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35 great true crime stories: true crime articles to read online, murder stories, the body in room 348 by mark bowden, the case of the vanishing blonde by mark bowden, true crime by david grann, the lazarus file by matthew mcgough, the truck stop killer by vanessa veselka, the girl in the picture by nile cappello, mysterious circumstances by david grann, the unbelievable tale of a fake hitman, a kill list, a darknet vigilante... and a murder by gian m. volpicell, the sicario by charles bowden, the untold story of silk road by joshuah bearman, the young and the reckless by brendan i. koerner, the most deceptive hack in history by andy greenberg, how an entire nation became russia's test lab for cyberwar by andy greenberg, the most devastating cyberattack in history by andy greenberg, organised crime, crimetown usa by david grann, cocaine incorporated by patrick radden keefe, the hunt for el chapo by patrick radden keefe, white collar crime, the $9 billion witness by matt taibbi, the biggest tax scam ever by tim dickinson, only fools and horses by barney curley, how i became a con artist by jason jellick, see also..., 150 great articles and essays.

Robbery, Heists and Theft

The untold story of the world’s biggest diamond heist by joshua davis, the greatest heist in british history by mark seal, the art of the steal by joshua bearman, pipino: gentleman thief by joshua davis and david wolman, stealing mona lisa by dorothy and thomas hoobler, bike batman by christopher solomon, other true crime cases, coronado high by joshuah bearman, the crypto trap by andy greenberg, foot. loose. by christopher solomon, an unbelieveable story of rape by t. christian miller and ken armstrong, the dangers of stash by brendan i. koerner, uncatchable by michael finkel, the great paper caper by wells tower, the ultimate counterfeiter by david wolman, in cold blood by truman capote, midnight in the garden of good and evil by john berendt, the devil in the white city by erik larson.

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Our Long-standing Obsession with True Crime

Until quite recently, when someone who actually knew what he or she was talking about took the trouble to correct it, the Wikipedia entry for “True Crime” claimed that the genre originated in 1966 with the publication of Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood.” This all-too-common misconception gets the starting date wrong by roughly 400 years.

No sooner had Gutenberg invented movable type than enterprising printers began churning out graphically violent murder ballads. Whenever a particularly ghastly killing occurred, it was promptly cast in doggerel, printed on a large sheet of paper known as a “broadside,” and peddled to the hard-working masses eager to brighten their dreary days with a little vicarious sadism. Throat-slittings, stranglings, bludgeonings and axe-murders were among the many grisly subjects of these crudely written verses, though few atrocities could match the morbid titillation of a really gruesome child-killing, as in the case of the British “monster mom” Emma Pitt:

                   This Emma Pitt was a schoolmistress,

                      Her child she killed we see,

                   Oh mothers, did you ever hear

                      Of such barbarity?

                   With a large flint stone she beat its head,

                      When such cruelty she’d done,

                   From the tender roof of the infant’s mouth

                      She cut away its tongue.

Murder ballads weren’t the only kind of crime literature available in the old days. In England, true crime books can be traced as far back as John Reynolds’ “The Triumphs of God’s Revenge Against the Crying and Execrable Sin of Murther,” an Elizabethan anthology that dished up juicy real-life stories of homicidal violence under the moralistic pretext of demonstrating that Crime Does Not Pay. Even more popular was “The Newgate Calendar: Or, Malefactors’ Bloody Register,” a constantly updated compendium of sordid true crime accounts, which, after the Bible and Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress,” was the most widely read book in Britain for more than a century.

Here in America, the public’s appetite for lurid entertainment was fed by volumes like the “The Record of Crimes in the United States” (a particular favorite of self-confessed true crime junkie, Nathaniel Hawthorne). Throughout the 19th century and into the early 20th, similar compilations were churned out on a regular basis. Perhaps the best known was the 1910 “Celebrated Criminal Cases of America,” by former San Francisco police captain Thomas S. Duke, a collection of criminal case histories covering a wide range of reprobates, from infamous outlaws like Jesse James and the Daltons to Victorian serial killers like Theodore Durrant (aka “The Demon of the Belfry”) and the Chicago “multi-murderer” Dr. H.H. Holmes. Dashiell Hammett was so addicted to Duke’s book that he kept a copy of it on his night table for bedtime reading (as does his surrogate, Sam Spade, in “The Maltese Falcon”).

Though first-rate pieces of American true crime writing appeared throughout the mid-20th century, by such writers as Damon Runyon, Herbert Asbury, Jim Thompson, Dorothy Kilgallen and especially Edmund Pearson (revered by aficionados as the dean of American true crime), a distinct air of disreputability still clung to the genre. Then came “In Cold Blood,” which elevated the book-length true crime narrative to the rarefied heights of serious literature. Unfortunately, its author also set an unfortunate precedent by indulging in the kind of novelistic embellishment (not to say rank fabrication) that has become endemic to the form. People who write true crime, of course, aren’t the only authors of creative nonfiction who have been known to improve on the truth. Given the promise of absolute veracity that is embedded in the very name of the true crime genre, however, I believe such writers have a particular obligation to stick to the facts.

Not that I’ve always done so myself. Early in my writing career, I occasionally allowed myself a bit of what I referred to as “extrapolation” (less euphemistically known as “making stuff up”). My unacknowledged credo (cribbed from the first chapter of Ken Kesey’s “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”) was “It’s the truth even if it didn’t happen.” In my defense, I restricted my fabrications to fairly minor atmospheric details. For example, in my book “Deranged: The Shocking True Story of America’s Most Fiendish Killer,” there’s a scene in which the main character—the wizened cannibal-pedophile Albert Fish (using his pseudonym, Frank Howard)—dines with the family of his future child-victim, Grace Budd. Here’s how I describe the meal:

The men retired to the kitchen, a clean but dingy-looking room illuminated by a single bare bulb that tinged the whitewashed walls a sickly yellow. The long wooden table, covered with a plaid oilcloth, held a big cast-iron pot full of ham hocks and sauerkraut—the leftover remains of the previous night’s dinner. The sharp, briny odor of the cabbage filled the room. Arranged around the pot were platters of pickled beets and boiled carrots, a basket of hard rolls and two ceramic bowls into which Mrs. Budd had transferred Frank Howard’s pot cheese and strawberries.

This lunch really happened, but I took the artistic liberty of inventing the menu. I hasten to say I did some research into the kind of food a working-class family like the Budds might have served a guest for lunch in the late 1920s. Still, I didn’t actually know what they ate; I just wanted to make the moment seem real for the reader.

