Benedict Sanderson doc takes the top spot on Netflix UK chart

Congratulations to Stern & Wild filmmaker Benedict Sanderson, Director of the gripping feature documentary KIDNAPPED: ELIZABETH SMART which is streaming now on Netflix. The film has hit the No.1 spot on the platform in the UK and reached No.2 in the US and globally since launching last week and has received a slew of positive reviews and commentary in the press.

The 90-min documentary revisits one of America’s most notorious kidnapping cases which began in 2002 when 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart was abducted at knifepoint from her home in Salt Lake City and held captive by Brian David Mitchell and his wife Wanda Barzee who abused her for nine months before she was rescued. The film is anchored by Smart’s own extraordinary account of the trauma and how she dealt with this after her rescue. 

“The true-crime story recounted in KIDNAPPED: ELIZABETH SMART, a new documentary directed by Benedict Sanderson, is distinctly connected to Utah. There’s the strong community feeling evinced by her family’s efforts to find her. And then there’s the depraved religious fanaticism of her abductors, Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Barzee, who terrorized her. These intertwined components create a fascinating and disorienting narrative double helix.”

Glenn Kenny, New York Times 

“Told in her own words, this powerful documentary film brings alive the harrowing story…”

Tim Glanfield/Jake Helm, Five Best Films to Watch this Weekend, The Times

“Her frankness about her ordeal is truly inspiring… 

… the 90-minute film covers its ground swiftly and efficiently. There is footage of the Smart family’s close-knit Mormon community turning out in droves to put up posters and help in the extensive police search for the missing child, and of her father, Ed, breaking down in tears every time he tried to speak about her at press conferences…

And we hear from Elizabeth herself, now 38 and an activist for survivors’ rights and for protection of vulnerable people against predators. She speaks notably frankly about her experience of rape and the shame it engendered…”

Lucy Mangan, The Guardian

“… a journalistically thorough and fascinating look back at the story, highlighted by present-day interviews with Elizabeth, her little sister Mary Katherine (who witnessed the abduction) and Elizabeth’s father, Ed Smart.”

Richard Roeper, Roger Ebert

Elizabeth Smart speaks for all survivors in this gripping documentary