If you’ve worn out LuLaRich, try these 7 documentaries about grifters, scammers, and Fyre fraudsters
Is all the murder and mayhem of true-crime weighing on you? There’s a whole subgenre of fraud docs to take the edge off
TV Features Fyre
Our collective true-crime obsession has led to binges of breakout series like The Keepers, Tiger King, Wild Wild Country, and I’ll Be Gone In The Dark; multiple NXIVM docuseries; dozens of podcasts; and countless reexaminations of infamous serial killers. But if watching all of that murder and mayhem is starting to weigh on you (it’s definitely gotten to us), there’s a whole subgenre of fraud docs to take the edge off. Amazon Prime Video’s LuLaRich recently captivated audiences with its exploration of the MLM machinations at clothing company LuLaRoe, whose reputation is now threadbare. The A.V. Club has put together this list of seven additional docuseries about grifters, scammers, and outright thieves, and how they evaded justice or got their just deserts.
13 Comments
There should be a documentary about the asshole who decided slideshows were a great idea.
On desktop, get out of full screen mode, adjust the browser so it’s not filling the whole screen, and it will show you the whole series of slides instead of having to click ‘next slide’ over and over. Hope that makes sense.But yes, slide shows are stupid and should embarrass this website.
Herb: The Jim Spanfeller Story
I’m a little disappointed that The Queen of Versailles wasn’t included here, as it’s probably my favorite film in this subgenre.
FBI Agent Doug Matthews from McMillions deserves his own show. Straight up.I thought I was going to hate Operation Varsity Blues because these true crime re-creations are always so bad. And then I saw Matthew Modine was in it and thought, how low can you go Matty M? But after watching it, it all strangely works. MM is really good. The production was very good. The premise of using the wiretaps as the dialogue was such a no brainer but such a good idea too.
seconded re: the FBI agent; easily one of the most entertaining parts of McMillions.
Thirded, guy was hilarious, easily the best part of the show. That series is much too long. They could have easily cut it in half, maybe more and lost nothing. There was one entire episode that was completely disposable.
Fully Agree about Doug Matthews! I also got a vibe that he and the lady from McD’s had a moment back in the day ;)Honestly I cannot recommend McMillions enough, it was fantastic!
unless it ends with them getting shot in the face with a shotgun, why would i?
suggest ‘the kid stays in the picture’ (rental)it’s robert evans’ point of view, great pic. careful, his voice may lull you to sleep.
Heist was great in that it shows how even high security operations have blind spots (and not so high security, as the airport episode shows).
I’ve already seen all of these! I love true crime documentaries, and especially the subgenre of scammer documentaries. I wish someone would make one about Juicero, which I refuse to believe wasn’t a scam. (I heard the Juicero guy, who came up with the idea when he was banned from his local juice bar for being a massive gaping a-hole, is now selling “raw water”.)
If I had to choose which Fyre doc, I’d go with the Netflix one, but only because I found the nitty-gritty of the inner workings fascinating. If you are the kind of person that gets anxious about deadlines, it will give you a heart attack. But both shows are worthwhile.The McDonald’s Monopoly doc is good but way too long with a whole episode that is completely unnecessary and tons of fat that could have been trimmed in every other episode. It easily could have been told in half the time and been better for it. As others have said, the FBI agent in charge of the investigation is almost too funny to be real.I’d also recommend the Gibney-produced anthology series Dirty Money on Netflix. It’s a series of one hour docs on financial fraud and scandals. Almost all of the episodes are great, but I have to really push the one about Volkswagen’s emissions fraud, Hard Nox (holy shit, it was worse than it was ever presented, they were unbelievable bastards) and Drug Short, which shows how Martin Shkreli was a single asshole fish in a gigantic ocean full of pharmaceutical assholes. A few people, including a super cool fresh out of school woman caught on to the fraud and exposed and shorted the living shit out of the biggest asshole in the sea.