12 Baffling Netflix Documentaries You Need To Watch If You Like Trainwreck

Netflix’s “Trainwreck” series exists for the rubberneckers among us, those of us who just can’t fix our face and look away when something crazy is about to go down. Every episode of the documentary series often called out as “disaster porn” deals with a shining example why aliens would be wise to never visit our planet, from the all-too-preventable crowd crush at the center of “The Astroworld Tragedy” to Carnival’s 2013 dream vacation-turned-“Poop Cruise.” It’s the kind of thing viewers watch not to relish in others’ misery but more to stare into the abyss in equal parts wonder, fright, and pure bafflement.

The good news is that once you’ve binged the eight “Trainwreck” episodes, Netflix has plenty of equally bizarre documentaries just waiting to be added to your watch list. Whether you’re into true crime docuseries that are stranger than fiction or head-scratching tales of humanity at its less-than-finest, Netflix has you covered. 

“FYRE: The Greatest Party That Never Happened” deals with the 2017 logistical fiasco that would leave a few thousand folks stranded in an island FEMA tent city and land event organizer Billy McFarland in federal prison. With minimal event-planning experience and just a few months to plan, McFarland had set out to launch a swankier top-shelf take on music festivals like Bonnaroo and Coachella in the Bahamas. 

Unfortunately, he put far more time and energy into promoting the event with celebrities like Kendall Jenner and Bella Hadid than he did actually planning the thing. Various setbacks, logistical challenges, and the minimal time frame all came together on the day of the event to create a disaster that left thousands of mostly privileged festivalgoers stuck waiting for a festival that would never happen. The Netflix documentary looks into the hows and whys that led up to the miseryfest that would generate a schadenfreude-laden social media firestorm the likes of which would not be seen again until the Titan submersible disaster of 2023. 

Viewers were so obsessed with this tale that they racked up a staggering 45 million hours watching “The Tinder Swindler” when it was first released. A case study in the concept of “if it seems too good to be true, it probably is,” “The Tinder Swindler” follows the trail of broken hearts and dreams left by Israeli conman Simon Leviev, a man born as Shimon Hayut. Using a backstory that imagined him the son of diamond mogul Lev Leviev, Hayut traveled the world hooking up with and then emotionally hooking women he would wine and dine with his purported wealth. 

After whisking them away on a private jet and lavishing them with high-dollar luxury gifts, Hayut would have these women convinced that he was sitting on a serious pile of generational wealth. Fully bought into the con, Hayut’s lovers wouldn’t think twice when he asked them for a loan to save their beloved’s life as he went on the run from enemies targeting his family. Centering the voices of his victims, the Netflix documentary recounts Hayut’s emotional Ponzi scheme that took women around the world for an estimated $10 million.

An early example of viral trainwreck true crime documentaries, “Don’t F**k with Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer” is a three-part docuseries detailing how a group of online amateur sleuths worked together to crowdsource their investigation of someone harming cats — an investigation that woud culminate in them bringing down a murderer. Told by the sleuths themselves, the series chronicles the story that began with an animal cruelty video anonymously shared on YouTube and Facebook titled “1 boy 2 kittens.” 

Horrified at what that video captured, data analyst Deanna Thompson joined forces with a guy named John Green to create a Facebook group tasked with one mission: Finding and stopping the perpetrator through hidden clues from the video. Their investigation would prove integral to the eventual capture of Luka Magnotta, who was ultimately convicted of the 2012 murder of Chinese student Jun Lin. Sensitive viewers are advised to proceed with caution as this documentary generated a lot of attention for being notoriously difficult to watch among more squeamish audiences at the time of its release. 

“Abducted in Plain Sight” is another tough watch recounting the horrific tale of Jan Broberg, a young Idaho girl who was abducted not once but twice by her obsessed neighbor Robert Berchtold at both 12 and 14 years old. But that’s not even remotely the end of what makes this tale so utterly baffling — it’s mostly the poor decisionmaking on the part of Jan’s religious and outwardly upstanding parents and the way Berchtold managed to manipulate Jan’s entire family. 

