Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Colosio: Political Assassination’ on HBO Max, another reiteration of the history-changing political violence in 1990s Mexico

The 1994 assassination of Mexican presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio gets revisited by a streamer – once again – in three-part Spanish-language documentary series Colosio: Political Assassination (now streaming on HBO Max). A bit of context may explain why this well-trod topic deserves two-to-three hours of content here in 2026: First, the uptick in politically motivated violence (especially in the U.S.) gives the Colosio story further relevance. And second, officials in late 2025 arrested a second suspect, reportedly one of Colosio’s bodyguards, after decades of questions and investigations suggested that long-imprisoned perpetrator Mario Aburto didn’t act alone.  

Opening Shot: A drone shot of the Mexican flag flying over Mexico City.

The Gist: The four-minute intro to this series frames the murder of Colosio as a sort-of Mexican version of the JFK assassination: The legitimacy of an officially sanctioned story where a “lone wolf” perpetrator murdered a beloved politician in a high-profile public setting goes under intense scrutiny, including allegations of a second shooter and a government conspiracy and coverup. Colosio belonged to Mexico’s longstanding Institutional Revolutionary Party (Partido Nacional Revolucionario, or PNR, in Spanish), but was considered an agent of change within the political institution. Talking heads characterize Colosio as “transparent in his ideals” and an “atypical politician” seeking to reform the IRP, which had become corrupt during its decades in power. 

On March 23, 1994, during a campaign rally in Tijuana, Colosio was walking among a dense throng of people when Mario Aburto pushed through the crowd and shot the politician point-blank in the head with a .38 special, with a second shot through his abdomen. Aburto was quickly subdued and arrested, and is still in prison today, although some talking heads insist he should be free by now – and maybe someone else should be in prison as well, for collusion in the murder. Was there a second shooter? Did Colosio’s pushback against IRP corruption inspire a conspiracy to off him? Was a drug cartel involved? Colosio: Political Assassination promises “a story beyond the official truth.”

From here, the series doggedly insists on not progressing through the story in a linear fashion. After the tease, it digs into Aburto’s biography, featuring interviews with his family, who saved recordings of conversations with him in prison, as well as journalists and his lawyer: He was a quiet kid, frequently bullied, who liked to draw; his family lived in Michoacan and then Tijuana, generally in poverty; he moved to the U.S. for a while and sent his significant earnings back home before he reluctantly had to return to help take care of his younger siblings. He worked at a cassette-tape factory, and his coworkers say he was acting suspicious on March 23, 1994, and it wasn’t long before they saw him on TV, bloodied and in the hands of authorities. Aburto’s family contends that he was tortured while in custody, and give firsthand accounts that they, too, were taken and abused by police so Aburto would confess. Which he did. 

The episode jumps back to Colosio’s story, told by his sister and other friends and associates. He was a beloved family man, the father of two, whose wife couldn’t believe he died first, because she was suffering from pancreatic cancer at the time of his murder. Then we get into the curious inconsistencies of the story, via investigative journalists who questioned the context of the confession, a forensic physician questioning the nature of the bullet wound in Colosio’s abdomen, and an anonymous Tijuana cop who claims that he was part of Colosio’s ISP-appointed security detail and had met Aburto in the days prior to the assassination. Over the decades, Aburto has refused to say who put him up to the murder. So of course, all this suggests collusion, a likely attempt to silence a man ready to rip the lid off government corruption.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The sheer amount of Colosio-related content likely rivals that of the JFK assassination here in America. In 2019, Netflix released Colosio docuseries 1994 and drama series Crime Diaries: The Candidate, focusing on the assassination. Another docuseries, Who Shot Colosio?, and feature-length biopic Colosio are out there, too. 

Our Take: The frustrating lack of straightforward storytelling in Colosio: Political Assassination shows the influence of true crime documentaries, which lean heavily on big reveals, cliffhangers and other assorted methods of narrative manipulation, emphasizing entertainment value over journalistic clarity. This isn’t to say what we’ve seen in the series thus far – the remaining two episodes have yet to be released as of this writing – is false. It’s just jumbled, and perhaps functioning on the assumption that viewers know some of the nuts-and-bolts basics of this story prior to pressing play. 

Which is to say, those of us who don’t know the ins and outs of this saga – myself included – may struggle without having the foreknowledge necessary to fully grasp whatever it is this three-parter is trying to accomplish. Some of it may be lost in the translation from Spanish to English, e.g., the confusion that comes when the series fails to delineate that PRI and IRP are the same organization. Note to documentary filmmakers: If you want to draw in a broad viewership, don’t make us consult Wikipedia for a complete picture. 

Performance Worth Watching: Interviews with the family members of both Colosio and Aburto remind us that this isn’t just a political story, but an emotional one as well.

Sex And Skin: None.

Parting Shot: A tease: the revelation that Carlos Salinas de Gortari, the President of Mexico and head of the IRP at the time, participated in the documentary. This might be a more shocking reveal if Salinas hadn’t already participated in 1994 – whether his testimony differs remains to be seen.  

Sleeper Star: Journalist Laura Sanchez Ley investigated the assassination for 13 years, and leads the charge for the alternative to the “lone wolf” narrative. 

Most Pilot-y Line: The talking head who declares Colosio “the hope of Mexico” establishes the overarching drama of the narrative, implying that welcome political reform in the country was destroyed, or at least significantly delayed, by the assassination. 

Our Call: The issues with Colosio: Political Assassination may have a simple remedy: Watch 1994 – a more thorough five-parter – then watch the final episode of the new series for updates on what led to the arrest of who might be the “second shooter,” Jorge Antonio Sanchez Ortega. So here’s a very tentative STREAM IT, in hopes that any new information Colosio: Political Assassination delivers is worthwhile.

John Serba is a freelance film critic from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Werner Herzog hugged him once.