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Season 1 – Evil Genius: The True Story of America's Most Diabolical Bank Heist

Play trailer Poster for Season 1 – Evil Genius: The True Story of America's Most Diabolical Bank Heist May 2018 Documentary Crime Play Trailer Watchlist
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80% Tomatometer 30 Reviews 81% Popcornmeter 250+ Ratings
In August 2003, an attempted bank robbery in Erie, Pa., made news headlines across America when the robbery-gone-wrong turned into a public murder. The attempted robber was a pizza delivery driver who had a bomb locked around his neck. Known as the "pizza bomber" case, a manhunt ensued to find out who was responsible for the crime. Authorities eventually arrested Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong for the delivery man's death. She was later convicted and sentenced to life in prison, but this four-part Netflix original documentary series sets out to prove that there's more to the conspiracy and murder than what was previously thought.
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Evil Genius: The True Story of America's Most Diabolical Bank Heist — Season 1

Evil Genius: The True Story of America's Most Diabolical Bank Heist — Season 1

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Critics Consensus

Evil Genius makes up for a lack of conviction and nuance with an intriguing sense of discovery and plenty of entertaining insanity.

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Critics Reviews

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Kristy Puchko Pajiba 12/15/2018
As fascinating as it is messy. Go to Full Review
Eliana Dockterman TIME Magazine 12/15/2018
Only becomes more captivating-and bizarre-in the final episode when a crucial witness makes an appearance. Go to Full Review
Josh Modell Rolling Stone 12/15/2018
It's the perfect story for one of the streaming service's true-crime deep-dives. Go to Full Review
Claire McNear The Ringer 12/15/2018
The whole thing is far sadder than it is mysterious. Go to Full Review
Adam Patterson Film Pulse 11/29/2018
6.5/10
There's a noticeable lack of polish in Evil Genius and although it's a compelling journey, it's not a particularly pretty one to watch. Go to Full Review
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Audience Reviews

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Angela F @RengisedOidUTS Dec 7 Starts off strong, unsurprisingly, but clearly started with no ending in mind. By the final episode, it’s just ego driven garbage that undermines itself as well as the systems it poorly illustrates. See more Martin B @RT82325681 Nov 18 Just like so much Netflix documentaries this runs out of steam way before the ending. It just repeats itself over and over and over . To resume the whole thing let's just say that if you put a whole lot of very pathetic people together(who think they are all geniuses) and then you just wait and see with what kind of screwed up story they can come up with,well here is the result. This woman amongst others, is one unbearable piece of work , a real nutcase that I would have loved kicking in the teeth. Giving her all this notoriety makes me sick. It obviously doesn't take too much geniuses to outsmart the cops working that case as it is another truly pathetic American story where intelligencia doesn't reveal their findings to the next party and eventually the crime doesn't get solved .Still , 3 stars is better than much else I've seen lately . See more Greg M @SolisisQ 03/08/2021 It's ok but mostly it just feels like a really long episode of 60 minutes or something. Personally, I think the name is a little misleading. After you watch it, you will likely see no genius in this gaggle of evil idiots. They are a bickering bunch like any reality TV gang, but with a foolish plan that was convoluted enough to prove the justice system is just as flawed as their big plan. Watch it if you've run out of things to watch. Otherwise, expect to not be blown away. See more 02/26/2021 Pretty underwhelming story. See more Stephen G @RT76499974 02/20/2021 A generic true-crime documentary that held my interest but wasn't particularly complex or engrossing. Kinda sorta wraps up some questions at the end in a fairly forgettable way. See more 08/29/2020 A few spoilers below. In the vein of other apparently wildly popular events that happened in the United States years ago, about which I was completely unaware, a la "Wild, Wild Country," this one was just as bizarre. I appreciated the numerous interviews with law enforcement, as well as the recorded conversations with suspects. By the third episode, the narrator became more obviously involved. I'm not sure this harmed anything, but I'm not sure it helped, either. The interview with Jessica at the end was supposed to be ground-breaking, but it felt like it fizzled out. This was interesting enough, even tense during the first episode. However, just because something was broadcast on television (accidentally) doesn't mean that it needs to be shown, intentionally, after the fact. The biggest misstep, in my opinion, was showing the actual explosion and its gruesome aftereffects. That was horrific and unnecessary to draw viewers in to be transfixed to the TV right at the moment the man dies in a terrible way. Then, since we've established that right in episode one, each subsequent episode decided to revisit the scene and either keep us guessing whether they were going to show the event again or just cut straight to the scene of his lifeless body afterwards. This was tasteless enough, but they saved the best for literally two minutes before the end: we turned off the television, because we were convinced that they were going to show the explosion again... when we turned the television back on, we saw smoke clearing, and we surmised that they had shown it again... but the kicker was that they showed something heretofore unseen in this series: THE GIANT, GAPING CHEST WOUND CLOSEUP. Why on earth this was necessary to show is a bigger mystery than the subject of the documentary. I really liked this documentary. It was short, shocking, like a mystery, trying to figure out who's lying and who's telling the truth, even showing bare admission by law enforcement that they made missteps, but at the end, it was marred by the unnecessary few seconds of horrifying gore that might well give someone nightmares. See more Read all reviews
Evil Genius: The True Story of America's Most Diabolical Bank Heist — Season 1

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Episodes

Episode 1 Aired May 11, 2018 Part 1: The Heist A bank robbery in Pennsylvania ends in the bombing death of a pizza delivery man who may or may not have been a hostage forced to commit the crime. Details Episode 2 Aired May 11, 2018 Part 2: The Frozen Body The revelation of a corpse in a freezer near the crime scene leads police to a highly intelligent woman with mental and personality disorders. Details Episode 3 Aired May 11, 2018 Part 3: The Suspects Two years after the heist, one of its possible architects has died, a witness steps forward and the prime suspect reveals too much to her cellmates. Details Episode 4 Aired May 11, 2018 Part 4: The Confessions As conspirators come forward, deals are made and a jury renders its verdict -- but years after the case appears to be solved, another witness appears. Details
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Season Info

Director
Barbara Schroeder
Executive Producer
Trey Borzillieri, Mark Duplass, Jay Duplass, Josh Braun, Dan Braun
Network
Netflix
Rating
TV-MA
Genre
Documentary, Crime
Original Language
English
Release Date
May 11, 2018
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