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For Errol Morris, the 1960s hold a particular allure. The decade inspired the documentarian’s “The Fog of War,” which profiled Robert McNamara, an architect of the disastrous Vietnam War. His 2017 Netflix miniseries, “Wormwood,” was set among shadowy operatives responsible for MKUltra, the secret (and deadly) government program on mind control throughout the ’60s. His recent John le Carré doc, “The Pigeon Tunnel,” was similarly steeped in Cold War theatrics.

All of this to say that it’s not surprising that Morris decided to tackle Charles Manson and his infamous crimes in “Chaos: The Manson Murders.” Based on Tom O’Neill and Dan Piepenbring’s nonfiction book “Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties,” the new Netflix film asks how an uneducated rube became a Svengali to a devoted cult and whether the answer could be tied to the CIA and the development of MKUltra. “Conspiracy...

In Chaos: The Manson Murders, Oscar-winning director Errol Morris delves into the shadowy and complex narrative of the Manson family murders. The documentary, out now on Netflix, explores the darkest corners of recent history to unpack the potential conspiracy surrounding the killings. Unraveling a tangled tale involving the CIA, LSD, the JFK assassination, the Manson family, and Los Angeles attorney Vincent Bugliosi, the prosecutor whose 1974 bestseller Helter Skelter chronicled the Manson trial, the film casts doubt on the official story of the 1960s’ most infamous killing spree.

The documentary invites viewers to question the roles of well-known players and powerful institutions alike in a thought-provoking exploration of the tumultuous era’s cultural and political undercurrents.

“I’ve found myself trapped in a number of different true-crime stories, and the Manson murders are peculiar,” Morris told Netflix. “You could encapsulate the mystery in just...

If you’re looking for something to watch in March, you’ve come to the right place. This month is stacked with streaming debuts of Oscar-winning movies, blockbusters from last year and hidden gems from years past that are being newly added to streamers like Netflix, Max, Prime Video and Peacock this month — including, yes, the streaming debut of “Wicked” so you can sing along at home as many times as you want and the streaming debut of Best Picture Oscar-winner “Anora.”

Check out our curated picks for the best new movies streaming in March 2025 below.

“Heretic” “Heretic” (A24)

Max – March 7

A24 released “Heretic,” easily the best, spookiest movie they put out last year, after Halloween. A baffling choice, for sure, but one that still paid off – the movie made almost $60 million worldwide on a budget of only $10 million. If you missed the movie in its initial release or want...

Netflix has scored another point in the game of notable true-crime documentaries. The latest true-crime documentary to be released by the platform, Chaos: The Manson Murders, sits in the third spot on Netflix's list of most-watched movies at the time of writing.

Chaos: The Manson Murders presents an alternative theory to the widely known story about the murders that took place in the span of two days in August 1969. The Tate–Labianca murders resulted in the deaths of seven people in Los Angeles, California. They were perpetrated by several members of the Manson Family, the cult-like group led by Charles Manson.

The film is directed by documentary filmmaker Errol Morris, who goes on a dive into the theory presented by investigative reporter Tom O'Neill. O'Neill's theories were included in his book Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties (co-written with Dan Piepenbring), and in his version,...

If you’re looking for new awards contender movies to watch on streaming or video on demand, your pickings are slim this post-Oscars weekend, but we do have a few suggestions for things to watch. Our list includes a top pick that just became available on subscription streaming, two other new releases on streaming, an older movie that would make for a nice triple feature with the top pick, and a past Oscar nominee recently added to Netflix.

Top pick: Heretic

Hugh Grant’s villain era continues in this twisty A24 horror movie. Sophie Thatcher (a rising scream queen whose movie Companion was one of our picks two weeks ago) and Chloe East play Mormon missionaries who try to carry the word to the wrong man, Mr. Reed. He takes them prisoner and tells them that he has found the one true religion, seemingly offering them the opportunity to escape if they renounce their faith.

In Errol Morris’ new Netflix documentary “Chaos: The Manson Murders,” the Oscar-winning director explores how Charles Manson was able to convince four “Manson girls” along with Tex Watson to savagely kill for him.

Based on Tom O’Neill’s 2019 book “Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties,” the film explores the covert motives that may have sparked the 1969 Tate-labianca murders. The doc is built around O’Neill’s theory that Manson learned mind-control techniques from the CIA’s MKUltra mind-control program and was programmed to become an assassin.

