Movies like Louis Theroux: Selling Sex (2020)
The best movies like Louis Theroux: Selling Sex (2020) are Louis Theroux: Twilight of the Porn Stars (2012), Louis Theroux: A Place for Paedophiles (2009) and Louis Theroux: Savile (2016). If Louis Theroux: Selling Sex hooked you with its documentary and tv movie, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedZero Days (2016)7.4/10 from 273 votes
- NewestLouis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere (2026)Released 2026
Louis Theroux: Twilight of the Porn Stars (2012)
In 1997, Louis Theroux made a documentary about the world of male porn performers in Los Angeles. 15 years later, he returns to find a business struggling with the deluge of free porn on the internet. Louis revisits some of the original programme's contributors as well as meeting the latest crop of porn performers dreaming of porn stardom.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLouis Theroux: A Place for Paedophiles (2009)
Louis has gained access to Coalinga Mental Hospital in California, which houses more than 500 of the most disturbed criminals in America, convicted paedophiles. Most have already served lengthy prison sentences, but have been deemed unsafe for release. Instead, they have been sent here for an indefinite time. Spending time with those undergoing treatment, Louis wrestles with whether he can ever allow himself to believe men whose whole history is defined by deception and deceit.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLouis Theroux: Savile (2016)
Sixteen years after his documentary When Louis Met Jimmy, Theroux seeks to understand how he was tricked by a man who became his friend.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLouis Theroux: Louis and the Brothel (2003)
Louis stays with the residents of a soon to open brothel in Nevada for a few weeks.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Louis Theroux: Transgender Kids (2015)
Louis Theroux travels to San Francisco where a group of pioneering medical professionals help children who say they were born in the wrong body transition from boy to girl or girl to boy at ever younger ages.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Louis Theroux: Surviving America’s Most Hated Family (2019)
Louis returns to visit the Westboro Baptist Church in the wake of the death of its leader.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Louis Theroux: America's Medicated Kids (2010)
Faced with the challenging behaviour of their kids, more and more parents in America are turning to psychoactive medication to help them cope, even though the drugs, and sometimes the diagnoses, remain controversial. Louis travels to one of America's leading children's psychiatric treatment centres, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to get to know the diagnosed children and hoping to understand what drives parents to put their kids on drugs.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLouis Theroux: The Most Hated Family in America (2007)
Louis meets the Phelps family — the people at the heart of the controversial Westboro Baptist Church. The Phelps have rabid anti-homosexual beliefs, and often campaign at the funerals of American soldiers. They believe that every tragedy in the world is God's punishment for homosexuality.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLouis Theroux: America's Most Hated Family in Crisis (2011)
Following up on his 2007 documentary, The Most Hated Family in America, Louis Theroux returns to Topeka, Kansas, for a week-long visit with the Westboro Baptist Church. He again joins the Phelps family on their controversial pickets where they try to antagonise communities with offensive slogans and anti-gay placards. But four years on from Louis's last visit, there are signs of disarray in the Phelps clan. A series of defections of family members has shaken up the church.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLouis Theroux: Mothers on the Edge (2019)
Louis Theroux visits specialist psychiatric units which treat mothers experiencing serious mental illness whilst allowing them to live alongside their babies.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Louis Theroux: Behind Bars (2008)
For two weeks, Theroux visits the San Quentin State Prison.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLouis Theroux: The Night in Question (2019)
Louis Theroux heads to American college campuses and comes face-to-face with students whose universities are accusing them of sexual assault.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Louis Theroux: Louis and the Nazis (2003)
Louis Theroux travels to California to meet the man dubbed "the most dangerous racist in America"; Tom Metzger. Louis meets him, his family and his publicity manager as well as following him to skinhead rallies and on a visit to Mexico.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLouis Theroux: Drinking to Oblivion (2016)
Louis spends time at King's College Hospital in London where he immerses himself in the lives of patients in the grips of alcohol addiction and the medical staff trying to make them better.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Louis Theroux: Gambling in Las Vegas (2007)
Louis heads to Las Vegas, to reveal the world behind the myths of casino culture. Among the people he meets are two of the casino's 'high-rollers' and an employee who looks after them as well as a retired doctor who says she has gambled away $4million in seven years.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Louis Theroux: Under the Knife (2007)
Louis Theroux: Under the Knife is a TV documentary written and presented by Louis Theroux about the people and doctors involved in plastic surgery operations. Filmed mostly in the USA, in the programme, Louis himself ends up getting liposuction.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Louis Theroux: Talking to Anorexia (2017)
