A Steve Cote production

STRANGE MOVIESFirst episode · Monday, Nov 16

Look Beyond the Screen.

Strange Movies cover art: a drive-in theater showing a haunted house on the big screen — Sometimes the movie is only half the story.

Every movie has a story. Sometimes the real story is even stranger than the movie. Alex Sloane brings the cinematic eye, Jack Sterling opens the case files — and together they look beyond the screen at the true crime, history, mysteries, and extraordinary people behind the films you love. A sister show to Strange Skies and Strange Crimes.

Sister show: Strange Skies Sister show: Strange Crimes

Hear the trailer Show trailer · 2:18

Episodes

Horror, sci-fi, crime, thriller, western, noir — every genre is welcome, as long as the film is based on a weird and true story. Film first, then the real story behind it, told with real sources and nothing invented.

Strange Movies episode 1 cover: the drive-in screen shows the mothership over Devil's Tower

S1·E1Monday, Nov 16

Close Encounters of the Third Kind: The Real Cases Behind First Contact

Strange Movies · Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977, Spielberg) · The 49th anniversary

The man in the crowd at the end of the film isn't an actor — he's J. Allen Hynek, the real astronomer who investigated UFOs for the Air Force for twenty-one years. Alex and Jack go through the film piece by piece — the lost planes of Flight 19, the 85-mile police chase, the Kentucky farmhouse, the five notes — and give each one a verdict: real, disputed, invented, or unexplained.

How much of the most famous first-contact film is actually true?

Launch episode — Monday, November 16, 2026.

Strange Movies episode 2 cover: the drive-in screen shows the priest under the streetlamp from The Exorcist

S1·E2Coming Soon

The Exorcist: The Boy Behind the Most Terrifying Film Ever Made

Strange Movies · The Exorcist (1973, Friedkin) · Roland Doe, Maryland, 1949

In 1949, a 14-year-old boy in Maryland — known only as Roland Doe — went through a series of exorcisms that became William Peter Blatty's novel, and then the most terrifying film ever made. A paranormal investigator's take on a real exorcism case, plus the film's own "curse" lore: the deaths on set, the Pazuzu statue, the fire.

What really happened to Roland Doe?

Coming soon.

Strange Movies episode cover: the drive-in screen shows the Stanley Hotel in snow from The Shining

Coming Soon

The Shining: I Investigated the Real Overlook

Strange Movies · The Shining (1980, Kubrick) · The Stanley Hotel, Colorado

Stephen King stayed in Room 217 of the Stanley Hotel in 1974 — and The Shining was born there. But this episode is one no one else can make: Steve Cote investigated the Stanley himself, in his paranormal investigator days. He stood in those rooms. Something happened there.

The most famous horror film ever made — and the real hotel behind it.

Coming soon.

Strange Movies episode cover: the drive-in screen shows a man in a car at night from Obsession

Coming Soon

Obsession: The $750K Film That Took Over 2026

Strange Movies · Obsession (2026, Curry Barker) · From a Simpsons joke to $400 million

A horror film made for $750,000 took in over $400 million — and director Curry Barker got the idea watching a Simpsons Halloween episode about a monkey's paw. That joke traces back to W. W. Jacobs' 1902 story — the same story Jack retells in our After Dark Classics series. One cursed paw, four generations of storytellers.

Jacobs → King → The Simpsons → Barker. The lineage of a curse.

Coming soon.

Strange Movies episode cover: the drive-in screen shows a UFO beaming down over a forest from Fire in the Sky

Coming Soon

Fire in the Sky: The Abduction Nobody Could Explain Away

Strange Movies · Fire in the Sky (1993) · Travis Walton, Arizona, 1975

Travis Walton vanished for five days after a UFO encounter in the Arizona woods — witnessed by six coworkers, all of whom passed polygraph tests. Horror, sci-fi, and a genuine UFO case in one film. The abduction nobody could explain away.

Five days gone. Six witnesses. No explanation that holds.

Coming soon.

