fyre fight

Which Fyre Festival Doc Should You Watch? It Depends on What You’re Looking For

Each side of Netflix and Hulu’s Fyre fight has something to offer—but one is slightly more worth your while.

January 17, 2019

What’s better than one great documentary about a disastrous music festival? Two great documentaries about a disastrous music festival! This weekend, Netflix and Hulu subscribers will have their pick of Fyre Festival docs; Netflix’s Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened premieres January 18, while Hulu’s Fyre Fraud pre-empted that release with a surprise premiere on Monday.

Both documentaries are carefully reported, and offer fascinating insights and juicy dish on the would-be influencer sensation that went up in flames. But if you were to see just one, which should you watch? That depends on what you’re looking for—although, for our money, one of the choices does have a bit more to offer. Then again, the real answer to this question is simple:

Just Watch Both

If you’re really interested in how this entire disaster went down—sad sandwiches and all—it’s worth binging both movies in a mini-marathon. Both films adopt different approaches, and each brings its own insights to the table. Fyre is a more up-close and procedural look at the festival’s collapse; it also doubles as a vexed character portrait of co-founder Billy McFarland, who was sentenced to six years in prison after pleading guilty to fraud last year. And it offers more interviews with insider sources than Fyre Fraud, which takes a more analytical approach, locating the failed festival within the cultural context of our time—and our obsession with image and social media.

So, why watch Fyre Fraud too? Well, it offers one thing that Fyre does not: an interview with McFarland himself, as well as his girlfriend. If Fyre asks how on earth a human being could ever behave like McFarland did, Fyre Fraud invites its viewers to watch the man speak and judge him for themselves. Neither doc paints a particularly flattering portrait, and McFarland’s interview in Fyre Fraud does not offer any particularly juicy information—but seeing McFarland explain himself and his actions does offer a unique lens through which to decide for oneself what this guy thinks of himself.

If you’re going to watch both docs, I would recommend watching Fyre first, and Fyre Fraud second—after taking a long pause to do a few deep breathing exercises. When watched in that order, the two form a fascinating dialogue. Fyre is more explanatory for those who didn’t necessarily follow every step of this disaster as it occurred in 2017. It also offers more insight into how McFarland’s actions impacted other people—particularly the hundreds of local Bahamian workers who, as the doc notes, were abandoned without pay. (One caterer’s tearful account of draining her savings to pay her employees for their work is particularly heartbreaking.) With that context already in mind, it’s fascinating to watch the Hulu doc zoom out and consider what the fiasco meant within the bigger cultural milieu.

__But If You Have to Choose One . . . __

Still, it’s a busy world, and not all of us have time to mainline two documentaries about an influencer extravaganza gone haywire. So if you’re not trying to spend your entire Saturday fuming over Billy McFarland and his doomed festival, go with Netflix’s Fyre.

Although Hulu’s documentary includes that McFarland interview, the sit-down isn’t particularly insightful—and by comparison to its rival doc, Fyre Fraud leans a little too heavily on generalizations about millennials, with little interrogation of how questions of class played into the story of the failed festival. Netflix’s Fyre also offers more insight on the impact Fyre Festival had on the locals it employed and abandoned—an insight that feels particularly important to emphasize in a story that can so easily inspire gleeful Schadenfreude directed at its rich attendees.

It is, however, worth noting that both docs are also marred by ethically murky decisions—and the teams behind each doc have highlighted the shortcomings of the other doc, using them as cudgels in a moral battle for viewers’ hearts. Fyre director Chris Smith told V.F. that he decided against interviewing McFarland for his movie after the entrepreneur asked for an exorbitant sum in exchange for his appearance—citing another documentary that had agreed to pay him. A source confirmed to V.F. that the Fyre Fraud producers did pay McFarland to license footage—but the filmmakers also pointed out that Smith’s film was produced in partnership with both Jerry Media and Matte Projects, both of which worked with McFarland to promote Fyre Festival. (McFarland’s lawyer did not respond to a request for comment.)

In a statement to Entertainment Weekly, the Fyre filmmakers said, “We were happy to work with Jerry Media and a number of others on the film. At no time did they, or any others we worked with, request favorable coverage in our film, which would be against our ethics. We stand behind our film, believe it is an unbiased and illuminating look at what happened, and look forward to sharing it with audiences around the world.”

It’s understandable to feel uneasy about both of these realities—but for what it’s worth, we’d still recommend Fyre. The Netflix version puts a human face on the people behind this mess, without letting anyone off the hook for what happened. That said: seriously, why not both?

Laura Bradley