Movies Based On Unsolved True Crimes
Vote the movies you watch hoping the case will be solved by the end.
It seems like everywhere you look nowadays has new true crime movies or docuseries about horrific murders or abductions. Most of these tend to be about unsolved true crimes.
Why the newfound fascination about these sometimes decades-old crimes? Well, part of the interest may be from cold case murders actually being solved from amateur sleuths. Sometimes a person has watched a film on an old murder and recognized someone they knew. Other times, puzzlers have been able to figure out a clue or message that has stumped police. And sometimes simply producing a film or podcast about an old murder renews interest in it, and police review the case again with the new technology we have at our disposal today.
So if you're looking for an unsolved mystery to puzzle over, or potentially solve, check out our list of unsolved true crime films.
- 19 VOTES
Boston Strangler
Photo: HuluThe 2023 film Boston Strangler tells the story of Loretta McLaughlin (Kiera Knightley), the newspaper reporter who connected the pieces and broke the news about the infamous Boston Strangler.
The Boston Strangler terrorized women in the Boston area from 1962 to 1964. At first, he targeted older women, whom he sexually assaulted and killed. However, in late 1962 when a 23-year-old was killed by strangulation, it became clear that women of every age were potential targets.
The police finally got a lead in 1964 a woman who survived an assault was able to help police create a sketch of the man's face, which led to the arrest of Albert DeSalvo (played in the film by David Dastmalchian). DeSalvo would eventually confess to the crime, and his DNA was connected to the 13th murder in recent years. There remain some pieces that don't quite add up, from what he told police, that create doubt about whether DeSalvo was behind all of the deaths associated with the Boston Strangler.
In the film, Loretta explores the possibility that ex-boyfriend of one of the victims, Daniel Marsh (Ryan Winkles), may have been the true mastermind and killer.
- 234 VOTESPhoto: Paramount Pictures
The Zodiac Killer has fascinated amateur sleuths for decades since a string of murders in San Francisco in the late '60s. Officials believe the Zodiac Killer murdered at least five people, but the killer claimed to have taken upwards of 37 lives and taunted police through mysterious letters sent to the press through the early '70s.
These handwritten letters to local newspapers described specific details from the murders. Then, the perpetrator demanded that the papers print his cyphers on their front page, threatening to kill again if the papers didn't follow through on their end.
This is the story the 2007 film Zodiac follows, focused on a cartoonist at one of the newspapers who becomes obsessed with trying to find the identity of the killer. The David Fincher-directed film has an all-star cast, including Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr., and Mark Ruffalo.
While authorities have identified possible suspects over the years, there was never enough hard evidence to book anyone. The letters to the papers abruptly stopped in 1974, and no one has heard from the Zodiac Killer since.
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- 36 VOTES
The Amityville Horror house has seen its fair share of death and destruction. In 1974, for unknown reasons, 23-year-old Ronald Joseph DeFeo Jr. shot and killed his parents and four younger siblings in their family home (the youngest being 9).
While DeFeo was convicted of the crime, soon mysterious, strange occurrences began happening to the next family that moved in, which have never been fully explained.
These paranormal events are explored in the 1979 film, The Amityville Horror, which was the first in a long series of horror films. After the new family moves in, the father (James Brolin) becomes obsessive and abusive, and keeps waking up at 3:15 in the morning (the time the DeFeos were killed), while the mother (Margot Kidder) experiences vivid nightmares.
In reality, this family that moved in, the Lutzes, only lived in the house for a month before they left and never returned due to the frightening experiences they had. The next family lived with zero paranormal sightings for more than ten years.
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- 428 VOTESPhoto: Screen Gems
Of the American cryptids, Mothman is a fan favorite. He's said to be a humanlike creature with wings and bright red eyes who dwells in West Virginia.
The 2002 mystery film The Mothman Prophecies explores the legend of Mothman and the other supernatural elements that are said to occur near its stomping grounds. The films follows John Klein (Richard Gere), a reporter whose wife recently died from cancer, after seeing the Mothman before her while driving their car at night. Klein then finds himself drawn to a small West Virginian town, where other, similar sightings and visions are occurring, as he learns from Officer Mills (Laura Linney).
The movie is based on the 1975 book of the same name written by John Keel, who explored the reported sightings of the winged creature in 1966 and 1967 and alleged that they may have been connected to the collapse of a bridge. Other reports from the time attest that couples saw a strange creature described as a “man with wings,” and a common hypothesis is that such sightings were really herons or cranes.
