Listen, we love a marathon of classic rom-coms as much as the next girl, but sometimes you need something a bit more compelling in between your viewings. Luckily, Netflix understands and has more true-crime viewing options than you would believe.
From the real-life stories of serial killers everyone knows about, to modern stories that will keep you guessing at every twist (take our word for it and start with Don't F**k With Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer), Netflix has everything a true-crime stan needs.
Crazy kidnapping stories, robberies gone wrong, and everything in between – here are the best true-crime documentaries to stream on Netflix.
The Best True Crime Documentaries On Netflix
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The Hatchet Wielding Hitchhiker
If you watch this completely nuts true-crime documentary, you'll learn about Caleb Lawrence McGillvary, a homeless Canadian who shot to fame after an interview in which he described an attack that he witnessed, went viral. But just a few years later, everything went wrong and this time it was Caleb - or 'Kai' as he called himself - who was found guilty of first-degree murder.
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Worst Roommate Ever
Thought your roommate was bad? At least they didn't try to murder you. We assume. If they did, maybe you could tell your story to Netflix for the second series...
Worst Roommate Ever tells the varying stories of individuals who found themselves at risk from the people that they were sharing a house with.
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Tinder Swindler
Swipe, swipe, swipe. It's not easy to find love online, so when Cecilie matches with a handsome billionaire playboy, she can't quite believe it when he turns out to be the man of her dreams. But dreams aren't reality and by the time she discovers this international businessman isn't who he says he is, it's too late. He's taken her for everything.
Where this fairytale ends, a revenge thriller begins. Cecilie discovers his other targets and once they band together, they're victims no more: The Tinder Swindler meets his match. From the producers of 'The Imposter' and 'Don't F**k with Cats', this riveting feature documentary follows as they uncover his true identity and fight to bring him to justice.
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Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story
Jimmy Savile rose to prominence in a career spanning decades in the entertainment industry in the UK. By the time of his death on 29 October 2011, he had raised millions for charity, been knighted by the Queen and achieved national treasure status. His funeral was even broadcast live on the BBC.
Since his death however, independent investigations and those made by Scotland Yard uncovered that Savile had been a prolific and predatory sex offender, abusing hundreds of people, some as young as five. To date, more than 450 allegations of sexual assault and abuse have been made against him.
This true-crime documentary examines, through extensive archive footage, Savile's relationship with the British people, the establishment and the media to understand how he managed to fool an entire nation for so long.
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Trust No One: The Hunt for the Crypto King
In the paranoid world of cryptocurrency there's only one rule: trust no one. So when Gerry Cotten, the CEO of Canada's largest Cryptocurrency exchange QuadrigaCX, dies in mysterious circumstances, he takes the password to $250 million of customers' funds to the grave. A group of horrified investors refuse to accept the official narrative. They believe Gerry's 'death' has all the hallmarks of an 'exit scam,' that he is still alive and has run off with their money.
This is the thrilling story of their investigation into a dark world where no one and nothing is what it seems. Will they be able to unravel the mystery at the heart of Quadriga, find Gerry Cotten, and finally get their money back?
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The Ripper
Chronicling the twists and turns of the largest police manhunt in British police history, this evocative four part series re-examines the crimes of The Yorkshire Ripper within the context of England in the late 1970s: a time of radical change, de-industrialisation, poverty, masculinity and misogyny, all of which contributed to the Ripper evading capture for so long.
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Don't F**k with Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer
Don't F**k with Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer was a hugely successful lockdown release, but if you haven't seen this completely crazy true-crime documentary, it's well worth a watch.
After a video of a mysterious figure killing two kittens is posted online, a group of amateur online sleuths launches a risky manhunt to find and catch the killer. In an insane game of cat-and-mouse, they follow him around the world until they uncover his true identity, bringing them into a dark underworld.
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Athlete A
Athlete A follows the heart-breaking true story of Maggie Nichols and other USA gymnasts as they were betrayed by USA Gymnastics, the organisation that should have been keeping them safe.
Led by reporters from The Indianapolis Star, this documentary gives an inside look at how Dr Larry Nassar's sexual abuse of young gymnasts was exposed, landing him behind bars.
American Murder: The Family Next Door
34-year-old Shanann Watts and her two young daughters went missing in Colorado in 2018. This documentary, led entirely by archival footage and social media posts, pieces together the hours and days after their disappearance, giving a voice to the victims for the first time.
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Trial By Media
This six-part Netflix documentary series reflects on how some of the most dramatic and memorable trials in recent history have been transformed into a form of entertainment by the media.
The cases delved into include the shooting of 22 year old Amadou Diallo by four plain-clothed officers who - despite overwhelming evidence - were eventually found not guilty of the crime.
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Trial 4
After being charged as a teenager in the 1993 killing of a Boston police officer, Sean K Ellis faces his fourth trial as he fights to prove his innocence and expose the corrupt system that put him away for over two decades.
Delving into the systematic racism that Sean experience's, Trial 4 makes for very gripping viewing.
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Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez
Told through interviews with friends, former teammates, and insiders to the case, this dramatic docu-series looks at how NFL star Aaron Hernandez went from a rising American football player to a convicted killer after he murdered his friend Odin Lloyd.
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Abducted in Plain Sight
Abducted in Plain Sight is a wild ride, so buckle up.
