---
title: "Wild Wild Country"
year: 2018
kind: "series"
canonical: "https://film.one/tv/wild-wild-country"
fi1m_score: 78
critics_score: 81
critics_reviews: 9
published: "2026-09-17T19:22:34.174783+00:00"
updated: "2026-09-17T19:23:28.688625+00:00"
region: "US"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Wild Wild Country (2018)

Created by Chapman Way, Maclain Way · 1h 07m · MPA TV-MA · Documentary, Crime

**Fi1m score: 78** · Critics 81 from 9 reviews

*In a sentence:* The guru barely speaks; his secretary has not stopped talking in thirty years, and she still isn’t sorry

> Chapman and Maclain Way have an archive most documentary makers would kill for and the patience to let it play. Six hours of fair, absorbing television about a commune and the town that hated it, one hour too long, and strangely shy of the man at its centre.

## Synopsis

In 1981 followers of the Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (seen in archive footage) buy a ranch in the high desert of central Oregon and begin building a city on it. The nearest town is Antelope: a few dozen mostly retired residents, a café and a post office. Rajneesh has taken a vow of silence, so his secretary Ma Anand Sheela speaks for him, and speaks a great deal. Jane Stork arrives from Australia with her children and takes a new name. Rancher Jon Bowerman and his neighbours watch the newcomers in red and orange pour concrete, buy the café and register to vote. The commune’s lawyer Philip Toelkes prepares for a land-use fight.

## Review

In 1981 a guru’s followers bought a ranch in the Oregon high desert and started building a city. The nearest town, Antelope, had a café, a post office and a few dozen residents, most of them retired, and it did not want them. What happened over the next few years is the subject of Chapman and Maclain Way’s six-part series, and it is good television: patient, fair to both sides, and built on an archive so rich that the brothers could have made the whole thing without a single new interview. They did not, and the interviews are the reason to watch. It is also an hour too long, and it never quite decides what to think about the man in the middle of it.

The commune filmed itself constantly, and the Ways have the footage. There are thousands of people in orange and maroon dancing in a hall the size of an aircraft hangar; there is Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh being driven slowly down a dirt road in a Rolls-Royce while his followers throw flowers; there are press conferences, planning meetings and a shooting range. Neil Meiklejohn cuts this against the present-day interviews so that a story someone is telling us is often on screen as they tell it, and the effect is of being shown an old cine film by somebody who has not watched it in thirty years. Adam Stone shoots the interviews in plain rooms with soft light from one side, and lets people talk for a long time.

The person who talks longest is Ma Anand Sheela. She was Rajneesh’s secretary and, because he was not speaking when the story begins, his voice; she ran the ranch, the lawyers and the press. She is interviewed now, decades on, unrepentant and enjoying herself. We were appalled by her within ten minutes and could not look away, and the two reactions turned out to be one. What did it was a piece of archive in which a television interviewer asks her about the townspeople and she answers with a smile so wide it reads as contempt. The series knows she is its star. It gives her the best lines and the last word in most episodes, and it is honest enough to let you notice that you are enjoying her.

The Antelope side is handled with the same care. Jon Bowerman, a rancher, speaks for the neighbours who watched the newcomers buy the café and stand for the council, and the series lets him be angry without making him a bigot. Jane Stork, who came from Australia with her children and stayed for years, is the follower the Ways use to explain why anyone did, and she is the most affecting person on screen: calm, exact, and plainly still working out what she took part in. Philip Toelkes, the commune’s lawyer, still argues the case for the defence. Ma Prem Sunshine, its spokeswoman, does too. Both sides sound reasonable in turn, and the horror, when it comes, comes from watching reasonable people do what they did.

Not all of it works. Brocker Way’s score is orchestral, insistent and everywhere, and by the fourth hour we were noticing the strings before we noticed what they were underlining. It is a good score used too often. The sixth episode goes back over ground the fifth has covered, in the manner of a series that expects to be watched in one sitting and worries you have forgotten. And Rajneesh himself, the reason any of these people are in Oregon, stays a shape at the edge of the frame. The Ways have archive of him teaching and use it sparingly; we finish six hours knowing what his followers did and not what he said to make them do it.

Set against the run of true-crime series, which like a body in the first minute and a suspect by the third, this is unusually slow, and the slowness is the right choice. The second half takes turns we will not describe, and they are why the story is remembered at all; the Ways reach them through land-use hearings and county elections, so that by the time the alarming things happen you understand how sensible people talked themselves into them.

Watch it over three evenings, two episodes at a time. In one sitting the music wears you down and the last hour feels like a lawyer’s summing-up. Spread out, it is one of the better documentary series of its kind, and Sheela’s smile will follow you to bed. Certificate 15; six episodes of about an hour each.

*Fi1m score 78, published 17 September 2026.*

## What the critics say

Most critics are won over. Eight of nine reviews are positive, and the praise gathers around the same things: the quantity of archive footage, the long interviews with people still convinced they were right, and Ma Anand Sheela, whom several reviewers name as the figure who carries all six parts. The directors are credited with letting both the Rajneeshees and the Oregon locals speak at length and declining to rule between them, which most find unsettling in a useful way.

The reservations are about length and balance. The AV Club finds the series lopsided, leaning on follower interviews and skimping on the true-crime detail; Paste, the one mixed notice, thinks it rambles and never gets to grips with the guru himself. The Hollywood Reporter admires it while calling the binge exhausting. The spread is narrow. Nobody dislikes it; the argument is over whether six hours is more than the story needs.