“It’s surprising, I believe, on Manson because it takes you deeply into the mysteries rather than lecturing you or telling you that this is what happened or that is why it happened,” says Morris. “It’s asking you to actually consider the evidence and to think about what the motivation might have been.”

Variety spoke to Morris about “Chaos: The Manson Murders,...

The official description for Netflix’s new documentary Chaos: The Manson Murders invites viewers to “Explore a conspiracy of mind control, CIA experiments and murder.”

The trailer for the Errol Morris-directed film, which is based on Tom O’Neill and Dan Piepenbring’s 2019 book (Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties), suggests roughly the same thing, with lots of flashy editing and creepy Manson cutaways.

This is probably a recipe to deliver the largest audience of Morris’ storied career, because there are few things the Netflix algorithm steers people to more reliably than sensationalistic chronicles of mass murderers.

I’ll be interested to see how audiences respond to Chaos — whether some viewers come away thinking the doc actually advocates for “a conspiracy of mind control, CIA experiments and murder,” which it definitely doesn’t, and whether some viewers get frustrated because it fails to prove “a conspiracy of mind control,...

I’m one of those people — there are a lot of us — who is always up for a Charles Manson movie. There have been so many! All the documentaries and dramatizations. Not to mention the TV specials, both prestige and tabloid, the broadcast interviews with Manson acolytes like Tex Watson and Patricia Krenwinkel, and the epic-event television interviews with Charlie himself, like the famous one conducted by Tom Snyder in 1981 or the one that Charlie Rose did with Manson in 1986. Then there are the books, from Ed Sanders’ “The Family” to Jeff Guinn’s “Manson” to the one that remains the granddaddy of all Manson studies, Vincent Bugliosi’s “Helter Skelter,” the best-selling crime book in history (seven million copies).

The Manson saga has been excavated from every angle. Yet I’m always open to any new ray of light that can be shed on its darkness. So I sat...

Over half a century later, what new information can be gleaned from the nights of August 9 and 10, 1969? Tom O’Neill and Dan Piepenbring’s riveting (if convoluted) book Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties––released in June 2019, between the Cannes premiere and theatrical release of Quentin Tarantino’s cathartic rewrite of that history––argues that while all the evidence of the murders has been gleaned, there’s a complex and knotty web of conspiracies for the motivations, some more plausible than others. To pare down the 528-page book to its most overarching theory, it postulates Manson may have been allowed (and perhaps even directed) by the CIA to concoct a reign of terror in accordance with secret government programs created to squash left-wing movements demanding progress for the country. Culling the most vital elements of the book into an easily digestible 96-minute Netflix documentary,...

True crime documentaries and docuseries continue to thrive, especially on Netflix. While the subjects and topics at hand may be different, almost all of these docs share a familiar formula: there will be talking head interviews cut in between both archival news footage and stylish dramatic recreations of events. More often than not, these recreations also follow a familiar formula: the faces of the actors portraying real figures are usually obscured, and their movements often happen in slow motion for extra effect.

If you've ever wondered why so much true crime material sticks to this familiar approach, the answer can be traced back to Errol Morris' groundbreaking 1988 documentary "The Thin Blue Line." Morris' film followed the story of Randall Dale Adams, a man convicted of murdering a Dallas police officer. Morris' film made it clear that Adams was innocent of the crime, and the documentary was so effective it actually...

While it’s debatable whether Charles Manson was actually the Devil, he was undoubtedly a cultural and political focal point, someone whose magnetically evil spirit forced an unlikely convergence of multiple 20th century developments. The dark side of 1960s sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll certainly found purchase in the formation and eventual cataclysm of the Manson Family, the cult of impressionable souls brainwashed into committing horrific violence, but Manson came to embody much more than the counterculture seemingly going awry. Left-wing and reactionary politics coursed through Manson’s ecosystem until they transformed him into a slate on which anyone could project America’s myriad ills. Beyond the salacious details of his crimes, it’s why he’s a permanent fixture in the culture 50 years after the Tate-labianca murders, a subject of sketch show parodies, Quentin Tarantino films, and yes, countless true crime documentaries.