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- 525 VOTESPhoto: Universal Pictures
The Black Dahlia murder horrified, and fascinated, the residents of Los Angeles in 1947. While the press named her “Black Dahlia," the victim was actually Elizabeth Short, who was said to be an aspiring actress.
Short was found mutilated, with her body cut in two at her waist, in a vacant lot in L.A. While several people called into newspapers or sent letters claiming to be Short's killer, there were never any strong leads. The case remains unsolved.
Short's murder served as the inspiration for the 2006 crime film The Black Dahlia, which follows two investigators (Josh Hartnett and Aaron Eckhart) as they become obsessed with solving the case. The film features plenty of other famous names including Scarlett Johansson and Hilary Swank, as it posits its own theory of who ended Short's life.
More The Black Dahlia - 626 VOTESPhoto: Netflix
Prior to 2010, the people of Long Island didn't realize there was a serial killer lurking in their neighborhoods. While several young escorts had gone missing, no one connected the dots until the police found four bodies on Gilgo Beach. These women, who became known as the Gilgo Four, had gone missing between 2007 and 2010.
Upon further investigation, the police ended up finding another six bodies on the beach by 2011, including an escort who disappeared in 1996, as well as a toddler girl.
The 2020 film Lost Girls follows the woman who led to the bodies being found, Mari Gilbert (played by Amy Ryan). In May 2010, Mari's daughter, a 23-year-old escort named Shannan, made a frantic 911 call from a client's home and said she was in danger. This led to an exhaustive search by police, urged by Mari. This search is what led officials to discover the Gilgo Four. They eventually found Shannan's body eight miles from this site, though they were not convinced it was murder.
In 2023, new evidence led to a suspect, Rex Heuermann, who was arrested and charged with several of the murders.
- 710 VOTESPhoto: 20th Century Fox
In 1974, the case of Doris Blither stumped paranormal investigators. Blither claimed that she had been repeatedly attacked and sexually assaulted in her home by as many as three invisible spirits. She enlisted the help of Barry Taff and Kerry Gaynor, who worked at a parapsychology lab at UCLA.
As Taff and Gaynor investigated Blither's claims at her home, they started witnessing strange things too, like voices yelling and knocking on walls. Another witness claimed to have seen an incident where Blither son's arm was broken as he tried to stop the spirit from harming his mother.
The 1982 film The Entity is based on Blither's story, but the protagonist's name is changed to Carla Moran (Barbara Hershey). Just like Blither's claims, Carla is assaulted and tormented by a spirit, which reduces the frequency of its attacks when she moves from California to Texas - but doesn't stop entirely.
Though no one has been able to truly figure out what happened to Blither due to a lack of concrete evidence, more skeptical takes suggest some of the reports may have been sensationalized and partly caused by dysfunction or mental illness within the family, as well as by the dilapidated nature of the house.
- 813 VOTESPhoto: Netflix
The disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa has turned into a classic piece of lore in America. Hoffa was the leader of one of the biggest unions in the country, making him a very powerful man. He also was known to take meetings with mobsters, but many believe he drew the ire of the crime bosses in a way that ultimately led to his undoing.
On July 30, 1975, Hoffa was set to meet with a couple mobsters at a restaurant. It's believed that he didn't show up to the meeting, and this is when he met his end. However, it's hard to be sure about any details involving Hoffa's death because his body has never been found - leading to a vast array of unconfirmed theories of what happened.
One of the leading conspiracy theories is that he was buried under a section of seats in the Giants stadium. Another said he was chopped into little pieces, shipped to Florida, and fed to gators.
While the exact nature of Hoffa's disappearance has never been solved, Martin Scorsese's 2019 film The Irishman dives into one of the theories: that hitman Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro) ended up killing his once-friend Hoffa (Al Pacino). This theory is compelling due to the fact that it was allegedly put forth by Sheeran himself; however, investigations of Sheeran's house did not turn up conclusive evidence to support his story that he shot Hoffa within his home.
- 913 VOTESPhoto: Magnolia Pictures
The 2010 film All Good Things tells the story of a man who comes from wealth named David (Ryan Gosling) who marries a working-class woman named Katie (Kirsten Dunst). Not long after getting married, the two begin fighting. As Katie tries to build a case for leaving him, she disappears, and her body is never found.
