5 Documentaries To Watch After Watching Tiger King

By Kelsey Knight

After your thrilling “Tiger King” binge ended, suddenly all your favorite TV shows seem lackluster in comparison to the mullet-fueled, drug-ridden, narcissistic world of big cat owners, complete with a score of original country music.

Joe Exotic, the self-proclaimed “gay, gun-carrying redneck with a mullet” took us on a wild ride into the world of big cat owners in the Netflix documentary series “Tiger King.” And just like that, the docuseries became a defining cultural moment during our shared quarantine experience.

So, if you’re desperately looking for your next adrenaline-pumping, documentary-fix, here are five suggestions for you:

Grizzly Man

Pieced together from actual footage, “Grizzly Man” explores Timothy Treadwell’s remarkable journey bridging the gap between man and bear. Or so he thinks, until his beloved bear turns on him.

McMillion$

For over a decade, McDonald’s fast-food empire awarded prizes in its Monopoly promotional game, totally oblivious that the winning tickets were being stolen and sold to winners. This documentary takes a look into the complex web that allowed one man to rig the results of McDonald’s popular Monopoly game for a whole decade.

Three Identical Strangers

A sensational, surreal, and sad story of identical triplets who were adopted by three different families, but reunited years later.

Capturing the Friedmans

Filmmaker Andrew Jarecki began making a documentary about children’s birthday performers only to discover one of his subjects, a professional clown, was the brother and son of two men who were accused of child molestation. Using home videos and interviews, this documentary explores the confusing and conflicting world of the accused, alleged victims, and investigators.

OJ: Made In America

A chronicle which extends beyond the rise and fall of O.J. Sympson to paint a broader picture of the American dream through the lens of racial tensions.

Why Do We Love Documentaries?

Maybe we’re just bored. But maybe “Tiger King” offers us something fiction can’t: access to hidden parts of our world.

In stranger-than-fiction documentaries, we’re taken into worlds that feel alien, despite being right in our own backyards. Worlds that escape societal norms, that we either wouldn’t care or dare to enter on our own, filled with forbidden fruits, and only unlocked by the listening ear of a fearless filmmaker.

And after all of these recommendations, if you’re still in search of that next great documentary series, check out Bullseye’s own self-made mockumentary: Hitting The Mark. Sometimes you don’t have to look far to find a zany group of individuals all under one roof!