One of the most talked-about films of 2003, the Academy Award nominee Capturing the Friedmans landed on more than 150 top ten film critics' lists last year and won a host of major awards, including the 2003 Sundance Grand Jury Prize.
With a predilection for hamming it up in front of home-movie cameras, the Friedmans were a seemingly normal middle-class family living in the affluent New York suburb of Great Neck. One Thanksgiving, as the family gathers at home for a quiet holiday dinner, their front door explodes, splintered by a police battering ram. Officers rush into the house, accusing Arnold Friedman and his youngest son Jesse of hundreds of shocking crimes.
Capturing the Friedmans follows their story from the public's perspective and through unique home-movie footage of the family in crisis, shot inside the Friedman house. Sullied by scandal, vilified by the media and haunted by damning secrets from the past, the family begins to disintegrate, raising provocative questions about justice, family and, ultimately, truth.