The Menendez Brothers is a 2024 Netflix documentary directed by Alejandro Hartmann, produced by Campfire Studios, running 116 minutes and released on 7 October 2024. It revisits one of the most heavily covered criminal cases of the late twentieth century, and its central asset is access: the film features extensive new audio interviews with Lyle and Erik Menendez themselves, recorded down a phone line from Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego, the first time either has discussed the case at this length in decades. Alongside them, the film leans heavily on retired prosecutor Pamela Bozanich, who tried the first case, and author Robert Rand, who has publicly stated his belief that the brothers were sexually abused.

The background, briefly. In August 1989, Jose and Kitty Menendez were shot dead in their Beverly Hills home. Their sons were eventually charged with the murders. The first trial, in which each brother had his own jury, ended with both juries deadlocked. The second trial, held in 1995 and 1996, resulted in convictions for first-degree murder and sentences of life without the possibility of parole.

I want to be honest about my starting position, because it shapes this entire review. I knew only surface-level information about this case going in, which I think genuinely helped me stay open to whichever side the film was presenting at any given moment. And I discovered afterwards that Hartmann himself was in almost the same position. He grew up in Argentina, where the case received only minor coverage, and he has said that his lack of familiarity with the original reporting is precisely what allowed him to approach the material fresh. That shared vantage point is, I think, the most interesting thing about how this documentary is constructed.

Sitting down to write this has been the process by which I actually worked out what I think, and I have landed in three places.

The first concerns the abuse allegations, and I remain on the fence. The film itself surfaces the point that these two men are capable of lying convincingly, and that is simply true. Much of what underpins the abuse account rests on their own testimony, and there is a limit to what can be independently established decades later. I want to be careful here, because being unconvinced by a documentary is not the same as disbelieving the people in it. I do not disbelieve them. I am saying that this particular film did not move me to certainty in either direction, and I would rather admit that than perform a confidence I have not earned.