Suburban Housewife's Bizarre Assassination Attempt on President Ford Explored in Gripping Documentary

In November 2025, a new documentary titled "Suburban Fury" is set to explore the bizarre story of Sara Jane Moore, the suburban housewife who attempted to assassinate President Ford in 1975. The film, which won the top documentary prize at the Seattle International Film Festival last year, provides a fascinating look at Moore's radicalization and her involvement with the Symbionese Liberation Army and Patty Hearst.

The documentary follows Moore's transformation from a patriotic volunteer and government informant to a disillusioned revolutionary. Framed around unprecedented access to Moore herself, now 94 years old, the film unfolds as a first-person monologue shot across the Bay Area sites where her radicalization took root. Blending rare archival footage with a stylized imagined exchange between Moore and her FBI handler, "Suburban Fury" traces her path from a failed assassination attempt to a 32-year prison sentence.

According to the director, Robinson Devor, Moore was a "vibrant, smart person" and a "natural storyteller" who sometimes yelled at him during the filming. Her ability to control a conversation and her experience with politicians allowed her to navigate the interviews in a compelling way, even as she was "a few millimeters off the question."

Fifty years after the failed assassination attempt, Moore's story is seen as "eerily prescient" - a reflection of how ordinary citizens can be swept into extremism, conspiracy, and rage. "Suburban Fury" doesn't offer easy answers, but instead immerses the audience in one woman's unraveling and the country that mirrored her fracture.