⇨ Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness
This is the one title on this list that’s unlike the others, because Tiger King tells the story of Joe Exotic, a self-proclaimed “gay, gun-carrying redneck with a mullet” who has amassed one of the largest collections of big cats in America. If you’re a documentary buff like us, you’ll recognise Exotic from Louis Theroux’s excellent documentary America’s Most Dangerous Pets back in 2011.
Exotic ends up embroiled in a murder-for-hire plot, and the whole thing is a crazy ride, a morally and ethically questionable mess, that makes for very compulsive watching—the way you can’t tear your gaze from a car crash, only here the car has crashed in slow motion into a military tank stuffed with explosives and both are careening into an active volcano. While the focus is not so much on the felines that live in Exotic’s menagerie, they still feature strongly in the storyline; something you’ll end up feeling sad about if you’ve a heart at all. Makes sense to watch something batshit to match the world at large right now!