Though the names of the characters are changed, the film is based on the case of Robert Durst and his wife Kathleen McCormack Durst. Robert first met Kathleen when she was a teenager, and they married when he was 30 and she was 19. Their marriage did start falling apart, with Kathleen reportedly wanting to get a divorce. Then, on January 6, 1982, Kathleen was admitted to the hospital for treatment of bruises from a physical assault. On February 5, Robert reported his wife missing, and she was never found. Then, a few years later, a close friend of Robert's, Susan Berman, was found murdered, and he became a lead suspect in the case.
Although the film was made about an unsolved crime, it unintentionally contributed to solving the case, at least in part. Durst himself saw the film All Good Things and reached out to the director, Andrew Jarecki, who then filmed a docuseries about Durst (2015's The Jinx). While filming, Durst took a break to go the bathroom with his microphone on. While in the bathroom, he muttered,
There it is, you're caught. What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course.
Though it took several years, that audio became evidence when Robert was then taken to trial for the murder of Susan Berman and was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison in late 2021. However, Kathleen McCormack's disappearance still remains officially unsolved (Durst was charged with her murder a month after the previous trial, but passed away in early 2022 before the case could proceed further).
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- 1023 VOTES
In the winter and spring of 1946, most people in the United States were celebrating. The Allies had just won World War II, and the soldiers were finally back home.
However, in Texarkana (near the border of Texas and Arkansas), the townspeople were holing up in their homes, afraid to go out at night. Why? Because of the Moonlight Murders.
The 1976 thriller The Town That Dreaded Sundown follows the events of the murders, even filming near Texarkana to give it as realistic a feel as possible. The nighttime killing spree consisted of targeting three couples, who were often parked alone on rural roads (or “lovers' lanes” as they were called). The fourth attack was against a middle-aged couple in their rural farmhouse. When the dust settled, five people had died, while three more had serious injuries.
Despite valiant efforts, there was never enough hard evidence to locate the killer. The survivors described seeing a man with a cloth over his head, with eye holes cut out, leaving little for police to go on. The murders stopped in May of 1946, and the police were never able to identify the so-called Phantom Killer.
- 1115 VOTESPhoto: 20th Century Fox
One of the most famous serial killers from all of history, Jack the Ripper terrorized East London in the summer of 1888, murdering at least five women, several of whom were prostitutes. The killer also removed organs from some of the victims, leading people to come up with many theories as to who he was, and what his purpose for killing was.
These murders are explored in 2001's From Hell. The film follows the real lead investigator of the case, Frederick Abberline (Johnny Depp) as he attempts to solve the murders in 1888. In the film, Abberline uses psychic visions to aid him in his quest. The title comes from a particular note sent in connection with the murders, known as the “From Hell” letter, which was sent alongside a human kidney.
To this day, people are still investigating who was behind the Jack the Ripper murders, but no suspect has been proven to be behind them without a doubt.
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The 1993 film Fire in the Sky starts off like many true crime films. In 1975, a logger named Travis Walton was out with his crew driving down a forest road in Arizona. The crew members claim to have seen a light shining down on the road, which Walton approached. The crew drove away, terrified, and couldn't find Walton when they returned.
This started a multi-day effort to try and locate Walton, utilizing search dogs and helicopters. Then, five days later, Walton was discovered at a gas station, severely dehydrated and naked.
So who did Walton claim had kidnapped him? Aliens. Naturally, conspiracy theories started flooding in in response to this claim. Was Walton really abducted? Did he make it all up? Was it all covered up?
Fire in the Sky claims that Walton and the crew members who saw the light did pass multiple lie detector tests. One witness, though, came forward in 2021 to withdraw his association with the event. Michael H. Rogers confusingly affirmed that, “The event most definitely happened, from our perspective anyway,” but then added, "I don't believe Travis is an honest person, and therefore I want nothing to do with him." Thus, the truth of the incident still remains in question.
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Perhaps one of the most well-known unsolved mysteries involves the famous Bigfoot. While some claim that Bigfoot has harmed or even killed people, any accusations against the creature are equally hard to verify or definitively debunk, considering no one has been able to prove that Bigfoot is even real.
No matter how many years pass, people never stop searching for the mysterious creature, with another video popping up in October 2023 that seemingly shows a sighting of Bigfoot in Colorado.
The 2013 found-footage film Willow Creek explores the mystery of Bigfoot, as a couple go to try to film the creature, and end up coming upon one of his victims. The story is set in the Northern California town which proclaims itself the “Bigfoot Capital of the World” and hosts many Bigfoot-themed events, in honor of many reported sightings in the area.
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