Strangled

Strangled (original title A martfűi rém), directed by Árpád Sopsits, is a thriller based on a real Hungarian serial killer case; the real killer, Péter Kovács, murdered at least four women around Martfű between 1957 and 1967, was caught in 1967, and executed in 1968. The case's most striking element was that an innocent man, János Kirják, who had no connection to the killer, was arrested and spent eleven years in prison; the film uses changed names for both. Sopsits first became interested in the case in the 1970s and 80s but couldn't make the film under the communist regime due to its political sensitivity; in the 1990s he read the 156 page confession and court documents, spending two years on the screenplay. The film had its world premiere at the Warsaw Film Festival on October 9, 2016. It won nine awards, including Best Film and Best Director, at the 2017 Hungarian Film Awards, and holds an 82 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes. Who it's for: anyone curious about a Hungarian thriller based on a real serial killer case and a real miscarriage of justice within it, which won nine awards at its country's own film awards. Who it's not for: viewers wanting a film told purely from the killer's perspective, since this gives equal weight to the wrongfully imprisoned victim.