Tom O’Neill published “Chaos: Charles Manson,...

Chicago – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com appears on “The Morning Mess” with Ben Thompson for Wbgr-fm on March 6th, 2025, reviewing “Chaos: The Manson Murders,” a documentary by Errol Morris. Streaming on Netflix beginning March 7th.

The story involves the infamous killings on August 9th, 1969, of the residents and random folks who happened to be at the Los Angeles home of actress and victim Sharon Tate, and then the arbitrary murders of Leno & Rosemary Labianca the next night, based on a book co-authored by Tim O’Neil (featured in the film. The murders shocked a violence-weary 1960s nation, and the subsequent trial made a star out of prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, who went on to author the best seller Helter Skelter based on the case. But what O’Neil uncovered was a an intricate web involving Manson, the CIA and the U.S. government, who were using all means necessary to put the hippie...

Errol Morris, director of the iconic true-crime documentary The Thin Blue Line, has partnered up with Netflix again in order to make a documentary about the Manson murders. The title is Chaos: The Manson Murders, and it's set to be released by Netflix on March 7, 2025.

Chaos: The Manson Murders is based on the 2019 book, Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties, by Tom O'Neill with Dan Piepenbring. The book offers an alternate version of the story that flowed into the mainstream in 1974 when case prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi released the bestseller Helter Skelter — becoming the version of the murders with which we are all familiar. In O'Neill's book, however, he argues that the 1969 Tate–Labianca murders committed by the Manson Family could have been associated with the CIA program Operation Chaos, which focused on domestic espionage.

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Related15 Most Disturbing True Crime Documentaries

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After watching Zodiac Killer Project, it’ll be hard to view any true-crime mystery documentary the same way again. But if there’s one filmmaker who could pull it off, it’s Errol Morris. Just a few months after this last documentary Separated, the legendary director has adapted Tom O’Neill and Dan Piepenbring’s Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties, one of the crazier books I’ve read in recent years. Ahead of a March 7 release on Netflix, the first trailer has now arrived.

Here’s the brief synopsis: “Directed by Errol Morris, Chaos: The Manson Murders untangles a web of conspiracy involving the CIA, LSD, Jack Ruby, the Manson Family, and Vincent Bugliosi, casting doubt on the official story of the 1960s’ most infamous killing spree.”

See the trailer below.

The post Errol Morris Untangles a Web of Conspiracy in First Trailer for...

When Errol Morris was a graduate student in philosophy at University of California Berkeley, he made a “pilgrimage” to the California Medical Facility prison in Vacaville. Interested in insanity pleas and murder, the future Oscar-winning documentarian was there to interview the serial killer Ed Kemper. But while at the Cmf, he was given another unexpected opportunity.

“I was asked by the guard following my interview, ‘You interested in meeting Charles Manson?’” Morris recalls in a recent interview. “And I said, ‘Sure! Of course I am.’”

The meeting didn’t amount to much,...

Sharon Tate, a name that once sparkled with promise, became synonymous with tragedy the night of 1969. The very woman who once graced magazine covers with a smile, was now at the mercy of one of the most horrific crimes in Hollywood history. She was the radiant actress, the model, the adored wife of director Roman Polanski, and, above all, the expectant mother who would never see her dreams realized.

Sharon Tate in Valley of the Dolls (1967) | Credit: 20th Century Fox

However, fate dealt a cruel hand on the night of August 9, 1969, when she and four others were brutally murdered by the notorious Manson Family, a crime that rippled through Los Angeles and left a lasting scar far beyond. This devastating event took not only her life but also her unborn child’s.

But beyond the glamorous image Hollywood painted, her last words before her murder, spoken in sheer desperation, remind...

If it’s been a patchy few years for Errol Morris––one solid doc in-between a bad Steve Bannon portrait and iffy look at John le Carré––our interest in his thorough, startling oeuvre remains strong, and it’s naturally a thrill to hear word of two new features. On the documentary front he’s been adapting, for Netflix, Tom O’Neill’s Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties, which quickly engendered great attention for challenging standard Manson Family narratives; and there’s a feature screenplay about Ed Gein, who Morris interviewed in 1975 for a never-completed documentary. If it doesn’t feature that footage and opts for a biopic / procedural path, it would make Morris’ first narrative since 1991’s The Dark Wind. [Screen Daily]

Meanwhile, Michael Almereyda has found his first feature since Tesla. Per Deadline, he and Courtney Stephens are developing an untitled documentary about John C. Lilly,...

