Louis Theroux: America's Most Hated Family in Crisis

Louis Theroux: America's Most Hated Family in Crisis (2011) is a BBC documentary you can watch online on iFILM, directed by Emma Cooper. Louis Theroux first visited the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, in 2007 — a week with the Phelps family, whose anti-gay pickets at military funerals had made them the country's most photographed extremist group. Four years later he goes back.

What he finds is a family with cracks in it. Several members have quietly left, including some of Fred Phelps' own children. Theroux meets the ones who stayed and tracks down those who got out. His approach is the same as always: steady questions, no confrontation, and enough patience to get people to say more than they intended. The church that once seemed impervious turns out to have a complicated inside. Watch the documentary online on iFILM.