10 Movies That Lied So Much They Told The Truth
4. American Animals
American Animals is a fascinating dramatisation of four Transylvania University students who plotted to steal rare books from the university's library in 2004.
But Bart Layton's film deploys an extremely strange-yet-effective narrative technique, cutting between the cinematic dramatisation and interviews with the real-life quartet, whose accounts of events often differ.
Rather than commit to one narrative, with the truth being so unclear, Layton instead offers up multiple accounts of pivotal moments and leaves the audience to make up their own mind.
It is, as a result, a film fundamentally teeming with disinformation and "alternate facts," yet as a result also settles at a resolutely honest conclusion: the "truth," whatever that really means, is incredibly elusive.
As much as audiences want both their fiction and their documentaries to be as "objective" as possible, Layton's film holds its hands up and professes just how difficult - if not impossible - that actually is. A refreshingly honest approach, really.