I no longer permit myself even such minor bits of imaginative re-creation. My field is historic true crime—I’ve written about cases from the Civil War era to the 1950s—and I’ve come to see the genre as a legitimate branch of American historical study. After all, the Leopold and Loeb case tells us as much about the Jazz Age as Charles Lindbergh’s transatlantic flight does, just as the Manson murders shed as much light on the culture of late-1960s America as Woodstock does. To be taken as seriously as history, however, a true crime book must adhere strictly to documented fact. There’s no reason why a book-length narrative about a 19th-century serial murderer shouldn’t be held to the same rigorous standards as, for instance, a biography of Teddy Roosevelt.

My task as a writer, as I see it, is to produce a serious work of historical scholarship (my last few books have included copious endnotes) that stays true to the sensationalistic roots of the genre by providing “murder fanciers” (as Edmund Pearson called true crime lovers) with the primal pleasures they crave. In looking for a suitable subject, I try to find cases that possess some larger social or cultural significance. Shocking murders happen all the time, of course, but few of them have the ingredients to make much of an impression on the public beyond momentary shock. In the early 1920s, for example, a former showgirl named Clara Phillips—“The Tiger Woman,” the tabloids dubbed her—took a claw hammer to the skull of her husband’s mistress and bludgeoned her to death. Her crime provided the public with some fleeting titillation but quickly vanished into permanent obscurity. By contrast, the 1927 “Double Indemnity Murder” perpetrated by Queens housewife Ruth Snyder and her milquetoast lover, Judd Gray, became one of the signature crimes of the Jazz Age. What made it so riveting wasn’t the homicide per se (the victim, Ruth’s husband, Albert, suffered a death no more or less gruesome than the one inflicted on Mr. Phillip’s mistress) but the colorful cast of characters, the deliciously tawdry storyline and—most important of all—the way the crime seemed to crystalize the cultural anxieties of the day: the breakdown of traditional morality, the threatening freedoms embodied by the “New Woman” and so forth.

Of course, there will always be highbrows who cast a contemptuous eye at the true crime genre. In an essay on “In Cold Blood,” Renata Adler deplores both the original book and the 1968 movie for playing to the bloodlust of the audience by using “every technique of cheap fiction” to intensify the emotional impact of the killings. This criticism, however, seems deeply wrongheaded since, on some fundamental level, one purpose of true crime writing is precisely to provide decent law-abiding citizens with primal, sadistic thrills—to satisfy what William James called our “aboriginal capacity for murderous excitement.” The worst specimens of the genre may not rise above the quasi-pornographic level, but the best—like those exquisitely ornamented war clubs, broadswords and flintlocks displayed in museums—are a testimony to something worth celebrating: the human ability to take something rooted in our intrinsically bloodthirsty nature and turn it into craft of a very high order, sometimes even art.

15 Best True Crime Authors Who Are Must-Reads For Genre Fans

Erin Mayer is a writer and editor specializing in personal essays and musings about face creams that probably won't cure her anxiety (but hey, it's worth a shot). Her work has appeared on Bustle, Literary Hub, Man Repeller, Business Insider, and more. She spends her free time drafting tweets she never finishes and reading in front of the television. Find her at erinmayer.com .

View All posts by Erin Mayer

I’ve always been drawn to crime stories . Despite (or perhaps because of) my struggles with anxiety, I’m interested in the dark side of humanity. Which is why I’m attempting the impossible task of listing the very best true crime authors in the history of the genre. These are the best true crime authors you need to check out if you love crime journalism, in no particular order.

Michelle McNamara

Michelle McNamara passed away before completing her first book on the search for (and her personal obsession with) the Golden Gate Killer. Even so, I’ll Be Gone in the Dark   is a masterful blend of memoir and investigative journalism. While the book was posthumously completed by McNamara’s husband and research partners, you can see more of her writing at True Crime Diary .

Dave Cullen

Cullen has carved out a depressingly necessary niche as a school shootings reporter, starting with his iconic tome about the Columbine High School massacre, simply called Columbine . I cried at least three times while reading his first book, a gripping narrative that explores the killers’ motives and the aftermath of their crime. His latest is Parkland: Birth of a Movement .

Alfredo Corchado

Corchado is a Mexican American journalist. He currently works for the Dallas Morning News , where he reports on Mexico and its relationship with the United States as the Mexico City bureau chief. His autobiographical book Midnight in Mexico describes Corchado’s attempts to investigate corruption after receiving threats on his life.

The Stranger Beside Me , Rule’s best-known book by far, is a classic of the true crime genre. It’s follows the Ted Bundy case while delving into her personal relationship with the notorious killer. The two met working at a crisis clinic in Seattle. But don’t discount her other work; she’s one of the most prolific true crime authors around, with dozens of books to her name.

Erik Larson

Larson’s most famous work is  Devil in the White City , which profiles Dr. H.H. Holmes and the making of the World’s Fair. In general, he specializes in nonfiction exploring personal stories at the heart of major historical events.

Susan Orlean

Orlean doesn’t write about violent crime, but her writing is no less gripping than that of the other authors on this list. If you have a weak stomach, check out The Orchid Thief   or  The Library Book . Both works have their fair share of intrigue, without the gory details found in most other books on this list

Jon Krakauer

Krakauer might be best known for  Into the Wild ,  but several of his works fall under the category of true crime.  Missoula   is an exploration of sexual assault on a college campus. Under the Banner of Heaven   investigates crime in the Mormon Fundamentalist community.

MAry Kay McBrayer

Book Riot’s own Mary Kay McBrayer is a newcomer on the true crime scene, but her forthcoming first book,  America’s First Female Serial Killer: Jane Toppan and the Making of a Monster ,  is a must-read. The best part? It’s currently available for preorder and comes out on May 19, 2020.

Bryan Stevenson

Stevenson is a lawyer and an author. His most famous work is Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption , an autobiographical account of Stevenson’s work on the Walter McMillian case. This story about race and inequality in our justice system and should be required reading for all Americans.

Yudhijit Bhattacharjee

If you already know everything about Edward Snowden, check out The Spy Who Couldn’t Spell . It follows the FBI investigation into Brian Regan, a dyslectic codebreaker who sold government secrets to various foreign sources.

Mara Leveritt

Leveritt’s two books on the West Memphis Three paint a complete picture of the crime and false convictions. Start with The Devil’s Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three .  Then, pick up Dark Spell: Surviving the Sentence . Leveritt wrote this in conjunction with Jason Baldwin, the youngest of men known as the West Memphis Three.

Truman Capote

In Cold Blood   is hailed as the ultimate true crime classic, and for good reason. Years after reading I remain haunted by Capote’s description of the crime scene—the family home where an entire family was slaughtered by two men. The book explores the before, during, and after of the murders that shook Holcomb, Kansas.

