Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
Some comedies play by the rule of go big or go home, getting big laughs from outrageous characters and elaborate physical comedy gags. Others go the subtle route, preferring to wring laughter from small moments and bizarre character traits. That’s where mockumentaries come into play. As you can obviously tell from the genre’s name, this style of comedy takes aim at the self-serious documentary format, poking fun at its mundane subjects, rigid structure, and subdued tones. That doesn’t mean that mockumentaries are totally chill, though. There are plenty of larger-than-life characters in those comedies (David Brent and Michael Scott), but those ridiculous peopel are placed in situations that are almost convincingly real.
That’s the whole idea behind Netflix’s new original series American Vandal, a docu-series so spot-on in its parody of the true crime genre that its bound to fool plenty of viewers. But Vandal is hardly the first mockumentary to deliver a pitch perfect sendup of a documentary, and it’s definitely not the only one you can find on Netflix. The streaming service is home to dozens of mockumentary films and TV series, many of which come from outside of the United States. If you’re looking to binge some true-to-life comedy, we suggest checking out the above IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes-approved titles. They prove that fiction presented as truth can be stranger than fiction.