Strange Movies episode cover: the drive-in screen shows the Perron farmhouse at night from The Conjuring

Coming Soon

The Conjuring: The Real Perron Family Haunting

Strange Movies · The Conjuring (2013, Wan) · Harrisville, Rhode Island, 1971–1980

For nearly a decade, the Perron family lived with something in their farmhouse in Harrisville — the case that made Ed and Lorraine Warren famous. An ex-paranormal investigator looks at the real case, the Warrens' methods, and where Hollywood took over from history.

What did the Perrons really live through — and what did the film invent?

Coming soon.

Strange Movies episode cover: the drive-in screen shows a foggy San Francisco street under the Zodiac crosshair from Zodiac

Coming Soon

Zodiac: Fincher's Obsession With an Unsolved Killer

Strange Movies · Zodiac (2007, Fincher) · Northern California, 1968–1969

The Zodiac Killer was never caught. David Fincher spent years obsessing over the case files to make the most accurate true-crime film ever shot — down to the exact shade of paint on a door. A director's obsession meets a killer who vanished.

The case that broke the investigators — and nearly broke the director.

Coming soon.

What this show is

The story behind the screen

Every movie has a story. Sometimes the real story is even stranger than the movie.

Behind the greatest films are extraordinary true stories: unexplained encounters, forgotten histories, real crimes, remarkable people and events that challenged everything we thought we knew.

Hosted by Alex Sloane and Jack Sterling, Strange Movies goes beyond the screen to investigate the real people, places and mysteries that inspired cinema's most unforgettable stories. Alex explores the films, filmmakers, creative decisions and cultural impact. Jack opens the case files, examines the evidence, tracks down the witnesses and separates documented history from Hollywood invention.

What really happened? What did Hollywood change? And what remains unexplained?

And this show has an edge no one else can claim: its producer investigated the real places. Steve Cote stood inside the Stanley Hotel — the hotel behind The Shining — during his years as a paranormal investigator. When Strange Movies talks about the real story, it comes from someone who was there.

"Sometimes the movie is only half the story."

"The movie is the beginning of the investigation, not the end of the story."

Made for the cinema lovers, with the Strange touch.

From the same studio

Two sister showsOne strange universe

Strange Movies is the third show from Steve Cote Productions.

Strange Skies

UFOs, the paranormal, and the unexplained — short episodes on the cases and the declassified record, with Jack Sterling After Dark on Friday nights.

Visit strangeskiespodcast.com ↗

Strange Crimes

Unsolved cases from around the world — disappearances nobody can explain, deaths where the official story falls apart, and the strange details in between.

Visit strangecrimes.com ↗

Your hosts

Alex brings the cinematic eye. Jack opens the case files. Steve built the studio they live in.

Strange Movies · the cinematic perspective

Alex Sloane

"Every film is a window into the world that made it. I just open the curtains a little wider."

Alex is the cinema lover — the films, the filmmakers, the performances, the cultural context, the themes, and what movies reveal about the world that made them. Think of her as the show's sociologist of cinema: curious, sharp, and always asking what a film says about the moment it came from.

Strange Movies · the investigation

Jack Sterling

"The movie ends. The case file doesn't."

Jack is the investigator — original accounts, real locations, archives, eyewitness testimony, case files, and the stories that deserve a closer look. Slow, low, and unhurried, like a man who's in no rush because the truth isn't going anywhere. On Friday nights he hosts Strange Skies After Dark.

The producer · Behind the console

Steve Cote

"Alex and Jack got the AI treatment — so I joined them."

Creator & producer, ex-paranormal investigator. He's the one at the console putting it all together — LA cap on, coffee nearby. He investigated the Stanley Hotel, the real place behind The Shining, and that firsthand experience is what sets this show apart. He also produces Strange Skies and Strange Crimes. Follow along at Instagram @stevecote1974.

How the show is made: Alex Sloane and Jack Sterling are AI-voiced hosts. Steve Cote is the real person behind Strange Movies — he creates and produces every episode.

Got a film for us?

Know a movie with a stranger-than-fiction true story behind it — or a film whose real history deserves a closer look? Our contact details are coming soon. In the meantime, you can reach Steve through the Strange Skies show.

Contact via Strange Skies ↗ Instagram @stevecote1974

Never miss a premiere

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