Deborah Blum

Interested in the scientific of crime? Blum has quite a few books on the subject, including her most famous, The Poisoner’s Handbook .  It’s about two Jazz Age scientists who helped create the beginnings of forensics as we know it today.

James Ellroy

Ellroy is known for his fictional L.A. Quartet (the third book is L.A. Confidential ). Don’t sleep on the author’s nonfiction, however. His memoir, My Dark Places ,  is an origin story of sorts.

Rabia Chaudry

Rabia Chaudry expands on the story from Serial with Adnan’s Story: The Search for Truth and Justice After Serial . The book presents new evidence and further seeks to prove Adnan Syed’s innocence in the murder of Hae Min Lee.

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The 50 Best True-Crime Docuseries

While it might seem like the proliferation of true-crime in pop culture has been a trend of the last five or ten years, in reality the genre has been a staple for at least the last 100. The National Enquirer became popular when it printed gruesome details from criminal cases, and the macabre appeal of not only learning about horrific crimes, but also examining the psychology of those who perpetrate them and honoring the victims is more popular than ever.

So today, instead of mega-popular TV newsmagazines like Dateline and other shows holding down the true-crime fort, we also have podcasts, streaming services, and even entire networks devoted to in-depth reporting on real-life cases. Netflix, Hulu, and HBO Max are already frequent contributors to the true-crime discourse, and the trend isn’t slowing. Peacock gets in on the action with John Wayne Gacy: Devil in Disguise , which premieres on March 25; IMDb TV will stream five-part docuseries Moment Of Truth , about the murder of basketball legend Michael Jordan’s father James, starting on April 2; This Is a Robbery: The World’s Biggest Art Heist drops on Netflix on April 7; and on April 18, Starz unleashes Confronting a Serial Killer from Joe Berlinger (Emmy winner for 1996 documentary film Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills ). And that’s not to mention the near-daily debut of new specials on broadcast and cable that examine true crime in some way, shape or form.

For this roundup, though, we’ve decided to focus on the true-crime docuseries that dig a little deeper into cases both famous and relatively unknown, from examinations into well-known public figures ( Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich , Allen v. Farrow , Ted Bundy: Falling for a Killer , Surviving R. Kelly ) to deep dives into smaller cases ( Making A Murderer , How to Fix a Drug Scandal , The Staircase ). These are the series that go deeper than a typical episode of Dateline or a two-hour documentary — they spend hours dissecting the people and circumstances involved in the cases that captivate audiences.

The criteria was simple: Each docuseries must have at least five reviews from critics, giving it a Tomatometer score, and that score must be Fresh at 60% or higher. If a docuseries you love isn’t on this list, chances are it doesn’t have enough reviews to meet that threshold — yet. Take a look at the list below next time you’re in the mood for a new true-crime binge.

What’s your favorite true-crime docuseries? Let us know in the comments. 

A Wilderness of Error: Season 1 (2020) 64%

Don't F**K with Cats: Hunting An Internet Killer: Limited Series (2019) 69%

Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez: Season 1 (2020) 70%

Fear City: New York vs. the Mafia: Season 1 (2020) 68%

The Killing Season: Season 1 (2016) 71%

Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer: Limited Series (2021) 71%

The Innocent Man: Season 1 (2018) 74%

Captive: Season 1 () 75%

Supervillain: The Making of Tekashi 6ix9ine: Season 1 (2021) 80%

Ted Bundy: Falling for a Killer: Season 1 (2020) 80%

The Ripper: Limited Series (2020) 83%

The Family: Limited Series (2019) 80%

Evil Genius: The True Story of America's Most Diabolical Bank Heist: Season 1 (2018) 80%

The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez: Limited Series (2020) 82%

The Case Against Adnan Syed: Miniseries (2019) 82%

Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich: Season 1 (2020) 82%

Lorena: Season 1 (2019) 83%

Allen v. Farrow: Miniseries (2021) 82%

The Preppy Murder: Death in Central Park: Season 1 (2019) 83%

The Night Caller: Season 1 (2020) 83%

Making a Murderer (2015) 84%

Trial by Media (2020) 85%

How to Fix a Drug Scandal: Miniseries (2020) 86%

Heaven's Gate: The Cult of Cults: Season 1 (2020) 88%

Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness: Season 1 (2020) 84%

Outcry: Season 1 (2020) 89%

The Pharmacist: Miniseries (2020) 90%

McMillion$: Season 1 (2020) 89%

Wormwood: Miniseries (2017) 90%

The Devil Next Door: Limited Series (2019) 91%

Murder Among the Mormons: Limited Series (2021) 89%

Love Fraud: Season 1 (2020) 92%

Atlanta's Missing and Murdered: The Lost Children: Season 1 (2020) 94%

The Staircase: Season 1 (2005) 94%

Surviving R. Kelly (2019) --

The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst: Season 1 (2015) 96%

I'll Be Gone in the Dark: Season 1 (2020) 96%

I Love You, Now Die: Season 1 (2019) 97%

The Keepers: Miniseries (2017) 97%

Wild Wild Country: Season 1 (2018) 98%

No One Saw a Thing: Season 1 (2019) 100%

The Confession Tapes (2017) 100%

TIME: The Kalief Browder Story: Season 1 (2017) 100%

Free Meek: Season 1 (2019) 100%

The Innocence Files (2020) 100%

Murder on Middle Beach: Season 1 (2020) 100%

Rest in Power: The Trayvon Martin Story: Miniseries (2018) 100%

Seduced: Inside the NXIVM Cult: Miniseries (2020) 100%

The Lady and the Dale: Miniseries (2021) 100%

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How to Write Great True Crime

Hint: Branch out from serial killers coming through the window.

True crime is one of the most popular forms of entertainment. The genre grips audiences across mediums, in films and television, and—perhaps in its original form—literature.

Despite an arguably elevated cultural position, literary works can be as formulaic and mass-produced as anything onscreen. In the world of crime writing, that’s often the case. With demand high, creators can churn out whodunnits as fast as consumers can devour them.

Writing in  World Literature Today , mystery novelist J. Madison Davis tackles the subject of what separates the wheat from the chaff in the craft of crime writing. It’s far more than a grisly backstory, he explains; the market is flooded with blood-soaked paperbacks.  “ Judging the Edgar Allan Poe award for ‘best fact crime’ in 1992 was an incredibly depressing experience,” he writes. “Serial killers were popular as subjects, and their stories were monotonously consistent.”

In fact, Davis read so many books that used a similar structure that he produced a basic format in full (to the bemusement of anyone who has ever picked up a discounted crime novel).

