True Crime Series and Docs
True crime is the genre most likely to waste your evening: for every great one there are a dozen padded, ghoulish imitations. These are the docuseries and documentaries that earn the time, chosen for their reporting, their craft and some respect for the people involved, plus three scripted dramas based on real cases that are as good as any documentary.
The useful distinction is what kind of story you're signing up for. Investigations like The Jinx, The Staircase and Making a Murderer follow a case as it unfolds and leave you arguing about guilt. Injustice stories like When They See Us, Unbelievable and American Nightmare are about what the system got wrong, and they're angrier and harder to sit through. Scam stories like McMillions, Telemarketers and The Tinder Swindler involve mostly money, and they're mostly fun.
If you want something light, start with a scam. If you want the best the genre has produced, start with The Jinx or O.J.: Made in America. Several of these deal directly with rape or the sexual abuse of children, and the notes say which. For fiction, see Crime and Heist Movies; for true stories beyond crime, Documentaries Worth Watching.
The Jinx
Series · 2015The series that made prestige true crime. Robert Durst, a real estate heir suspected in a disappearance and two killings, offered Andrew Jarecki long interviews, and the final episode made front pages. A second part, made years later, follows what happened next.
O.J.: Made in America
Series · 2016Nearly eight hours, and none of it wasted. Ezra Edelman tells O.J. Simpson's story as the story of Los Angeles, policing and race across four decades, so by the time the trial arrives you understand exactly why the verdict split the country. The best documentary on this page.
The Perfect Neighbor
Movie · 2025A long feud in a Florida neighborhood ends with a woman shooting her neighbor, a Black mother of four, through a closed door. Built almost entirely from police bodycam footage and 911 calls, so you see the warning signs as the deputies did. Devastating, and among the best of recent years.
Making a Murderer
Series · 2015A Wisconsin man freed after years in prison for a crime he didn't commit is then charged with murder. It became a national argument, and critics said it left out evidence against him, so watch it knowing it's closer to a case for the defense. Long and completely absorbing.
The Staircase
Series · 2004The original prestige true-crime series: a French crew filmed a novelist's defense team after his wife was found dead at the foot of the stairs, and kept filming for well over a decade. No one had shown a murder trial from inside the defense like this before, and it's still fascinating.
Unbelievable
Series · 2019Based on a Pulitzer-winning article. A teenager reports a rape, isn't believed and is charged with lying, while years later two detectives in another state connect similar attacks. The first episode is very hard to watch; after that it becomes a superb detective drama. Scripted, not a documentary.
When They See Us
Series · 2019Ava DuVernay's four-part drama about the five Harlem teenagers wrongly convicted in the 1989 Central Park jogger case. It's furious and painful, especially the interrogation scenes, and Jharrel Jerome's performance in the final episode is extraordinary. Not easy viewing, and not meant to be.
The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story
Series · 2016The dramatized version, and the place to start if you'd rather watch actors. Ten episodes, a superb cast led by Sarah Paulson and Courtney B. Vance, and sharp on how the media and the trial fed each other. Pair it with O.J.: Made in America for the full picture.
I'll Be Gone in the Dark
Series · 2020Michelle McNamara, a writer consumed by an unsolved string of 1970s and 1980s rapes and murders in California, died before finishing her book about the case. The series is about her as much as him. Respectful of survivors and moving, though the attacks are described in detail.
American Nightmare
Series · 2024A woman is kidnapped from her California home, and when she's released the police and press call it a hoax. Three episodes, each shifting perspective, about what happens when nobody believes you. Tense and infuriating, and it deals with rape.
Wild Wild Country
Series · 2018In the 1980s an Indian guru's followers built a city on an Oregon ranch, took over a nearby town and ended up behind the largest bioterror attack in US history. It keeps getting stranger. The archival footage is remarkable, and Ma Anand Sheela is an unforgettable interview.
McMillions
Series · 2020For years the big prizes in the McDonald's Monopoly game were being stolen and sold, and an FBI agent who could hardly believe his luck set out to learn how. His boyish enthusiasm is the best thing in it. The pick for people who don't usually like true crime.
Telemarketers
Series · 2023Shot partly on camcorders by a guy who worked at a New Jersey call center in the 2000s, it starts as a scrappy workplace comedy and turns into an investigation of the police-charity scam his bosses were running. Rough-edged, very funny and like nothing else here.
Murder Among the Mormons
Series · 2021Three episodes on the 1985 bombings in Salt Lake City and the world of rare church documents behind them. A tight, gripping story about faith, history and fraud, co-directed by the man who made Napoleon Dynamite. One of the shortest and best-built picks on this page.
The Keepers
Series · 2017Former students of a Baltimore Catholic girls' school set out to solve the 1969 murder of a beloved nun, and uncover a history of abuse. Patient and humane rather than sensational, and the women at its center are remarkable. It deals in detail with the sexual abuse of minors.
The Tinder Swindler
Movie · 2022Several women conned out of large sums by a man posing as a diamond billionaire's son compare notes and go after him. Light by true-crime standards, since nobody is physically hurt, and maddening in the way scam stories always are. Very popular for a reason.
Tiger King
Series · 2020The early-pandemic obsession: big-cat owners in Oklahoma and Florida, their feuds and a murder-for-hire plot. Critics rightly said it treated its subjects as a freak show and mostly ignored the animals. Watch the first season if you missed it, and feel free to skip the rest.
Predators (2025)
Movie · 2025A documentary about To Catch a Predator, the 2000s TV sting show, that uses unaired footage to ask what the show was for and what watching it did to its audience. It turns the camera back on the true-crime habit itself, which makes it a bracing pick after a binge of the others.
The Imposter
Movie · 2012In 1997 a young man in Spain claimed to be a Texas boy who had vanished more than three years earlier, and the family took him home. Built from interviews and stylish reenactments, it plays like a thriller and gets stranger in its final stretch. Don't read about it first.
The Thin Blue Line
Movie · 1988Errol Morris's 1988 film about the murder of a Dallas police officer, which helped free the man convicted of it. It invented much of the look of modern true crime, including the stylized reenactment, and Philip Glass's score is hypnotic. Still the benchmark.
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Picks are editorial recommendations. Streaming availability changes by region and over time — the “where to stream” links check current availability on JustWatch.