Sleep tight... if you can. Join us as we count down our picks for the most terrifying true stories ever captured on film! These aren't just disturbing cases - these documentaries feature actively creepy and unsettling elements that will haunt your dreams. From sleep paralysis nightmares to underground tunnel dwellers, these real-life horrors prove that nothing is more frightening than reality itself.
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00:00And how did you feel about that you commit such a crime?
00:04I feel good about it.
00:06Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the scariest documentaries of all time.
00:12These films will feature actively creepy or unsettling elements, rather than simply recounting a disturbing case.
00:19So many true crime documentaries will not be included.
00:22Growing up on Staten Island, Barbara and I had often heard the legend of Cropsey.
00:2610. The Nightmare
00:30My girlfriend at the time and I were talking about different paranormal stories, and she started telling me about how sometimes she would wake up in the middle of the night, just like unable to move or breathe, and she said it felt like there was like an evil presence in the room with her.
00:46Well, the title certainly is accurate. The Nightmare explores the phenomenon of sleep paralysis, a condition where people wake up, but are unable to move, and often experience terrifying hallucinations.
00:57Rather than taking a purely scientific approach, the film focuses on personal accounts, and recreates their terrifying experiences through dramatized sequences.
01:06But it was, I think, a pattern. It was definitely a knock. And I would open my eyes, and I'd look toward the window, and then it would stop.
01:15The film is adept at recreating the horrible visions reported by sufferers, including shadow figures and red-eyed demons.
01:22And it plays on the psychological terror associated with sleep paralysis, blurring the line between dream and reality, and offering no clear-cut answers.
01:30The Nightmare offers a glimpse into a frightening situation that many find themselves facing every single night.
01:36And he looked just like a three-dimensional shadow. Outline, just perfect. And he would walk, disjointed.
01:48Number 9, Dark Days.
01:50To me, once you get past your fields, the first and second night, and shit, after that, man, you adjust. You'll be surprised with the human mind and the human body can adjust for it.
02:00New York City is often depicted quite positively. A bustling metropolis containing an electric energy, beautiful sights, and iconic landmarks.
02:08But just beneath the surface, literally, lies a rather disturbing reality.
02:12In Dark Days, Mark Singer explores the lives of an unhoused community living in the abandoned Freedom Tunnel under the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
02:20It used to be real nice and clean.
02:22Yeah, it was.
02:23In fact, he used to make us take off our shoes.
02:24Yeah, you know, almost every time I came in, he had a different rug on.
02:30Yeah, every couple of days, he'd put on another rug, another rug. It was really nice.
02:34The setting, a hidden, dystopian world beneath one of the busiest cities on Earth, is unbelievably eerie, and the choice to shoot in black and white only enhances the bleak and ghostly atmosphere.
02:44The film is also rife with psychological horror, as the tunnel's inhabitants battle the pitch-black, intense isolation, and disease-carrying rodents.
02:52Dark Days depicts a dark reality that some are tragically forced to contend with.
02:57In the wintertime, I don't freeze. Summertime, I don't burn up. You know? All they don't got down here is running water.
03:06Number 8. Dominion.
03:07Most people consider themselves animal lovers.
03:12We recognize them not as objects, but as complex beings with whom we share the planet, our lives, our homes.
03:21Meat consumption, especially inhumane farming practices, has been a touchy subject for decades.
03:28Dominion explores that subject in a brutal and unflinching light.
03:31The documentary exposes the hidden realities of animal agriculture, using the likes of drones, hidden cameras, and undercover footage.
03:38Here at Australia's largest hatchery, they've been genetically modified to make the males a different color than the females, allowing for quick sorting.
03:47Unable to ever produce eggs themselves, and a completely different breed to the chickens used for meat, the male chicks are considered waste products.
03:54It reveals how farming industries deliberately keep consumers in the dark about the suffering behind their food production, and it does so with some extremely graphic footage.
04:03Dominion wants you to see how these animals are treated, and unfortunately, that means showing you how they are caged and ultimately killed.
04:11Furthermore, the drone footage combines with a haunting soundtrack to give the film a bleak, almost dystopian atmosphere.
04:18Yeah, this isn't one to watch right after having dinner.
04:21The male calves, called bobby calves, are considered useless to the dairy industry because they'll never be able to produce milk.
04:28They are kept isolated for five days before being herded onto a truck and sent to the slaughterhouse.
04:35Number seven. There's something wrong with Aunt Diane.
