Documentary

If you are keen on learning more about the dark web, then you’ve come to the right place. We have compiled a list of the best dark web documentaries and movies that you can watch to learn more about the “hidden internet.”

Top 6 Best Dark Web Documentaries And Movies

Deep Web

Deep Web is a documentary that was produced in 2015 by Alex Winter. The documentary follows the events surrounding bitcoin, the politics of the dark web, and Silk Road before it was shut down by the FBI. Winter dives deep into the murky extent of cyberspaces while shedding light on the arrest and trial of Ross Ulbricht, the alleged maker of Silk Road, who ran it under the pseudonym ‘Dead Pirate Roberts’.

Silk Road was an online black market where users were able to buy and sell illegal drugs. At its peak, Silk Road reportedly registered close to 900,000 users and generated more than $1.2 billion in sales. This deep web documentary explores issues such as cryptography, digital rights, bitcoin, and the war on drugs.

Anonymous

Anonymous, also called Hackers, is a 2016 dark web documentary based on true events. Directed by Akan Satayev, the film takes a look at the devastating consequences that hackers can cause. The story follows Alex, a young Ukranian immigrant, who lives a life marred by domestic strife. He is inspired by the likes of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates and wants to go to college. He starts saving college money by doing dubious online jobs as a ‘clicker’. When his mother gets fired from the local bank she has been working at, Alex uses his college savings to pay for the mortgage and finds himself in need of cash.

He hooks up with his friend Sye – a black market dealer – who helps him make a lot of money. They partner with Kira, who unbeknownst to them, is a mole working for the FBI and also has feelings for Alex. What starts out as revenge, becomes an obsession that sees them cause chaos.

Unfriended: Dark Web

Unfriended: Dark Web is a horror movie written and directed by Stephen Susco and was produced in 2018. This dark web movie is a sequence to the 2014 movie, Unfriended. It follows a young man who comes into possession of a laptop. He gathers five of his good friends and together they go online to play a game. He shows them a folder that has disturbing videos of people who seem to be in danger. They then get a mysterious message informing them that they will die if they call the police or disconnect the laptop.

Unbeknownst to the young man, the previous owner has not only been watching him and his friends but will do anything to have his laptop back. The planned game night soon turns deadly as each one of them become targets while the rest have to watch helplessly in horror.

Down the Deep, Dark, Hidden Web

Down the Deep, Dark, Hidden Web is arguably the best dark web documentary. Yuval Orr produced the film in 2017. The documentary takes viewers beyond everything they thought they knew about the promises and dangers of the dark web. The film follows Orr – a journalist – as he talks to people who inhabit the encrypted, hidden internet. Duki Dror and Tzachi Schiff, the directors, follow Orr as he travels to different locations. From Israel to Europe, he conducts a myriad of interviews with different personalities including traffickers, crypto-anarchists, hackers, and security experts who operate on the dark web.

In his documentary, Orr also takes a look into privacy and security. He interviews activists on the philosophy and mechanics of how secure communication leads to free thought and why people should care about encryption.  

Inside the Dark Web

Inside the Dark Web is a BBC documentary created by Michael Radford in 2014. The film explores the topic of internet surveillance with a focus on the advantages and disadvantages of everything that passes over the World Wide Web being able to be recorded, watched and analyzed. The documentary takes a look at surveillance by both governments and commercial entities. Big organizations acquire as much information as they can about what people search, their interests and traffic to target paid ads of products that you would want to buy. On the other hand, governments acquire such information for their own monitoring purposes.

The Darknet: A Journey into the Digital Underworld

The Darknet: A Journey into the Digital Underworld is a documentary that was produced by ARD in 2017. The film explores the darknet as an unknown world that “you can only enter if you know how to surf the net anonymously”. While it is associated mostly with drug dealers, hackers, and traffickers, the film also sheds light on how the darknet is the last free speech bastion for human rights advocates, activists, whistleblowers, and journalists who are being traced by intelligence agencies and dictators.

If you want to learn more about the dark web, check out our guide to the dark web. Also, have a look at our list of the best dark web books of 2020.

In case we have missed any films on our list, feel free to share them with us on Twitter.