The book opens with Joe Sicko sharpening his axe or climbing into the window of the victim’s house. About the time he reaches the top of the stairs, the author ends the chapter (often glorified by the title “Prologue”), suspending the gore and jumping all the way back to when Joe…began his life as a child. He doesn’t stand a chance, given his dysfunctional home. The book then follows the long progress of Joe to become the monster at the top of the stairs. If Joe’s unhappy development becomes too boring, the book may be interrupted with interludes portraying the indomitable avenger who will bring Joe down. After arriving back at the top of the stairs (so to speak), the book then fulfills its promise of carnage and unwinds with the detective work that brings Joe down.

So much for what makes a crime book formulaic. The more pertinent topic Davis discusses is what elevates a work into “the level of lasting literature.” While acknowledging that art is an intensely personal (and therefore subjective) experience, he also highlights that, in judging among hundreds of books submitted for an award annually, “writers of widely divergent backgrounds and locations create…similar lists of finalists,” suggesting a common understanding of what makes great crime writing.

“Writers know good writing, just as musicians know good music, and the elements of this seemingly intangible quality are much more specific than most people think,” Davis explains.

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In Davis’s view, a common misstep is thinking that true crime writing has to be equivalent to journalism: clinging closely to facts and dismissing artistry and interpretation, as though there is a sharp line between “nonfiction” and “fiction.” He points out two examples that reject this notion, to great success: Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood , arguably the germinal work of true crime and simultaneously recognized as a great work of literature, and Norman Mailer’s The Executioner’s Song , which won the Pulitzer Prize.

“In the end,” Davis explains, “it isn’t the oddity or excesses of the crime that allow true-crime books to earn the designation of literary excellence. That only comes from the writing.”

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The 50 best true-crime documentaries you can stream right now

(Ricardo Santos / For The Times)

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Cult murders, lottery heists, deadly dating apps, killer clowns: We’re in the midst of a true-crime wave, and television is the culprit. From HBO Max to A&E, true-crime programming is more prevalent than illegal weed dispensaries. So, like the authorities — at least the honest ones — we’re stepping in to help.

Here, selected by yours truly and compiled from Times coverage, are 50 of the best true-crime documentary films and TV series you can stream right now. The choices run the gamut in terms of subject matter and tone, tackling all matter of narratives: following the gumshoe detectives of “The First 48,” exposing miscarriages of justice in “Who Killed Malcolm X?,” chronicling crimes so bizarre it’s hard to believe they qualify as true in “Sasquatch.”

The filmmakers behind these productions have solved crimes, freed the wrongly accused, exposed the guilty and given voice to victims and survivors. And yes, they’ve also unraveled the twisted tales of heinous murders, heartless scams and wanton corruption for the sake of entertainment. Critics of the genre argue that true crime is exploitative and voyeuristic, and there’s no doubt that’s part of its allure. True-crime buffs often point to the thrill of playing armchair detective (see “Don’t F— With Cats”) and the satisfaction of solving a real-life puzzle. I’d like to believe the form has become so popular because perps and their wrongdoings are exposed in the majority of the programming, and accountability is in short supply elsewhere these days.

Like any list, of course, this one comes with limitations: I’ve excluded programming from networks dedicated to the genre, such as Investigation Discovery and Oxygen, which feature so much content they deserve their own guide. How else to do justice to national treasures such as “Snapped” and “Homicide Hunter: Lt. Joe Kenda”? I’ve also sought to strike a balance among many tones and subjects, so the reasons for including the titles vary as much as their production values. Some are bar-setting films from master documentarians, others are necessary works from filmmakers who uncovered incredible stories. Some were simply too juicy to pass up.

And you may be surprised by a few of the big titles that didn’t make the list, like “Making a Murderer” and “The Staircase.” I could write lengthy essays on my issues with both docuseries, but I’ll spare you. In short, I left them out because I found problematic the artistic license both series used to make their point. Go ahead. Arrest me.

To my fellow true-crime aficionados: I’ve undoubtedly overlooked your favorites or promoted others that have no business on this list! I get it. But once you’ve stopped fuming, I hope you’ll discover titles that are new to you, or give another shot to one you previously dismissed. Sleuth away. — Lorraine Ali

Curated by Lorraine Ali Compiled by Ed Stockly

50. Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal

2023 | TV-MA | 1 Season | Documentary series Netflix: Included Created by Jenner Furst and Julia Willoughby Nason

The Murdaughs. Perhaps you’ve heard of them? The prominent Hampton County, S.C., family once renowned for their wealth and power are now at the center of so much death that multiple documentaries are required just to keep up. Netflix’s series is perhaps the best of the bunch when it comes to organizing the mayhem into a cohesive, crisp narrative, and there’s a lot to catalog: the 2014 murder of a student with ties to the family. The 2018 death of the Murdaughs’ longtime housekeeper, Gloria Satterfield, and the dubious life insurance scam around her demise. The 2019 death of Mallory Beach during a reckless boating collision. And the 2021 double homicide of Alex Murdaugh’s son Paul and his wife, Margaret. “Fyre Fraud” filmmakers Jenner Furst and Julia Willoughby Nason chronicle the downfall of the family dynasty and now-disgraced former attorney Alex Murdaugh over three episodes using interviews with former friends, lovers, law-enforcement officials, attorneys and journalists to show how the Murdaugh clan’s stunning abuse of power and privilege spiraled into a national obsession. Alex was sentenced to life for the murders of his wife and son, but with so many dubious deaths in his wake, this story isn’t over — not by a long shot. Expect a second season. — Lorraine Ali

49. Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story

2022 | TV-MA | 1 Season | Documentary series Netflix: Included Created by Rowan Deacon

Generations of British children grew up watching Jimmy Savile as the jovial host of the kids show “Jim’ll Fix It” and the effervescent emcee of “Top of the Pops.” The affable DJ and philanthropist was renowned for his bizarre hairdos, quirky demeanor and ability to charm everyone from Muhammad Ali to the royals. But after his 2011 death, a U.K. investigation found that Savile sexually abused at least 500 victims throughout his career from 1955 to the mid-2000s. He preyed upon children in BBC’s broadcasting studios, at children’s hospitals and inside schools. The majority of Savile’s alleged victims were between ages 13 and 15, but some were as young as 2 years old. The late entertainer’s decades-long abuse of the young people he purported to be helping is chronicled in this two-part documentary, and though the film could use some reorganizing, it tells the fascinating tale of a predator who hid in plain sight. The film shows how many in the U.K. media and entertainment worlds knew something was wrong but chose to ignore his troubling behavior. After all, Savile was a “national treasure.” Prepare to be enraged. — Lorraine Ali