04:38Their children are on their way home from a camping trip with their aunt.
04:42They just called my friend's house in distress, saying that the aunt is driving erratically.
04:48The aunt isn't picking up the cell phone right now.
04:50The woman that's driving the car they think is having a medical emergency because she called and that she couldn't talk anymore, and she's got five kids in the car.
04:56Even the title of this one is scary.
04:58She was not an alcoholic.
05:28She rarely had a drink.
05:31She got in the van with the children, and what should have taken a 35-minute drive took almost four hours.
05:40Not only is the story itself quite scary and unsettling, but the film also boils with a psychological mystery and references distressing phone calls from Diane's young nieces, who sensed that something had gone terribly wrong with their aunt.
05:54When there is an incoherent phone call with her brother, her oldest niece is apparently on the phone to her parents saying, there's something wrong with Aunt Diane.
06:07Number six. The Bridge.
06:08When I was writing back after that time, I was thinking about how that person was at the lowest of the low of their life, obviously.
06:18This movie is certainly not for the faint of heart, containing many real on-screen deaths.
06:23The titular bridge is the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, and in the documentary, filmmaker Eric Steele explores why people jump off of it.
06:32I cut over to the South Tower, and some stuff fell, so I cut back the other way, and I just saw a mass falling towards my kite, and I thought it was the same thing.
06:44And so I turned the kite back, and then I looked over, and, you know, before they hit, I realized it was a person that had jumped.
06:51The doc is particularly controversial because the filmmakers secretly recorded real jumps over the course of a year, and the movie shows them in a raw and unflinching manner.
07:01It's extremely disturbing, and the footage is often followed or accompanied by interviews with family members, friends, and witnesses.
07:08The bridge, often depicted as an iconic and scenic landmark, becomes an eerie backdrop for tragedy and a grim exploration into the human psyche.
07:16Me and Gene had long talks about love and where he's trying to find it, and I told him he's not going to find it on the internet.
07:26A lot of times he didn't want to hear it, he just wanted what he saw.
07:30Number five, Dave not coming back.
07:32How are you feeling now, Dave?
07:34Yeah, I'm all right. I got started to get cold in the last hour.
07:38But up until the last hour, the time really went quite quickly.
07:43Sort of, you know, one half hour after the next.
07:45The Dave in question is Dave Shaw, a professional diver who tragically died in January 2005.
07:52Just a few months earlier, Dave found the body of Dion Dreyer, a recreational scuba diver who died in a cave known as Bushman's Hole.
08:00Dave and his friend Don Shirley then decided to recover Dreyer's body, and Dave died in the process.
08:06There was no speculation. It was there.
08:09Dave had recorded exactly what went on, and that is unique.
08:12But it's a snuff tape.
08:17Dave there was breathing, and you could hear him breathing, and you could hear his last breath.
08:22This documentary chronicles the unfortunate incident, complete with on-location shooting that provides a terrifying glimpse of the pitch-black abyss.
08:30The visuals instantly put the viewer in panic mode, creating a palpable sense of claustrophobia and psychological tension.
08:37The story also unfolds with a creeping sense of inevitable doom, and often uses camcorder footage from the real expedition, providing a further dimension of dread.
08:47We dive because of what's not there. The void. The silence. The lack of light.
08:55For the kids in our neighborhood, Cropsey was the escaped mental patient, who lived in the tunnels beneath the old abandoned Willowbrook Mental Institution.
09:04Anything involving urban legends is sure to chill the blood. Cropsey does just that, titular character being a local boogeyman and supposed abductor from Staten Island.
09:14However, the documentary expertly blurs the lines between myth and reality.
09:19It begins in the realm of childhood folklore, before segueing into the story of Andre Rand, a real criminal from the area who may have inspired the legend of Cropsey.
09:29There are two other girls who over the last couple of years have turned up missing here on Staten Island.
09:33They will be searching this area in the next few days to see what they can find.
09:37As one police officer told us tonight, God knows what they can find here.
09:40The surreal blending of fact and fiction makes for an uncomfortable viewing experience, as does the subject matter itself.
09:47Rand himself also has an unbelievably eerie presence.
09:50And the footage of the crumbling Willowbrook State School makes for a horrific backdrop.
09:55Cropsey is basically a real-life Blair Witch Project, and is every bit as terrifying.
10:00You know, this is where we thought that Cropsey lived, in the basements, down in here, and in these other buildings.
