‘The Rehearsal,’ and 13 Other Movies and Shows That Bend Reality

If you’re not watching HBO Max’s new series The Rehearsal, you’re missing out. This new “reality” show from Nathan Fielder (Nathan For You) punches holes in the veil between the actual and the fictional by creating extremely realistic simulations of people’s lives so they can rehearse real upcoming events before they happen.

The show is hard to describe, and truly unique, but there are lots of movies and TV shows that no doubt provided artistic inspiration. Here are 12 other movies and TV shows that blur the lines between documentary and narrative filmmaking in interesting and unexpected ways.

Nathan for You (2013-2017)

If you like The Rehearsal, you need to see Nathan Fielder’s original weird, reality-bending comedy show. Nathan for You is more crass and jokey than The Rehearsal, but it features the same deadpan Fielder anti-comedy style, and his elaborate absurdist operations, although they’re played for laughs here instead of the more complex reactions Fielder is going for wit The Rehearsal.

Mind Over Murder (2022)

The factual elements of this documentary series involve a classic true crime + miscarriage of justice story in which, back in the 1980s, five people are busted, tried, and convicted for a murder they didn’t commit. The “fabricated” part features a community theatre in the small town where the murder took place re-enacting the complicated legal saga in the present for local residents, including the murder victim’s family, who still believe the cleared suspects are guilty.

Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond (2017)

Nathan Fielder is good and all, but he’s standing on the shoulders of giants, mostly Andy Kaufman’s, the original surrealist/reality-bending comedian. Kaufman’s entire life was dedicated to taking every joke too far, and this documentary adds another layer by detailing both Kaufman’s career and Jim Carey’s stab at embodying Kaufmann in The Man in the Moon. Jim & Andy purports to document Carey getting “lost in the character” of Kaufman while filming the biopic, but I don’t buy it. In a meta sense, that Carey isn’t able to convincingly pull off this line of bullshit mostly serves to highlight how great Andy Kaufman was at convincing people he was sincere.

The Beaver Trilogy: Part IV (2016)

In 1979, Trent Harris had a chance encounter with an odd young man in the parking lot of the small TV station where he worked, and it shaped the rest of his life. The original Beaver Trilogy details the three films Harris made based on his brief relationship with “Groovin’ Gary:” A short documentary he made in 1979, a re-created version of the story starring Sean Penn made in 1981, and an expanded version starring Crispin Glover, from 1984. Beaver Trilogy: Part 4 tells the story of what happened to the real Groovin’ Gary and delves into director Harris’ weird, lifelong obsession with a small moment in time.

Synecdoche, New York (2008)

In writer/director Charlie Kaufman’s postmodern epic, Philip Seymour Hoffman plays a theatre director who becomes so obsessed with realism he hires actors to lead entire, fake lives within a set that he fills with as close-as-possible doubles for real people in his life. It could have been called The Nathan Fielder Story.

Mirage Men (2013)

It’s not just artsy filmmakers and cable TV comedians who recreate reality: the government does it too — and they’re very good at it. Mirage Men details the U.S. Air Force’s long-running and sophisticated disinformation campaign aimed at UFO researchers. Flying saucers may be fake, but the military’s interest in discrediting UFO proponents was very real. Whether you’ll think this was all intended to cover up real evidence of aliens or because the air force was tired of citizens spreading details of its experimental aircraft will vary depending on how conspiratorial you are. Either way, it’s a fascinating true story of government-sanctioned deceit.

The Truman Show (1998)

The main character of The Truman Show only gradually learns that his entire life is a reality show, and sets out to escape his televised prison. Meanwhile, in our reality, life has started imitating art, as some psychologists have noticed patients with a delusion they’ve dubbed “The Truman Show Delusion” or “Truman Syndrome,” in which the afflicted believe that they are the main character in a reality show. Trippy.

The Hellstrom Chronicle (1971)

I know people did a lot of drugs in the 1970s, but it’s hard to imagine what the Academy of Motion Pictures must have been on when they nominated The Hellstrom Chronicle for “Best Documentary” in 1971. It’s supposedly a desperate plea for help from Nils Hellstrom, a rogue scientist who has proof that insects are trying to take over the world. Except there was no such person, and the central argument of the movie is ludicrous. It does feature impressive macro-photography of insects though.

Scare Tactics (2003-2008)

Hidden camera prank shows have been around since Candid Camera premiered in 1948, but the genre reached cultural saturation in the early and mid-aughts with Punk’d, Jackass, and 8,000 other cheap-to-produce knock-offs. The second-hand cringe of watching unsuspecting people embarrass themselves is tiring, Scare Tactics at least tried to scare people, instead of just annoying them. Plus, some of the fictions created on the show are so elaborate and ridiculous, you have to be impressed.

Sherman’s March (1985)

The premise of Sherman’s March is that in the early 1980s, filmmaker Ross McElwee was prepared to shoot a documentary about Civil War general William Sherman’s march to the sea, but then his girlfriend left him, so instead he made Sherman’s March — a documentary about a documentarian’s search for love, informed by the Civil War and Sherman’s life. This groundbreaking semi-comedic documentary’s shifting layers of reality and fiction still have the power to surprise and amaze.

The Tom Green Show (1994-2000)

The Tom Green Show hasn’t aged especially well, but you can’t argue Green wasn’t a pioneer of the television-of-the-absurd/anti-comedy that The Rehearsal has refined and perfected. Beneath Green’s sophomoric and annoying jokes is a look at how people react when everything “normal” is turned on its head. Plus, it started on Canadian public broadcasting, so it has to be good.

F for Fake (1973)

Orson Welles’ last finished work blends documentary and fiction to create “a film about trickery. About lies,” according to Welles. It’s also about art forgery, imagination, the limits of fiction, and the meaning of authenticity and authorship. Welles is known for having created a panic with a radio play about an alien invasion, so he’s uniquely qualified to to tell this story, and his reputation as the greatest director of all time is cemented by this tricky, provocative movie.

Marwencol (2010)

Mark Hogancamp was beaten nearly to death outside of a bar in 2000. The attack left him with brain damage and an inability to remember most of his life. As a kind of therapy, Hogancamp created a 1/6 scale replica of a Belgian village in his backyard, filled it with doll versions of people in his life, and enacted an elaborate World War II narrative to help him process his trauma from the attack. It’s a fascinating story, and this documentary transforms it into a narrative about the redemptive power of art. Watch it instead of the fictionalized remake Welcome to Marwen, starring Steve Carrell; the reality is even weirder, and more moving.