Curator Watchlist
A devastating, formally daring documentary that turns perpetrators’ self-mythologizing into a nightmare of guilt, denial, and performance. It is essential viewing for anyone interested in political violence, the ethics of documentary, or cinema that pushes into genuinely uncomfortable territory.
Where to watch: Buy
Thu · 1h 57m
Director: Joshua Oppenheimer
Starring: Anwar Congo, Herman Koto, Syamsul Arifin
In this chilling and groundbreaking documentary, former Indonesian death squad leaders reenact their real-life mass killings in the style of various film genres. As they recreate their past atrocities, the line between reality and performance blurs, exposing the lingering impact of Indonesia's 1965-66 anti-communist purge and the unsettling psychology of its perpetrators.
Joshua Oppenheimer
Anwar Congo, Herman Koto, Syamsul Arifin
A devastating, formally daring documentary that turns perpetrators’ self-mythologizing into a nightmare of guilt, denial, and performance. It is essential viewing for anyone interested in political violence, the ethics of documentary, or cinema that pushes into genuinely uncomfortable territory.
The Act of Killing is one of the rare documentaries that feels like it changes the air around it. By inviting former death squad leaders to stage their crimes as movie scenes, Joshua Oppenheimer exposes not just what they did, but how they learned to live with it: through fantasy, vanity, and public impunity. The result is grotesque, mesmerizing, and impossible to shake off.
What makes it so disturbing is the tonal instability. At times it plays like a gangster movie, a backstage comedy, or a fever dream of self-congratulation, only to collapse back into the reality of mass murder. That tension is the point: the film shows how violence can be aestheticized, rationalized, and normalized by the people who committed it.
This is not an easy recommendation, but it is an essential one. Its power comes from formal audacity and moral force in equal measure, and it remains one of the most unforgettable documentaries of the 21st century.
DirkH (5★) · 1681 likes
With the year drawing to a close I think it is safe to say that watching The Act of Killing has been the most profound viewing experience of 2013 for me. My country has a troubled relationship with Indonesia. We have colonized and exploited that country for a long time in the past. For Indonesian people here, that is still an open wound. The historical significance of that period for people living in Indonesia, however, is not something that many… more
Adam Kempenaar (4.5★) · 1238 likes
The documentarian-subject relationship can be a complicated one. I can't begin to fathom just how complex and tenuous director Joshua Oppenheimer's feelings must be for Anwar Congo, one of the most charismatic, sincere, accessible, affable... monsters... you'll ever see on screen. Strikes a blow for the ecstatic truth.
reibureibu (4★) · 1044 likes
Long after watching this I am still at a loss for words and for feeling, which translates to immense praise for this documentary because its topics should be anything but. Covering the Indonesian genocide from, notably, the perspective of the perpetrators, Oppenheimer (the director of this film) convinces them to retell their stories and even re-enact their slaughter through making a film. I couldn't believe that these people were tricked by Oppenheimer until I realized, actually they know exactly what's
YI JIAN (5★) · 978 likes
When you feel like vomiting but your throat is stuck and your stomach is empty, the choking sensation, the hideous noise you make arrkggrggh like a tortured man on his dying breath, that's your mind punishing your body, that's guilt, that's shame, all mixed with bile and disgusting phlegm rushing onto the surface, demanding to be released at once -- suppress it, delay it, but you cannot deny it, because no matter how much cold-blooded violence we've proven ourselves capable of, in the end, we are still human beings, after all.
davidehrlich (4★) · 672 likes
"your acting was great, but you have to stop crying." executive produced by Werner Herzog and Errol Morris, but the dominant influence to Joshua Oppenheimer's meta-narrative of atrocities is... Hirokazu Kore-eda's "After Life"? with a touch of Sacha Baron Cohen. or maybe it's like if the nazis won World War II, and then Abbas Kiarostami made a film about Hitler as a haunted old man. whatever, reductive movie math is fun. Oppenheimer preys on the seemingly proud executioners responsible for… more
A monumental documentary about genocide and memory, with an uncompromising focus on testimony and historical reckoning.
A landmark true-crime documentary that uses stylization and reconstruction to expose how narrative can obscure truth.
An intimate, unsettling portrait of a powerful figure reflecting on war, guilt, and the machinery of violence.
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A brief but devastating meditation on the Holocaust and the persistence of historical horror.
A politically charged reconstruction of colonial violence that feels chillingly immediate and morally complex.
A cold, devastating study of everyday life adjacent to genocide, focused on banality and denial.
For its disturbing relationship between violence, performance, and stylized cruelty.
A major historical drama about genocide and survival in Southeast Asia, with strong political and emotional overlap.
A more accessible but still harrowing dramatization of mass violence and moral responsibility.
A large-scale historical crime drama about ideology, violence, and the self-mythologizing of militants.
A tense political drama about surveillance, state power, and the human cost of authoritarian systems.
genocide, perpetrator psychology, historical memory, impunity, propaganda, performance and reenactment, moral corruption, state violence
documentary, political history, genocide, psychological portrait, darkly surreal, morally challenging, experimental nonfiction, memory and trauma, state violence, 21st century