In the past ten years, it's become hard to deny that the true crime documentary is one of the fastest-growing genres, with new hits coming every year. Before the streaming age, finding any consistent documentary fanatics would be hard. Now the true and horrifying stories of corruption, lies, and murder have made practically every movie fan a documentary connoisseur. Its popularity has turned average viewers into amateur detectives and resulted in fundamental changes in laws and culture. Though most audiences were drawn to the genre because of its scandal and thrills at every corner, it has proven to be one that dives into the darkest corners of the human psyche and asks the tough questions no other TV show or movie could. To save you hours of scrolling through the most popular streaming services, here’s a list of the most captivating and entertaining true crime documentaries streaming.
Editor's note: This article was updated October 2023 to include Savior Complex.
The Vow (2020-2022)
Creator: Jehane Noujaim, Karim Amer
Diving deep into the NXIVM cult and its former leader, Keith Raniere, The Vow is a fascinating two-season documentary that gives insight into their methodology and insidious indoctrination tactics used to blackmail and isolate its members. Directors Jehane Noujaim (The Great Hack) and Karim Amer (The Lincoln Project) investigate by interviewing former members and showcasing texts, archival footage, and police reports to paint the full story of the cult’s inception and spread throughout the Canadian and American entertainment industries, ultimately leading to human trafficking, racketeering, and human branding. Watch on HBO
Savior Complex (2023)
Created By: Jackie Jesko
Cast: Renee Bach
After reading a National Public Radio article, documentary filmmaker Jackie Jesko was captured by the tale of Renee Bach, an untrained doctor whose medical work in her Christian non-profit organization led to the deaths of 105 children. In the miniseries, Jesko leaves no stone unturned in her attempts to find the nuance in this whirlwind of a story. Brilliantly complex, the miniseries ebbs and flows between the damning and the sympathetic, making it much more investigatory than a simple exploration of Renee Bach’s journey. A heavy discussion of the power of pride and how high one person can fall, Savior Complex is a gripping documentary miniseries. - Jake Hodges Watch on HBO
McMillions (2020)
Creator: James Lee Hernandez, Brian Lazarte
Cast: Chris Graham, Doug Mathews, Amy Murray
McMillions is the story of corporate scandal, fraud, and organized crime, all revolving around one of the world’s largest fast food chains. The six-episode docuseries recounts the FBI investigation into a scam that involved selling the most valuable pieces in the now-defunct McDonald’s Monopoly game that spiraled out into a million-dollar fraud case. Directors James Lee Hernandez and Brian Lazarte utilize interviews with FBI agents and amazing reenactments to move audiences through the complicated web of deceit surrounding the controversial promotion that led desperate people to ruin. Watch on HBO
Don’t F**k with Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer (2019)
Creator: Mark Lewis
One of the few true crime documentary series that also interrogates the role of the viewer, Don’t F**k with Cats puts true crime culture on trial. The series centers on amateur internet sleuths who came across a video of kittens being killed. As they put it, the internet may be like a kind of Wild West where no rules apply, but the only thing everyone on the internet agrees with and enforces is you don’t mess with cats. From then on, a search to find this fame-hungry sadist begins and accelerates when he releases another video, this time with a person. Watch on Netflix
Making a Murderer (2015-2018)
Creator: Laura Ricciardi & Moira Demos
Making a Murderer may have been the series that turned every average viewer into a true crime obsessive. Filmed over the course of ten years, this series follows one of a not-so-innocent man's strangest and darkest cases. Steven Avery, a working-class man from Wisconsin, was convicted of the sexual assault and attempted murder of Penny Beernsten in 1985 and served 18 years for the crime. When DNA evidence exonerates him, this criminal is proven innocent until he becomes the suspect in another murder case. An indictment of the criminal justice system, this docuseries shows there are more prominent criminals than the ones in jail. Watch on Netflix
Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father (2008)
Director: Kurt Kuenne
Have your tissues out and ready if you choose to watch this tearjerker. Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father is one of the most heartbreaking films you will ever see, and the director's personal attachment to its subject makes it all the more powerful. The film tells the story of director Kurt Kuenne’s childhood friend Andrew Bagby, a charismatic young doctor who entered into a relationship with a mentally ill woman, had a child with her, and was killed by her. The film serves as a letter from Kuenne to his dear friend’s son to tell him how great his father was and the truth about who his mother is. Watch on Prime Video
Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal (2023)
Creator: Julia Willoughby Nason & Jenner Furst
It’s a tale as old as time. The rich kid in town gets into trouble, and nothing happens because his family pays someone off. The Murdaugh family in South Carolina takes this cliché to a new level. Netflix’s Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal details a tragic boat crash that killed popular teenager Mallory Beach and how the drunk and abusive driver, Paul Murdaugh, faced no criminal consequences. Suddenly, this singular tragedy becomes part of a web of deceit and injustice, all orchestrated by the sociopathic family patriarch Alex Murdaugh. Watch on Netflix
The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst (2015)
Creator: Andrew Jarecki, Marc Smerling & Zac Stuart-Pontier
The poor little rich boy was never as camera-friendly as in The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst. Though director Andrew Jarecki had already tried to tell the story of Robert Durst on screen in the 2010 narrative feature, All Good Things starring Ryan Gosling and Kirsten Dunst, he was finally able to gain a large audience and critical acclaim when he decided to tell that story without a script, without movie stars, and with the man himself, Robert Durst. This docuseries hinges on long-form interviews with Durst as he tells his life story and professes his innocence in three unsolved disappeared disappearances even when the evidence seems to be against him. Watch on Max
Tickled (2016)
Director: David Farrier & Dylan Reeve
Tickled proves that no matter how innocent something seems, there is always a dark underbelly with unknowable secrets and shadowy villains. When New Zealand journalist David Farrier came across a video of young men in an endurance tickling competition, he thought it would make a quirky and hilarious story. But when the company that ran the competition, Jane O’Brien Media, emailed him back, threatening to sue, he found that this story was much darker. In an enormous feat of investigative journalism, Farrier found a company built on secrecy, blackmail, and fear. Watch on Magnolia Selects
Keep Sweet: Pray & Obey (2022)
Creator: Rachel Dretzin & Grace McNally
When religious fervor turns into cultish fanaticism, a dangerous world of oppression and violence is born. Keep Sweet: Pray & Obey centers on a breakaway cult of the Church of Latter-Day Saints and its leader Warren Jeffs. Taking its name from the motto coined by its previous leader Rulon Jeffs, which was used as a lesson to the sect's women, the documentary focuses on the cult’s abuses against women, particularly the child brides that became prisoners in their own marriage. Though most of the men responsible have been brought to justice, the horrors of the cult’s heyday remain haunting. Watch on Netflix