10:06And, you know, we used to walk through here, and you'd find beds and papers of people who have died here.
10:14So, you know, it kind of made sense to us.
10:17Number three, Wisconsin Death Trip.
10:20Judge Barton pronounced sentence on John Anderson.
10:24The lad goes to the state prison for life.
10:30The father was requested to be present, but refused, saying he did not care what was done with the boy.
10:37More than a docudrama than a full documentary, Wisconsin Death Trip is certainly a trip.
10:42It's based on a book from 1973, written by Michael Lessie,
10:46and recounts a series of creepy events that befell Jackson County, Wisconsin in the late 1800s.
10:52These stories are often grim and bizarre, including the likes of murders, arson, and mental breakdowns,
10:58all of which contribute to an almost supernatural atmosphere that makes the town seem cursed.
11:03Frank Coochman, an unemployed railwoman, made an attempt to kill his wife by shooting at her in Henny's millinery store.
11:13The man had been drinking.
11:15Adding to that atmosphere is the movie's weird, ghostly aesthetic,
11:19featuring detached narration from Ian Holm, creepy period photographs,
11:23and silent black-and-white reenactments of the horrible events.
11:27It's like watching a nightmare in the style of an old horror movie.
11:30Porter Ross lay in wait for them,
11:34killed his wife,
11:36mortally wounded Schnabel,
11:37and shot the other woman.
11:40He then surrendered.
11:42Number two, Titiquette Follies.
11:44Come on over and try it.
11:46Well, is that everybody?
11:48Has everybody tried it?
11:50You know, this is the first time we've played this game,
11:53and I want you all to try it.
11:54We're going back to the 60s for Titiquette Follies,
11:57which could be the most notorious documentary in American history.
12:01Filmed by John Marshall,
12:02the movie explores the depraved conditions inside the Bridgewater State Hospital for the Criminally Insane.
12:08This is an incredibly raw portrayal of human suffering and institutional cruelty,
12:13featuring patients with mental health issues being mistreated, taunted, and neglected.
12:18I need help, but I don't know where I can get this.
12:20You can get it here, I guess.
12:22The documentary's cinema verite style,
12:25completely without narration, interviews, or music,
12:28makes the film even more unsettling,
12:30as we are forced to witness the horror without emotional guidance.
12:34Finally, the visuals are extremely creepy,
12:36with stark black-and-white photography,
12:38and scenes of emaciated men, blank stares, and cruel force-feeding.
12:44Walking through this hospital with Marshall is a supremely uncomfortable experience.
12:48Day by day, I am getting worse, because of the circumstances, because of the situation.
12:53Now, you tell me, until you see an improvement, each time I get worse.
12:59So, obviously, it's the treatment that I'm getting, or the situation, or the place, or the patients, or the inmates.
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13:22Number 1. The Killing of America
13:26On May 18th of last year, you were sitting and writing in your room.
13:30They are the writings of a maniac.
13:33They're the writings of Sirhan Sirhan.
13:35Yes, but they're not the writings of me now.
13:38An extremely controversial film that wasn't even seen in its titular country for decades.
13:44The Killing of America chronicles the wave of violence that plagued the U.S. in the 60s and 70s.
13:49This thing covers everything, including serial killers, political assassinations, school shootings, and public rampages.
13:57And used a dolly to pull all his supplies up these stairs, then hauled them out onto the deck, and began methodically shooting people at random.
14:06And yes, we see these acts of violence played out with genuine footage of murders and dead bodies.
14:12It also takes time to interview the people who perpetrated these crimes, with talking heads like Sirhan Sirhan and Edmund Kemper.
14:19All the while, the film presents an unrelentingly grim and hopeless tone, with cold narration, and a chilling thesis that violence is inevitable and only getting worse.
14:29There's nothing scarier than reality.
14:32When they asked why, he said, to get known.
14:36I just wanted to make a name for myself.
14:39Have you managed to stomach any of these documentaries?
14:42Let us know in the comments below.
14:44She tells her two-year-old son to salute his father farewell.
15:02She told her a story, but she has to tell him that he was a little bit as a mother.
15:06She has to make the story of her, she is a girl.
15:07She had to tell her, she is a baby.
15:09She is not an懲atz.
15:10She is a baby.
15:12She is the baby.
15:13She was the baby.
15:14She is a baby.
15:15She is a baby.
15:20She has to make an email.
15:23She is the baby.
15:25She is a baby.
15:26She is the baby.