General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

The Family

The Family is a 2019 American documentary limited series directed by Jesse Moss that examines the Fellowship, a secretive conservative Christian organization also known as the Family, which wields influence in Washington, D.C., in pursuit of what the series describes as global ambitions¹. The five-episode series was released on Netflix on August 9, 2019, and is adapted from two nonfiction books by the journalist Jeff Sharlet, who also appears in the series and serves as an executive producer².

Key fact	Detail
Format	Five-episode documentary limited series, episodes running 46 to 54 minutes³^•⁴
Release	August 9, 2019, on Netflix; TV-14 in the United States¹
Director	Jesse Moss¹
Executive producers	Alex Gibney, Stacey Offman, Richard Perello, and Jeff Sharlet⁵
Source material	Sharlet's The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power (2008) and C Street (2010), plus new research²^•⁶
Production company	Jigsaw Productions⁵
Critical scores	80% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer (10 reviews); Metascore 63 on Metacritic (5 critic reviews)⁷^•⁵

Spoilers

Subject of the series

The series profiles the Fellowship, an evangelical Christian organization based in Washington, D.C., whose theology emphasizes networks of powerful people, including senators, congressmen, presidents, and other world leaders². Its activities, as described in Sharlet's books and the series, range from organizing the annual National Prayer Breakfast to lobbying for anti-LGBTQ laws in Uganda and Romania². The organization was run by the elusive Doug Coe⁶.

Sharlet first encountered the group while researching an earlier project on religious life in America, joining it without knowing what it was and returning later for further reporting². The series opens with his account of living at Ivanwald, a men's residence where he says he discovered the Family's allegiance to Jesus and to power³. According to a Guardian review, the Fellowship's reading of its favorite scripture story casts King David as a kind of original alpha male, lending legitimacy to men who believe they have been chosen to lead⁸.

Episodes

The five episodes, all released on August 9, 2019, are³:

Submersion (49 min): Sharlet details his days living at Ivanwald and what he learned about the group's loyalties.
Chosen (54 min): Supporters and skeptics discuss C Street, a secrecy-shrouded residence for Washington politicians, and its role in high-profile sex scandals.
New World Order (46 min): Doug Coe's obscuring of the group's role in the National Prayer Breakfast, described as a hub for backroom global influence-peddling.
Dictators, Murderers & Thieves (49 min): Lawmakers in the United States leverage their influence to promote the Family's beliefs abroad, reaching leaders counted among history's most infamous dictators.
Wolf King (47 min): Rooted in local men's groups, the Family's blending of theology, ideology, and worldly power extends to the U.S. presidency.

Production and sources

Moss directed the series as an original production drawing from Sharlet's books as well as new research². Sharlet made his entire research archive available to the filmmakers and pointed them toward interview subjects². The series features interviews with Sharlet and, for the first time on camera in this way, with members of the Family themselves; Sharlet credited Moss with getting people from the organization to speak². Because the filmmakers could not embed with the organization, the series combines talking-head interviews with dramatized reenactments, including a scene from Sharlet's childhood meant to illustrate where his fascination with religion began².

Actor James Cromwell portrays Doug Coe and Fellowship founder Abraham Vereide in dramatized segments, and David Rysdahl plays Sharlet⁵. Alex Gibney, whose Jigsaw Productions produced the series, served as executive producer alongside Stacey Offman, Richard Perello, and Sharlet⁵.

Reception

Critical response was generally favorable. On Rotten Tomatoes the season holds an 80% Tomatometer from 10 reviews, with a critics consensus noting that the series' open-endedness undermines its impact but that it crafts a compelling picture of a shocking truth; the audience Popcornmeter score is 55% from more than 50 ratings⁷. Metacritic assigned a Metascore of 63 based on 5 critic reviews, labeled generally favorable, while its user score stood at 5.4 from 12 ratings⁵.

Reviewers praised the reporting but questioned the storytelling. Ann Donahue of IndieWire (83) called it a profoundly troubling examination of theocracy operating behind the scenes in Washington⁵. In a review for The Atlantic (60), Sophie Gilbert argued that Moss adopts the visual conventions of conspiracy exposés, such as dramatic reenactments and selective splicing of clips involving Maria Butina and Muammar Gaddafi, and noted that the series leaves it an open question whether the Fellowship actually wields the power it wants or whether that enigmatic aura is its defining quality.⁵ Brian Tallerico of RogerEbert.com (50) found that the series can feel like an information dump more often than a film⁶. Aaron Barnhart of Primetimer (70) noted that the series shows how the Fellowship was co-opted by politicians seeking favor with the evangelical power structure, but does not explain why the Fellowship exists in the first place⁵.

The series received one Cinema Eye Honors nomination⁵. In Australia, the Australian Classification Board rated the complete series M (mature) for coarse language and mature themes, with a total duration of 245 minutes⁹.

The Guardian's review placed the series in a political frame, concluding with an assessment of Donald Trump as perhaps the ultimate Fellowship president, an affront to those who feel born to rule in the form of democracy itself⁸. Movieguide, a family-oriented review site, took the opposite view, calling the series a deeply biased attack on Christian conservatives and advising readers to skip it⁴.

Other works titled The Family

The title has been used by several unrelated documentaries. A 2008 British Channel 4 fly-on-the-wall series, The Family, filmed the Hughes family around the clock and was the first factual program to use the multi-camera fixed-rig system later adopted widely in documentary television; it ran for two series¹⁰^•¹¹. A 2011 Australian eight-part series of the same name followed one Australian family's daily life¹², and a separate Australian feature documentary, The Family, investigates a notorious Australian cult through the accounts of survivors and the detectives who worked the case¹³.

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › Unscripted, reality, and web-native series › Documentary, docudrama, and lifestyle series › True crime and investigative docuseries › Premiered 2006 to 2022

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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