Documentaries serve the dual role of entertaining and educating, so they are generally presumed to be factual. Unlike the creators of scripted movies and shows, documentary filmmakers cannot exercise any creative liberties. Neither are they allowed to pluck tabloid gossip and place it in their projects as fact. Such a move would be considered unethical or reckless, but despite the clear rules, a few Netflix docs have been accused of being misleading.
Still, the inclusion of wrong information isn’t always out of malice. Some documentary filmmakers wrongfully believed the words of the interviewees. Others relied on the wrong sources. Others simply didn’t have full knowledge of the subject they were covering, so the experts called them out. Whatever the reason, it’s clear that the following documentary films and series ought to have stayed in the kitchen a little longer for more fact-checking before being served.
9 The Man With 1000 Kids (2024)
The Man With 1000 Kids is no Genghis Khan documentary. The three-part docuseries shames Jonathan Meijer, a rockstar-looking Dutchman who has allegedly fathered over 1000 children through sperm donation throughout the years. Meijer is painted as a villain because sperm donation rules in the Netherlands allow a donor to father no more than 25 children to prevent incestuous relationships in the future.
A Little Less than a Thousand
While he appreciates the documentary for making him the newest celebrity in town, Meijer claims he has only fathered 550 children. That’s still way more than the legal limit, but the sperm donor feels Netflix should have gotten the facts right.
In response to Meijer’s claims, director Josh Allot revealed he tried to reach out to the prolific reproducer, but he was snubbed. “We approached him several times to be interviewed and gave him a right to reply at the end. He refused to comment on any of the allegations in the series,” he told Tudum.
8 Seaspiracy (2021)
Seapsiracy by British filmmaker Ali Tabrizi advocates for the halting of fishing, claiming it’s detrimental to the marine ecosystem. The film points out issues like plastic pollution and the use of ghost nets as harmful to aquatic life. Additionally, it downplays the efforts of several marine conservation organizations, notably the Earth Island Institute and the Marine Stewardship Council.
Flawed Predictions
The documentary received a mob beating from critics, each singling out a different piece of information as spurious. For example, the film’s claim that the oceans would be empty by 2048 was disputed by the same person who came out with the erroneous forecast back in 2006.
Elsewhere, the Marine Stewardship Council claimed it was irresponsible to claim that “there is no such thing as sustainable fishing,” reminding everyone that “our program has been recognized by the United Nations, as being important in helping to support ocean biodiversity.” Overall, many argued that, just like many other industrial activities, controlled fishing is feasible.
7 What Jennifer Did (2024)
On November 8, 2010, police arrived at a home in Ontario, Canada, where a married couple had been shot. Their daughter, Jennifer Pan, told police that gunmen showed up demanding money. They then tied her up and shot her parents before fleeing. It was later revealed that Jennifer organized the whole thing, a saga covered in detail in What Jennifer Did.
Fake Photos?
Images that appear around the 28th minute of the documentary are reportedly AI-generated. These images show Jennifer in her happier, younger, days, but according to TODAY, they all have the hallmarks of AI-generated photos. Many social media users seem to agree, bringing the integrity of the entire project into question.
Reacting to the accusations, executive producer Jeremy Grimaldi argued that every film uses image or video editing tools, but doing so doesn’t make an entire image or clip fake. “The photos of Jennifer are real photos of her. The foreground is exactly her. The background has been anonymized to protect the source,” he said. The Netflix production has also been labeled as biased by Jennifer’s lawyer, Stephanie DiGiuseppe, who says it just offers the “police side of the story.”
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6 What the Health (2017)
In What the Health, director Kip Anderson argues that almost every major ailment known to man is tied to meat and dairy consumption. He also argues that there is a major conspiracy to cover up the beef-health link and that Big Pharma is a part of it. Much of the documentary involves Anderson trying to contact crucial representatives and coming out empty-handed.
Veganism Polemic
While a vegan lifestyle is good, the documentary has been accused of distorting facts to push the plant-based agenda. Medical experts came out in droves, claiming there is no sufficient scientific evidence to suggest that vegetables are manna and meat is the devil’s food.
Martijn Katan,, a nutrition professor from Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, labeled the film “propaganda,” insisting it exaggerates the health risks of eggs, meat, and dairy. Elsewhere, Sarah Berry, the Lifestyle Health Editor for The Sydney Morning Herald, was disappointed that the film “shows provocative images, uses emotive arguments, and sensationalizes the subject, adding, “The makers cherry-pick science, use biased sources, distort study findings, and use ‘weak-to-non-existent data.'”
