Wild Wild Country

2018 Directed by Maclain Way, Chapman Way

When a controversial cult leader builds a utopian city in the Oregon desert, conflict with the locals escalates into a national scandal.

Ma Anand Sheela Jane Stork Jon Bowerman Ma Prem Sunshine Philip Toelkes Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh George Meredith Krishna Devi

400 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by Sean Baker 4

I’ve been dreaming about Sheela and the Rajneesh every night for a week. Love it.
Review by kyle dunne ★★★★ 3

ma anand sheela is the true queen of the rajneesh...who else can say they relocated a cult to oregon, designed an entire city in the middle of nowhere, poisoned half of a small town, equipped an entire community with enough guns that even the NRA was shook, snuck out of the country overnight, fought charges of arson & attempted murder AND put up with the bhagwan’s bullshit? legends only
Review by Kyle ★★★★

if they gave out an award for best documentary talking head then Ma Anand Sheela would walk away with it in a landslide.
Review by regina ★★★★

one of these days i'm going to dress up in all red and spend a couple of hours running around antelope, oregon while screaming "tough titties"
Review by Paddy ★★★★

I like a good documentary, but WOW...I really wasn't expecting this. Like the former Mayor of Antelope states in its opening episode [I paraphrase] 'you couldn't make this up - and if you did, people probably wouldn't believe you anyway.'
On a quiet day in 1981, disciples of an obscenely wealthy religious guru called Bhagwan Rajneesh suddenly appear in a small, conservative town in Oregon - dressed in scarlet with portraits of their leader hanging around their necks. This sudden influx is at first met with amusement, which swiftly gives way to confusion before a distinct sense of unease sets in when they realise they're not just passing through.
Once the context of these two sides are in place it's…
Review by Ricardo Franco ★★★★½ 3

So my mother is currently a Sannyasin, I've been to Osho base retreats, and I've done a lot of these meditations. With that in mind, I have no particular attachment to Osho's teachings, I think there's some good, some bad, and there's no reason to devote your life to his teachings. *cough* Mom *cough*
Anyway, I kept hearing how this was a documentary about a cult and its crimes and I was really interested to see how something I'd been exposed to was actually operating. To my surprise, this isn't about a cult in its crimes, like Gibney's Scientology doc, this a movie about the toxic effects of white supremacy and closed-mindedness.
I thought there was going to be some…
Review by wilson ★★★★ 2

need a Sheela biopic asap
Review by voidember ★★★★

"Tough titties." --Ma Anand Sheela, stone cold killah.
Forget Bhagwan (so willing to denounce and spew hate when he felt wronged, something Sheela has not done to him to this day, and throw her under the bus when it’s impossible he didn’t personally come up with some of the more nefarious activities of the Rajneesh). To me, this extraordinary story is primarily about two women: Ma Anand Sheela and Jane Stork, two very different women who dealt with an extraordinary situation in profoundly unique ways. These two women I found deeply, sagaciously inspiring. These women made me proud to be a woman: proud to be part of a legacy so strong, so feminine, so brave and resilient, truly the best…
Review by Molly ★★★★ 1

another netflix docuseries leaving me sick with rage, heartbroken, infuriated, and overcome with frustration at our corrupt criminal justice system and how prejudiced and hypocritical our society can be? You bet!!

I loved the parallel drawn with the footage at the end, showing the similarities between the Rajneeshee and this other *organization that will not be named* that happens to end up with all the land. PERFECTLY sums up the sickening irony of it all. Guess something is only dangerous and cultish if it's a religion that doesn't fit your cultural norms. The hypocrisy is eye-rolling.
Review by F3lixL3g1ons ★★★★

When I was a kid in the '80s my teachers told me religion was dead. Today we see weirdos calling for caliphates all the time — something we are quite accustomed to. But even back then, the world wasn't the atheistic theocracy my teachers would have me believe. Coz the '80s were also the dawn of neo-pagan movements and new-age mysticism all over the world.
Wild Wild Country retells a great '80s tale I've totally forgotten about: the chronicles of super-guru Bhagwan, his free love commune and how he fooled the children of his revolution. Seduction and control done the orange way!
Docuseries that leave you wondering what actually happened are rare. This is one of them. A catchy saga. Stranger than fiction. Charles Manson — hang your head in shame!
Review by Reef Oldberg 2

not enough cults nowadays
Review by Austin Shermer ★★★

Shoutout to the Netflix executive who greenlights anything that makes him say “that’s wild”, regardless of how unfocused and aesthetically mediocre it will probably turn out.

Recent reviews

Review by rorysbooks ★★★

I had never heard of Osho/Bhagwan or the Rajneeshees before watching this so at every episode I was mindblown by how things quickly escalated into more and more unbelievable stuff.
I do like that in the end we see how this going today, and we never really know who was to blame for the insanity of the Rajneeshpuram experiment.
It's no surprise that the USA is racist and has major issues with anything non-Cristian but this lawless reaction in the name of God/religious figure could not be more familiar. It has happened so many times in history everywhere in the world and we should definitely try to learn how to be more tolerant to other believes otherwise shit will continue to happen.
Review by prxscila ★★½

looks fun but it gets really boring
Review by Caroline21 ★★★★

wow, dit wist ik nog helemaal niet...
Review by flory 🍒

muito louco pensar que minha tia paulina morou em poona e oregon e viveu tudo isso k minha família é louca vei
Review by piccolozaku ★★★½

Well made but ultimately feels over long.
As interesting as the story is, it doesn’t feel like it merits being a six hour long docu when they could have put the main points across in a standard 2 hour film.
A lot of weird and interesting plot points get dropped without ever swinging back to any kind of conclusion, which just means you search out more details yourself giving further cause to feel like it could have been shorter.
Review by Adrian Hernandez ★★★★

The only cult documentary I've seen where the prophet is the least interesting part of the film.
Bhagwan and Sheela were dangerous liars, and the tactics they used to gain power (food poisoning, murder plots, armed intimidation) were dangerous.
However, the ways the United States government chose to suppress their influence also raise incredible concern:
-Denying the homeless of Rajneeshpuram the right to voter registration in Oregon.
-Harassing their first amendment rights to assemble and practice religion.
-Touring a sickly Bhagwan from prison to prison for two weeks in an effort to get him to take a plea deal.
Rajneeshpuram, misguided as the city was, was a test for American democracy. How far will we go to protect the rights…
Review by Beatriz

Controverso. Complexo. Diferente. Intrigante.
Review by Jenn Misko ★★★½

O hey it's another thing I watched in 2018 and didn't log at the time. I didn't take notes while watching this but I remember being as invested in all the nutty turns of this story as everyone else was, as it blazed through the public consciousness in April of 2018, never to be thought of again.
Review by dani ★★★★

sheela was lowkey a bad bitch lol
Review by adgriman ★★★½

"Li três livros dele, todos uma merda" meu avô sobre o Bagwan
Review by Lauren ★★★★

Is it wrong that I came away from this slightly in love with Sheela?
Review by Madelyn ★★★½

watch Scarlett Johansson try to play Sheela in the eventual biopic smh 🤦🏻‍♀️