Cults

Cal Jamison, a police psychologist, is forced to deal with a series of ritualistic murders and a malevolent cult.

A young journalist goes deep undercover within a mountain commune and becomes manipulated by a duplicitous cult leader.

When Warren Jeffs rose to Prophet of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints, he took control of a religion with a history of polygamous and underage marriage. In a short time, Warren managed to expand these practices and the power of his position in unprecedented ways. He bridged the gap between sister wives and ecclesiastical rape, befuddling the moral compass of his entire congregation. The film examines Warren Jeffs' life and shows how he became a worshiped and adored Prophet. Warren has a devout following numbering in the tens of thousands, many of whom would give their life at any moment with just one word from the Prophet. Despite a trail of abuse and ruined lives, Warren has maintained his grip on power.

An inside look at former FLDS teens who have become religious refugees in mainstream America.

A cult deprogrammer is hired to help a couple whose daughter is under the influence of a mysterious cult.

I Escaped a Cult talks to survivors of a polygamist breakaway Mormon sect (Warren Jeffs's FLDS) and a fundamentalist Christian community (Aggressive Christianity Missionary Training Corps). They talk about the abuse they suffered at the hands of the cult and the problems they had in leaving it.

The disturbing reality of Michael Travesser, cult leader of Strong City, who claimed the world would end on October 31, 2007.

Ruth's been brainwashed by a guru in Delhi, India. Her parents in Sydney hire a specialist in reversing this. Ruth is tricked to return to Australia and is isolated in an outback cabin with the specialist. It gets messy.

Set in the 1980s, an estranged family hires a cult deprogrammer to take back their teenage son from a murderous cult, but find themselves under siege when the cultists surround their cabin, demanding the boy back.

The film examines the modern-day phenomenon of religious "intentional communities," or as they are often called, "cults." It takes as its focus "The Church," also known as "The Brotherhood," the 35-year-old ministry of shadowy messianic figure Jim Roberts. Since 1971, this secretive organization has recruited (hundreds) of adherents who live together in austere, separatist, communal groups, preaching salvation and damnation, and turning their backs on the outside world except when proselytizing for new members. They observe strict ascetic values and rigid standards of dress, presentation and gendered behavior, and live off of discarded food and other refuse. And they mutually reinforce the belief systems that brought them into the fold, including a focus on the narrow path to salvation, and obedience to the will of spiritual leader Roberts. The film examines this microcosmic society, and by implication, the "cult" phenomenon itself, with a rare insider's view. Featuring interviews with former group members, it implicitly reveals the sorts of stresses and spiritual longings that make outwardly average young people "ripe for the picking" by opportunistic outsiders. It also reveals the anguish of parents and loved ones left stunned and confused by the defection of their children and siblings, some of whom have been members of the Church for decades. We are present as parents groups, utter strangers brought together by a shared trauma, map the movements of the group from town to town, and compare notes about the lives their children lead, and about their own feelings of helplessness and despair. The film also brings us along as certain family members set out to find their loved ones through detective work and determination, leading to surprise confrontations and just as often to the group's immediate flight to new, secret quarters. In this way, the film traces the tenuous balance that families must strike between attempting to rescue their loved ones, with the psychological, emotional and tactical impediments that so often get in the way of reconciliation. The experience of the families, so close and yet so far, is poignantly and powerfully evoked by extensive surveillance footage and photography, showing Brothers and Sisters in their daily comings-and-goings, moving through the everyday world without seeming to be involved in it. Rare, candid footage of one parents' successful but brief rendezvous with her daughter, provides searingly painful evidence of the seeming hopelessness many of these bewildered families feel. Testimonials from ex-group members detail the tortuous processes by which some adherents regain their psychological independence, only then to have to face the world again, with all its strains - but sometimes, with greater strength than before.

Award winning filmmaker, Ondi Timoner, follows four families as they leave an abusive church in South Carolina and realize they have been in a cult. The film documents them as they enter Wellspring, the only accredited, live-in cult treatment facility in the world, where they learn the true extent of the brainwashing they have all experienced. Eventually they return home to bring the Pastor and his wife to justice and try to begin to rebuild their damaged lives.

A documentary on the Jejune Institute, a mind-bending San Francisco phenomenon where 10,000 people became "inducted" without ever quite realizing what they'd signed up for.

Aum Shinrikyo, the Buddhist sect led by Shoko Asahara and responsible for the 1995 Sarin gas attack on a Tokyo subway, becomes the subject of this documentary.

Set deep in the wilds of Appalachia, where believers handle death-dealing snakes to prove themselves before God, a pastor's daughter holds a secret that threatens to tear apart her community.

A look at the quick rise and influence of the controversial religious group known as The Satanic Temple.

When young girls start to go missing within a religious cult, older followers fear a long-told prophecy while the younger members suspect abusive elders are killing them off.

In 1992 Central Florida, a minimum-wage water park employee lies, schemes, and cons her way up the ranks of the cultish, multibillion-dollar pyramid scheme that drove her family to ruin.

Two scientists who share a romantic history are tasked with investigating unnatural animal behaviour on the site of a Manson Family-style cult's compound.

A charismatic leader founds a commune in Los Angeles in the early '70s based on natural food, spiritual practices and psychedelic rock. This short-lived era is recreated with archival material and the memories of participants.

A documentary about conspiracy theories takes a horrific turn after the filmmakers uncover an ancient and dangerous secret society.

A girl born into an all-female cult led by a man in their compound begins to question his teachings and her own reality.

ENLIGHTEN US: THE RISE AND FALL OF JAMES ARTHUR RAY is the story of the motivational rock star's meteoric rise, fall and return to the $11 billion self-help industry after his negligent homicide conviction in the death of three clients at a sweat lodge at one of his events. As this story unfolds, we learn from Ray, his followers and his accusers, about how their methods of self-improvement ultimately caused so much suffering. ENLIGHTEN US asks the important questions, "What are we looking for" and "Who has the answers" and even the simple question "Why?"

Set in Middle America, a group of teens receive an online invitation for sex, though they soon encounter fundamentalists with a much more sinister agenda.

A sheriff investigating the disappearance of a young girl from a small island discovers there's a larger mystery to solve among the island's secretive, neo-pagan community.

Phil, a robust middle-aged man, suffers a stroke, causing him to lose his memory. Millie, who takes care of him, tells him falsely that they were secretly in love before his accident.