48. Dr. Death: The Undoctored Story

2021 | TV-14 | 1 Season | Documentary series Peacock: Included Created by Sara Mast

In the hands of neurosurgeon Christopher Duntsch, surgical tools were deadly weapons. The bad doctor (now serving a life sentence) injured, maimed or killed 33 of the 38 patients who trusted him with their routine spinal surgeries in the Dallas area over a two-year period in the early 2010s. “Dr. Death: The Undoctored Story” chronicles an erratic history, from his beginnings as a manipulative, below-par medical student to a rampant drug abuser to an egomaniac whose impunity and incompetence in the operating theater injured or killed his patients and stunned his colleagues. Scarier yet, the healthcare system knew about his fatal spree but still allowed him to practice. Surgeons and nurses interviewed in the film recall in jaw-dropping detail how they continually blew the whistle on Duntsch as he continued to find employment at hospitals across the state. A serial killer with a scalpel or simply an inept doctor with a license to kill? Watch this series and decide for yourself. ( Read more ) — Lorraine Ali

47. Truth and Lies: Jonestown, Paradise Lost

2018 | TV-PG | Documentary special Hulu: Included

Created by Monica DelaRosa and David Sloan

The largest mass murder and suicide in modern history is recounted in this documentary. Over 900 members of the Peoples Temple church, many of them American, died on the cult’s remote jungle compound outside Jonestown, Guyana, in 1978 after they’d consumed a deadly cyanide-laced drink on the orders of their paranoid leader, Jim Jones. The special traces the origins of the eccentric pastor, from his church’s racially integrated beginnings in Indianapolis through its exodus from San Francisco to Guyana to avoid increased media attention and investigations.

The doc utilizes seldom-seen, raw footage, audiotapes and recently declassified FBI documents to paint the picture of a cult where grueling manual labor, abuse and starvation were everyday realities. But it’s the interviews with those who survived the horror, and the posthumous diaries and letters from those who died, that capture the downward spiral of the delusional Jones. He ordered the massacre after U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan visited Jonestown out of concern for the well-being of Jones’ followers. As Ryan was preparing to leave, he and four others (including U.S. journalists and defectors) were shot to death on the airstrip by Temple gunmen. The murders prompted Jones to command his flock to drink the poison punch. “There’s no way we can survive” he told the anguished, crying crowd. “Truth and Lies: Jonestown, Paradise Lost” is a must-watch for anyone who wishes to understand why 909 souls — many of them children — perished on the command of one demented man. — Lorraine Ali

46. Crime Stories: India Detectives

2021 | TV- MA | 1 Season | Documentary series Netflix: Included Created by N Amit and Jack Rampling

The frenetic bustle of Bangalore is the backdrop for this four-episode docuseries about crime-solving in the city of 11 million. Each episode follows a different precinct of Indian detectives from the moment a victim reports a crime to the capture of the suspects. Extortion, kidnapping and murder are among the offenses chronicled here, but it’s the distinctive setting of the series that makes it a fascinating watch. The investigations take viewers around Bangalore, from crowded slums where sex workers are found killed to the comfortable flats of tech workers in a region known as India’s Silicon Valley, a setting where nothing bad should ever happen — but does. It’s a unique window into the lives of Bengaluru’s police force, and an unexpectedly moving look at the people they’re charged with protecting. Brace yourself: A&E’s “Interrogation Raw” has nothing on the inquisition scenes here. — Lorraine Ali

45. Undercurrent: The Disappearance of Kim Wall

2022 | TV- MA | 1 Season | Documentary series HBO Max: Included Created by Erin Lee Carr

An eccentric entrepreneur, an intrepid journalist, a submarine, a murder. Swedish reporter Kim Wall disappeared in 2017 on assignment, covering what should have been a tame human interest story about a celebrity inventor and his latest contraption. She was was last seen interviewing media darling Peter Madsen aboard his self-made submarine in Danish waters, a trip from which only one of them returned. This two-part documentary chronicles the bizarre events around Wall’s demise, from her experience reporting in hot zones around the globe to the hubris of a wealthy predator who assumed he’d charm his way out of a homicide conviction. Police, prosecutors and Navy scientists are among the cadre who waded through Madsen‘s multiple lies in search of the real story. As details about Wall’s last moments emerge, the truth is far more horrific and barbaric than anyone imagined. — Lorraine Ali

44. Helter Skelter: An American Myth

2020 | TV- MA | 1 Season | Documentary series MGM+: Included | Apple TV+: Rent/Buy | Prime Video: Rent/Buy Created by Lesley Chilcott

More than half a century later, memories of the Manson Family still resemble a fever dream. It’s no wonder storytellers can’t help but reexplore the rise and fall of Charlie Manson, a diminutive ex-con, pimp and aspiring musician who amassed a following of mostly young women, plied them with LSD, sex and antiestablishment jargon, then convinced them to kill in the name of a race war. They lived on a commune. They mingled with, and murdered, celebrities. And it all happened behind the deceptive cloak of peace and love.

Compelling and comprehensive documentaries on that anomalous period in American crime are hard to come by, and while “Helter Skelter: An American Myth” isn’t perfect, it does do an excellent job of capturing the cultural confusion that ensued when a band of hippies crept into the homes of the LaBiancas and Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate to murder them in the most gruesome of ways. The six-part production follows the history of the “Family,” from its flower-power beginnings to its barbaric killing spree in the summer of 1969. Full of illuminating archival footage of Manson, his followers and the environs that shaped their unlikely ascent, the series’ hourlong episodes feature exclusive interviews with former cult members, survivors of the victims, and the men and women involved in investigating a chilling crime spree that’s now part of L.A.’s dark history. ( Read more ) —Lorraine Ali

43. How to Fix a Drug Scandal

2020 | TV-MA | 1 Season | Documentary series Netflix: Included Created b y Erin Lee Carr

This four-part series can be frustrating to watch due to its over-the-top re-creations and clunky attempts at artful camera work, but the subject at its heart is worth your time. Erin Lee Carr focuses on Sonja Farak, a chemist at a drug lab in Amherst, Mass., that was one of the state’s two main testing facilities. Her role was to test evidence gathered from drug-related cases. Her lab work and her testimony on the stand secured thousands of convictions. But she also happened to be stealing and partaking in the controlled substances she was meant to be testing, including methamphetamines and LSD. But there’s more. Across the state, a chemist at the Hinton Lab was caught forging tens of thousands of tests, and that was just the beginning of the malfeasance uncovered by authorities when they investigated Annie Dookhan. She wasn’t getting high on evidence, but she was consistently misidentifying samples, and claimed to have tested substances that she’d never in fact examined. She even falsified evidence in order to impress her bosses and move up the chain.

