'The Perfect Neighbor' Has a 99% Rating
'The Perfect Neighbor' Has a 99% Rating
Holly RiordanSat, April 25, 2026 at 7:27 PM UTC
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The Perfect Neighbor is a 2025 documentary film told through real police bodycam footage and 911 calls. It is about a seemingly minor dispute in a Florida neighborhood that escalated into deadly violence when a white woman, Susan Louise Lorincz, fatally shot her Black neighbor, Ajike Owens.
The 90-minute film premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival where it won the Directing award. It was also nominated for Best Documentary at the Academy Awards. When it was originally released, it had a limited theatrical run, but it is now streaming globally on Netflix.
The film has a 99% on Rotten Tomatoes and is one of the most popular streams at the moment. Although it is about a real tragedy, one reviewer said, “It is an upsetting 97 minutes that needs to be seen.” Another said, “A gut-wrenching documentary that feels like a real-life horror movie. The editing keeps the film engaging throughout.”
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The film was directed by Geeta Gandbhir, a Harvard graduate who has won Emmy awards and Peabody awards for her work. In a 2025 interview with Film Comment Magazine, she explained about how she became aware of the story. She stated that Owens was a close friend of her sister-in-law and they “decided to start filming because we were really concerned that Susan would not be arrested due to Florida’s stand-your-ground laws. We wanted to make the media aware of the suppression going on with local authorities, and make sure justice for Ajike was a possibility.”
She continued, “I do not think of this film as true crime. This is a story that happened to my family, and I made it to mitigate grief. One of my concerns coming to Sundance was that I wasn’t sure there was a place for it in the world, because it can’t be categorized. You’re making something that hasn’t been seen before, and that can also be problematic in this culture where so much is algorithm-based. I wasn’t too interested in the commerciality of this; I just wanted this story out somehow.”
Gandbhir also produced Katrina: Come Hell and High Water alongside Spike Lee, which is also streaming on Netflix.
This story was originally published by Parade on Apr 25, 2026, where it first appeared in the News section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
