Three of Netflix‘s most popular documentaries in the last seven weeks have one thing in common: director Skye Borgman.
Known for her 2017 Netflix true crime doc “Abducted In Plain Sight,” Borgman signed a three-year deal with Netflix to produce and distribute her documentaries. In 2024 her doc “American Murder: Laci Peterson” debuted on the platform. That was followed by three 2025 docs – “Fit for TV: The Reality of The Biggest Loser,” “Unknown Number: The High School Catfish,” and “My Father, the BTK Killer.”
“These projects were actually a lot more spread out than it seems,” says Borgman. “I started working on “About My Father” two years ago, before I started working on “Unknown Number” and The Reality of The Biggest Loser.”
Borgman’s films, whether they focus on murder, catfishing, or the ethics of reality shows, have struck a chord with viewers.
The director, in part, attributes that to what attracts her to all of her projects: confusion.
“If it’s a story like that confuses me, then it’s immediately interesting to me because it makes me want to figure out why or how or the reasons behind it,” Borgman says. “And I’m not sure I necessarily need to find out those reasons or know that I will find out those reasons. A lot of time, I know I could never find out exactly the reason for some things, but the stories that are confounding are definitely appealing.”
Borgman’s three-part docuseries “Fit for TV: The Reality of The Biggest Loser,” which took an inside look at the making of the competition show that ran for 18 seasons, debuted on Aug. 15. Two weeks later, on Aug. 29, “Unknown Number,” about Kendra Licari, a mother who subjected her teenage daughter and her boyfriend to an endless barrage of abusive text messages, reached the platform’s Top 10 global film chart in its first week and instantly became watercooler fodder.
The overnight success and the intense social media interest that” Unknown Number” drew surprised Bormgan.
“I knew that (the doc) would strike a chord because I mean, how could it not?” A mom is sending her daughter these terrible text messages.” Borgman says. “But I didn’t realize how much of a fire it would light under people.”
Licari, who participated in “Unknown Number,” has been the butt of endless online jokes and is the subject of hundreds of memes. It’s unclear if Licari has any regrets about being part of the doc,
“She hasn’t reached out to me, but it’s a lot,” Borgman says.
On Oct. 10, Netflix released the director’s most recent doc, “My Father, the BTK Killer.” After gruesomely murdering 10 people between 1974 and 1991, Dennis Rader/the BTK (blind, torture, kill) killer, an unassuming Kansas-based church congregation president and former Cub Scout leader, was arrested by authorities during his lunch break in 2005.
While several documentaries have been made about Rader, Borgman’s film examines the crimes through a new lens via Rader’s daughter, Kerri Rawson. The 94-minute film weaves together interviews with the investigators who helped uncover BTK’s identity with Rawson’s personal reflections on her relationship with her father, both before and since his arrest and conviction.
Borgman decided to make “My Father, the BTK Killer” after reading Kerri Rawson’s 2019 book, “A Serial Killer’s Daughter: My Story of Faith, Love and Overcoming.”
“I thought, a documentary about what it’s like to be a serial killer’s daughter? This is something that I haven’t really ever seen before.”
In the doc, Rawson combs through family photos of her, her brother, and her parents at various celebrations and vacations. The foursome appears to be a typical, unassuming family of four. Then there are pictures of Rawson’s station wagon decorated for a high school event. The same station wagon that Rader used to transport one of his dead victims.
“He gave me that station wagon to drive in high school,” Rawson says in the doc.
Since writing “A Serial Killer’s Daughter: My Story of Faith, Love and Overcoming,” Rawson has been vocal about coping with her father’s brutal murders. Rader’s actions not only caused severe trauma but also forced Rawon to reevaluate her own childhood memories. This introspection led her to question the validity of her past experiences, which made her healing process arduous.
“I think part of Kerri’s journey and part of her healing is with speaking publicly,” says Borgman. “She also gets a lot of backlash from speaking publicly, but it’s part of who she has become, and I think it’s part of what really drives her forward. So, the book was kind of the first step, and I think she felt like it was really necessary to do a documentary and to go that next step and to be even more public about what she has gone through.”