The documentary weaves a mesmerizing tale by piling one bizarre event on top of another. “Abducted” recounts how, after begging to join the neigbor for horseback riding, Berchtold drugs and kidnaps her, absconding with the young girl to Mexico. Despite a nationwide manhunt that would lead to their recovery five weeks later, Berchtold somehow escapes consequences and remains close to the family only to kidnap Jan again just two years later. The fact that Berchtold maintained sexual relationships with both of Jan’s parents at various points and was allowed to sleep in the same bed with Jan only adds to the sense of horror at this frightening tale of a sociopath who was given free rein with a young girl who should have been protected.

“Bad Vegan: Fame. Fraud. Fugitives” is a four-episode docuseries chronicling the tale of Sarma Melngailis, the chef and restaurant owner of a swanky New York raw vegan restaurant that drew celebrities like Alec and Hilaria Baldwin, all while she found herself losing everything to her conman husband Anthony Strangis. The story begins with the Wharton Business School-educated, French-trained chef’s rise to prominence in the New York culinary scene alongside her business and romantic partner Matthew Kenney. 

In the wake of their breakup, Melngailis found herself drowning in the cool $2 million of debt still owed to the restaurant’s investor and emotionally vulnerable enough to fall for Shane Fox, Strangis’ pseudonym when they met, as he manipulated her into what could best be described as a cult of two. After meeting her online, Strangis spun a confounding yarn involving black ops and canine immortality, ultimately manipulating Melngailis into robbing her restaurant and going on the run from authorities to support his gambling addiction. Anyone who has ever watched a cult series and thought it could never happen to them might be pressed to think again after hearing Sarma’s story. 

If you’re not into sports or biking, don’t let the topic dissuade you from watching this captivating documentary. “Icarus” is a two-hour sports crime documentary recounting how amateur cyclist Bryan Fogel stepped into a wild Russian geopolitical scandal while researching something as seemingly straightforward as doping in sports. The documentary begins with Fogel setting out to recreate the Lance Armstrong doping scandal in the hopes of shedding light on the need for better anti-doping policies in sports. To make this happen, Fogel decides to measure his own performance in a high-level amateur cycling competition over a three-year period. 

Using the first year without doping as a control, Fogel then shifts to using human growth hormone in his second year. But Fogel’s story takes an unimaginable turn when he gets in touch with the head of Russia’s anti-doping lab, scientist Grigory Rodchenkov, for help with the experiment. As he and Rodchenkov work together and grow closer, Fogel finds himself embroiled in an international drama amid a high-level Russian state-sponsored doping program. It’s a wild tale with repercussions that continue to resonate in today’s complex geopolitical climate. 

For viewers who are into TV shows about cults, “Wild Wild Country” is among the most confounding documentaries in this category on Netflix. A six-part docuseries executive produced by the Duplass brothers, “Wild Wild Country” tells the story of the Rajneeshees, an Indian guru-led cult that settled in Wasco County, Oregon, beginning in 1981. The series recounts how Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, later known as Osho, began to attract Westerners with his controversial teachings in the late 1960s, eventually drawing crowds of tens of thousands at a time. Eventually, the cult takes the party to Oregon, where they set up a massive commune that soon expands into the full-fledged town of Rajneeshpuram. 

As they begin to draw the ire of their neighbors and eventually the attention of the national media, conditions in Rajneeshpuram quickly start to sour. By the mid-1980s, things have spiraled into a tale involving drug addiction, election-rigging, wiretapping, and even a murder plot. The documentary does a good job of forcing audiences, at least at first, to empathize on some level with the free-thinking types who were drawn to this cult and its promise of a better way of living, while also emphasizing the abuse of its leaders and the lasting damage it would cause. 

“Our Father” is a Blumhouse documentary exploring the disturbing tale of Donald Cline, a respected Indiana fertility doctor — not to mention church elder and philanthropist — once considered by many to be Indianapolis’ top fertility doctor. But Cline’s perfect world would quickly begin to unravel with the advent of widely available genetic testing that revealed he had sired dozens, if not hundreds, of children without their parents’ knowledge and consent. 

