The Best (and Worst) JFK Assassination Documentaries

We highlight JFK films that push the case forward while doing credit to the art form

If the study of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination teaches you anything, it’s to keep in mind that famous F. Scott Fitzgerald quote that suggests one mark of intelligence is being able to hold two opposing thoughts in your mind simultaneously while still maintaining the ability to function.

After taking on the task of compiling the best (and worst) of JFK assassination documentaries, our ability to function may be seriously in question, but there’s no doubt quite a few contradictory ideas are simultaneously occupying our brain space.  

We screened dozens and dozens of films for consideration, many of them multiple times. 

To put it bluntly: There’s a lot of crap out there. Shoddy filmmaking, superficial reporting, questionable theorizing.

But there also are several documentaries that do credit to the art form while providing fresh understanding into the undeniably byzantine case. 

Perhaps it goes without saying, but fact-checking every assertion in all of these docs was not possible. If we had cast aside every film that included a questionable theory or relayed a detail that doesn’t quite hold up to scrutiny or contextualization, it would be a list of zero.

So we did our best to avoid films with the most egregious approaches to reality.

We went with docs that were well-crafted, internally consistent, serious in intent, probing for answers. We wanted perspectives we hadn’t considered, facts we did not know, insights that previously escaped us.  

We’ve divided the list into the 10 top documentaries, along with five honorable mentions and five more that don’t quite pass the smell test.

We think each of the films in best-of section are laudable individually, but the truth is that the list works better as a whole. Grappling with the assassination’s mysteries requires a tapestry – and more than a few opposing thoughts.

So here we go:

‘Frontline: Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald?’

The title says it all for this three-hour episode of PBS’s award-winning investigative show “Frontline,” which here takes on one of the assassination’s enduring questions. Originally released in 1993 (and shortened for later airings), it is intensely reported and judicious in its conclusions, taking a measured approach to weighing the strongest of the Warren Commission’s evidence implicating Oswald against the lingering suspicions raised by critics of the official story.

“Lone gunman or part of a conspiracy?” asks narrator Will Lyman at the story’s outset. “The evidence is often ambiguous.” The film charts much of Oswald’s short life: the troubled childhood, the stint in the Marines, the time spent in Russia, and the return to the U.S. that culminated with that fateful date with history in Dallas. It notably is first to reveal a 1955 photo of a teenage Oswald with David Ferrie, the New Orleans pilot and instigator who has long been the subject of conspiratorial speculation. It also asserts that the CIA did in fact debrief Oswald on his return to the U.S. from Russia, something the Agency has yet to publicly acknowledge to this day.

If you prefer documentaries to provide pat verdicts regarding exactly how JFK’s assassination transpired – or about Oswald’s role therein – look elsewhere. But if you appreciate broadly sourced investigations that are willing to consider evidence regardless of where it points, this one’s for you. As the House Select Committee on Assassination’s G. Robert Blakey says of the film’s subject: “He is not an easy man to explain.” 

The shorter cut of “Frontline: Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald” is available for free streaming at the PBS.org website.

‘Rush to Judgment’

This first documentary to seriously dispute the Warren Report was led by filmmaker Emile de Antonio and crusading attorney Mark Lane, whose bestselling book of the same name provided the template. Eyewitnesses whom the Warren Commission ignored or downplayed are the focus, and many of them provide compelling testimony that undercuts the idea that Oswald accomplished the assassination on his own.

One of the film’s strengths, particularly nearly 60 years on, is its straightforward, understated style, represented by both Lane’s calm interviewing approach and the lack of media-savvy on the part of eyewitnesses like S.M. Holland, Richard C. Dodd and Lee Bowers Jr., who matter-of-factly describe what they saw.

There are no flashy shooting reenactments, no Zapruder film on loop, no melodramatic music, and only the briefest of theorizing. Just convincing testimony captured while the events of November 22 were still relatively fresh.

As part of a restoration and rerelease, “Rush to Judgment” is receiving theatrical screenings around the country on Nov. 22. It will be available for purchase and rental on Dec. 5 through Vimeo and iTunes.

More: The full story on the rerelease of “Rush to Judgment”

‘The Umbrella Man’

Just six minutes long, this 2011 installment from the fine New York Times Op-Docs series was created by Oscar-winning documentarian Errol Morris – no slouch when it comes to asking hard questions of law enforcement or government authorities (see “The Thin Blue Line,” “The Fog of War,” “Wormwood,” etc.). But he takes a different tack here, implying that we all need to question our tendency to interpret evidence through suspicious prisms.

