Editor’s Note: Over the next few months, we will be profiling older films as a part of two series: the greatest films of all time and the best unseen films of all time.
There are a ton of serial killer movies out there, but typically the only one talked about with any seriousness is The Silence of the Lambs. That’s unfortunate because the HBO-produced Citizen X, about the hunt for infamous killer Andrei Chikatilo, is nearly as good and just as attention-grabbing. From 1978 until 1990, Chikatilo killed 53 people in Russia, and the investigating team tasked with finding him spent nearly as long looking for him thanks to the bureaucratic and ideological push-back from the government of the Soviet Union. For being a TV movie, the film is anchored by four phenomenal performances: Stephen Rea as the tormented lead investigator, Donald Sutherland as Rea’s commander, Jeffrey DeMunn (you might know him as Dale from The Walking Dead) as Chikatilo, and Max von Sydow as the psychiatrist who wrote the profile on this serial murderer. A new film dealing with the Chikatilo murders is out this month (Child 44 starring Tom Hardy and Gary Oldman) but it seems kind of unnecessary: Citizen X is a little-seen gem and one of the best TV movies I’ve ever seen.
Available to watch through Amazon Instant Video.
