thing we might just scroll past every day.
Streaming on Netflix
The Most Hated Family in America
This iconic film is one of Theroux’s best known (Photo: BBC)
For a take on cult life that is, despite its subject matter, somehow slightly lighter-feeling, look to Louis Theroux, whose programmes expose the horrors and nonsenses of these groups while also skewering them with objectivity and irony. There is no heady footage of crying and wailing in fields here: just the cold, hard bigotry of the Westboro Baptist Church and Theroux’s admirably unruffled but probing presence.
This iconic film is one of Theroux’s best known for good reason: in Kansas, he goes to watch the Phelps family – who comprise the group almost in its entirety – picket soldiers’ funerals with signs saying “God hates f**s”, gently challenges the members on the logic of their shockingly offensive doctrines, and generally provides some perspective on the backwards thinking that has infiltrated the family. Most thrilling, of course, is when you sense that in some tiny way he’s getting through to them, too.
Streaming on BBC iPlayer
Escaping Twin Flames
The three-part series is an excellent, if deeply sad, slow burn (Photo: Netflix)
Escaping Twin Flames is about a company set up on YouTube that grabs people by appealing to their desire to find true love. Unlike Westboro, it’s one where you can almost see the appeal – those heartbroken over exes or who have struggled to find “the one” find refuge in an ideology that says there is one perfect person for all of us – your “twin flame” – if only we can find them. And once you find them, you must, at all costs, keep them.
This three-part series is an excellent, if deeply sad, slow burn, with former members interviewed and plenty of footage from video calls led by founders (and, you guessed it, twin flames) Jeff and Shaleia Divine. Some wild claims are made: that legal systems like marriage and restraining orders “aren’t real”, they are just keeping you from your twin flame; that – surprise surprise – the man in a twin flame relationship is allowed to have sex with his female partner whenever he likes. You can imagine what ensues.
Streaming on Netflix
Cult Massacre: One Day in Jonestown
Jonestown leader Jim Jones orchestrated a mass murder-suicide in 1978 (Photo: California Historical Society/Hulu)
This is probably the best-known cult story in the world, and for good reason. The Jonestown massacre in 1978 left almost 1,000 people dead after the inner circle of Jonestown leader Jim Jones orchestrated a mass murder-suicide that involved members drinking Flavor Aid (colloquially misidentified as Kool-Aid, as in “drinking the Kool-Aid”) laced with cyanide. The group, founded on “apostolic socialism”, set itself up in opposition to US politics, to disenfranchisement and desecration of society and government, and moved out to Guyana to build a “socialist paradise” where the atrocities would eventually occur.
This documentary created by National Geographic lifts the lid on the story we all think we know, through interviews with Jones’s son, Stephan, and members who survived – including some who were present at the event itself.
Streaming on Disney+
Bikram: Yogi, Guru, Predator
Bikram yoga creator Bikram Choudhury, has been the subject of multiple allegations of sexual assault (Photo: Netflix)
Hot yoga, an activity that many of us have done, might initially seem worlds away from the extreme beliefs of religious cults. Yet the man who created it, Bikram Choudhury, has been the subject of multiple allegations of sexual assault and is, in the yoga world, widely held to be in disgrace. This Netflix film unpacks how and why a wellness sensation quickly became something much darker.
There is plenty of footage of Choudhury himself in this programme, giving you a sense of both his charm and narcissism. As thousands of people devote themselves to his style of yoga, he becomes increasingly bullying, power-hungry and exploitative. Whether or not Bikram was a “cult” is perhaps not as clear-cut as others – and some still follow him in Hawaii – but it was certainly a cult of personality and control in which many people got seriously harmed.
Streaming on Netflix