Together the women compromised more than 47,000 criminal cases, affecting the lives of thousands. Dookhan’s arrest resulted in an avalanche of appeals, and numerous faulty convictions were overturned, but the state attorney general’s office went to great lengths to downplay Farak as a liability, burying proof of her drug addiction, lying to district attorneys and misleading judges for five years while keeping defendants from appealing their convictions. — Lorraine Ali

42. West of Memphis

2012 | Rated R | Documentary Apple TV+: Rent/Buy | Prime Video: Rent/Buy Directed by Amy Berg

Satanic panic plagued the Bible Belt the 1980s and 1990s, when devil worship was thought to be behind seemingly every inexplicable, heinous crime. It was against this paranoid backdrop that the teens later known as the West Memphis Three were wrongfully convicted for the 1993 murder of three 8-year-old boys in West Memphis, Ark. The crime was particularly gruesome: The bodies of the boys were found naked and hogtied in a drainage ditch, and one of the young victims’ genitals had been mutilated. The unthinkable levels of cruelty and violence were assumed to be the work of a demonic cult — villains who dressed in black and listened to heavy metal, as local teens Jessie Misskelley, Jason Baldwin and Damien Echols did at the time. The trio were arrested and convicted of the murders despite a stunning lack of evidence and coerced confessions. Filmmaker Amy Berg chronicles this gross miscarriage of justice through interviews with those deeply involved in the case, including family members, witnesses and the West Memphis Three themselves. Berg rightly argues that the teens were railroaded, and DNA evidence years later appeared to implicate the stepfather of one of the deceased. After 18 years in prison and celebrity campaigns to free the men (Eddie Vedder, Johnny Depp and Natalie Maines were among those calling for their release), the West Memphis Three were released in 2011. Produced by Echols, his wife, Lorri Davis, and filmmaker Peter Jackson, “West of Memphis” is a searing indictment of the criminal justice system that shines a light on the dangers of institutional classism. ( Read more ) — Lorraine Ali

41. Monsters Inside: The 24 Faces of Billy Milligan

2021 | TV-14 | 1 Season | Documentary series Netflix: Included Created by Olivier Megaton

In 1978, Billy Milligan became the first person in U.S. history to cite multiple personality disorder in an insanity defense. But were his multiple personalities really controlling his actions, or were they simply the pretext of a dangerous, narcissistic sociopath? Netflix’s four-part investigative series revisits those questions, and the crimes of the rapist who terrorized Ohio State University before his arrest and made subsequent claims that he had no memory of the assaults. French film director Olivier Megaton (“Taken 2” and “Taken 3”) applies a cinematic lens to the docuseries format as he follows the Milligan family, friends, doctors and law enforcement who are still trying to understand Milligan’s state of mind at the time of his alleged crimes and at trial.

A litany of psychiatrists diagnosed Milligan, who was in his 20s when he was accused, with “multiple personality disorder” (known now as dissociative identity disorder). They determined he had as many as 24 distinct “multiples,” which led a jury to find Milligan innocent by reason of insanity. The landmark verdict rocked the criminal justice system, and its repercussions are still being debated today. ( Read more ) —Lorraine Ali

40. Catching Killers

2021 | TV-MA | 2 Seasons | Documentary series Netflix: Included Created by Simon Dekker

Homicide detectives recount in vivid detail the extreme measures they took to track and capture the globe’s most notorious serial killers in Netflix’s docuseries “Catching Killers.” The Green River Killer, Aileen Wuornos, BTK and the Happy Face Killer are among the subjects covered in this two-season, eight-episode collection of captivating stories told by the investigators at the forefront of solving the cases. There’s no narration or outside talking heads here, just compelling sit-down interviews with the women and men who worked on some of the country’s most notorious crimes, poring over hundreds of clues, risking their lives and suffering emotionally after witnessing gruesome scenes and interrogating sociopaths, sadists and cannibals. Their frank and humanizing testimonials, paired with archival police and news footage from the cases, illustrate the momentous effort that went into cracking some of the most egregious serial homicides in modern memory. ( Read more ) — Lorraine Ali

39. The Vow

2020 | TV-MA | 2 Seasons | Documentary series HBO Max: Included | Apple TV+: Rent/Buy | Prime Video: Rent/Buy Created by Jehane Noujaim and Karim Amer

“ The Vow ” follows disaffected members of NXIVM as they extricate themselves from the alleged cult and speak out against its leader, Keith Raniere. You might be wondering how seemingly intelligent people got involved in such a dubious operation. Weren’t they freaked out by the color-coded sashes that members wore to denote their rank? What about the outlandish claims about Raniere’s supposed intelligence or the midnight volleyball games he insisted on playing? Was anything really worth moving to the suburbs of Albany, N.Y., where the group was based?

Sarah Edmondson and Mark Vicente, two of the primary subjects of “The Vow,” say they never planned to join a cult. They were well-meaning spiritual seekers who found a sense of purpose through the group’s “Executive Success Program” — or ESP — personal development seminars supposedly designed to help people overcome their “limiting beliefs.” As recounted in “The Vow,” Edmondson and Vicente worked their way up the organization’s internal hierarchy — known as “the stripe path” — and became enthusiastic boosters of its mission, recruiting Hollywood actors and other artists to join NXIVM and helping it expand across North America.

Their decision to become whistleblowers, chronicled by “The Vow” directors Jehane Noujaim and Karim Amer , helped lead to Raniere’s 2020 conviction on charges including sex trafficking. Other high-profile NXIVM members, including Seagram’s heiress Clare Bronfman and “Smallville” actor Allison Mack , also have faced legal action. ( Read more ) — Meredith Blake

38. Cocaine Cowboys

2006 | TV-MA | Documentary Hulu: Included Directed by Billy Corben

Before the cowboys came to town, Miami was a quiet place that featured, someone says, “a lot of old people sitting around in beach chairs waiting to die.” Then Colombia’s Medellín Cartel, “the world’s largest cocaine-smuggling organization,” discovered the place, more and more Americans got the drug habit, and lots of numbers in Miami skyrocketed. Those included the millions of dollars placed in local banks and the murder count, which went from 104 in 1976 to 621 in 1981.

