Zodiac Killer Project

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1:39

Zodiac Killer Project

2025

1h 32m

Documentary

Crime

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Tomatometer

Popcornmeter

90%

Tomatometer

68 Reviews

Popcornmeter

Fewer than 50 Ratings

Filmmaker Charlie Shackleton ruminates on his unfinished Zodiac Killer documentary, playfully probing and unraveling true crime's inner workings and deconstructing the ubiquitous genre with deadpan insight.

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Critics Consensus

Director Charlie Shackleton rescues victory from the jaws of defeat in Zodiac Killer Project, a revelatory rumination on filmmaking and the overindulgences of the true crime genre.

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Tim Cogshell

FilmWeek (LAist)

Dec 31

We learn a lot about Zodiac, but we learn a whole lot more about us.

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Robert Abele

Los Angeles Times

Dec 8

Shackleton’s perspective is still an intriguing, worthy provocation regarding our cultural bloodlust.

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G. Allen Johnson

San Francisco Chronicle

Dec 2

1/4

It is certainly clever and inventive to a point, but that point is about 20 minutes in. By then, we get it already, and yet the film drags on for 92 visually uninspiring minutes.

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Q.V. Hough

Vague Visages

Jan 16

"In ‘Zodiac Killer Project,’ Shackleton finds clarity via cinema by stripping the true crime phenomenon down to its core essentials, ugly as they may be."

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Stephen A. Russell

Orion's Shoulder (Substack)

Dec 31

This clever bait and switch is more about why our sinister collective obsession with murder and mayhem proliferates in the streaming age. Cheeky and creepy.

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John Stark

Mac the Movie Guy

Dec 29

74/100

Quite likely one of the best documentaries of the year. that phrase, when life gives you lemons, make Zodiac Killer project, comes to mind. there’s something brilliant in the audacity to find a way forward.

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geoffrey w

Jan 25

The Male Loneliness epidemic meets Godzilla.

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Kerry J

@Noneofyourbusiness1 Jan 14

DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY —- This is the worst way to tell a documentary. Dude literally just shows random places and tells you what "would have been in this shot" had they actually made a movie. This is quite possibly the stupidest, most boring shit I have ever seen.

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Todd S.

@tspree15 Jan 11

One of the worst documentaries I’ve ever seen. How did this get made? The entire thing is just describing the documentary he would have made had he been give access. I’m asking for my money back.

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Scott H

Jan 8

Wow, what a boring, pretentious exercise in the genre of "I couldn't get the rights to the book so, instead, I'll make a bitter, cynical film about what I would have done IF I had the rights and also make boringly obvious observations about the true crime genre". An hour and a half of this idiot's smug voice and wayyyy too long held shots. Avoid. (The guy should be sued for the incredibly misleading trailer he released about this terrible film)

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Bara S

Dec 25

I'm not saying that the zodiac narrative is unfinished. However, documentation about the zodiac always finds new things.

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Scott C.

@SRCputt Dec 21

It is a boring film from a boring filmmaker about a film he wanted to make about a conspiracy theory writer who is not a worthy subject for a film. The director is the only voice in the film. It is the cinematic equivalent of a guy at a party yammering on for 90 minutes about a subject you care nothing about.

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Charlie Shackleton

Director

Charlie Shackleton

Narrator

Guy Robbins

Actor

Lee Nicholas Harris

Actor

Catherine Bray

Producer

Anthony Ing

Producer

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Zodiac Killer Project: Trailer 1

1:39

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Synopsis

Filmmaker Charlie Shackleton ruminates on his unfinished Zodiac Killer documentary, playfully probing and unraveling true crime's inner workings and deconstructing the ubiquitous genre with deadpan insight.

Director: Charlie Shackleton
Producer: Catherine Bray, Anthony Ing, Charlie Shackleton
Distributor: Music Box Films
Production Co: Field of Vision (II), Loop
Genre: Documentary, Crime
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Nov 21, 2025, Limited
Release Date (Streaming): Jan 6, 2026
Box Office (Gross USA): $19.3K
Runtime: 1h 32m

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