25 Bingeworthy Netflix Shows And Movies That Are Based On Real Crimes
Vote up the crime shows on Netflix that are most worth binging.
Truth is usually stranger than fiction, which explains why there are so many Netflix shows based on real crimes. The streaming giant has enough crime documentaries, movies, and in-depth television series based on actual crimes that you could watch for days and never see the same murder twice.
These Netflix true crime shows and movies are utterly captivating - perfect for an afternoon binge-watch. And if you like these programs, be sure to check out our list of the best crime movies on Netflix, the true story that inspired Netflix's Unbelievable, and the true-crime documentary The Seven Five.
- 1743 VOTES
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Mindhunter follows the fictitious FBI agents Holden Ford and Bill Tench as they interview infamous serial killers and collaborate with Dr. Wendy Carr to usher in a new way of investigating crime.
Ford is based on John E. Douglas, an FBI agent and author who interviewed killers featured on the show, such as Richard Speck and Edmund Kemper. Tench is based on Robert K. Ressler, an FBI agent who reportedly coined the term "serial killer." Carr is based on Dr. Ann Wolbert Burgess, who published a study of serial killers in 1988 with Ressler and Douglas.
If you like this series, check out these other serial killer TV shows.
- 2359 VOTES
The Keepers
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Sister Catherine Cesnik disappeared while out shopping in Baltimore, MD, on November 7, 1969. Her body was found on January 20, 1970. The Keepers investigates her death and explores several incidents that may be related. The search reveals a pattern of sexual abuse at the Catholic school where Cesnik taught that the sister might have threatened to expose.
The series explores a confession from a gay neighbor who later committed suicide and gives details on the only living suspect. It also follows a group of women seeking justice for the sexual abuse they suffered at the hands of the people of faith who were supposed to be educating them.
- 3333 VOTES
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This series follows a different case each episode, presenting a crime that cannot be solved by circumstantial evidence alone. Each episode takes an in-depth look at the forensic information that was left behind after a crime and how experts work together to use the unique evidence to solves cases.
One episode used writing patterns to uncover a murderer while another followed the source of wax bullets and carpet fibers to solve a crime.
- 4373 VOTES
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On August 28, 2003, a pizza delivery man walked into a bank in Erie, PA, wearing a bomb collar and carrying a shotgun fashioned into a walking cane. He was captured and told police that he had very little time to follow clues to get the bomb collar off his neck before it exploded.
The four-part docuseries Evil Genius delves into unexpected people and places to determine the true mastermind of this infamous heist. It also asks the question: was the pizza delivery man a willing participant or a fall guy?
- 5188 VOTES
Who Took Johnny?
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Paperboy Johnny Gosch disappeared on September 5, 1982, from his neighborhood in West Des Moines, IA. Police believed Gosch had just run away even though several witnesses mentioned a strange car approaching the boy more than once. For more than 30 years after his disappearance, Gosch's mother Noreen refused to quit searching for the truth about what really happened to her son.
This documentary follows her struggle to deal with local police ignoring her and the possibility that her son was stolen by a sex trafficking ring.
- 6210 VOTES
Inside The Mind Of A Serial Killer
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In this series, reenactments of crimes are interspersed with real footage of serial killers and their crimes. The series focuses on the mind of a different killer every episode in an attempt to figure out why they committed their crimes.
Among the profiled criminals are Norway bomber Anders Breivik, the "Cleveland Strangler" Anthony Sowell, and "Slumdog Cannibal" Surinder Koli.
- 7297 VOTES
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David Fincher's 2007 film follows several figures involved in the Zodiac Killer's investigation, including Robert Graysmith, a cartoonist for the San Francisco Chronicle obsessed with the Zodiac's crimes and letters. Graysmith conducted his own investigation and published a book about his findings, which was the inspiration for this film.
The Zodiac Killer is credited with the killing of five people in the late 1960s and early 1970s and remains unidentified to this day.
