What to read, watch, and listen to if you lovedThe Act of Killing
Joshua Oppenheimer · Film · 2012
If you loved The Act of Killing, start with Exterminate All the Brutes (Raoul Peck, 2021) — a series on the same thread. Below: 4 books, 4 series and 2 podcasts, each matched to The Act of Killing across media.
What hooked you in The Act of Killing was the unsettling way state-sponsored violence reveals the dark, performative psychology of its perpetrators.
Books on the same thread
An Intimate History of Killing
Joanna Bourke · Book · 1999
Explores: Psychological effects of war, Dehumanization, Moral ambiguity.
Like The Act of Killing, this book interrogates the banality of evil, using personal accounts to expose how ordinary individuals rationalize their roles in state-sanctioned mass violence.
Bloodlands
Timothy Snyder · Book
Shares a thread with The Act of Killing: historical trauma.
If The Act of Killing left you shaken by the mechanics of systemic slaughter, this history offers a similarly unflinching look at the scale of state-sponsored mass atrocity.
Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
David Grann · Book · 2018
Explores: Racial injustice, Corruption, Greed.
Much like the perpetrators in The Act of Killing, the figures here illustrate how deep-seated greed and systemic corruption allow monstrous crimes to persist within a society.
Killers of the Flower Moon
David Grann · Book · 2018
Explores: systemic corruption, colonial exploitation, conspiracy.
This investigative account mirrors the chilling reality of The Act of Killing by uncovering how state corruption and systemic inequality enable perpetrators to commit monstrous, hidden crimes.
Series on the same thread
Auschwitz: The Nazis and the Final Solution
Series · 2005
Explores: The Holocaust, Concentration Camps, World War II.
This series provides the historical context for the atrocities explored in The Act of Killing, examining the same terrifying capacity for human cruelty within industrialized, state-managed systems.
Making a Murderer
Moira Demos · Series · 2015
Explores: Wrongful Conviction, Police Corruption, Justice System.
While focused on a modern legal case, this film shares the investigative intensity of The Act of Killing by exposing how institutional corruption obscures the truth of violence.
The Vietnam War
Series · 2017
Explores: War Trauma, Anti-War Movement, Cold War Conflicts.
Like the witnesses in The Act of Killing, those featured here grapple with the lasting trauma of war, offering a complex, multi-layered perspective on historical, state-sanctioned violence.
Exterminate All the Brutes
Raoul Peck · Series · 2021
Shares a thread with The Act of Killing: Historical Trauma.
This series expands on the colonial themes of The Act of Killing, connecting the dots between historical trauma and the genocidal systems that continue to shape society today.
Podcasts on the same thread
Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén
Spotify Studios · Podcast · 2026
Explores: dark human nature, criminal psychology, public fascination.
This podcast digs into the same dark human nature found in The Act of Killing, focusing on how public fascination often masks the grim reality of criminal psychology.
Dark History
Audioboom Studios · Podcast · 2026
Explores: untold narratives, institutional corruption, societal taboos.
This show mirrors the revisionist approach of The Act of Killing by challenging established narratives and exposing the institutional corruption hidden behind the facade of official history.
Keep exploring
Common questions
Is The Act of Killing a scripted reenactment of historical events?
The Act of Killing is a documentary where former Indonesian death squad leaders reenact their actual past atrocities. The film uses various cinematic genres to explore these events, blurring the line between reality and performance as the perpetrators recreate their roles in the 1965-66 anti-communist purge.
What does The Act of Killing reveal about the 1965-66 purge in Indonesia?
The Act of Killing exposes the lingering impact and the unsettling psychology of those who carried out the mass killings. By having the perpetrators reenact their crimes, the documentary provides a unique perspective on the historical reality of the anti-communist purge and the perpetrators' own perspectives on their actions.
Why do the subjects in The Act of Killing use film genres to tell their stories?
In The Act of Killing, the former death squad leaders adopt various film genres as a framework to reenact their real-life mass killings. This stylistic approach serves to blur the line between reality and performance, ultimately highlighting the disturbing psychology of the individuals responsible for the 1965-66 Indonesian purge.
Is The Act of Killing considered a traditional documentary?
The Act of Killing is a groundbreaking documentary that departs from traditional methods by having former death squad leaders perform reenactments of their past atrocities. This approach allows the film to examine the psychology of the perpetrators and the historical weight of the 1965-66 Indonesian anti-communist purge.