Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple

Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple (2006) is a documentary by Stanley Nelson you can watch online on iFILM. On November 18, 1978, 914 members of a religious commune in the Guyanese jungle died within hours — a mass poisoning ordered by their own leader.

Nelson built the film around footage that had never been publicly screened, alongside testimony from survivors including Deborah Layton and Hue Fortson Jr. The result is less about the final day than about the years before it: how Jim Jones turned a genuine civil rights congregation into a community with no exit. Congressman Leo Ryan flew down to investigate; he did not fly back.

Stream Jonestown (2006) online on iFILM — a film that answers not just what happened, but how it was possible.