In the early 2000s, as an era dominated by sitcoms like Friends and Frasier was coming to an end, a new age of reality television began taking hold. By 2006, NBC found itself offering a primetime slot to its crime series, To Catch a Predator, in order to compete with ABC’s Lost. In the show, host Chris Hansen (Robert Pattinson) and producer Andie Bender (Merrit Wever) lured men to sting houses where adult actors posed as underaged teens and asked them inside. From there, Hansen would confront them with a “gotcha” moment, and police would arrest them on site. Inspired by a 2007 magazine article about the show’s grisly conclusion, Primetime raises compelling questions about the complicity of reality producers in a ratings-driven, fame-driven world. As hypnotic as it is unnerving, this is a film that’s hard to stop watching as it examines the ethics of turning real-life crime into entertainment, pushing us to reflect on how we engage with this type of media and our own role as willing consumers of it.

(US / 2026 / Directed by Lance Oppenheim)
R / 1 hr 50 mins