Netflix’s authentic documentaries are having one thing of a second, with three such titles dominating one-third of the streamer’s each day Prime 10 chart within the US. In different phrases, extra US subscribers are at present watching documentaries on Netflix proper now than hit sequence like Intercourse Schooling, Virgin River, and One Piece, unusual as that may sound.
Certainly one of them, in truth, is definitely the #1 TV present on Netflix for the complete US immediately — it’s a four-episode docuseries about alien sightings referred to as Encounters. The others embrace a model new true-crime docuseries, in addition to a brand new season of an current true-crime docuseries, and we’ll take a better have a look at all three titles beneath.
Encounters (#1 on Netflix immediately)
First up, we’ll begin with the most well-liked of those three Netflix documentaries, primarily based on the truth that it’s #1 within the US immediately.
Director Yon Motskin’s Encounters is a docuseries that explores every little thing from submersible spacecraft discovered off the coast of a Welsh village to an alien encounter supposedly skilled by youngsters in Zimbabwe, in addition to “nonhuman intelligence” that was found interfering with a nuclear energy plant in Japan. “UFOs, UAPs, nonhuman intelligence, no matter we’d name it… I didn’t earlier than, however now I feel it exists,” Motskin informed Netflix in a promotional interview.
“It’s on the market. Persons are simply now beginning to settle for it as one thing that’s acceptable to speak about.”
The primary 4 episodes of Encounters are crammed with firsthand experiences, from locations the place the supposed alien sightings occurred, and will certainly have you ever questioning if we’re actually alone within the universe. The sequence’ vignettes are additionally fleshed out with claims from whistleblowers and secret army applications.
As for the opposite Netflix documentaries which are dominating the streamer’s new releases within the US in the meanwhile, we flip subsequent to Season 2 of Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal.
The primary season dropped on Netflix earlier this 12 months, simply weeks earlier than former high-powered South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh was discovered responsible of murdering his spouse and son. The three-episode first season documented every little thing main as much as the jury’s determination, whereas the three newly launched episodes comprising Season 2 proceed to doc how the Murdaughs have devastated their small South Carolina group.
The brand new season interviews jurors, prosecutors, witnesses, and even former mates of the Murdaughs, and it covers every little thing from the media circus that fashioned across the trial to key proof that resulted in convictions. Per Netflix, “The sequence exhibits footage that was key to the case towards the defendant, like body-cam video from June 7, 2021, the evening Maggie and Paul Murdaugh had been killed on Alex Murdaugh’s property, and proof pictures from the evening of the boat crash that killed Paul’s pal Mallory Seashore in 2019.”
This ultimate Netflix launch is targeted on a tragedy that occurred again in 1999, on a morning when a 37-year-old British broadcasting star named Jill Dando was killed after being struck by a bullet on her London doorstep.
Dando was the host of Crimewatch together with different applications on the BBC, and along with being a beloved broadcaster, she additionally bore one thing of a resemblance to Princess Diana. For sure, her killing sparked one of many largest murder investigations in UK historical past. Per Netflix, this docuseries revisits this case with contemporary eyes. “Dando’s brother, Nigel Dando, who was additionally a journalist and is interviewed within the sequence, hopes its launch will result in new details about the homicide of his sister.
“As he informed The Occasions earlier this 12 months, ‘Somebody would possibly know one thing.’”
On this documentary sequence, viewers meet the case’s lead investigator, Hamish Campbell, in addition to journalists who lined the homicide. They describe the method of talking to 4,000 individuals and sifting via hours of CCTV footage. “The sequence retraces the method of chasing down numerous ideas and leads,” Netflix explains, “starting from a colourful undertaker gathering wooden for coffins close by, to the sightings of a suspicious-looking ‘sweating man’ at a bus cease — and a blue Vary Rover lurking round Dando’s avenue and fleeing at excessive velocity.”