Anorexia, the pathological fear of eating and gaining weight, is now the most deadly mental illness in the UK, affecting around one in every 250 women. In this film, Louis Theroux embeds himself in two of London's biggest adult eating-disorder treatment facilities: St Ann's Hospital and Vincent Square Clinic. As he spends more time with patients both on and off the wards, he witnesses the dangerous power that anorexia holds over them, and finds himself drawn into a complex relationship between the disorder and the person it inhabits.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere (2026)
With rare access and no holds barred, the acclaimed documentarian investigates a growing ultra-masculine network and its controversial influencers.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Trials of Ted Haggard (2009)
A documentary by Alexandra Pelosi takes a behind-the-scenes look at a recent life and hard times of ex-minister, Pastor Ted. Ted Haggard had it all: prosperity, a doting wife, five kids- and a ministry that reached out to approx 30 million followers who counted on his every word, whether on TV or in person at one of his arena sermons. In 2006, it all fell apart when Pastor Ted admitted to having sex with a male prostitute and to buying methamphetamines. He was exiled from his church and home in Colorado and became a pariah who now makes ends meet as a traveling insurance salesman.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Louis Theroux: A Different Brain (2016)
Following on from his recent look at alcoholism, the UK’s premier documentarian returns with another sensitive film, this time on living with a brain injury. Earl’s personality and interests have radically altered since he was involved in a car crash, while Dan – who sustained his injury in the late 90s – is desperate to live independently again. Elsewhere, Amanda is struggling to readjust to family life, and Natalie’s carers share her especially affecting story.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Louis Theroux: Shooting Joe Exotic (2021)
This special sees Louis travel to America to investigate the story of a man who has become one of the most controversial and captivating icons of recent times: the gun-toting, self-described 'gay hillbilly' and 'Tiger King' Joe Exotic.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Louis Theroux: Law and Disorder in Philadelphia (2008)
Louis visits one of America’s most crime-ridden cities in this installment of Law and Disorder.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Ghislaine Maxwell: Filthy Rich (2022)
Stories from survivors frame this documentary detailing the sex-trafficking trial of Ghislaine Maxwell, a socialite and accomplice of Jeffrey Epstein.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOrgasm Inc: The Story of OneTaste (2022)
A sexual wellness company gains fame and followers, then members come forward with shocking allegations.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLouis Theroux: The City Addicted to Crystal Meth (2010)
Join Louis Theroux as he investigates the affect crystal meth addiction is having on the local community of Fresno in California's Central Valley.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSex, Lies and the College Cult (2022)
Follow the shocking and unnerving story of Larry Ray and how he brainwashed students of Sarah Lawrence College into an abusive sex cult that upended their lives, and the lives of their families.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Night Will Fall (2014)
When Allied forces liberated the Nazi concentration camps in 1944-45, their terrible discoveries were recorded by army and newsreel cameramen, revealing for the first time the full horror of what had happened. Making use of British, Soviet and American footage, the Ministry of Information’s Sidney Bernstein (later founder of Granada Television) aimed to create a documentary that would provide lasting, undeniable evidence of the Nazis’ unspeakable crimes. He commissioned a wealth of British talent, including editor Stewart McAllister, writer and future cabinet minister Richard Crossman – and, as treatment advisor, his friend Alfred Hitchcock. Yet, despite initial support from the British and US Governments, the film was shelved, and only now, 70 years on, has it been restored and completed by Imperial War Museums under its original title "German Concentration Camps Factual Survey".
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisZero Days (2016)
Alex Gibney explores the phenomenon of Stuxnet, a self-replicating computer virus discovered in 2010 by international IT experts. Evidently commissioned by the US and Israeli governments, this malware was designed to specifically sabotage Iran’s nuclear programme. However, the complex computer worm ended up not only infecting its intended target but also spreading uncontrollably.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisFacing Ali (2009)
Ten of Muhammad Ali's former rivals pay tribute to the three-time world heavyweight champion.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Kid Stays in the Picture (2002)
Documentary about legendary Paramount producer Robert Evans, based on his famous 1994 autobiography.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Louis Theroux: Selling Sex?
The closest matches to Louis Theroux: Selling Sex are Louis Theroux: Twilight of the Porn Stars (2012), Louis Theroux: A Place for Paedophiles (2009) and Louis Theroux: Savile (2016). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Louis Theroux: Selling Sex?
People who watched Louis Theroux: Selling Sex most often go on to Louis Theroux: Twilight of the Porn Stars (2012), Louis Theroux: A Place for Paedophiles (2009) and Louis Theroux: Savile (2016).
What is the highest-rated movie like Louis Theroux: Selling Sex?
Zero Days (2016), rated 7.4/10 by 273 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Louis Theroux: Selling Sex?
Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Louis Theroux: Selling Sex?
Yes: Louis Theroux: Twilight of the Porn Stars (2012), Louis Theroux: A Place for Paedophiles (2009) and Louis Theroux: Savile (2016).
How are movies similar to Louis Theroux: Selling Sex chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Louis Theroux: Selling Sex, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.