In a split ruling today, a state appeals court panel reinstated a grant of parole for former Charles Manson follower Leslie Van Houten, overturning an earlier decision by Gov. Gavin Newsom to block her release.

Tuesday’s decision does not automatically mean Van Houten will be released. The state could still appeal the ruling to the California Supreme Court. Neither the governor’s office nor the state Attorney General’s Office immediately returned a message seeking comment.

Van Houten, now 73, is serving a potential life prison sentence for taking part in the killings of Leno and Rosemary Labianca in their Los Feliz home more than 50 years ago.

The Manson killings shook Los Angeles and defined a generation. The story of the Manson family has inspired countless shows and films, including, most recently, Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Victoria Pedretti played a character called “Lulu” in the film,...

Linda Kasabian, a former member of the notorious Manson family cult, died last month at a hospital in Tacoma, Washington. She was 73.

Kasabian died on January 21, and a death notice ran in the local newspaper Tacoma News Tribune, which named the former cult member as Linda Chiochios, one of the names she used after the Manson murder trials. Multiple media outlets have obtained copies of her death certificate where no cause is listed.

Born Linda Drouin in Maine in 1949, Kasabian moved to Los Angeles aged 20, where she became entwined in the brutal rampage, which became known as the “two nights of mayhem” during which members of Charles Manson’s cult murdered seven people, including actress Sharon Tate.

Tate was the wife of filmmaker Roman Polanski, and she was more than eight months pregnant at the time of the murder.

Kasabian did not take part in the murders themselves and is...

When you think reliable narrator, Oliver Stone doesn’t exactly come to mind. Since his start as a director in the 1970s, the lightning-rod filmmaker, now 74, has leaned into fiction narratives with political points of view, from “Salvador,” “Wall Street,” and “W.” to Best Director Oscar-winners “Platoon” and “Born on the Fourth of July.” His last Oscar nomination came in 1996, for “Nixon,” arguably his peak of high regard in Hollywood. It’s hard to recall that in 1992, controversial global smash “JFK” earned three Oscar nominations including Best Picture.

Times change, and Stone’s complex historic and global point of view is far more layered and nuanced than current American partisanship will accept. That’s why the Yale-grad-turned-Vietnam-vet has managed to alienate folks on every side of the political spectrum, including accusations of promulgating violence with “Natural Born Killers,” promoting a whistleblower in “Snowden,” and conducting friendly documentary interviews with dictators,...

When you think reliable narrator, Oliver Stone doesn’t exactly come to mind. Since his start as a director in the 1970s, the lightning-rod filmmaker, now 74, has leaned into fiction narratives with political points of view, from “Salvador,” “Wall Street,” and “W.” to Best Director Oscar-winners “Platoon” and “Born on the Fourth of July.” His last Oscar nomination came in 1996, for “Nixon,” arguably his peak of high regard in Hollywood. It’s hard to recall that in 1992, controversial global smash “JFK” earned three Oscar nominations including Best Picture.

Times change, and Stone’s complex historic and global point of view is far more layered and nuanced than current American partisanship will accept. That’s why the Yale-grad-turned-Vietnam-vet has managed to alienate folks on every side of the political spectrum, including accusations of promulgating violence with “Natural Born Killers,” promoting a whistleblower in “Snowden,” and conducting friendly documentary interviews with dictators,...

The public’s interest in Charles Manson, his Family and the 1969 Tate-labianco murders continues to be insatiable even more than half a century after the fact with countless documentaries, books, and feature films such as Quentin Tarantino’s 2019 ‘s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.” The latest addition to the Manson canon is “Helter Skelter”: An American Myth,” six-part documentary series directed and produced by PGA champ Lesley Chilcott (“Waiting for ‘Superman'”) that premiered last July on Epix.

As the veteran producer/director noted during a recent Zoom conversation with Dominic Patten (Deadline), she was drawn to Manson because “I don’t understand why we’re still talking about it.” The title is derived from the Beatles song from the 1968 “White Album” which supposedly fueled Manson’s paranoia about a race war. Prosecuting attorney Vincent Bugliosi used it for his best-seller about the case.

