The 20 Best True Crime Documentaries Ever Made

There's never been a better time to be a fan of true crime. It seems like every week, some streamer releases a buzzy new show, one algorithmically engineered to get you texting your friends, "Have you seen Episode 4!?" The genre has been around as long as people have been telling each other stories, grasping for respectability as it moved from disposable penny dreadfuls to pulp 1950s magazines like "True Detective" to critically-acclaimed reported works like "In Cold Blood" (and less-acclaimed paperbacks you might find in the racks at a drugstore), and finally to TV, film, and in the 2010s, podcasts. These days, there's more true crime content than any fan could hope to consume. Some are lurid and others artistic. Some are designed just to fill the airwaves, while others are engineered to seek justice for marginalized victims.

As fans fill their minds with graphic details of murders and molestations, though, their conceptions of "justice" may either get entrenched or upended. This is what The New Republic calls "the 'My Favorite Murder' problem;" some audiences cheer things like the death penalty as the ultimate corrective to crime while others want to tear down the system. Still, if you're a fan of the genre, this prestige true-crime wave also means the best and most thoughtful installments have never been more accessible. We've prepared a list that'll guide you through the 20 best true crime documentaries ever made, helping you sort out the good stuff from the dreck.

People watch true crime for a lot of reasons, including to take an unflinching look at the dark underbelly of the world in a controlled, safe way. In 1992, directors Arthur Ginsberg and Tom Spain released "The Iceman Tapes: Conversations with a Killer" as part of HBO's "America Undercover" series of documentaries. The film is about as "unflinching" as true-crime docs get. Made up of lengthy interview footage of notorious mob hitman Richard Kuklinski, the film consists mostly of the Iceman recounting his crimes in close-up, speaking in a cold, dispassionate way sure to send chills down the spine of even the most seasoned true-crime viewer. "I'd say, if I were to do somebody, I'd want at least five figures," Kuklinski deadpans, staring just off-camera, as though daring the unheard interviewers to challenge him.

Its black-and-white dramatic reenactments of Kuklinski's many murders are considerably more lurid than the artistic shots in "The Thin Blue Line," and its narration resembles a "60 Minutes" segment, but in some ways, this makes the documentary all the more disturbing to watch. Almost two decades later, Ginsberg returned to speak with the hitman once again, directing a worthwhile follow-up called "The Iceman Confesses: Secrets of a Mafia Hitman." Years after that, nearing the end of the killer's life, they teamed up for one final film, "The Iceman and the Psychiatrist." But nothing beats the original.

When I first became interested in true crime, the French docuseries "The Staircase" was difficult to find. The eight-episode series was about the death of an American woman named Kathleen Peterson and the trial of her husband Michael, a novelist who stood accused of her murder. ABC News aired a shortened, two-hour version of the story in 2004, and the series later aired on the Sundance Channel in 2005, and then became hard to watch. I believe I originally saw it on YouTube, in low-quality TV rips that were quickly taken down; nonetheless, I found myself gripped by what a twisted, convoluted tale it was. Director Jean-Xavier de Lestrade was given an incredible amount of access to Peterson and his family, leading to many moments that'll make you lean forward in your seat, desperate to read the eccentric Peterson's expression to see whether he's telling the truth — or whether he's a cold-blooded killer.

Nowadays, of course, on the other side of a Netflix revival and a star-studded HBO miniseries that lightly fictionalized the incident, "The Staircase" stands as an influential, widely-accessible work of true crime. Though the new episodes produced for Netflix drag the story out perhaps longer than it needs to be, the series is yet another fascinating account of a documentarian returning to his subject to examine what has changed and what's remained consistent, putting it in the lineage of the "Iceman" series and the "Paradise Lost" trilogy as much as it as a precursor to, say, "Tiger King: Season 2."

In 2012, Joshua Oppenheimer's "The Act of Killing" took the film world by storm. The Oscar-nominated doc uses the very concept of the true-crime dramatic reenactment as its central conceit — except, in this case, Oppenheimer has the killers themselves reenact what they did. It's astounding to witness, as you might imagine. The film focuses on the mass slaughter that took place in Indonesia in the 1960s, and Oppenheimer turns his camera on the men who led the death squads, asking them to recreate their memories however they wish. Some of them choose straightforward, horrific restagings, others craft cheesy action sequences, and one even reinterprets his recollections as a musical number. It's an incisive, searing investigation into the crimes themselves — often forgotten by the world — but it's also a powerful statement on cinema as memory.

