10 Controversial Documentaries Since 2000 That Shouldn't Be Ignored

6. Capturing The Friedmans

Probably the most challenging, disturbing documentary on this list (and the second entry from director Andrew Jarecki), Capturing the Friedman's shows the drastic disintegration of the Friedman family, whose lives come crashing down when it transpires that father and son, Arnold and Jesse Freidman, the former of whom was a children's entertainer, have both committed child molestation. Jarecki, inititially making a harmless short film about child-entertaining clowns, was led to the Freidmans when Arnold's brother, a clown named Silly Billy, informed the director of his family's haunted history, most of which was captured on home video. A horror-story that has the added misfortune of being true, Capturing the Friedmans was nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the '03 Academy Awards, a nomination protested by the Friedmans' alleged victims and their families.