“I don’t buy any...

Truth Is The Only Client Gravitas Ventures Reviewed for Shockya.com & BigAppleReviews.net linked from Rotten Tomatoes by: Harvey Karten Director: Todd Kwait, Rob Stegman Writer: Todd Kwait, Rob Stegman Cast: Howard Willens, Judge Burt Griffin, David Slawson, Ruth Paine, Bernie Weismann, Robert Blakey, Vincent Bugliosi, Patricia Johnson McMillan, David Robarge, Judge Brendan Sheehan, Judge Ellen […]

The post Truth is the Only Client Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

One summer in the late 1980s, when Eli Frankel was about 15, his father gave him a gift. An active part of the 1960s counterculture, the elder Frankel thought his teenage son should be reading more, so one day he brought him Helter Skelter, the 1972 true-crime bestseller about Charles Manson. Written by Vincent Bugliosi, the L.A. County deputy district attorney who had put the cult leader and several of his followers on death row, the tome — clocking in at almost 700 pages — set out the narrative the prosecutor had put in place during the trial: Manson,...

The Brady Bunch premiered on September 26th, 1969, just a little over a month after the Manson murders sent shockwaves of terror across Los Angeles. It went off the air on March 8th, 1974, right as the Watergate scandal was cresting. The run of the show happened to coincide with five of the most tumultuous years in 20th-century America, marked by the Vietnam War, the Weather Underground, Kent State, and the entire presidency of Richard Nixon.

Needless to say, none of this was happening in the world of the Bradys. If you take out the haircuts,...

Two givens for Los Angeles living in 1969: perpetual driving around listening to the radio, and stereo cartridge needles dropping onto record grooves. Those things were the basics of our existence! CineSavant closes out his pre-Christmas cheer with his favorite picture of ’19. It’s possibly Quentin Tarantino’s best. Yes, yes I know it has that crazy finale, but overall it has much less violence than most anything else he’s done. Plus it has scenes that can be described as heartwarming, and quietly sentimental… practically new territory for this director. The respect shown for Sharon Tate is gratifying. Bring us more great stories that inspire you this way, Mr. T. !

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

4K UltraHD + Blu-ray + Digital

Sony/Columbia

2019 / Color / 2:40 widescreen / 161 min. / Street Date December 10, 2019 / 27.96

Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Emile Hirsch, Margaret Qualley, Timothy Olyphant, Julia Butters, Austin Butler, Dakota Fanning, Bruce Dern,...

Fifty years ago this month, Steve Railsback was a 23-year-old actor in New York when he caught a newspaper headline that Sharon Tate and four others had been brutally massacred in a house in L.A. “I remember thinking, ‘God, what’s happening in this fucking world?’” Railsback recalls.

Seven years later, in 1976, Railsback would be part of one of the first attempts to depict what transpired that horrific night. In the two-part TV movie Helter Skelter, based on the Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry best-seller about Charles Manson, his Family,...

Spoiler alert: Please do not read on if you haven’t seen Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood”

One more person is singing Quentin Tarantino’s praises for the final scene of “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood”: former Manson Family member Dianne Lake.

“I thought the ending was very clever,” Lake said in a review of the film in The Daily Beast on Friday.

The climactic scene is a reimagined take on the 1969 murder of pregnant actress Sharon Tate and four other people at the hands of Charles Manson disciples — who all meet very different fates to what really happened.

Also Read: Quentin Tarantino Defends 'Hollywood' Depiction of Bruce Lee: 'He Was Kind of an Arrogant Guy' (Video)

“You know, I loved those people. It’s hard,” Lake said about the Manson Family members that committed the crime in real life — and were destroyed in the movie.

For 50 years, the Manson Family murders have had a hold on America, and yet, many people know very little about them. Some are surprised to find out that Charles Manson himself didn’t actually commit any of the nine murders, which took place in Los Angeles on August 9th and August 10th, 1969. Similarly, they’re surprised to find out that it took two months for the cult leader and his followers to be apprehended; and when they were, they were initially arrested for car theft, not murder. It was only...

