Netflix Tackles Jonestown With New Docuseries on One of America’s Deadliest Mass Murders
Netflix dives into the Jonestown tragedy with a new documentary series, revisiting one of the deadliest mass murders in American history.
I have a long-standing fascination with stories about cults and the people who run them, and there are few that still make my stomach drop like Jonestown. Netflix just announced a three-part documentary digging into the Peoples Temple and Jim Jones, and it sounds like they are aiming to cut through decades of fog, myth, and lazy shorthand.
The project
The docuseries comes from Emmy-nominated filmmaker J.M. Harper, whose last project was 'As We Speak.' It does not have a title or a release date yet, but the scope is clear: the show tracks the ideas and events that led to the massacre, and it leans on never-before-seen archival footage plus interviews with dozens of survivors and former Peoples Temple members. A lot of these folks have never spoken publicly about their experiences. Crucially, it also features firsthand accounts from Jim Jones's son, Stephan Jones.
'This was not a mass suicide. It was mass murder.'
Quick refresher on Jonestown
In the 1970s, with the U.S. simmering from political turmoil and social anxiety, Jim Jones moved his growing religious movement, the Peoples Temple, to San Francisco. He sold it as a progressive safe haven that blended Christian teachings, racial equality, and socialist ideals. Thousands joined, most of them Black Americans, drawn by promises of community, safety, and a fairer world. The cost was total loyalty.
When the press started digging and allegations of abuse piled up, Jones uprooted the group to a remote patch of Guyana, pitching it as a utopia far from American racism and violence. What they got was a closed, increasingly paranoid compound: Jonestown.
On November 18, 1978, things collapsed. U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan, who had flown in to investigate, was murdered along with four others while trying to leave an airstrip. Back at Jonestown, Jones forced his congregation — children and elders included — to drink cyanide-laced punch under armed guard. More than 900 people died. It remains one of the deadliest mass murders in American history and, before 9/11, the largest single loss of American civilian life. The tragedy has been watered down for decades by the 'drinking the Kool-Aid' cliche, which hides the coercion and the violence that actually occurred.
Why this doc could matter
Harper's series is positioning itself to correct the record with primary sources and voices we have not heard before. Survivors and former members who stayed silent for decades are speaking, and Stephan Jones's perspective adds a layer that is both personal and historically valuable. If the show sticks the landing, it could finally separate what really happened from the sensationalized shorthand we have all heard for years.
Meanwhile at HBO
Netflix is not the only one revisiting Jonestown. Earlier this year, news broke that Bill Hader ('Barry') is co-writing a scripted Jonestown series for HBO with Daniel Zelman ('Fool's Gold'), and Hader is being eyed to potentially star. So, expect very different takes on the same nightmare: one documentary, one dramatized.
What we know right now
- Format: Three-part documentary series at Netflix
- Director: J.M. Harper ('As We Speak'), Emmy-nominated
- Focus: The ideas and events leading to the Jonestown massacre
- Materials: Never-before-seen archival footage
- Interviews: Dozens of survivors and former Peoples Temple members, many speaking publicly for the first time
- Key voice: Firsthand accounts from Stephan Jones, Jim Jones's son
- Status: No title yet, no release date yet
No ETA from Netflix yet, but I will be watching this one closely — and yes, I expect it to spark a lot of necessary re-education about what Jonestown actually was.