Joe Berlinger (born October 30, 1961) and Bruce Sinofsky (March 31, 1956 – February 21, 2015) were a team of American documentary filmmakers that have won cult fame and critical acclaim.
Originally intended to be a documentary about "three guilty teenagers on trial for murder",[1] Sinofsky and Berlinger soon decided that their film Paradise Lost would take a different path.
Paradise Lost chronicles the 1993 murders of three 8-year-old boys, Stephen Branch, Christopher Byers, and Michael Moore in rural Arkansas, and argues that the fear and panic of satanism, along with questionable police work, led to the arrests and convictions of three teenagers, Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Miskelley for the murders, otherwise known as the West Memphis Three.
The first film was followed in 2000 by Paradise Lost 2: Revelations which revealed more evidence and findings that intended to further prove the innocence of Baldwin, Echols, and Misskelley.
Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory (2011) exonerates Byers, explores another suspect, stepfather Terry Hobbs, and chronicles the eventual release of the West Memphis Three from jail in August 2011.