There’s nothing like the impact of hearing an outrageous story from someone who experienced it firsthand. That’s why Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain wanted to publish an oral history of the Manson Family murders and the late Sixties. “It’s people making bad decisions in real time,” McNeil says. For more than 20 years, the duo has been working on 69, the follow-up to Please Kill Me, their 1996 definitive history of the New York punk scene. They’re almost done, they swear.

Fifty years ago, followers of hippie cult leader Charles Manson shot,...

Charles Manson had an easy explanation for why he ordered the deaths of the family of Leno Labianca and residents at Sharon Tate’s house at the hands of his “Family”: “It’s the Beatles, the music they’re putting out,” he told the district attorney who sent him to death row. “These kids listen to this music and pick up the message. It’s subliminal.”

A half-century has passed since the Manson Family carried out the brutal, stunning Tate-labianca murders in August of 1969, and their supposed link to the Beatles remains confounding.

It’s been 50 years since that terrifying night in August 1969, when four members of the Manson Family broke into the house at 10050 Cielo Drive and killed five people: 18-year-old Steven Parent, who wast there to try to sell a clock radio to an acquaintance in the property’s guesthouse; Wojiciech Frykowski, an aspiring screenwriter and friend of director Roman Polanski; Abigail Folger, Frykowski’s girlfriend and the heiress to the Folger coffee fortune; celebrity hairstylist Jay Sebring; and actress Sharon Tate, Polanski’s wife, who was eight months pregnant at...

(Spoiler alert: Do not read on if you haven’t seen Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood.”)

Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood,” which takes place around the time of the Manson Family murders of Sharon Tate and her friends, shows Charles Manson himself dropping by her house on Cielo Drive before the killings.

Did it really happen? Or is another example of Tarantino taking artistic license? The answer is, there’s truth to this part of “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood,” even if it isn’t exactly true.

The film shows Manson (Damon Herriman) getting out of a small ice-cream truck and walking up to the gate of 10050 Cielo Drive, the house Tate and Roman Polanski shared. Tate is home with friend Jay Sebring, who was among those murdered on that infamous night. They see a man walking up to the door,...

(Spoiler alert: Do not read on if you haven’t seen Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood.”)

In Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood,” we get a glimpse into the lives of the Manson family, including what TV shows they liked to watch (“FBI”), and their tranquil days offering riding tours around Spahn Movie Ranch.

Wait: Did members of Charles Manson’s cult really take people on horseback trail tours?

Also Read: Tarantino's 'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood': How the Stars Compare to Real-Life Characters (Photos)

Yes. Yes, they did.

Vincent Bugliosi, author of “Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders” and prosecutor in the 1970 trial of Charles Manson, said the horses were “the main business” of the ranch. George Spahn let the Manson family live on his ranch, rent-free, in exchange for labor and helping out with the horse-riding business,...

(Spoiler alert: Don’t read on if you don’t want to hear lots of details about Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood.”)

Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood” takes place around the time of the infamous Manson family murders of Sharon Tate and her friends under the dark influence of Charles Manson. The movie deviates — a lot — from what really happened on the night of Aug. 8, 1969, including in the moment when a young Manson follower bails out on her friends before the home invasion.

Did it really happen? Not exactly. But there’s a grain of truth. And seriously, stop reading now if you want to avoid spoilers.

In the film, “Tex” Watson and three female members of the Manson Family drive up to the residence of Tate and Roman Polanski at 10050 Cielo Drive in Benedict Canyon, Los Angeles.

They park the car...

Sony opens Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood” on July 26, close to the 50th anniversary of the murder of Sharon Tate and four others. A front-page Variety story on Aug. 11, 1969, two days after the killings, said police described the scene as “a ritualistic mass murder.” Showbiz has since then offered many tasteless depictions of the killings via low-budget exploitation films and TV offerings. Even with a “classy” production like the 1976 “Helter Skelter,” Variety reported that Lorimar intended to “spice up” the four-hour miniseries for overseas by adding more violence and sex.

In November 2018, Debra Tate (Sharon’s sister) wrote a piece for Variety’s special issue on criminal justice reform, American (In)Justice. A victims’ rights activist, she lamented Hollywood’s glamorizing of the Manson family and urged no parole for its remaining members in prison. She offered a few details from 1969 that served as a reminder:...

