1 week Ago By Emily Baker
Louis Theroux is undeniably one of the most popular documentarians of our time. Over the past three decades, he has informed and entertained millions with his curious investigations into various taboos and subcultures, from the porn industry to the Ku Klux Klan to Scientology. Theroux’s signature faux-naivety makes him a skilled interviewer, lulling his subjects into a false sense of security – until, inevitably, they realise they have dug their own grave.
Tonight, he returns with his first TV film since 2022, Louis Theroux: The Settlers. It sees the filmmaker travel to the occupied West Bank, where religious-nationalist Israelis have built communities and driven out native Palestinians, often by violent means. It’s a return to form for Theroux, who has recently spent his time interviewing celebrities in the not-very-groundbreaking Louis Theroux Interviews series.
Theroux’s greatest work sees him thrown into the deep end with some of the world’s – though they usually are American – most, er, interesting (and sometimes downright dangerous) people. He thrives in uncomfortable settings and isn’t afraid to say the unsaid. With that in mind, these are his five best documentaries:The Most Hated Family in America (2007) Theroux’s documentary about the Westboro Baptist Church has become a classic (Photo: BBC)In one of Theroux’s classic documentaries, he is given access to the family at the centre of the Westboro Baptist Church.
A Primitive Baptist group which engages in hate speech against pretty much everyone – gay people, Muslims, Jews, atheists and even other Christians – the “Church” is mostly known for picketing the funerals of soldiers. Theroux follows them to one such funeral for a soldier who died while attempting to disarm an IED – Westboro members (some of whom are children) hold signs reading “Thank God for IEDs”. Theroux approaches the group with his signature curiosity rather than instinctual outrage, though he isn’t afraid to challenge their views and try to make them see the error of their ways.
In turn, the members of the “Church” do the same, attempting to make Theroux understand their beliefs. This symbiotic relationship convinces even the most extreme members that Theroux can be trusted – with the exception of the ailing leader, Fred Phelps, who calls the filmmaker “evil”. Later, Theroux made two follow-up films – America’s Most Hated Family in Crisis (2011) and Surviving America’s Most Hated Family (2019) – which saw the documentarian catch up with younger members who have since left the Westboro Baptist Church and turned whistleblower.
These films only further entrench Theroux’s earlier hypothesis: that the Westboro Baptist Church is built on very shaky foundations. Watch hereForbidden America: Extreme and Online (2022)Theroux with livestreamer Baked Alaska (Photo: BBC/Mindhouse Productions/Dan Dewsbury) Some might have been surprised by Donald Trump’s re-election last November – but I’d bet Louis Theroux wasn’t among them after meeting some of his most extreme supporters. This trip to America sees the documentarian meet the poster boys of the online Alt Right including America First leader Nick Fuentes – a Holocaust denier who believes women shouldn’t be allowed to vote – and infamous livestreamer Baked Alaska, who streamed his involvement in the January 6 attack on the Capitol.
Theroux is at his best when his own politics rub against those of whom he’s interviewing and in Extreme and Online, his subjects’ deeply disturbing beliefs allow him to openly challenge them. In turn, Theroux’s barely disguised disdain for the thin-skinned extremists gives them the fuel to expose the full extent of their homophobic, sexist, racist and anti-Semitic views – despite their protestations against being labelled as “white nationalists”. Extreme and Online sparked a debate over whether Theroux – and indeed the BBC – should give such hateful views platform.
It’s something that Theroux himself has admitted to worrying about, but not enough to steer clear of a subject. I’d say the phrase “better the devil you know” applies. Watch hereTwilight of the Porn Stars (2012) Twilight of the Porn Stars is a follow up to one of Louis’s Weird Weekends episodes (Photo: BBC)Not all of Theroux’s documentaries are about people with extreme views.
Take this follow up to a 1998 Weird Weekends episode, in which he spends time with the actors and actresses of Los Angeles’ pornography industry. While the film starts out light-hearted, with Theroux meeting actors on set, Twilight of the Porn Stars soon becomes a portrait of an industry in crisis. Theroux discovers the porn business has changed for ever, thanks to the internet, in the 14 years since the Weird Weekends episode.
He finds that work has dried up for a lot of the performers he had met previously, and that the women still in the industry have been agreeing to increasingly outrageous sex acts to stand out from their peers and be hired for a shoot. The result is a workforce of burnt-out porn stars, with many becoming self-employed in an effort to take back some control of their own work lives (needless to say, this was years before the OnlyFans boom).Porn isn’t always evaluated as a serious subject, but Theroux treats his subjects in Twilight of the Porn Stars with the same gravitas as in any other of his documentaries.
And with good reason: one of the actors he met in the first documentary, John Dough, had since died by suicide as a result of his continued drug use. As such, there’s a darker undercurrent to this film than one might presume – one that Theroux is unafraid to dig into. Watch hereMiami Mega Jail (2011) Theroux spent time with the inmates of a Miami jail (Photo: BBC)Most of Theroux’s interviewees contribute to his documentaries because they’ve agreed to do so – not so in Miami Mega Jail, a two-part film set among the inmates of Miami’s county jail.
The large majority of inmates are awaiting trial and so are legally still innocent, but the dog-eat-dog, hyper-masculine jailhouse rules drives them to violence against their cellmates. In a potentially dangerous situation where most of us would crumble – most of the prisoners are charged with murder – Theroux maintains his cool. His fish-out-of-water, English peculiarity even makes him the oddity.
As a result (or possibly because they want the airtime), the inmates are surprisingly willing to talk to him – even if it might endanger them or – in jail parlance – make them look like a snitch. On the surface, Miami Mega Jail is an exposing look at what life is like behind bars. But on a deeper level, it’s a depressing story of institutionalisation and a broken system.
Against your better judgement, you come away feeling sorry for the men who have been held in the system for years awaiting trial – no matter how horrific the charges against them. Watch hereExtreme Love: Dementia (2012) Nancy sometimes forgets her own name (Photo: BBC)Theroux’s documentaries aren’t usually tearjerkers, but this episode of his two-part Extreme Love series makes me cry every time. He travels to Phoenix, Arizona – the “capital of dementia care” – to meet those living with memory loss and the devoted family members who care for them.
Among them are octogenarian Nancy, who still lives at home but regularly forgets her own name and the fact that she’s been married to her husband, John, for 62 years. Theroux also visits a facility which houses and cares for people living with dementia, where 69-year-old Gary believes he’s a dentist practising at an army base, like he did in his younger years. Both cases have lighthearted – even funny – moments, and Theroux rightly doesn’t let this episode of Extreme Love become all doom and gloom.
In fact, there are even instances of pure joy – like when Nancy recognises John and tells him that she “owes him a whole lot”. But there is also undeniable sadness and awe for the people who care for their loved ones. Gary’s wife of 30 years, for example, has little choice but to accept that he doesn’t remember their marriage and has found himself a girlfriend on his unit.
Still, by the end of the film, there’s an optimism that – as hard as dementia is for all involved – it is not the death sentence that it may feel like. There is, despite it all, hope. Watch here‘Louis Theroux: The Settlers’ is on tonight at 9pm on BBC Two.
