Jonestown is a somber and non-exploitive reconstruction of the events that led the members of the Peoples Temple.

Stanley Nelson revisits the 1978 mass suicide of Jim Jones and his flock in Guyana, savoring the horror but offering no new insights.

Ultimately, the film doesn't entirely answer the massive 'why' at the center of this story -- that answer died on that day in 1978 -- but it's a haunting exploration of an event of unspeakable sadness, which still resonates decades later.

Nelson's thought-provoking documentary investigation into the life and times of preacher Jim Jones raises a fistful of public policy questions that are still knocking around today.