Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple
Grade: A

In 1978 the charismatic and certifiable preacher Jim Jones killed over 900 of his followers with cyanide-spiked Kool-Aid. Combining extensive film footage and interviews with surviving members of the Peoples Temple, director Stanley Nelson has crafted a mesmerizing and disturbing documentary that easily ranks as one of the year’s best films. Jones emerges as an enigmatic and tragic figure, a socially progressive visionary undone by paranoia and an oppressive quest for absolute power. In a bizarre footnote, it turns out that Jones had sex with male followers even though he proclaimed himself to be the world’s only heterosexual.