20 chilling documentaries about escaping cults
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These 20 documentaries showcase the haunting, heartbreaking, and powerful stories of individuals who fought to break free from the emotional and manipulative chains imposed on them by cults, whether through daring getaways or a long journey to freedom. Check them out below.
‘Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey’
This Netflix documentary is challenging to watch, but it’s a gripping story that everybody should watch once. It tells the disturbing story of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), a polygamist Mormon denomination led by Warren Jeffs. The multi-episode production features interviews with survivors, many of whom had sexual relations with Jeffs, who recount their experience and what it took to get out.
2 of 20’The Program: Cons, Cults and Kidnapping’
In The Program: Cons, Cults and Kidnapping, a filmmaker travels to the Academy at Ivy Ridge, a behavioral school she was sent to as a child that harmed and abused her behind her family’s back, to expose the truth of what happened to her and other victims many years ago. “For a long time, I wasn’t going to include my story because I just wanted to be a filmmaker and make it about this issue, not me,” the director said about the film. “But after all the years of research, when I found my own file and learned that it’s my very own program that left all this evidence behind, I was like, ‘Oh no, I’m going to have to be in this now.’”
3 of 20’Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke’
Hulu’s new documentary, Devil in the Family, focuses on the lives of the oldest children of Ruby Franke. Franke is a disgraced YouTuber who once had over two million subscribers on the platform, turned convicted felon after pleading guilty to charges of child abuse — after they escaped the emotional and manipulative chains she placed on them for several years. The three-episode series is an emotional watch that may fill you with holy indignation … you’ve been warned.
4 of 20’The Vow’
The Vow is a two-season docuseries about Keith Raniere, a cult leader who ran the now-defunct self-help company NXIVM. The program’s 15 episodes focus on different parts of the chilling story and end with Reniere’s conviction, which we won’t spoil for you here. However, if you’re interested in documentaries like this, then this is one you have to stream.
5 of 20’Heaven’s Gate: The Cult of Cults’
In this HBO docuseries, former members and loved ones of former members of the religious group Heaven’s Gate, which Marshall Applewhite led, recount their experience being part of this mind-controlling cult, which manipulated members into believing they’d enter alien spacecraft if they took their own lives.
6 of 20’Sons of Perdition’
The Oprah Winfrey Network produced the chilling documentary Sons of Perdition, which follows three teenage boys who were exiled from their families and the FLDS Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints led by Warren Jeffs. The 2010 production follows a format similar to that of the TLC reality show Breaking Amish.
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