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ABOUT THE FILM

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 underground world it helped spawn.

Predators is an edge of your seat thriller 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.

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.