Documentary

Directed By: Geta Gandbhir

Release Year: 2025

Studio/Streamer: Netflix

Runtime: 97 minutes

Audio Description Produced By: Descriptive Video Works

Written By: No Writer Credited

Narrated By: None Credited, But I’d Guess Julian Smith

What Is it?: using primarily body cam footage, along with other applicable cameras including doorbell cameras, interrogation room videos, and courtroom footage, The perfect Neighbor reconstructs how one nightmare individual can destroy the lives of those around her. This is the true story of how one woman killed her neighbor because her kids played outside. A case that caught national attention, and a documentary you won’t forget.

What Works: Quite simply, The Perfect Neighbor is one of the best documentary features of the year. Smartly, if chooses to construct its story using real footage, and forgo the use of talking heads or running commentary. The movie presents the situation as it was, showing how the killer repeatedly called the police over trivial things, testing not just the patience of her next door neighbor, but also everyone in the community around her. She even has an encounter totally unrelated where she’s under suspicion for damaging property.

I felt so much like the bystanders who get interviewed by the police on each call. In this day and age, it is refreshing to see kids playing outside still. So many communities can’t. I live in a neighborhood, not off a main drag, but deep in a maze of houses, and multiple kids have been hit by cars trying to speed through a residential area for some reason. Between that, and general stranger danger, to have a community where you feel like you can have kids outside feels far less these days than when I was growing up. And the entire community is fine with it, except this one disturbed individual.

It’s all on film, so the actual shooting is captured through 911 audio as well as doorbell cameras, and the body cameras for the police when they arrive. It is an emotionally taxing watch, but an important one, and probably the most shaken I’ve felt by a documentary so far this year. I’m over 300 titles so far, and this has a very real possibility to be my pick for Best Documentary Feature. I tend to choose the one that told the most compelling narrative and shook me to my very soul, and this certainly checked those boxes.

The only negative this film has is that the killer now has an IMDb credit. then again, so does hitler, so IMDb isn’t quite the badge of honor it used to be.Oh, you have an IMDb page? So does Charles Manson.

The Audio Description: Also, troubling is that all I got was the company, because this is my favorite audio description for a documentary this year. There’s a moment when AJ’s son runs to a neighbor’s house, and the description of this moment, and this poor kid trying to get help, having just witnessed the worst thing he possibly could, was so heavy. The AD perfectly understands the right tone, and what to bring out in the footage. One of the best things about the Perfect Neighbor as a film is that it never needs to oversell itself, or heavy handedly comment on her nastiness. It assumes you’ll pick it up, in its “just the facts ma’am” approach. It is feasible to watch this and feel sorry for the killer, though that’s a one in a milion chance. but it is the neutrality it tries to maintain, by presenting things simply as they were, and relying on editing that really is remarkable. And, the audio description carefully does that as well, not sensationalizing but simply describing what we see. the narrator was also a perfect choice for this, and I wish he and the writer had been credited for their truly exceptional work.

Why You Will Like it: It simply is one of the best films this year, and very likely the Best documentary. if it ends up not, as there are still more movies to see, it’ll be damn close.

Why You Might Not Like it?: I hate to say “you might be racist”, but you know. I’ll be nice and say that the format is a choice, so if you don’t want to watch body cam footage, maybe that is the deal breaker for you?

Final Thoughts: Powerful, emotionally draining, and one of the best and most important films of the year, the Perfect Neighbor finds its rhythm in the truth, and once it has you, it’ll stick with you forever.

Fresh: Final Grade: 9.5/10