- 8396 VOTES
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Making a Murderer (MAM) follows Steven Avery for more than a decade as the center of two controversial criminal trials. Avery's 1985 conviction for violating and attempting to kill a woman was exonerated, and he made it his life's mission to expose the corruption of the law enforcement agency that put him in prison. Then, in 2007, he was convicted for the 2005 death of a Wisconsin photographer named Teresa Halbach and sentenced to life behind bars.
The series follows Avery's second trial and questions whether the prosecution was misleading in how they presented the evidence gathered against him and his nephew, Brendan Dassey.
In September 2019, Shawn Rech, director of the documentary Convicting a Murderer, told Newsweek that a Wisconsin inmate confessed to taking Halbach's life. The identity of the inmate will remain anonymous until law enforcement can confirm the legitimacy of the confession.
Rech's documentary is an unaffiliated follow-up to MAM that aims to reveal all the evidence the original series left out. Rech said they have "uncovered an unfathomable amount of information and evidence that is leading [them] to the truth," including the anonymous confession, and that he feels a responsibility to keep investigators informed.
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- Conversations With a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes
Ted Bundy is easily one of the most prolific serial killers, and Joe Berlinger's four-part docuseries proves it. The series uses audio interviews from Bundy himself, and hearing his voice is unnerving in itself. The docuseries also interviews past neighbors, friends, and Rhonda Staples, a woman who narrowly escaped from Bundy. Many former friends describe Bundy as "one of us."
While some have criticized the documentary for romanticizing Bundy and over-exaggerating his intelligence, it is still a must-see for any true crime fan.
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- 10272 VOTES
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- The Staircase
Kathleen Peterson, wife of novelist Michael Peterson, was found dead at home in December 2001. After finding his wife's body, Peterson was immediately a suspect in the suspicious death that left his wife at the bottom of a staircase and the walls spattered with blood.
Peterson maintained his innocence throughout his trial and conviction. This series follows the strange case and its twisting details.
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- 11182 VOTES
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- The Confession Tapes
This series looks at the weight of confessions in criminal cases and the near impossibility of recanting one once it is given. It is especially chilling to see how many of the people convicted based on their confessions are mentally challenged or have no knowledge of the realities of the justice system.
One episode shows a mother convinced she burned her child alive in a house fire. Another focuses on a controversial technique law enforcement used to get confessions from two teens.
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- 12147 VOTES
The Seven Five
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Michael Dowd was a police officer in New York City during the '80s and '90s who ran a drug ring out of a police station. Called "NYPD's most corrupt cop," Dowd sold drugs and protected drug dealers instead of keeping them off of the street.
The Seven Five tells the story of the rise and fall of Dowd and the officers who went rogue with him.
- 13183 VOTES
Interview With A Serial Killer
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This documentary is nothing more than a chilling conversation with Arthur Shawcross, a man known as the Genesee River Killer. Shawcross was convicted of killing 11 women from 1988 to 1990, and was previously in prison for the rape and murder of two children.
The interview gives a glimpse into the mind of a man with no remorse for his monstrous crimes. It even highlights a very surprising family connection that remains intact.
- 14143 VOTES
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Michael Shannon portrayed real-life contract killer Richard Kuklinski in this 2012 film. Known as "The Iceman" due to his tendency to freeze his victims' body parts to obscure their time of death, Kuklinski was responsible for an estimated 200 murders committed on behalf of various mafia members - or just because someone annoyed him.
The movie shows how his family never knew about his secret double life, and the greed and bloodlust that ultimately led to his arrest in 1986.
- 15166 VOTES
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Former prosecutor Kelly Siegler and crime scene investigation expert Yolanda McClary travel the US to assist police departments in one last attempt to solve a cold case murder. Each episode of the series takes Siegler, McClary, and a couple of trusted investigators to a different town where they teach the local police how to work old crimes.
The episodes don't always catch the killer in the end, but they always provide a full picture of the crime and the suspects.
