O.J.: Made in America (2016) on Netflix

TV-MA20167h 47mBiography Crime Documentary

O.J. Simpson rises from football star to celebrity. His trial for the killings of Nicole Brown Simpson and of Ronald Lyle Goldman unfolds amid the racial tensions of Los Angeles.

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Netflix4.7/5
IMDb8.9/1024,175 votes
Rotten Tomatoes100%

Trailer

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Plot summary

The account starts with Simpson's arrival at the University of Southern California, where he became a football star, and follows the celebrity and acting career that made him a familiar figure in American culture. Around his life the documentary sets the history of Los Angeles: news footage, archival audio and video, interviews, footage of the Watts riots and the entire Rodney King video. Those materials describe the city's mounting racial divisions and the strained relationship between its police department and African-American residents. The narrative covers the killings of Nicole Brown Simpson and of Ronald Lyle Goldman and the court proceedings that followed.

Did you know?!Facts and trivia about O.J.: Made in America (2016)

Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.

It won Best Documentary Feature at the 89th Academy Awards as the longest film ever to win an Oscar, surpassing War and Peace, and the longest in ESPN's 30 for 30 catalogue.
It was the last multi-part series to win the documentary Oscar: a new Academy rule then barred any "multi-part or limited series" from the documentary categories.
The film suggested Simpson stopped taking his arthritis medicine so the gloves would not fit him in court, but Johnnie Cochran told Judge Ito that the jail doctor and medical records showed Simpson took the medication every day.
ESPN blurred graphic crime scene photos in later airings of the fourth part so it could run at various times; the original broadcast and the online and cable on-demand versions kept them unblurred.
Ezra Edelman initially turned down ESPN's plan for a five-hour Simpson documentary, feeling there was nothing left to say about him, then agreed when he saw he could use the trial as a canvas for a deeper story about race in America.