It’s hard to explain Tom O’Neill’s new book Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA and the Secret History of the Sixties without sounding like a conspiracy theorist down a rabbit hole — you try telling your friends that a reporter spent two decades researching the links between one of America’s most notorious criminals and the government’s super-secretive mind-control program Mkultra without getting a few snickers.

Of course, imagine being the journalist writing it, and you find yourself in an even more uncomfortable position; that’s exactly why...

No other mass criminal or cult figure in American history has garnered as much fascination within Hollywood and popular culture as Charles Manson (though Ted Bundy is coming close). He and his “family” have been the subject of movies, parodies, and he even landed a Rolling Stone cover. “American Horror Story: Cult” had an actor portraying Manson, and Quentin Tarantino is digging up the past for his “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” featuring the Manson Family murders. Here is a sampling of actors who have dared to play the notorious figure.

Steve Railsback – “Helter Skelter” (1976)

The memory of Manson was still fresh when this TV special based on Vincent Bugliosi’s book was aired. CBS even made it a two-night special.

Michael Reid MacKay – “Summer Dreams: The Story of the Beach Boys” (1990)

This TV special about the career of the Beach Boys explored Manson’s relationship with Beach Boys member Dennis Wilson.

Two years after the Summer of Love in 1967 came the summer of blood. That is when the followers of cult leader Charles Manson killed actress Sharon Tate, wife of director Roman Polanski, as well as her unborn baby and four other victims in her Los Angeles home. The coven-like collective would commit a total of nine murders in four locations in July and August of 1969.

The macabre deadly spree and the mad mastermind figure behind them became a cultural phenomenon, starting with the 1974 book, “Helter Skelter,” co-written by prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry. Manson took the term from a Beatles’ song. An acclaimed 1976 two-part TV film based on the book was nominated for three Emmys scored a household share of 36.5, making it the 16th highest-rated movie to air on network TV.

A half-century later, filmmakers are hoping that audiences will be drawn again to the skin-crawling horrors that Manson...

Quentin Tarantino has spent his summer bringing his favorite stars aboard his next big project, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, a 1960s crime drama set that reportedly will include the Manson Family murders. But perhaps the most intriguing role of all, Charles Manson, had remained unclaimed — until now. Damon Herriman, an Australian actor best known to American audiences for his work in the TV shows Justified, Quarry and Battle Creek, has staked his claim. Herriman, 48, may be a decade older than Manson was in the summer of 1969, when the...

Charles Manson, the crazy-eyed cult leader who orchestrated a string of gruesome killings in Southern California by his Manson family of young followers, shattering the peace-and-love ideals of the late 1960s, has died, according to TMZ. Manson was 83-years old. The information has been verified by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, which said Manson died from natural causes at 8:13 Pm on Sunday at a Kern County hospital. The 83-year-old had been in prison for more than four decades, since 1969, after he ordered members of his cult, which he dubbed "the family," to go on the murderous two-day rampage.

Charlie Manson reportedly died from natural causes, surrounded by 5 police officers. Michele Hanisee, president of the Association of Deputy District Attorneys, issued a statement Sunday evening saying that Vincent Bugliosi, the deputy district attorney who prosecuted Manson, "provided the most accurate summation: 'Manson was an evil, sophisticated conman...

Charles Manson’s murder spree — which sent him to prison for more than 40 years before he died on Sunday — broke, overnight, into American culture five decades ago and never left.

During a two-day spree in August 1969, Manson and his followers, known as “the Manson family,” were responsible for the murders of seven people, including 26-year-old actress Sharon Tate. (According to authorities, Manson had already orchestrated the death of Gary Hinman, in July 1969, and would order his “family” to kill a ninth victim, Donald Shea, before his arrest.)

The killings were part of a plot by Manson to start a race war,...

Charles Manson, who led deranged followers known as the Manson Family into a series of horrific crimes that haunted Americans for over a generation, died Sunday at a California hospital, after being imprisoned for more than 45 years. He was 83 years old.

Manson was hospitalized Tuesday for an undisclosed ailment. He was serving nine life sentences, most recently incarcerated at Corcoran State Prison, near Bakersfield.

Debra Tate, the sister of the Manson Family's most high-profile victim, actress Sharon Tate, confirmed to CBS Los Angeles that she had received a call from California State Prison, Corcoran, at about 8:30 p.m. local time, informing her that Manson had died. The California Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation later confirmed the news to Et.