When the film won Best Documentary at the BAFTA Awards, Oppenheimer said that the United States and the United Kingdom have "collective responsibility" for both "participating in and ignoring" what happened in Indonesia (per The Guardian). According to Filmmaker Magazine, his acceptance speech was then censored when it was posted online, which, you know, sort of proves his point. Don't make the same mistake the BAFTAs did; bear witness instead to what Oppenheimer is asking you to confront.

Sarah Koenig's podcast "Serial" whet audiences' appetites for, famously, "one story, told week by week." While there were some exceptions — "The Staircase," for one — true crime had typically been the purview of either documentary films or shows like "20/20," "America's Most Wanted," or "Unsolved Mysteries," which covered a crime (or often several crimes) over the course of a single episode. In early 2015, HBO began airing "The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst," an investigation into several disappearances connected with the wealthy real-estate developer. Each episode involved twists and cliffhangers that brought viewers back the following week, eager to see just how Durst would weasel his way out of an ever-tightening noose. "The Jinx" also featured artistic reenactments of events, closer to Errol Morris than to the blue-hued trashiness of late-night true-crime.

At this point, you likely know that the series ends with a climactic admission from Durst. It's a moment that had me leaping off my couch in utter shock, yelling at my television as I've never yelled at my television before. It also dragged filmmakers Andrew Jarecki and Marc Smerling into the story, sparking a meta-conversation about the ethics of true crime; after all, they might've sat on important evidence so as not to spoil the finale of their TV show. Controversy erupted, Durst was arrested, and "The Jinx" went down in true-crime history. Even knowing all of that, the series is well worth a watch to see just how the filmmakers pulled it off.

Born in 1990, I knew the basics of the O.J. Simpson trial by the time I watched ESPN's kaleidoscopic doc "O.J.: Made in America," but I found it extremely informative. It's nearly eight hours long, but let's not get into the debate about whether it's a film or a TV show (though it did win the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature). It uses every minute to cover the deluge of contemporary news footage and analysis moving from the broader social context — the Rodney King riots, O.J.'s career as a football star and film actor — to the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, and finally the trial and its aftermath.

It's a thorough depiction that doesn't shy away from the gruesome specifics of the crime. Viewers should be aware that "O.J.: Made in America" includes graphic photos of Nicole Brown Simpson's body, driving home what felt in the news like abstract descriptions of what was done to her. It's sickening to see, but it has its place; the film's project is to include every detail, as hard as it may be to watch.

A few years into the prestige true-crime wave, filmmaker Ryan White released "The Keepers" on Netflix, telling the story of the unsolved murder of a young nun from Baltimore. The series suggests that Sister Cathy Cesnik might have been killed to cover up rampant sexual abuse in the Catholic church, specifically at the high school where she taught. As was becoming standard for the format, each episode ends with a cliffhanger that ensures viewers will keep clicking that "Next Episode" button. It's a tragic story without a clear resolution, and haunting how little was done to get justice for Sister Cathy.

The following year, Netflix released "Evil Genius," a decently well-made series about the infamous Pizza Bomber case. Unlike that show, which features a narrator who, at the end of Episode 2, "got up off [his] couch and drove" into the story — throwing its portrayal of its central criminal off-kilter, if you ask me — "The Keepers" keeps its documentarian's personal connection to the case close to the chest. A lot of the story's explosive testimony comes from a woman known only as Jane Doe; the woman is actually a friend of White's aunt, and White's aunt was, in fact, a student of Sister Cathy. That may have been White's way in, but unlike a lot of prestige true crime, the series isn't about that, and it's stronger for it.

If you or someone you know may be the victim of child abuse, please contact the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child (1-800-422-4453) or contact their live chat services.

Another trend that emerged in the mid-2010s was the social media true-crime doc. Think that episode of "American Vandal" that attempted to piece together a comprehensive timeline of the infamous party from hundreds of Snapchat videos, Instagrams, tweets, etc., and you've got a pretty good idea of "Roll Red Roll," Nancy Schwartzman's searing indictment of the Steubenville rape case and resulting frenzy of slut-shaming that occurred in 2012. The film also exemplifies another growing trend: the true-crime fanatic who becomes part of her own case. Here, it's blogger Alexandria Goddard, the writer who broke the case wide open online by digging into the social media accounts of the students involved in the rape. Her writing drew ire from the community, who wanted to protect the perpetrators. 

