Louis Theroux: A Place for Paedophiles

Capturing the Friedmans

May 2003 •English

An Oscar nominated documentary about a middle-class American family who is torn apart when the father Arnold and son Jesse are accused of sexually abusing numerous children. Director Jarecki interviews people from different sides of this tragic story and raises the question of whether they were rightfully tried when they claim they were innocent and there was never any evidence against them.

Crazy Famous

March 2017 •English

A fame obsessed average Joe escapes a mental institution with a band of misfits for one last desperate attempt to be famous.

Boys Beware

January 1961 •English

This anti-homosexual social "scare" short film focuses on the dangers of young boys talking to strangers.

Survivors Rowe

April 2015 •English

For almost two decades, the Anglican Priest Ralph Rowe sexually abused First Nation boys in the north during his days as an Anglican minister. Though the true number will never be known, the documentary reports that Rowe molested as many as 500 children throughout northwestern Ontario.

An Open Secret

November 2014 •English

An investigation into accusations of teenagers being sexually abused within the film industry.

Rolanda Polonsky, Sculptor

January 1971 •English

Enter the imaginative world of acclaimed sculptor Rolanda Polonsky, who had been a resident of Netherne Psychiatric Hospital in Coulsdon, Surrey for 26 years when this film was made. One of the positive aspects of her illness, described in the film as a schizophrenia, is that it "tapped a deep source of mystical vision and human feeling" which finds expression in her work.

The House of the Dead

May 2009 •Portuguese

Bubu is a poet who has been committed to state institutions for the insane twelve times. He challenges the meaning of hospital-jails, hybrid institutions which sentence the insane to life imprisonment. The poem "The House of the Dead" was written during the filming of the documentary and reveals the forgotten deaths that occur in these judicial asylums. There are three stories in three acts of death. Jaime, Antonio, and Almerindo are anonymous men, considered dangers to society, whose punishment is the tragedy of suicide, the unending cycle of being committed to the asylum, or surviving life imprisonment in the house of the dead. Bubu is the narrator of his own life and also of his own destiny-death in the asylum.

Welcome Home, Jellybean

March 1984 •English

A CBS Schoolbreak Special about a 12-year-old mentally-challenged girl whose parents decide to remove her from the institution where she was raised, and try to give her a home life.

Asylum: A History of the Mental Institution in America

January 1989 •English

The complex and controversial history of the mental institution in the U.S. through a detailed study of St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, D.C.

Knots: A Forced Marriage Story

November 2020 •English

Forced and child marriage is happening all across the U.S., legally. Three survivors - Nina, Sara, and Fraidy - take us on a journey into the depths of this human rights abuse hiding in plain sight.

Body Without Soul

November 1996 •Czech

A stark documentary about young male prostitutes in Prague, aged 15 to 18, who work the streets, train stations, and clubs. Through candid interviews and behind-the-scenes footage of gay porn shoots, the film explores their lives, struggles, and dreams, touching on themes of exploitation, identity, AIDS, and survival.

Nic się nie stało

May 2020 •Polish

A propaganda film about supposed pedophilia and hypocrisy in the celebrity community.

Le chemin brut de Lisette et Romain

December 1995 •French

Days of Madness

February 2018 •Croatian

Days of Madness portray an incredible odyssey of two mentally diverse and unjustly rejected people who are learning to accept it, faced with the blindness of the society and the health system that made them addicts.

The Source Family

May 2013 •English

A feature documentary film set in Hollywood, examining a radical experiment in '70s utopian living. The Source Family were the darlings of the Sunset Strip until their communal living, outsider ideals and spiritual leader Father Yod's 13 wives became an issue with local authorities. They fled to Hawaii, leading to their dramatic demise.

Afrique-France : le divorce ?

June 2025 •French

Fallen Angel

February 1981 •English

Twelve year old Jennifer is unhappy with her widowed mom's relationship with a family friend. Feeling lonely, she readily accepts the friendship of an adult man named Howie and joins the softball team he coaches. Soon, Howie is convincing Jennifer to pose for photographs which become more and more revealing. Howie turns out to be a pedophile who works in child pornography and he plans to make Jennifer a "star". Will Jennifer's mother be able to help her daughter before it's too late?

The Baudis affair, the murderous rumor

October 2021 •French

In 2002, serial killer Patrice Alègre was sentenced to life imprisonment for five murders. Gendarme Roussel, the main investigator of this case, believes that he will make him confess to other unsolved crimes in Toulouse. Two ex-prostitutes give a series of names of presumed accomplices of the killer, among them Dominique Baudis, then president of the CSA. He decides to face the case alone. Around him, it is silence: not an official support of his political family. Almost twenty years later, we return to the Baudis affair to try to understand it, with the testimonies of Pierre and Benjamin Baudis, his sons, François Hollande, Camille Pascal and the main protagonists.

Mini: A Life Revisited

October 2013 •English

1975 documentary about 11-year-old serial arsonist Michael 'Mini' Cooper, followed by Cooper and the film's director Franc Roddam in conversation with Alan Yentob in 2013.

Are All Men Pedophiles?

March 2013 •English

We live in a society that both condemns pedophiles and sexualizes young girls. The film explores the many dangers children face and exposes the systematic violation of children rights by societies, presenting the testimony of both victims and perpetrators. It also looks at how the pedophilia hysteria that has led to the mass incarceration adults and children.