PRESS
‘Predators’ review: Busted for social good (and maybe ratings)
The Dateline NBC series “To Catch a Predator,” which aired from 2004 to 2007, largely adhered to a straightforward formula: Hire an actor who looks younger than his or her age to lure an adult who is seeking a sexual encounter with a child.
Seattle Times
‘Predators’ Review: Good vs Evil Isn’t so Black and White
'Predators' challenges us to examine this uncomfortable topic in order to find humanity in its complexity.
Cinemacy
‘To Catch a Predator’ Ended Almost 20 Years Ago. Its Grim Legacy Lives on.
“Our age-old love of participatory punishment — an impulse that’s manifested in everything from stocks and pillories to public executions — remains fully intact.”
NY Times
‘Predators’ Review: David Osit’s Quietly Trenchant Documentary Asks What Truth Came Out of a True-Crime Phenomenon
Examining the ghoulish NBC hit 'To Catch a Predator' and its cultural legacy over the last two decades, Osit sharply queries its ethics, its insight and its effectiveness as an instrument of justice.
Variety
‘Predators’ examines the tactics of a reality TV phenomenon that may have gone too far (Copy)
Predators director David Osit and To Catch a Predator host Chris Hansen discuss why the early-aughts show became so popular — and at what cost
Rolling Stone Magazine
‘Predators’ examines the tactics of a reality TV phenomenon that may have gone too far
A sting-operation-meets-hidden-camera-prank, the show had a riveting hook: Men engaging in erotic online conversations with people they thought were minors got invited over to the children’s houses, welcomed inside by a young-looking actor and then surprised — and publicly grilled — by news anchor Chris Hansen, who had already won two Emmys for a piece on sexual trafficking in Cambodia.
LA Times
“Emotional Ping-Pong”: David Osit’s ‘Predators’ Moves Beyond True Crime Binaries
To Catch a Predator (2004–2007), a periodic segment on the TV newsmagazine Dateline NBC, was one of the biggest nonfiction sensations of the 2000s. The show collaborated with various local law enforcement agencies around the U.S. to entrap would-be child predators, having decoys posing as minors speak with them online and luring them to houses for promised sexual encounters, where the cameras and police would be waiting for them instead.
IDA - International Documentary Association