The story starts in 1974 when 12-year-old Jan Broberg is abducted from her small community in Idaho by a trusted neighbour and close family friend. She's then returned home to her parents...only to be abducted again by the same man.
Casting JonBenet
Child beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey was killed in her family home in Boulder, Colorado in 1996 at only six years old. A handwritten ransom note was found in the house and her father found her body in their basement eight hours after she was reported missing, but her murder has never been solved. This documentary explores the case two decades later.
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The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann
The disappearance of Madeleine McCann is a case that most of us are familiar with as the tragedy was felt around the world.
This documentary series looks into the details of the 3-year-old's disappearance from the seaside resort of Praia de Luz, Portugal while on holiday with her family.
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The Alcasser Murders
In November 1992, three girls Miriam García, Antonia 'Toñi' Gómez, and Desirée Hernández in Valencia, Spain were kidnapped, raped, tortured and murdered after hitchhiking a ride to a nearby nightclub.
This Spanish docu-series delves into the horrific case with exclusive interviews with the friends and family of the victims as well as details on the court case of Antonio Anglés and Miguel Ricart.
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Out of Thin Air
This documentary picks up 40 years after six people were convicted for two unusual murders in Iceland, proving that confessions aren't always what they seem.
Out of Thin Air will leave you questioning everything, especially the details of the gripping and unusual case.
Conversations With a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes
Before being caught in 1978, notorious serial killer Ted Bundy was able to hide in plain sight for years while committing the horrific rapes and murders of more than 30 women.
This documentary allows us to get inside the head of one of America's worst killers in a way never before possible by showing exclusive, never-before-heard interviews with Bundy himself.
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The Confession Killer
American serial killer Henry Lee Lucas was convicted of murdering eleven people between 1960-1983 however, he rose to infamy after confessing to hundreds of murders to the Texas Rangers. This documentary tries to find the truth about how many people he was guilty of killing.
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The Innocent Man
This six-part documentary, based on John Grisham's best-selling book, The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town, focuses on two murders that shook the small town of Ada, Oklahoma in the 1980s.
The Staircase
In 2001, Kathleen Peterson, wife of novelist Michael Peterson, was found dead at the bottom of the stairs in their family home. Michael claimed she fell down the stairs, but the medical examiner determined she had been beaten with a weapon, leading to Michael becoming a murder suspect.
This series, which began in 2005 and was then updated in 2013 and 2018, follows the investigation of Michael Peterson for his wife's murder.
Dirty Money
This interesting documentary looks at the way the rich are able to get richer through stories of scandal and corruption with the cases investigated including the shady deals in Donald Trump's empire and the scandal surrounding Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak.
Amanda Knox
It's a story we're all familiar with, but this documentary provides new insights into the case of American study abroad student Amanda Knox who was accused of murdering her British roommate Meredith Kercher.
Amanda Knox explores the infamous case that shocked the world.
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Making a Murderer Part One
This unique docu-series was filmed over a ten-year period and tells the real-life story of DNA exoneree Steven Avery who finds himself the prime suspect of a murder investigation while in the middle of exposing corruption within local law enforcement.
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Making a Murderer Part Two
Part two picks up where part one left off, this time with a focus on Avery's nephew Brendan Dassey who, at 16, confessed to being a party to first-degree murder, mutilation of a corpse, and second-degree sexual assault.
![True Crime Documentaries on Netflix](https://images.bauerhosting.com/legacy/media/5df2/798c/5b65/5a2f/affa/af8c/The%20Investigator.jpg?auto=format&w=1440&q=80)
The Investigator: A British Crime Story
This documentary focuses on the mysterious disappearance of Carole Packman, who vanished without a trace in 1985, and the man convicted of her murder: her husband, Russell Causley, despite Carole's body never being recovered.
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Dirty John: The Dirty Truth
This documentary tells the real-life story of Debra Newell, who falls in love with serial con-man John Meehan.
You really have to see it to believe it.
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The Devil Next Door
This documentary tells the crazy-but-true story of John Demjanjuk, a retired Ukranian-American autoworker living in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio in the 1980s with his wife and children, who is accused by Holocaust survivors of being 'Ivan the Terrible,' a notorious Nazi death camp guard who is known for torturing and killing nearly 1 million Jewish prisoners.
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Wild Wild Country
When controversial guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh builds his utopian city in the Oregon desert, the local ranchers are none too happy. This documentary shows the conflict between the two, which led to the first bioterrorism attack in the US.
Evil Genius
This four-part true-crime documentary tells the story of a botched robbery and horrifying murder in Erie, Pennsylvania - known as the 'Pizza Bomber Heist' - that captured the world's attention.
The Keepers
In November 1969, Sister Cathy Cesnik, a beloved Catholic nun and high school teacher, went missing. Two months later, he body was found and her murder has never been solved.
This seven-part documentary tells the story of her death and the secrets it uncovered.
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Tell Me Who I Am
When 18-year-old Alex Lewis wakes up from a coma after being in a motorcycle accident, he can't remember anything: his home, his parents, his name. The only thing he remembers is his identical twin brother, Marcus, who he relies on to teach him everything. But Marcus leaves a dark family secret out of the story he tells Alex and now, after decades of lying, he comes clean to his twin brother.