The entry point is the so-called Umbrella Man, who on that sunny Dallas day of Nov. 22, 1963, was somewhat infamously – and entirely conspicuously – holding an open umbrella just a few feet away from JFK when the fatal shots rang out in Dealey Plaza. Warren Commission critic Josiah Thompson recalls pointing out the Umbrella Man in his book “Six Seconds in Dallas,” which led to all sorts of conspiratorial theorizing. “Can anyone come up with a nonsinister explanation for this? Hmm? Hmm?,” Thompson asks, with more than a hint of mischief. We won’t blow the reveal, but it turns out the answer is yes.

Thompson describes the Umbrella Man hubbub as a cautionary tale.

“If you have any fact, which you think is really sinister … really obviously a fact which can only point to some sinister underpinning, forget it man, because you can never on your own, think up all the nonsinister, perfectly valid explanations for that fact.” It seems like a lesson that anyone with interest in the assassination’s complexities should take to heart. 

“The Umbrella Man” is available on the New York Times’ Youtube channel.

‘JFK: Destiny Betrayed’ and ‘JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass’

In a publicity interview for his tempestuous 1991 film “JFK,” Oliver Stone called himself a dramatist, “not a documentarian.” A couple decades later, we’ve got some strong evidence to the contrary via these two Stone-directed projects, both released in 2021.

We’re grouping together “Destiny Betrayed” (a four-part series totaling nearly four hours) and “Revisited” (a film just less than two hours) because they cover a lot of the same ground, including using many of the same interviews and segments. If you’ve got the time and access, “Destiny Betrayed” is the way to go – more is indeed better in this case.

In terms of filmmaking craft and storytelling chops, this is the most impressive entry on our list, particularly for the way it interweaves material about opposition to JFK’s policies and the specifics of the assassination’s mechanics. “Betrayed” is pretty sprawling in its attack on the lone gunman theory, as it covers everything from doubts surrounding the medical evidence to Oswald’s possible intelligence connections to JFK’s political battles with military and CIA leaders.

The fact that “JFK” led to the JFK Records Act and the release of millions of pages of documents will always make that dramatized film Stone’s most important contribution to the case. But “Destiny Betrayed” is a much more convincing distillation of the case for conspiracy. 

“JFK Revisited” is available to stream on Paramount+, and for purchase through other outlets, including Amazon Prime. “JFK: Destiny Betrayed” is available for purchase on Amazon Prime.

‘Four Days in November’

This Academy Award-nominated 1964 film does not go beneath the surface of the mainstream narrative of JFK’s assassination. Even suggestive events like Jack Ruby’s silencing of Oswald barely raise an eyebrow. That said, it provides an absolutely immersive experience of the four days beginning with the assassination and ending with JFK’s state funeral. With superb deployment of archival news and amateur footage that’s complemented by narration that often verges on the poetic, it conjures the shock of JFK’s killing, the drama of Oswald’s capture and death, and the nation’s grief over the loss of the president.

Just a few minutes in, we see Dallas Police Jesse Curry delivering this message, which remains chilling even six decades on: “Nothing must occur that is disrespectful or degrading to the President of the United States. He is entitled to the highest respect of all of our citizens. And the law enforcement agencies in this area are going to do everything within their power to ensure that no untoward accident or incident occurs.” It’s just one example of the many clips that offer historical value while conjuring raw emotion.

Released less than two months after the Warren Commission Report, “Four Days” remains an extremely important time capsule of how the crime was initially perceived and portrayed. 

“Four Days in November” is available on Youtube. 

‘JFK: What the Doctors Saw’

Roughly the first third of this 2023 documentary concentrates on the scene at Parkland Hospital as doctors work to save the lives of JFK and Texas Gov. John Connally, despite distinct fears among the emergency room staff that JFK was very unlikely to survive. The movie does an excellent job conveying the chaos, shock, and gravity of the unfolding circumstances through the eyes of the doctors.

“Did that really happen or was this a nightmare?” recalls Dr. Robert McClelland of the sentiments shortly after the president was announced dead. Then, the film moves to events and evidence that carry conspiratorial implications. That includes the Dallas doctors’ observations of the president’s wounds – entry wound in the neck, exit wound at rear of the head – which to them implied shots from the front; the battle over who would conduct the autopsy; and when, what, how and why questions surrounding the body’s arrival at Bethesda Naval Hospital and its subsequent autopsy later that night.

Critics like investigator Douglas Horne and lawyer Matt Crumpton speculate that deceptions at Bethesda could have been designed to disguise evidence of a plot. “It’s fraught with conflict and contradiction, and there (are) some real mysteries to try to unravel here,” says Horne of the medical evidence. Forensic pathologist Michael Baden, who oversaw the medical panel for the HSCA, speaks in favor of the official theory, even resolutely stating that the Dallas doctors are incorrectly remembering what they witnessed.