5 D.B. Cooper: Where Are You? (2022)
In November 1971, D. B. Cooper hijacked a a Boeing 727 belonging to Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305, after telling a flight attendant he had a bomb. He demanded $200,000 in ransom before parachuting via the aircraft’s aft door. Five decades later, the hijacker has never been captured. D.B. Cooper: Where Are You? thus aims to single out his possible fate and location.
Questionable Interviewees
History has taught us that not everyone who says “I was there!” ought to be believed. Retired special agent, Jim Cristym, who worked on the case for 10 years, told Newsweek that “most of the guys that got all the airtime were distractors whose suspect had already been disproven 40 years ago.”
So, what’s the truth? Crustym insists that since his team never found out the truth, despite having access to all FBI files, a team of documentary makers cannot be trusted to have the full facts. To him, it’s as simple as that.
4 Queen Cleopatra (2023)
Cleopatra might have died 30 years before Christ was born, but she remains one of history’s dearest darlings. Her story has been told multiple times, with William Shakespeare, even riding the wave. Most recently, Netflix released the docudrama, Queen Cleopatra, covering the Egyptian ruler’s administrative flaws as well as her flings with the Roman strongmen, Julius Ceasar and Mark Anthony.
The Race Question
Queen Cleopatra was heavily criticized before it even premiered. The furore began when it was announced that black actress Adele James had been hired to play the queen in the dramatized scenes of the docuseries.
Many historians argued that the real Cleopatra wasn’t black. NBC News went a step further to quote experts from Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiques, who insisted that despite being a North African ruler, the historical figure was of Greek descent and, therefore, light-skinned in complexion.
Well, the ethnicity of the last active Hellenistic ruler of the Macedonian-led Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt, has remained a subject of debate for centuries. At the moment, the consensus is that she was white, so Hollywood has lined up Gal Gadot to play her in the next biopic.
3 Beckham (2023)
Not everyone loves soccer, but everyone knows David Beckham. The Englishman, who previously played for top European sports outfits like Manchester United, Real Madrid, AC Milan, and Paris St. Germain is now one of the owners of Inter Miami, a club that boasts of talents like Lionel Messi and Luiz Suarez. Still, there is a lot of information the public didn’t know about Beckham, notably his personal struggles. Thankfully, Netflix covered them all in Beckham.
Addressing the Infidelity
While it’s 100% correct on soccer matters, Beckham is fast-and-loose with personal details, especially David’s scandalous affair with his assistant, Rebecca Loos, in 2003. The documentary paints Beckham as the victim and Rebecca as the homewrecker, something the latter doesn’t agree with. Reacting to the narrative, she told Daily Mail that everything was consensual, and urged the celebrated sportsman to acknowledge his mistakes. She also warned online trolls to stop ‘trying her.’
2 Harry & Meghan (2022)
Harry & Meghan features Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, and Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex, as they walk viewers through their life journey. The story is told in six parts, starting with the couple’s courtship to their joint decision to take a step back from royal family duties. The docuseries also includes numerous interviews with family, associates, friends, historians, and reporters.
Faulty Trailer
The controversy surrounding the docuseries stems from the trailer rather than the project itself. The BBC reveals that several images were taken from events that the couple wasn’t a part of. In an effort to drive a certain narrative, one of the images was also cropped to imply the couple was placed on the edge of a royal event, yet they were front and centre.
Hilariously, one of the images used belonged to another Harry. The photo showing hundreds of press members was from a Harry Potter premiere, five years before the couple met. It can now be presumed that the producers were wise enough to leave these images out of the final product.
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1 The Goop Lab (2020)
In The Goop Lab, actress and entrepreneur, Gwyneth Paltrow, in collaboration with her subordinates at her wellness and lifestyle company Goop, explores various wellness ideas of the pseudoscientific kind, namely anti-aging diet, psychedelic drugs, cold therapy, and energy healing.
Overreliance of Anecdotes
The Goop Lab might have wowed award show organizers and earned a nomination for a Critics Choice Real TV Award but many experts feel it should never have been made. Jonathan Jarry from McGill’s Office for Science and Society wrote “The core problem with the series, in my opinion, is its coronation of personal experience. Anecdotes are dirty data: they are contaminated by a dozen variables.”
Rolling Stone also did a fact-check and came up with over five pieces of inaccurate information contained in the docuseries.