Kidnapped: Elizabeth Smart
What’s it rated? TV-MA
When? 2026
Where’s it showing? Netflix
It’s a familiar story for anyone who was around in the early 2000s. At 14, she was abducted from her Utah home while her family slept, except her little sister Mary Katherine, who witnessed the kidnapping. The media storm that followed was deafening, yet Elizabeth’s captors managed to keep her hidden away for nine months. Enduring tortuous conditions, rape, and her captor’s wildly radical religious rantings, Smart was finally found on the streets of Sandy, Utah, where witnesses recognized the captors from media coverage.
This introspective piece explores Smart’s ordeal through her own words and those of the people closest to her and the ones closest to the case. Her family talks about their experience through the time she was missing and the long journey to bring her home.
Smart is now a journalist and advocate, speaking against the idea of girls suffering a loss of value upon sexual contact. Because of this documentary, Smart has been giving countless interviews, and she’s an open and honest advocate. In this we can see how a young girl who went through so much can become a woman who’s a champion for others and rises above all the bad that happened to her at such a young age. (91 min.)
—Anna Starkey
This article appears in February 5 – February 12, 2026.