### Reviews we read (9)

- **Evening Standard**, Lucy Hunter-Johnston (90/100, inferred): The critic calls the series utterly magnificent and a jaw-dropping romp, praising its revelations about the cult's power struggles and its deeper exploration of cultural clashes. [Read](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/tvfilm/wild-wild-country-review-all-you-need-is-lust-and-a-ranch-bags-of-cash-and-a-secretary-pulling-the-strings-a3795856.html)
- **The Guardian** (85/100, inferred): The critic finds the six-part series absorbing and exhaustive in its coverage of the Rajneeshpuram story, praising its balance between the two sides and thorough use of interviews and archive footage. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/apr/11/wild-wild-country-review-netflixs-take-on-the-cult-that-threatened-american-life)
- **The Hollywood Reporter**, Daniel Fienberg (85/100, inferred): The critic calls it a gripping, exhausting binge with unbelievable twists and no easy answers. The impressive primary footage and entrenched talking heads are singled out for creating unsettling moral ambiguity. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-reviews/wild-wild-country-review-1078240/)
- **Vulture**, TV and film writer (85/100, inferred): The docuseries reveals a wildly fascinating chapter of American history involving the Rajneeshee commune, full of outrageous events from land disputes to bioterrorism. It presents key figures like Sheela without heavy judgment, leaving viewers to draw conclusions from compelling interviews and archival footage. [Read](https://www.vulture.com/2018/03/wild-wild-country-review.html)
- **The Times**, Hugo Rifkind (80/100, inferred): The critic describes the documentary as tremendous, highlighting its strange resonance and focus on the cult's rise amid clashes with local residents. [Read](https://www.thetimes.com/culture/tv-radio/article/tv-review-hugo-rifkind-on-wild-wild-country-the-secret-helpers-and-contagion-dx2hxhqj6)
- **The AV Club**, Katie Rife (B): The series is a character study of the Rajneeshee movement and its conflicts with Oregon locals, focusing on figures like Ma Anand Sheela. It excels as a generational culture clash tale but feels lopsided, skimping on some sensational elements and true-crime details while over-relying on follower interviews. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/the-waco-that-wasnt-is-brought-back-to-light-in-wild-wi-1823780989)
- **The i Paper**, Stuart Heritage (75/100, inferred): The critic finds the series horrifying yet oddly appealing in its depiction of the cult's community and conviction. Ma Anand Sheela is singled out as the undeniable star whose unrepentant energy drives the appeal. [Read](https://inews.co.uk/culture/television/wild-wild-country-depicts-horrifying-crimes-so-why-does-it-make-me-want-to-join-a-cult-154069)
- **The Ringer**, Alison Herman (80/100, inferred): The series stands out for its focus on the personal psychology and experiences of the Rajneeshees rather than sensationalist cult tropes. Herman praises the filmmakers' approach to humanizing participants like Sheela through extensive interviews while exploring the contradictions of the community. [Read](https://www.theringer.com/2018/03/27/tv/wild-wild-country-netflix)
- **Paste**, Amy Glynn (65/100, inferred): The critic finds the docuseries fascinating for presenting multiple opposing viewpoints on the Rajneesh cult events but criticizes its excessive length and rambling structure that obscures the narrative. She praises the wealth of archival footage while noting it raises timely questions about immigration, religion, and community conflict without fully exploring the central guru figure. [Read](https://www.pastemagazine.com/tv/wild-wild-country/netflix-wild-wild-country-rajneesh-cult-oregon-doc)

## Details

- **Created by:** Chapman Way, Maclain Way
- **Director:** Chapman Way, Maclain Way
- **Cinematography:** Adam Stone
- **Editor:** Neil Meiklejohn
- **Music:** Brocker Way
- **Producer:** Chapman Way, Juliana Lembi, Maclain Way
- **Cast:** Ma Anand Sheela as Self; Jane Stork as Self; Jon Bowerman as Self; Ma Prem Sunshine as Self; Philip Toelkes as Self; Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh as Self (archive footage); George Meredith as Self (archive footage); Krishna Devi as Self (archive footage)
- **Runtime:** 1h 07m
- **Certificate (MPA):** TV-MA
- **Release (the US):** 16 March 2018
- **Genres:** Documentary, Crime
- **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBLS_OM6Puk

## Where to watch in the US

- Netflix: streaming

*Checked 2026-09-17.*

Also available in: AE, AR, AT, AU, AZ, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, EC, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, GR, HK, HR, HU, ID, IE, IL, IN, IS, IT, JP, KR, LT, MX, MY, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PE, PH, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SG, SI, SK, TH, TR, UA, US, VN, ZA. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country.

## If you liked this

- *Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple* (2006): The commune story that ends where this one threatens to; survivors speak, and it is unbearable.
- *The Source Family* (2012): A Los Angeles health-food guru, his many wives, and the followers who still miss him.
- *Holy Hell* (2016): Made by a member with the camera; twenty years inside, and the footage is his own.
- *The Family* (2016): Australian cult led by a woman who thought she was Christ; the children tell it.
- *Waco: The Rules of Engagement* (1997): A siege told with the federal footage; angrier than this and just as fair.

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/tv/wild-wild-country