Airdate: Life of Crime: 1984-2020

Documentary Life Of Crime: 1984-2020, the culmination of 36 years of work from producer / director Jon Alpert about three friends and their journey through addiction over multiple decades, will screen on FOX Docos in December.

The doco is part of an anthology of four documentaries exploring crime-related stories and the issues surrounding them.

The third and final part of an epic documentary trilogy that has spanned over thirty years, Life Of Crime: 1984-2020 tells the full story of three friends, Rob, Deliris and Freddie, from Newark, New Jersey whose lives have been defined by and torn apart by their addictions. With unfettered access, the documentary bears witness to each of their journeys in and out of prison, rehab and in occasional jobs, as they struggle to end the vicious cycles of drug use and to connect with the families they left behind.

The documentary features footage from Alpert’s earlier films in the trilogy, One Year in a Life of Crime (1989), and Life of Crime 2 (1998). Alpert’s third film in the series brings closure to the lives of the three friends, having observed their triumphs and failures over a lifetime’s trajectory.

Authentic to true vérité filmmaking techniques, Alpert’s camera is observational, immersive and unfiltered; the vast scope of the timeline allows for an extensive window into the tragic toll that addiction can take on substance abusers and their loved ones.

Wednesday, December 1 at 9.30pm on FOX Docos.

Adult content

The other three titles are:

Black And Missing (premieres 8:30pm Dec 1) a four-part series following sisters-in-law Derrica Wilson and Natalie Wilson as they strive to locate people of colour who are missing by bringing awareness to their cases, which have often been marginalized by law enforcement and traditional media.

The Slow Hustle (premieres 9:30 December 8), a searing look at corruption within the Baltimore Police Department, through the prism of a veteran officer’s mysterious death, as local journalists, family and the community strive to find the truth.

The Murders At Starved Rock (premieres 9:30 /10:30 December 15), a three-part documentary series exploring the 1960 brutal murders of three women in Starved Rock State Park in LaSalle County, Illinois, and the decades of questions and doubts that have haunted the son of the prosecutor in the case, as the man found guilty seeks to clear his name after sixty years in prison.