"Unchosen" and Hollywood's obsession with religious cults Netflix’s latest hit series is yet another example of this

Unchosen, since its release on Netflix, has claimed a top spot on the platform with the story of a woman belonging to a religious circle who धीरे gradually begins to question not only her faith, but the entire life she has led up to that point. It is the second show in 2026 to explore closed and controlled communities to rank among the most-watched series on the streamer, signaling a shift in Netflix users’ tastes and raising questions about both creators’ fascination with telling these kinds of stories and audiences’ willingness to embrace them.

Do we like series about religious cults?

It was Run Away, created by Danny Brocklehurst, that held the top position in the platform’s most-watched series ranking in the early days of the year. Based on the novel by Harlan Coben, it follows a father’s search for his missing daughter, which turns into the discovery of a network of illegitimate children born within a cult, revealing numerous serious crimes. A series driven more by twists and investigations than Julie Gearey’s Unchosen, where the status quo is disrupted from within rather than through external events as in Run Away. Yet it still invites reflection on the appeal that such titles have for viewers, likely rooted in the chance to peer into the murky realities that usually remain hidden in everyday life, and which these narratives bring to light.

Perhaps this is why, in a series like The Studio, in its very first episode, when producer Matt Remick (co-creator and star Seth Rogen) is tasked with making a film about the drink Kool-Aid, he decides the most compelling way to approach it is by handing the project to Martin Scorsese, who wants to center the story around the Jonestown massacre. A real event that took place in 1978, when an entire cult committed mass suicide following the orders of leader Jim Jones, a story already revisited in cinema, as in Ti West’s The Sacrament released in 2013.

"Unchosen" on Netflix – characters and plot

While Scorsese’s film in The Studio is ultimately shelved, Netflix and other platforms have continued to explore the dynamics of closed communities, each time trying to analyze the fractures that begin to emerge within them for narrative purposes. In the community portrayed in Unchosen, dogmatic yet in some ways less overtly violent than many others depicted, the protagonist’s doubts stem from a dual source, coming both from the outside, with the arrival of a disruptive figure in Sam (Fra Fee), and from within, as she begins to question the rules of the fellowship.

The arrival of this man in the life of Rosie (Molly Windsor), a criminal seeking refuge, is not the only reason behind her growing resistance to the community’s way of thinking and living, but rather a confirmation following a series of dilemmas that had already begun to trouble her. As one might expect, within the Fellowship of the Divine in the UK where the story unfolds, men hold positions of power, while women are confined to domestic duties, childcare, and complete devotion to their husbands. A patriarchal social structure that Unchosen mirrors, similar to many others, built on a heteronormative framework that, over the course of the episodes, reveals its distortions precisely because of the rigid gender impositions tied to religion, yet also reflective of dynamics present in many aspects of everyday life.

What happens within the cult system, in fact, is often an extremization of social behaviors already codified outside it, which become even more rigid when applied to a smaller group of people. Fixing roles in place, making them immovable and impossible to exchange, is another method of control to maintain order. It is no coincidence that in Unchosen, one of the characters points out how, within a mechanism of male dominance over women, the men in the community tend not to change. They have no need to, they hold power, perform significant roles, and have their desires fulfilled. This is why, more often than not, revolution starts from “below” even in these communities, meaning from female characters, although in Unchosen there are multiple fronts that begin to challenge the religious and collective hierarchy of the Fellowship of the Divine.

The strange obsession with Mormons

Sometimes reality surpasses fiction, which in turn becomes reality TV. This is why a miniseries like Under the Banner of Heaven, released on Disney+ in 2022, received less attention than The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, which has reached four seasons, along with its spin-off The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives: Orange County.

The investigation into a Mormon community starring Andrew Garfield and Daisy Edgar-Jones could not compete with the real-life scandal involving swinging that emerged in 2023, brought to light by influencer (and Mormon herself) Taylor Frankie Paul. In her circle, the sacred bond of marriage was undermined by shared parties among multiple couples, and instead of being swept under the rug, the events became public, generating visibility for those involved. A paradox that reflects the ongoing contradictions within Mormon religious doctrine, leading to two conclusions: that it is impossible to think of such communities without acknowledging their cracks, and that there is often a higher “god” even for these individuals, especially when it brings money and notoriety.