- 16141 VOTES
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In 2006, a 13-year-old Israeli girl named Tair Rada was found murdered in her school's bathroom. Roman Zadorov, a Ukrainian immigrant who worked at Rada's school, was subsequently arrested and tried for the crime.
Each episode of this docuseries focuses on a different viewpoint of the case, theories, and a confession that didn't come from Zadorov.
- 17184 VOTES
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- Amanda Knox
On November 2, 2007, British student Meredith Kercher was found murdered in the apartment she shared with her American roommate, Amanda Knox. After an interview in which Knox claimed she was hit by a policewoman, she and her boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were arrested and charged with the murder.
Knox was twice convicted and twice exonerated for the death of her roommate. This documentary details the crime and the media firestorm that surrounded Knox as she fought to prove her innocence.
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- 18103 VOTES
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In this documentary, Werner Herzog interviews Michael Perry, a young man convicted of three murders in Conroe, TX. While the film does talk to the family and friends of Perry and those of the people he murdered, the focus isn't guilt or innocence. Herzog is more interested in the path that led Perry to death row, the morality of his sentence, and Perry's mindset in the days leading up to his execution, which took place just days after his final interview.
- 19114 VOTES
Team Foxcatcher
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Dave Schultz was an Olympic wrestler with several championships and medals to his name. In 1989, he moved to Foxcatcher Farm to train at the facility of multi-millionaire John du Pont. While Schultz trained and coached Team Foxcatcher to an elite status, du Pont grew increasingly obsessed and paranoid.
The Netflix documentary presents home video footage that shows examples of du Pont's mental instability and the downward spiral that led to Schultz's murder in 1996.
- 2069 VOTES
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- Wild Wild Country
For a movement that considered itself one of peace, the followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, AKA Osho, were sometimes anything but. The documentary takes a fairly objective look at both former followers and those who were wary of the Bhagwan as he set up shop in Wasco Country, OR.
One of Osho's higher-ups, Ma Anand Sheela, took her role in the development of Rajneeeshpuram so seriously that she and others started working around the law to make things work. Full of arson, wire-tapping, and mass food poisoning, Wild Wild Country has to be seen to be believed.
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- 2176 VOTES
Out Of Thin Air
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In 1974, two men went missing in Iceland, which is noteworthy in a nation with a population of just 220,000. Six men confessed to murdering the missing men, even though no bodies or evidence were ever found.
The case was reopened in 2017 and Out of Thin Air attempts to find out if justice was served or if innocent men were sent to prison.
- 2287 VOTES
Cold Justice: Sex Crimes
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A spin-off of Cold Justice, this series follows prosecutors Casey Garrett and Alicia O'Neill as they assist law enforcement agencies in closing cold sexual assault cases. Each episode is a new case that the experienced hosts work in an effort to bring justice to crimes long thought unsolvable.
- 2370 VOTES
The Investigator: A British Crime Story
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Carole Packman disappeared from the home she shared with her husband and daughter in 1985. Eleven years later, her husband Russell Causley admitted he killed Packman and then burned her body before burying it. The body was never found.
The docuseries investigates the circumstances around Packman's disappearance and attempts to figure out if Causley really did kill his wife.
- 2471 VOTES
Belief: The Possession Of Janet Moses
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This documentary tells the true story of a tight-knit Maori family in New Zealand and the extremes they went to in order to save a loved one. When Janet Moses began behaving strangely in 2007, her family became convinced that she was possessed. The family determined that the only way to help her was to perform a Maori water exorcism.
Moses drowned as family members held her down and poured water onto her face and down her throat for hours as a part of a cleansing ceremony.
- 2575 VOTES
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This documentary completely subverts the genre of true crime. Instead of interviewing locals who remember the tragic slaying of child pageant star JonBenet Ramsey in a straightfoward manner, director Kitty Green acted as if she was casting a movie based around the murder. While doing so, she asked all of the actors and actresses what they remembered about the case and the Ramsey family, and their emotionally charged speculations are riveting.