The film concludes with a group interview with seven doctors who were in Trauma Room 1 on Nov. 22 – filmed 10 years ago, but only released now. Several of them memorably scoff at assertions from another HSCA representative who questions their recollections, while also calling into question the autopsy photos and x-rays. “When I saw the autopsy pictures I thought someone had really tampered with the whole thing and it made me very suspicious because it didn’t look anything like what I saw there,” says Dr. Kenneth Salyer.

If you find the Parkland doctors more convincing than official interpretations of the autopsy record – and it seems a good bet that many watching this documentary will – the implications of their testimony are disturbing indeed.  

“JFK: What the Doctors Saw” is available on the Paramount+ streaming service, which currently has a free one-week trial. 

‘Best Evidence: The Research Video’

David S. Lifton’s theory of casket-switching and body alteration as means of falsifying JFK’s autopsy remains among the most controversial takes ever espoused by conspiracy theorists. Though Lifton makes a painstaking case in his book “Best Evidence” that something was awry, the essential idea nonetheless remains difficult to believe. This 35-minute video, released in 1990, helps make the author’s case. As Lifton notes in the introduction, he wanted to capture eyewitnesses on film before the book was published, and more importantly, before they would realize the potential implications of what they saw.

Ambulance driver Aubrey Rike and autopsy participants Dennis David, Paul O’Connor and Jerrol Custer are among those providing persuasive accounts suggesting deceit of some sort; these were the first filmed interviews for all of them. Particularly compelling are crosscuts of Rike and O’Connor describing the caskets they saw – one bronze and ceremonial, the other plain gray – and other interviews describing multiple arrivals of the body on the night of the autopsy. As an interviewer, Lifton deserves credit for repeatedly, and seemingly sincerely, asking the witnesses if they could be mistaken in their recollections. At the outset of the film, Lifton recalls his initial viewings of the Zapruder film, and how he couldn’t reconcile what he saw with the idea of shots from the rear: “I couldn’t accept this. It all seemed too improbable.” Similar sentiments would be directed at his theory for decades to come.

Used copies of “Best Evidence: The Research Video” are available on Amazon.com and eBay.com, and a copy is uploaded to Youtube. 

‘The Searchers’

While it provides some surface evidence for conspiracy in the death of JFK, this 2017 documentary is much more focused on profiling the everyday citizens who spend large chunks of their lives chasing the mysteries of November 22. We get an introduction to important early critics like Lane, Sylvia Meagher, Penn Jones Jr., Mary Ferrell and Harold Weisberg, and also spend time with several other researchers whose names will be familiar to anyone who closely follows the case: Cyril Wecht, John Judge, Rex Bradford, Debra Conway, and Lisa Pease.

The themes are also familiar, including distrust of the government, anger at the media and frustration over the lack of resolution in the case. “Will we ever know the whole truth? I can’t see any way that we ever will. I truly can’t. And that saddens me,” says Robert Groden, the critic who famously brought the Zapruder film to a TV audience for the first time.

Perhaps the most compelling aspect of the film is the collective psychological portrait it builds: What sort of person devotes so much time to a puzzle that may never be pieced together? Though there’s an inherent look-at-these-oddball-obsessives element at play, “The Searchers” is ultimately a very sympathetic portrait of the heroic folks who kept pursuing questions about the assassination while the government and legacy media largely looked the other way. 

“The Searchers” is available at Amazon Prime, Vimeo, and for DVD purchase at the film’s website.

‘JFK: A President Betrayed’

If you want to get technical about it, this 2013 documentary is not about the assassination. In fact, Lee Harvey Oswald’s name is not even uttered. The film, is, however, a thorough recounting of the increasing opposition to JFK’s foreign policy within his own administration – especially as it related to Russia, Cuba and Vietnam. Heavy with historical talking heads and narrated somewhat ominously by Morgan Freeman, it details how right-wing hawks on the Joint Chiefs of Staff thought Kennedy was soft on communism and CIA leaders misled JFK regarding their approach to Fidel Castro.

“They were angry. They were frustrated. They were talking among themselves,” says journalist-historian Gareth Porter referencing the increasing tensions in Washington. JFK’s back channels to Russia and Cuba are explored, as are his plans to reduce U.S. presence in Vietnam. No conclusions are drawn, but the foreshadowing of the president’s fate with references to President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination and talk of Kennedy’s obsession with death are none too subtle when placed amongst so much evidence of the hostility swirling around him.

“JFK: A President Betrayed” is available through the Freevee channel on Amazon Prime.

‘Oswald’s Ghost’ 

While it presents evidence of Lee Harvey Oswald’s guilt and includes segments suggesting a broader plot, this 2007 movie is not really interested in deducing what happened in Dealey Plaza. It’s much more focused on the decades that followed, and the cumulative psychological implications of never-ending debates over the assassination’s causes – especially the mushrooming climate of suspicion and cynicism that arrived in its wake. The talking heads include conspiracists (Lane and Thompson), Warren Commission defenders (Hugh Aynesworth and Priscilla Johnson McMillan) and others who seem to straddle the line (author Norman Mailer.)

