Netflix’s regular forays into the true crime docuseries have always yielded stellar results when it comes to viewing figures, and that’s unsurprisingly proven to be the case once more after American Manhunt: The Boston Marathon Bombings took just 24 hours to become one of the platform’s most-watched episodic exclusives.
Following on from the spiritually similar Waco: American Apocalypse, director Floyd Russ and executive producer Tiller Russell – who was also involved in the recent deep dive into David Koresh’s cult – join forces to retell the events building up to, during, and after the tragedy that saw Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev detonate two devices during the annual race, killing three people and injuring hundreds more.
Per FlixPatrol, American Manhunt has debuted as the fifth most-watched TV show on the Netflix global charts, having accrued a Top 10 position in 47 countries around the world. That being said, it should be expected to climb higher over the weekend as more subscribers take the time to revisit one of the most haunting moments in the recent history of the United States.
Using thousands of hours of footage to painstakingly piece together a minute-by-minute account o what went down, The Boston Marathon Bombing places the people of the city as the heroes at the heart of the story, a status they fully earned and deserved after witnessing one of the darkest incidents of the 21st Century.
While people are always going to question sensationalizing such traumas into mass-marketed entertainment, American Manhunt is handled with more than enough grace and dignity to assuage any doubts.