The documentary follows the adult children, many of whom grew up to be blond with blue eyes and lived within a 25-mile radius of each other, as they struggle to understand Cline’s motives and come to terms with the fact that anyone they meet or worse, date, could be a relative. Whether Cline’s actions were borne of hubris, a desire to promote some eugenicist experiment, or something more sexually motived, “Our Father” presents a fairly accurate look at the human wreckage of his wanton predation on innocent families. 

“Three Identical Strangers” is the story of identical triplets separated at birth who become reunited in their 20s in a fateful reunion that would shed light on a twisted human experiment in nature versus nurture. The story began with Robert Shafran enrolling in college in 1980 only to find himself called by another name: Eddy Galland. This would ultimately lead to the two finding each other and discovering they were “twins,” the reporting of which would gain the attention of a third sibling named David Kellman.

After finding each other, the trio learned they had turned out pretty similar, right down to having the same taste in food and high school sports. But soon after discovering their children were identical triplets separated at birth, the adoptive parents would unearth a more sinister secret: That the adoption agency had intentionally placed the children in families of three different income levels as part of an unpublished wider experiment. Far more than just a true crime documentary, “Three Identical Strangers” presents lingering questions about exactly how much of human nature is genetically predetermined and how much is truly open to free will. 

If you missed the unmitigated global phenomenon that was “Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness” the first time or have yet to catch the second or third part to the series, this is your sign to grab a massive bowl of popcorn and dive into this true crime trainwreck. The story largely revolves around its eponymous Tiger King, the fascinating and flamboyant Oklahoma man known as Joe Exotic whose connection to the world of big cat conservation would ultimately lead to a conviction for murder-for-hire. 

The first season of this inexplicably lengthy docuseries dives into the character of Joe Exotic, a man known for sporting his iconic bleach-blond mullet and surrounding himself with big cats at the Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park. When a rivalry forms between Joe and the equally fascinating big cat lady Carole Baskin, a woman who may or may not have killed her husband and turned him into big cat food, things escalate to the point of becoming unhinged. And it’s all captured beautifully in this series, with Seasons 2 and 3 looking further into some of the biggest unanswered questions in “Tiger King.” 

In 1997, Misha Defonseca gained global notoreity with the release of her Holocaust memoir “Misha: A Mémoire of the Holocaust Years.” The memoir recounts how the seven-year-old Misha walked for miles upon miles through Nazi-occupied territory after becoming separated from her parents, ultimately becoming adopted by a pack of wolves who accepted her as their own. The only problem? Much of the memoir — mainly the part about the wolves — was completely made up. 

“Misha and the Wolves” tells the real story behind Belgian author Monique de Wael, the true author of the story, as it was unearthed after a lawsuit involving her ghostwriter brought the story to light. But, as the documentary reveals, the real truth of Misha’s tale is more complicated than just a lie meant to generate fame, as de Wael was in actuality a Holocaust survivor whose parents were killed by the Nazis. However, the real young girl’s parents had been considered traitors to the resistance after their death, a revelation that forces viewers to contemplate whether Misha’s tale is one of complicated morality, fraud, or the very human need to rewrite a painful story in a happier light.

“Evil Genius: The True Story of America’s Most Diabolical Bank Heist” is another stranger-than-fiction true crime tale encapsulated in a Netflix docuseries. The story revolves around the 2003 “Pizza Bomber Heist” that saw a pizza delivery driver Brian Wells in Erie, Pennsylvania, walk into a bank with a bomb collar around his neck. Wells’ behavior was strange at first, with the pizza man acting almost as if he thought the collar was a joke, before those involved realized it was anything but. 

His story, which claimed a group of strangers at a radio tower had clamped the bomb on him and sent him on a scavenger hunt, would leave police baffled — even more so after the bomb exploded, killing Wells as nearby news crews rolled their tape. The story would only get crazier from there, ultimately leading to a highly intelligent criminal mastermind and a frozen body. 

If you or anyone you know needs help with addiction issues, may be the victim of child abuse, or has experienced a hate crime, contact the relevant resources below:

• The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA’s National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).

• The Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child (1-800-422-4453) or contact their live chat services.

• The VictimConnect Hotline by phone at 1-855-4-VICTIM or by chat for more information or assistance in locating services to help. If you or a loved one are in immediate danger, call 911.