A True-Crime Flop Becomes a Documentary Masterpiece

A New Zodiac Killer Documentary Challenges Everything We Think We Know About True Crime
Director Charlie Shackleton's meta project about the notorious serial killer challenges, with wry humor, our entire approach to true crime.
Sundance 2025: True crime and true lies in films about the Zodiac killer and China’s dating culture
Two titles in the non-fiction category play with real-life expectations as well as filmmaking conventions. While Zodiac Killer Project is a meta-examination of the true crime show, The Dating Game looks at Chinese men hunting for romantic partners.
‘Zodiac Killer Project’: A True-Crime Flop Becomes a Documentary Masterpiece
Watch enough true-crime documentaries and patterns begin to emerge—a situation that speaks to the genre’s embrace of a cookie-cutter formula defined by a host of recurring narrative and formal tropes.
True Crime Is Killing Documentary Filmmaking. Now There’s a True-Crime Documentary About That.
All Charlie Shackleton had to do was give the Sundance Film Festival a 90-second video introducing himself and his documentary Zodiac Killer Project, which premiered at the festival on Monday. Instead,
Zodiac Killer Project Reveals Tricks and Tropes of True Crime
The Zodiac Killer Project by Charlie Shackleton masterfully exposes the tricks and tropes of true crime. It just debuted at Sundance.
‘Zodiac Killer Project’ is a Meta-True Crime Documentary with Unfulfilled Potential [Sundance 2025 Review]
Charlie Shackleton’s quasi-true crime documentary 'Zodiac Killer Project' is a fascinating approach to form but a tepid experience overall.
Zodiac Killer Project Review: Defying the True Crime Algorithm
Zodiac Killer Project review: the well-worn world of true crime docs goes under the microscope in Charlie Shackleton's self-reflexive essay.
‘Zodiac Killer Project’: Sundance Review
Up’, a.k.a. ’The Silenced Badge’. Director Charlie Shackleton had been set to adapt the book into a true crime documentary, until Lafferty’s estate abruptly withdrew the rights. Shackleton’s response was to create a film about the film he wanted to make,
Filmmaker2d
“The Day Another Film Fell Apart”: Charlie Shackleton, Zodiac Killer Project
Films are made over many days, but some days are more memorable, and important, than others. Imagine yourself in ten years ...
‘Zodiac Killer Project’ Review: A Filmmaker Imagines the Movie They Weren’t Allowed to Make in Wry Critique of True-Crime Genre
Sundance: Some artists are too interesting to sell out, as British filmmaker Charlie Shackleton discovered for himself when ...
Vulture2d
Charlie Shackleton
Zodiac Killer Project Brilliantly Deconstructs Our Obsession With True CrimeA work of criticism as well as a work of art, Charlie Shackleton’s sly film is nebulously sinister and dryly hilarious ...