Low-angle shot at a kitchen counter. A bearded man in a dark T-shirt leans forward on his forearms, his face partly out of frame, next to a short glass of amber liquor. In the foreground, another person in a dark suit jacket presses their fingertips onto the polished marble surface, a silver ring on one finger. A bottle of whiskey stands at the left edge, and warm, blurred lights glow in the background.

Predators

About Predators

A cultural sensation from its inception in the early 2000s, Dateline NBC’s candid-camera investigative TV 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 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.
 

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