By tracing the rise of critics of the official story, the follies of the Jim Garrison case, and other assassinations of the ’60s, the film builds a distinct sense of distrust and even paranoia, with the editing, effects and score only serving to increase the unease. This is best exemplified by an extended scene that features a tape recording of controversial Garrison witness Perry Russo’s testimony under the supposed truth serum sodium pentothal. As Russo languorously speaks of witnessing conspiratorial planning at suspect Ferrie’s apartment, we see a pocket watch swinging pendulum-style amidst blurred and washed-out assassination footage. Clearly, this is being played for cinematic, not evidentiary, effect. Is filmmaker Robert Stone suggesting we’re under a sort of group hypnosis from which we’ll never escape? Concludes Mailer: “Is it this, or is it that? You can’t know, because the ghost doesn’t tell you.”

“Oswald’s Ghost” can be watched on Vimeo.

Honorable mention

“Truth is the Only Client: The Official Investigation of the Murder of John F. Kennedy” (2019): Even if the premise housed in its title is highly debatable, this Warren Commission defense deserves credit for providing an extended platform for commission members whose voices are typically missing or minimized in the landscape of assassination documentaries. You’ll learn something by hearing their perspectives. 

“JFK: One Day in America” (2023): This new three-part series that debuted on Hulu this month has many elements to recommend, including strong archival editing and the mournful, emotional storytelling conveyed through its new interviews, particularly with Secret Service men Clint Hill and Paul Landis, whose grief and sense of guilt practically reverberate through the screen. It’s worth noting that a key building block of its structure – new conversations with first-hand witnesses – is inherently hobbled by the fact that so many key players had died in the decades before this movie was made.  

“The Assassination and Mrs. Paine” (2022): Ruth Paine is a frequent talking head in other assassination documentaries, but here the woman who befriended Marina Oswald and springboarded Lee Harvey Oswald into his job at the Texas School Book Depository gets her own moment in the spotlight. The film not-so gently implies that she’s got something to hide, but also gives her plenty of screen time to defend herself and once again incriminate LHO.

“A Coup in Camelot” (2015): This crisply edited doc explores conspiracy angles in a chaptered approach, with established critics taking the lead in their areas of expertise. Secret Service complicity, Dealey Plaza logistics, and inconsistencies in the medical evidence are among areas explored.

“Image of an Assassination: A New Look at the Zapruder Film” (1998): The ongoing debate over the authenticity of the famed 8mm film of the assassination isn’t touched on in this documentary, but it does provide access to a number of principals who had a role in Abraham Zapruder’s story, along with insights on the chain of custody, storage, and availability of this invaluable piece of history.   

Dishonorable mention

“The Men Who Killed Kennedy” (1988-2003): This nine-part series initiated by British filmmaker Nigel Turner actually has a fair amount in its favor, especially in the earliest episodes, when it does a good job tracking down a variety of primary witnesses. But it’s often acceptingly nonchalant in the evidence it plays up – Badge Man, anyone? – and unskeptically highlights several elements that have since been decried, discredited, or debunked. If you’re tempted to watch, make sure to fact-check along the way.

“JFK X: Solving the Crime of the Century” (2023): Please don’t waste your time or money on this poorly produced and horribly conceptualized “documentary,” which among other things argues that the assassination was faked with Hollywood special effects; that Jackie Kennedy was a knowing accomplice to that deceit; and that police officer J.D. Tippit was killed earlier in the day than generally believed and then stuffed in the presidential limo’s secret compartment so that he could be substituted for the unwounded JFK when the motorcade arrived at Parkland Hospital. And as infomercials like to proclaim … there’s more. 

“JFK: The Ultimate Conspiracy” (2020) and “Who Killed JFK: The Conspiracies” (2020): These two docs are more mediocrely superficial than truly bad, but they make this list for packaging a lot of the same material under two different titles. 

“Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy” (2014): This is a disorganized presentation of all sorts of conspiratorial implications, with extremely low production values to boot. Author Jim Marrs, who penned a book of the same name, is filmed sitting at a desk in his role as on-screen narrator and is the only person freshly shot for the movie.

“JFK: The Smoking Gun” (2013): This movie is nicely produced, and its reenactments even rise above typical documentary fare. But the unlikelihood of its central hypothesis – that the fatal headshot was accidentally fired by a Secret Service agent – is an albatross that can’t be overcome.

Steve Byrne is managing editor of JFK Facts. He cofounded a documentary film festival in Detroit, and has been a producer on three feature-length documentaries, including one that is still in production.