To Catch a Predator was a popular television show designed to hunt down child predators and lure them to a film set,where they would be interviewed and eventually arrested. PREDATORS is a chilling, thought-provoking exploration of the scintillating rise and staggering fall of the show, and the world it helped create.

COMING SOON

Would you like to set up a screening?

STORY 

A cultural sensation from its inception in the early 2000s, Dateline NBC’s candid-camera investigative series To Catch a Predator ensnared sex offenders and lured them to a film set, where they would be interviewed and arrested while cameras rolled. The show was a hit and transformed its host Chris Hansen into a moral crusader and TV star, while spawning a worldwide industry of imitators and vigilantes. But why did we watch so voraciously — and why do we continue to devour its web-based, clickbait-driven offshoots?

Looking back on the show and the countless franchises it spawned, filmmaker David Osit turns his camera on journalists, actors, law enforcers, academics, and ultimately himself, to trace America's obsession with watching people at their lowest.

PREDATORS is a chilling, edge of your seat film that delves into the murk of human nature to observe hunter, predator, subject and spectator alike, all ensnared in a complicated web of entertainment as far as the eye can see.

FILMMAKER

DAVID OSIT (Director, Producer, Editor, Cinematographer) is an Emmy and Peabody Award-winning director, editor and composer. His most recent film MAYOR won a Peabody and Emmy Award, was a New York Times Critics’ Pick, and holds a 100% Certified Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. David directed, produced, edited, filmed and composed the feature documentary THANK YOU FOR PLAYING, which broadcast on POV in 2016, and was nominated for three Emmy awards, winning for Outstanding Arts & Culture Documentary. He also edited and produced OFF FRAME, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and Berlinale in 2016, and he edited, produced and composed NO MAN’S LAND, which premiered at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival and broadcast on PBS Independent Lens in 2018. David’s feature directorial debut, BUILDING BABEL, premiered at True/False in 2012 and broadcast as the series premiere of PBS’s America Reframed in 2013. His work as an editor and consulting editor includes PROCESSION (Netflix), CRIME + PUNISHMENT (Hulu) and THE VOW (HBO). He holds a BA in Middle Eastern and North African Studies from the University of Michigan as a Wallenberg Fellow and studied Refugee Law at the American University in Cairo.

REVIEWS

“Brilliant. Measured, nuanced and finally gut-punching.” Variety

“Straddles various lines, and perspectives, with impressive confidence.” Daily Beast

“Absolutely fascinating.” Rolling Stone

“Stunning. Much more than another attempt to interrogate our international obsession with true crime culture.”
Roger Ebert.com

MORE TITLES FROM DOGWOOF