“Cocaine Cowboys” tells this story with an all-sleaze-all-the-time attitude. The story is told largely by a trio of men who were there. Jon Roberts claims to have overseen the shipping of more than $2 billion worth of cocaine from Colombia, pilot Mickey Munday says he personally flew in some 10 tons, and Jorge “Rivi” Ayala is currently in prison for murder. These gentlemen are all capable storytellers, albeit invariably self-serving ones. While the filmmakers clearly got a contact high from hearing all these war stories, most civilians will find a little of this goes a long way. ( Read more ) — Kenneth Turan

37. John Wayne Gacy: Devil in Disguise

2021 | TV-14 | 1 Season | Documentary series Peacock: Included Created by Rod Blackhurst

John Wayne Gacy seemed like a stand-up guy to his friends and neighbors. He performed as a clown in parades and at the bedsides of sick children. He was a former Jaycee who founded a construction company where he generously hired young men with little experience. He was jovial and had a great sense of humor. But when 26 bodies were discovered under the floorboards of his Chicago home in 1978, it was clear they’d all been hoodwinked by the middle-aged guy next door. This six-part docuseries reveals how one of the country’s more prolific serial killers hid in plain sight as he preyed upon young men throughout the 1960s and 1970s. “Devil in Disguise” features interviews with Gacy’s sister and never-before-seen footage from his meeting with FBI profiler Robert Ressler, providing clues into how a monster convinced everyone he was a harmless jester. Warning: There’s clown art. — Lorraine Ali

36. The Lady and the Dale

2021 | TV-MA | 1 Season | Documentary series HBO Max: Included Directed by Nick Cammilleri and Zackary Drucker

Liz Carmichael, a transgender woman, brash automobile entrepreneur and Ayn Rand-loving libertarian with purported Mafia ties, is the subject of “The Lady and the Dale.” Directed by Nick Cammilleri and Zackary Drucker, the four-part series paints a riveting portrait of Carmichael, who gained notoriety as the iconoclastic maker of a supposedly revolutionary three-wheeled car called the Dale — touted as the greatest vehicle since the Model T. At the height of the oil crisis, in the mid-1970s, Carmichael made grandiose claims that the vehicle could get 70 miles to the gallon and would upend the auto industry.

But in 1977, she was convicted on charges of fraud and conspiracy for bilking investors in her L.A.-area Twentieth Century Motor Car Corp. — merely one twist in a much-stranger-than-fiction life story that also involved a roadside flower business in Texas, an appearance on “Unsolved Mysteries,” plastic surgery, the FBI, Cuban gunrunners and political commentator Tucker Carlson’s dad.

Using archival video, interviews with family members and colleagues, animated photo-collage re-creations and expert commentary, “The Lady and the Dale” depicts Carmichael as a deeply flawed yet undeniably charismatic transgender pioneer — a true-crime antihero who never sought to be a role model, yet inspired fierce devotion and radical acceptance from many who knew her. By allowing Carmichael to be so completely herself, rife with fascinating contradictions, the series represents something of a breakthrough in transgender representation on the small screen. ( Read more ) — Meredith Blake

35. Murder on Middle Beach

2020 | TV-MA | 1 Season | Documentary series HBO Max: Included Created by Madison Hamburg

Madison Hamburg, whose mother, Barbara Beach, was killed in 2010, is convinced that, if used in the right way, true-crime TV can be of value in the hunt for justice — even in spite of the hurdles he’s come across in his own efforts to solve the crime, documented in HBO’s “Murder on Middle Beach.” The series brought Beach’s perplexing murder in the yard of her affluent Connecticut home back into the spotlight, but Hamburg wanted to focus on the other victims — the entire Hamburg/Beach family — as he sought to exonerate his sister, his aunt and others identified as “persons of interest” by the local police department. Throughout Hamburg’s own detective work, he ran into one central problem: Detectives don’t want to share information.

The media frenzy around a case, cold or otherwise, is a double-edged sword: It can be devastating for the family to relive the horror, even as the media’s attention may be able to grab the public’s attention — and put pressure on the police. A few years ago, Hamburg himself confided in an old friend who also happened to be an ex-FBI agent about his challenges with “Murder on Middle Beach.” He feared exploiting his mother’s story or his family, and was unsure whether airing it would make any difference. His friend asked him, “Would you rather find justice or the truth?” ( Read more ) — Valentina Valentini

34. Love Fraud

2020 | TV-MA | 1 Season | Documentary series Apple TV+: Rent/Buy | Prime Video: Included Created by Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing

The hunt and capture of lonely-hearts con artist Richard Scott Smith is at the center of this Showtime thriller. For over 20 years, Smith used the internet and multiple aliases to lure in dozens of women. He’d woo them, professing his love mere weeks into their relationship, convincing the women he was The One. Then he’d breach their bank accounts, dignity and sense of trust. But his victims eventually find one another, compare notes and unite under the banner of revenge. The chase practically plays out in real time here as Smith’s exes take things into their own hands after they’re dismissed by law enforcement. The pacing along with the colorful cast of characters make this series pop, from doting soccer moms to a tough-as-leather female bounty hunter to Smith himself. When filmmakers Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing finally catch up with him, he explains away his crimes by pointing to a loveless childhood that made him the hopeless romantic he is today. The con never ends. — Lorraine Ali

33. The Witness

2016 | Rated 13+ | Documentary AMC+: Included | Kanopy: Included | Apple TV+: Rent/Buy | Prime Video: Rent/Buy Created by Bill Genovese, directed by James Solomon

At first glance, the title of “The Witness” would seem to reference the 38 residents of Kew Gardens in Queens, N.Y., who were pilloried in the press for their apparent indifference to the screams of 28-year-old Kitty Genovese as she was stabbed to death outside their windows. In the decades since that night in March 1964, Genovese has been held up as a tragic victim of bystander apathy in the big city, though one of the key accomplishments of this quietly revelatory documentary is that it sees the people in this tragedy as more than just convenient scapegoats or symbols. Not all those 38 neighbors were as cruelly indifferent as the public was led to believe, and Kitty herself, as one person passionately attests here, “was so much more than her last 30 minutes.”

That person is Kitty’s younger brother, Bill, the film’s chief camera subject, its driving force and the real witness of the title. No passive observer, he is instead an active investigator and interpreter of events that forever changed his family’s life. Only 16 at the time of his sister’s death, Bill joined the Marines a few years later and went to Vietnam, where he lost both his legs — a setback that, whatever it may have cost him in mobility, seems to have sapped none of his determination. Now in his 60s, hoisting himself up stairs and climbing in and out of a wheelchair, he could scarcely seem more energetic — or more inspiring — in his dogged pursuit of the truth.

