Toronto’s late former mayor Rob Ford is set to take center stage once more, this time through a new Netflix documentary series titled Trainwreck. Premiering on June 17, the anthology-style series explores some of the most chaotic and bizarre public spectacles in recent history, and Ford’s rollercoaster political career will be the focus of an episode aptly named Trainwreck: Mayor of Mayhem.
Directed by Shianne Brown, the episode revisits Ford’s dramatic rise and fall in municipal politics—from his 2010 mayoral campaign to the international headlines sparked by a video showing him smoking crack cocaine, a scandal he eventually admitted to. Ford’s tenure, marked by both populist appeal and relentless controversy, became a defining chapter in Toronto’s political history.
The Trainwreck series launched with an explosive look at Woodstock ’99, chronicling the festival’s descent into chaos. Upcoming episodes promise to cover a wide range of infamous events, including the 2009 “Balloon Boy” hoax and the viral Dutch birthday party that inspired the film Project X.
Rob Ford served as Toronto’s mayor from 2010 to 2014. Though he was preparing a re-election bid in 2014, he was forced to withdraw after being diagnosed with a cancerous abdominal tumour. He passed away in 2016 at the age of 46.
This isn’t the first time Hollywood has turned its lens on Ford’s legacy. The 2019 film Run This Town, starring Damian Lewis as a Ford-like figure, portrayed a dramatized version of events through the eyes of journalists and city hall insiders. Netflix’s Trainwreck is now set to revisit the real-life drama—this time through documentary storytelling aimed at a global audience.