Someone Knows Something

David Ridgen has a habit of picking at cold cases until something loosens. On Someone Knows Something, the CBC documentary filmmaker travels to small towns across Canada and the US, sitting with families whose loved ones vanished decades ago, walking the same roads, knocking on the same doors. Each season covers one case: a missing five-year-old, a drowned teenager, a woman last seen leaving a bar. Ridgen's approach is slow and patient, almost stubborn. He'll spend an entire episode on a single interview, letting silences sit, letting contradictions surface on their own. It's the opposite of the snappy, jump-cut style that dominates the genre. The reporting feels genuinely investigative rather than performative, and more than once his work has actually moved cases forward. Episodes run long, usually 45 to 60 minutes, and the production is understated: ambient sound, natural conversations, minimal scoring. If you want theatrics and dramatic reenactments, this isn't it. But if you appreciate the texture of real small-town life and the weight of unresolved grief, Ridgen is one of the best doing it. Seasons come out on their own schedule, sometimes with long gaps, which only adds to the sense that he's actually doing the work.