Latest in Contenders TV Doc + Unscripted

Deadline has launched the streaming site for its Contenders Television: Documentary + Unscripted event, which Saturday showcased 21 documentary and reality series along with the subjects and creators who make them tick. It now joins our scripted Contenders counterpart to provide a 360-degree view of the shows that are…

The Masked Singer has found itself in the middle of political controversy during its current seventh season after Deadline revealed that Rudy Giuliani was one of the contestants. Donald Trump's lawyer was unmasked this week on the Fox reality competition series. But for executive producer Craig Plestis, who brought…

“People like to see other people, for some weird reason, do crazy stuff on TV.” That’s Kaycee Clark’s explanation for why MTV’s long-running reality competition show The Challenge has remained so popular since launching in 1998. But Clark isn’t just a fan of the show; she’s a winner too, having triumphed in Season…

Filmmaker Ry Russo-Young is not only the creator and director of the HBO Documentary Films series Nuclear Family, but also one of its main subjects. The three-part series revolves around her upbringing as the daughter of a lesbian couple, Sandy Russo and Robin Young. Back in the late 1970s and early ’80s, couples like…

Surfer Garrett McNamara, star of the HBO documentary series 100 Foot Wave, is one of the few people on the planet who can truly describe what it's like to be chased by a massive wall of water. "It’s just so choppy and the wind is just going by your face and your whole body," McNamara said during a panel discussion of 1…

TV shows that try to manufacture a romance don’t have the best success rate (here’s looking at you, The Bachelor). But it’s different for the folks who appear on 90 Day Fiancé, TLC’s wildly successful reality show that’s currently in its ninth season. “Sadly the divorce rate in the United States hovers around 50%…

Pop superstar Janet Jackson reveals much more of herself than she's ever done before in the Lifetime-A&E documentary series aptly titled Janet Jackson. The singer-actress discloses why her first marriage, to James DeBarge, failed (his drug use); her dream as a young woman (to pursue business law, not music); and why…

The Daily Show with Trevor Noah has returned to its old studio with a live audience for the first time in more than two years, and the team is enjoying it. The Comedy Central show returned to its previous studio at 733 11th Avenue in New York, having spent much of the pandemic filming out of Noah's apartment, with a…

A die-hard Pittsburgh Steelers fan jumps the wall at the 1979 Super Bowl to watch his favorite team, a Muslim teen girl (comedian-attorney Yasmin Elhady) conquers 9/11 adversity and wins over students at an Alabama high school to become class president, and a working-class guy is slowed down by the cops in his blitz…

The world has come to recognize the supreme talent of Viola Davis, the Oscar- and Emmy-winning actress. But she had to overcome huge obstacles to achieve her success, growing up poor in Central Falls, Rhode Island. The enormity of those obstacles becomes strikingly clear in an episode of the Apple TV+ documentary…

Writer-directors James Lee Hernandez and Brian Lazarte recognize a good old-fashioned scam story when they see one. Their 2020 Emmy-nominated documentary series McMillion$ revealed how a former police officer managed to rig McDonald's big-bucks Monopoly game in the 1990s. Their new docuseries for Apple TV+, The Big Con…

Jenner Furst and Julia Willoughby Nason have become pioneers in a new genre within the true-crime category, something they call "true comedy." The directors/executive producers earned an Emmy nomination for their 2019 documentary Fyre Fraud, about the luxe music festival that turned hilariously bad. Their latest…