I Want Her Dead (2025)

The Italian documentary maker Gianluca Matarrese has built a name on pointing his camera at people who soon forget it is there. With I Want Her Dead he plants himself inside one feuding family in a remote Calabrian village, where a woman named Luisa is at war with her mother, her brother and her sister-in-law, and three elderly aunts play a kind of tragicomic chorus trying in vain to keep the peace.

It comes to London as part of the fifth Cinecittà Italian Doc Season at Bertha DocHouse, a season devoted to contemporary Italian non-fiction, after premiering on the festival circuit at Venice. The promise is simple and irresistible: a real family, falling apart on camera, with nothing staged.

Gianluca Matarrese's 2025 documentary I Want Her Dead is remarkably easy to forget you're actually watching a non-fiction film. Matarrese drops us directly into the middle of a deeply entrenched, fiercely bitter feud within an Italian family, and the level of access he secures is nothing short of staggering.

Shot in an incredibly intimate, fly-on-the-wall style, the camera simply observes the chaotic, deeply personal drama unfolding without ever feeling intrusive or staged. It's so brilliantly presented and narratively driven that it plays out less like a traditional documentary and more like a high-stakes, unscripted cinematic thriller.

Watching the sheer level of pettiness, betrayal, and outright hostility on display is both jaw-dropping and utterly captivating. I'll be honest, it made me feel incredibly blessed that my own family is relatively friendly and we actually get along! But from a purely entertainment standpoint, I have to admit that this exact type of deeply rooted, generational drama makes for an absolutely gripping story. You find yourself completely invested in the ridiculous squabbles and the deeply held grudges, hanging on every passive-aggressive comment and shouted argument as the family tears itself apart over seemingly trivial matters.

Matarrese deserves massive credit for the sharp, unflinching way he's edited it all together. He doesn't judge his subjects; he just lets them sabotage themselves in a way with their own words and actions, resulting in a fascinating, darkly comedic study of human nature and familial bonds pushed to the absolute breaking point. It's a wild, thoroughly entertaining ride that will have you shaking your head in disbelief while simultaneously being completely unable to look away.

I Want Her Dead is a brilliantly observed, highly addictive documentary that proves reality is often far stranger, and far more dramatic, than fiction.

I had a riotous, slightly guilty time with this one, the kind of documentary you watch with your hand half over your mouth. Matarrese never looks down on these people, he just hands them the rope and stands back, and the result is as funny as it is jaw-dropping. If you think your own family gatherings get tense, this will either reassure you or give you nightmares, and I mean that as the highest praise.

Reviewed from a press screener for the 5th Cinecittà Italian Doc Season at Bertha DocHouse, where I Want Her Dead screens during the 2026 edition, 4 to 5 July.

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