The prosecutor in the Manson trial, Vincent Bugliosi, told CBS News in 2004 that people still asked him about the case 40 years later. "The Manson murder case, unlike any other mass murder case in history, continues to fascinate...

Charles Manson, whose name became synonymous with evil after his arrest in connection with the 1969 murders of actress Sharon Tate and eight other people, has died of natural causes.

He was 83 and serving nine life sentences in California’s Corcoran State Prison at the time of his death, which was confirmed by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

“I said a prayer for his soul,” Sharon Tate’s sister Debra tells People of the moment after she received a call from a prison official informing her Manson died on Sunday night.

Adds Anthony Dimaria, the nephew of Manson victim...

The King Baggot Tribute will take place Wednesday September 28th at 7pm at Lee Auditorium inside the Missouri History Museum (Lindell and DeBaliviere in Forest Park, St. Louis, Missouri). The 1913 silent film Ivanhoe will be accompanied by The Rats and People Motion Picture Orchestra and there will be a 40-minute illustrated lecture on the life and career of King Baggot by We Are Movie Geeks’ Tom Stockman. A Facebook invite for the event can be found Here

Hollywood Cinematographer Stephen King Baggot, also known as King Baggot III, is a retired cinematographer and news cameraman born in 1943. Like his father and grandfather before him, he was always billed onscreen as simply ‘King Baggot’. The first King Baggot (1879-1948) was at one time Hollywood’s most popular star, known in his heyday as ‘King of the Movies’ ,’The Most Photographed Man in the World’ and “More Famous Than the Man in...

In the fall of 1969, 19-year-old Montreal native Reet Jurvetson flew to L.A. to visit a man named Jean she had met before in a coffee shop in Canada. "She was enamored," retired Lapd cold case detective Cliff Shepard tells People. "She thought he looked like Jim Morrison of the Doors." The brunette beauty sent her family a postcard. It read:"Dear Mother and Father, the weather is nice and the people are kind. I have a nice little apartment. I go frequently to the beach. Please write to me, Hugs, Reet" The postcard was dated October 31. Sixteen days later,...

In the fall of 1969, 19-year-old Montreal native Reet Jurvetson flew to L.A. to visit a man named Jean she had met before in a coffee shop in Canada. "She was enamored," retired Lapd cold case detective Cliff Shepard tells People. "She thought he looked like Jim Morrison of the Doors." The brunette beauty sent her family a postcard. It read:"Dear Mother and Father, the weather is nice and the people are kind. I have a nice little apartment. I go frequently to the beach. Please write to me, Hugs, Reet" The postcard was dated October 31. Sixteen days later,...

Since 1969, when Charles Manson and his followers were arrested for the brutal slayings of seven people, including actress Sharon Tate, the horror of the story has continued to endure.

Tonight's episode of NBC's Dateline will focus on the murders that gripped a nation. Correspondent Keith Morrison interviews a former follower of Manson's family, as well as Tate's sister Debra Tate.

The one-hour special also features rarely-seen footage from the NBC archives, including interviews with Charles Manson and the late-prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi.

People crime reporter Elaine Aradillas, who has covered the story extensively, is interviewed in the special and discusses...

Since 1969, when Charles Manson and his followers were arrested for the brutal slayings of seven people, including actress Sharon Tate, the horror of the story has continued to endure. Tonight's episode of NBC's Dateline will focus on the murders that gripped a nation. Correspondent Keith Morrison interviews a former follower of Manson's family, as well as Tate's sister Debra Tate. The one-hour special also features rarely-seen footage from the NBC archives, including interviews with Charles Manson and the late-prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi. People crime reporter Elaine Aradillas, who has covered the story extensively, is interviewed in the special and discusses...

On the afternoon of November 16, 1969, a birdwatcher spotted the body of a young woman tangled in dense brush off L.A.'s scenic Mulholland Drive. The victim, who had no identification on her, had been stabbed in the neck 150 times in what police believe was a "rage" killing. "It was personal," says Lapd cold case detective Luis Rivera. "There was a lot of outrage behind it. It was a maniac…or love gone wrong." News of her death spread. A caretaker at Spahn Ranch, the notorious Manson Family hangout, told police that the victim, who became known as Jane Doe...