Unlike later installments in the social-media subgenre (such as "Don't F**k with Cats"), "Roll Red Roll" is admirably restrained, allowing its subjects' own writing to speak for itself. Schwartzman's camera, too, lingers on the people she interviews, letting victim-blaming statements like, "When you put yourself in that position, you have to take some responsibility for your actions," hang uncomfortably in the air. The film's use of football play-style X's and O's to map out the actions of its central players is a chilling grace note on top of an incisive look at both a moment and its context, earning "Roll Red Roll" a well-deserved place on this list.

If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).

Plenty of documentaries on this list have specific points of view, clearly angling for some kind of result. Randall Adams was released from prison after "The Thin Blue Line," while "Making a Murderer" clearly thinks Brendan Dassey was in no state of mind to give a confession. The documentary on this list that most clearly serves as activism, however, is "Surviving R. Kelly," produced by filmmaker Dream Hampton, which attempted to shine a spotlight on the open secret of R&B singer R. Kelly's many sex crimes. When it was released on Lifetime in 2019, it prompted a cultural reckoning. Collaborators like Lady Gaga disavowed the singer, and the renewed attention ultimately led to Kelly being sentenced to 30 years in prison (via CNN).

Aside from its broader cultural implications, it's also just a solid piece of filmmaking. Intertitles show denials from Kelly's lawyers in stark white text on black backgrounds, contrasted with intimately-lit, emotional talking heads from his victims, survivors, and commentators. A powerful collage of sources as varied as news broadcasts and "South Park" clips proves that everyone knew what was going on, but no one did anything about it. It's a damning watch. Like many docuseries have, "Surviving R. Kelly" returned for a second season that attempted to sift through the aftermath of its own release. The title of the second season finale points proudly to the doc's function as advocacy, also serving as a statement of purpose: "Bring Our Girls Home."

If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).

HBO's tragic docuseries "Murder on Middle Beach" is about the unsolved killing of Barbara Hamburg, found murdered outside her Connecticut home in 2010. A decade of questions about the incident led her son, Madison Hamburg, to craft this intimate documentary about what happened and how he's gone on. As a result, a number of growing trends in the genre culminate in one emotional series. Like many other prestige true-crime installments on this list, "Murder on Middle Beach" is not just about the case, but is about a true-crime filmmaker's investigation, and about the way the genre can be used to work through personal pain. It also focuses on the victims and survivors of the crime; by necessity, with no killer arrested, all that's left is for Hamburg to excavate his own family trauma.

Hamburg's dedication to following every lead puts the spotlight on some members of his own family, and the series is genuinely thrilling as the young man tries to figure out which of his relatives might have been involved in his mom's death. The talking-head interviews are intimate and emotional; after all, these are family members speaking kindly to their nephew, brother, or son. It's intensely sad, immensely respectful, and extremely impressive for a young filmmaker, ultimately a portrait of a man coming into his own as he learns to live in the aftermath of the sort of crime most true-crime fans only experience as audience members.

Joe Berlinger's "Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel" didn't get great reviews. The Rotten Tomatoes summary, for example, calls it "a sad story, poorly told." Let's be honest, there is no crime here in the traditional sense (although the Netflix series is damning in its depiction of a broader societal failure: Skid Row). What happened to Elisa Lam, though — that erratic elevator video, the death in the water tower on the roof — was a tragic accident, and it can feel exploitative to go over the incident in excruciating detail, poring over every rumor and online conspiracy theory.

But this is Joe Berlinger we're talking about, the man who made the "Paradise Lost" trilogy. He understands the genre he's working with inside and out, and in its final episodes, this docuseries turns itself inside out, too. It becomes about true-crime obsession gone bad, about keyboard "investigators" whose general sense that "something doesn't feel right" does more harm than good. It's not (just) an exploitative retelling of the death of a woman who was likely experiencing a mental health crisis; it's about how exploitative all of these stories are, turning tragedy into consumable content. "Don't F**k with Cats" worked at something similar, pummeling viewers with a direct-to-camera accusation in its final moments. "The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel" is more subtle, and fans of true crime should reckon with it.