Summary

• Ted Bundy movies continue to be popular due to the morbid human fascination with real-life monsters like serial killers.
• Some films inaccurately exploit Bundy's story, while others take interesting approaches to examining his crimes and mindset.
• Movies like "American Boogeyman" and "No Man Of God" offer new perspectives on Bundy, showcasing the FBI's role in his capture.

Serial killers are a recurrent topic in movies and TV shows, and the most notorious understandably inspire the healthiest box-office returns and streaming numbers, so it’s no shock there have been many Ted Bundy movies. The world has unfortunately seen too many serial killers through, with different modus operandi and targets. However, some remain fascinating to the audience and the entertainment industry, making them part of pop culture. The idea of centering a movie around a serial killer like Ted Bundy is to try to understand the mindset.

Genres from true crime to thrillers to horror all rely on the morbid yet natural human fascination with the macabre, and serial killers are the closest thing to real-life monsters. Theodore Robert Cowell, the birth name of "The Campus Killer" himself and best known as Ted Bundy, captured the darkest parts of audiences' imaginations before he was eventually identified and apprehended. This resulted in several Ted Bundy movies, some inaccurate exploitative stories, and others examining this man in interesting ways.

10 Bundy And The Green River Killer (2019)

The Movie Has Bundy Consulting On Another Case

• Available to stream on Vudu and Tubi

One of the modern Ted Bundy movies released is actually not about Bundy's days as a serial killer, but about him consulting on another case. In reality, Ted Bundy was interviewed about the Green River Serial Killer when there were no leads in the case.

That's the story Bundy And The Green River Killer tells.

This is actually a practice law enforcement will take, especially when convicted serial killers might be serving multiple life sentences in prison. That's the story Bundy And The Green River Killer tells. In the real-life incident, Bundy was on death row, and he spoke to a detective named Dave Reichert and a Bundy investigator named Robert Keppel, whom Bundy reached out to offer his help.

Bundy's information led to the Green River Serial Killer's arrest. However, reviews complained about bad acting and historical inaccuracies. The movie received mixed reviews, having only a 3.4 out of 10 stars on IMDB and a 6% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, but a 3.8 out of 5 stars on Amazon's Prime Video.

9 Bundy: An American Icon (2008)

A Not Reliable Biopic

• Available to stream on Roku and Tubi

Bundy: An American Icon (also known as Bundy: A Legacy of Evil) is a horror movie directed by Michael Feifer that purports to be a biopic of "The Lady Killer" Theodore Cowell. Unfortunately for anyone looking for a fact-based affair, it follows Feifer's other serial killer movies (including movies about Ed Gein, BTK, and the Boston Strangler) by caring little for the truth. It dramatizes Bundy’s life from his troubled childhood to his arrest and trial and feels like little more than exploitation of a "brand."

Corin Nemec played Cowell/Bundy, and the movie wasn't well-received by critics, who thought it didn’t offer anything new. It’s an often forgotten entry in the collection of movies about Ted Bundy. Corin Nemec was great in his role as Ted Bundy, but when the 37-year-old actor played Bundy in his college years, it seemed a little too unrealistic.

8 American Boogeyman (2021)

Through The Eyes of the FBI

• Stream on Hulu

The first of two 2021 properties, Ted Bundy: American Boogeyman is written and directed by Daniel Farrands (The Haunting of Sharon Tate) and stars Chad Michael Murray as the title character. The film starts with Bundy's first abduction of a woman in 1974 and the murders that followed.

Much like another true-crime biopic, The Highwaymen which focused on the law enforcement tacking Bonnie & Clyde, this movie was less concerned about Bundy than it was about tracking this serial killer down, a journey that ended in 1978.

Like the rest of the movies based on Ted Bundy American Boogeyman follows his crimes but through the perspective of the FBI agents assigned to the case

Like the rest of the movies based on Ted Bundy, American Boogeyman follows his crimes but through the perspective of the FBI agents assigned to the case: Kathleen McChesney (Holland Roden) and Robert Ressler (Jake Hays). It never quite manages to justify its own existence, offering nothing new to the conversation and also fictionalizing events to the point that it feels grossly unfair. On top of that, Murray was considered miscast as Bundy.

7 Ted Bundy (2002)

Critics Thought It To Be Exploitative