EPISODE
Wormwood - Season 1
Directed by boundary-breaking filmmaker Errol Morris, Wormwood is a six-part series exploring the limits of knowledge about the past and the lengths we'll go in our search for the truth. A twisting, evolving story of one man's sixty-year quest to identify the circumstances of his father's mysterious death. Combining a virtuosic performance by Peter Sarsgaard with Morris' legendary interview style, Wormwood examines this case from every possible angle, bringing the viewer face-to-face with some of the United States' darkest secrets.
9 January 1945, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
8 April 1937, Chicago, Illinois, USA
21 November 1975, Hackettstown, New Jersey, USA
11 May 1964, Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA
7 March 1971, Belleville, Illinois, USA
30 June 1972, Maple Ridge, British Columbia, Canada
December 11, 2017
Errol Morris's new docu-drama examines the 1953 death of CIA biochemist Frank Olson in obsessive, claustrophobic detail.
December 15, 2017
A fascinating piece of filmmaking that challenges the form in new ways as it recalls themes its director has been interested in his entire career.
December 14, 2017
There's probably a two-hour cut of Wormwood that's just as fascinating without being quite so frustrating.
December 13, 2017
But then Morris also includes recurring fictionalized sequences - not the generic reenactments we tend to find in average cable documentaries, but artful scripted pieces featuring well-known actors, led by Peter Sarsgaard as Frank Olson.
December 13, 2017
An unforgettable experience.
December 14, 2017
Wormwood is more concerned with its intellectual and philosophical musings on the intangibility everything about this case represents, but it comes at the cost of an emotional impact that's always just beneath the surface.
December 14, 2017
There are times when you might question whether six hours was necessary to tell this particular story - I often wonder that about Netflix productions - but there's never a moment where Olson or Morris fail to fascinate.
December 13, 2017
Their testimonies unfolds alongside a series of dramatic reenactments that may or may not illustrate the precise nature of the events being described. The result is a documentary-fiction combination like nothing seen before.
December 14, 2017
Once Wormwood reveals its full scope, it's clear that Morris has helped shed light on something rotten.
December 14, 2017
A hybrid blend of documentary and Cold War thriller that makes The B-Side, Morris's loving portrait of radical photographer Elsa Dorfman earlier this year, look almost straightforward.