The strength of “The Witness” lies in its recognition that the truth is often not just elusive but unattainable. To call the film a debunking or a corrective would ascribe to it a level of knowledge that neither Bill Genovese nor director James Solomon, a screenwriter making a fine nonfiction filmmaking debut, claims to possess. Instead they throw themselves into the hunt with unflagging resolve, turning a sober reflection on tragedy into a lively and unpredictable detective story, and evincing at every step a sense of initiative that is the very opposite of apathy. ( Read more ) — Justin Chang

32. The Hillside Strangler: Devil in Disguise

2022 | TV-MA | 1 season | Documentary series Peacock: Included Created by Alexa Danner

Los Angeles has been called many things: City of Angels, Tinseltown. But it also gained a name for a decidedly less glamorous distinction in the 1970s and 1980s: Serial Killer Capital of America. In the decades between the 1969 Manson Family murders and the 1989 conviction of Richard Ramirez, a.k.a. the Night Stalker, there were so many serial murders to keep track of that traumatized Angelenos needed a flow chart to keep up. There was the Skid Row Stabber. The Sunset Strip Killer. The West Side Rapist. The Toolbox Killers. The Grim Sleeper. During this period, more than 20 serial killers were reportedly operating simultaneously in Los Angeles.

“The Hillside Strangler: Devil in Disguise” focuses on one of the more notorious cases to rise out of that dark era. The four-episode series revisits the killing spree of the so-called Hillside Strangler, a phantom behind the killings of 10 women in Los Angeles in 1977 and 1978. The city was gripped with fear as body after body was found dumped in the hills above Glendale and Eagle Rock, near Dodger Stadium in Elysian Heights, on a residential street in La Crescenta, near a freeway offramp in Los Feliz. The men ultimately convicted of the slayings were cousins Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono, who appear in interrogation rooms in the latter half of this documentary. It’s a trip back in time to the terrifying true stories of the serial kidnappings and murders that held the quiet neighborhoods of East Los Angeles hostage during the 1970s. ( Read more ) —Lorraine Ali

31. Rest in Power: The Trayvon Martin Story

2018 | TV-14 | 1 Season | Documentary series BET+: Included | Paramount+: Included | Apple TV+: Rent/Buy Created by Jenner Furst and Julia Willoughby Nason

Social justice, personal loss, systemic racism and national reckoning are explored in “Rest in Power: The Trayvon Martin Story,” a potent, moving six-part documentary offering fresh insight into the 2012 killing of the unarmed teen by 28-year-old vigilante George Zimmerman. The docuseries chronicles why this slaying of a young Black man — a crime that often goes uncovered in the media — made headlines, inspired protests and forced a national reckoning.

“Rest in Power” delves deep into the specifics of the 17-year-old’s homicide, the police investigation, the trial and the acquittal. But it’s the way in which directors Jenner Furst and Julia Willoughby Nason connect new and old details of the case with its widespread effect that makes “Rest in Power” a comprehensive, emotional and brutally honest look at America since that fatal shooting. Martin’s killing and Zimmerman’s acquittal helped ignite social justice movements such as Black Lives Matter, galvanized alt-right advocates around issues of white separatism and ultimately influenced the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.

The series, inspired by a 2017 book by Martin’s parents, Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin (they co-produced the series along with Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter), uses the scope of history to string together all these events, as well as the ensuing protests over the shootings of unarmed Black men and women across the country. ( Read more ) — Lorraine Ali

30. 3 ½ Minutes, Ten Bullets

2015 | Rated 13+ | Documentary HBO Max: Included | Apple TV+: Rent/Buy | Prime Video: Rent/Buy Directed by Marc Silver

A documentary that shouldn’t have to be made, about a law that needn’t exist, explored via a crime that could have been avoided: “3 1/2 Minutes, Ten Bullets” is a thought-provoking, mournful experience. The film’s focus is the trial of Michael Dunn, a middle-aged white man who on Nov. 23, 2012, in Jacksonville, Fla., shot and killed black teenager Jordan Davis at a gas station during an argument over the decibel level of the rap music coming from the SUV that Jordan, 17, and his buddies were in.

Director Marc Silver won approval to film the trial, and the sobering narrative his fixed cameras capture — of a tragedy parsed for some measure of institutionalized justice — extends to the more personal connecting tissue of interviews with Jordan’s family and friends. Silver artfully layers that, coolly and calmly, so the weight of the issues — namely how racial profiling and a self-defense law like “stand your ground” malevolently feed each other — sinks in. The heartache and outrage are there already. The movie wisely doesn’t force it. And if you don’t know the outcome, the suspense may prove to be unbearable. ( Read more ) — Robert Abele

29. Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer

2003 | Rated R | Documentary Sundance Now: Included | Apple TV+: Rent/Buy | Prime Video: Included Directed by Nick Broomfield

Controversial documentary filmmaker Nick Broomfield’s first film on Florida serial killer Aileen Wuornos, 1992’s “Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer,” was a biting critique of the ascendant tabloid media culture and portrayed the accused killer as the most honorable and clear-eyed person involved in her unseemly tale. Broomfield’s second, “Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer,” finds him and his footage subpoenaed for one of Wuornos’ death-row appeals. Broomfield, then 55, conducted Wuornos’ final interview the day before she was executed in October 2002. ( Read more ) — Mark Olsen

28. Tales of the Grim Sleeper

2014 | TV-MA | Documentary Plex: Included Directed by Nick Broomfield

“ Tales of the Grim Sleeper ,” from British documentarian Nick Broomfield (“Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer,” “Biggie and Tupac”), probes into what, on the surface, seems like the underzealousness of police tracking a Black serial killer. The reason it only “seems” that way is that the neglect stems from the same cultural pools of racism: In the case of the Grim Sleeper, the victims were all Black women, many of them sex workers and/or addicts.

Broomfield tells us that for years the unofficial police designation for such victims was NHI — no humans involved. In this case, a dozen murders received less official attention and press coverage than the death of any single upper- or middle-class white victim.

The perp was given his nickname by L.A. Weekly, which revealed that, based on DNA evidence, the same man was likely responsible for almost a dozen killings in the mid-’80s and then, after a 13-year hiatus, more killings between 2001 and 2010. No one knows the exact number of lives he took. The evidence connects the one killer to roughly 20 murders. But Lonnie Franklin Jr., who died in 2020, had photos — often sexually explicit — of hundreds of women, many of whom have yet to be identified. ( Read more ) — Andy Klein

27. Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened

2019 | TV-MA | Documentary Netflix: Included Directed by Chris Smith

It was announced as “the cultural experience of the decade,” and it was — just not in the way anyone anticipated.

As detailed by director Chris Smith in the compulsively watchable documentary “Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened,” what started out being touted as “Coachella in the Caribbean” ended up as pure chaos that reminded participants of “a scene from a horror movie.” The wreckage of 2017’s Fyre Festival was so compelling that this documentary, which opened simultaneously in theaters and on Netflix, was released in the same week as a Hulu doc on the exact same topic.

Documentary veteran Smith, whose earlier films include “American Job” and “Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond,” does an expert job here, talking to some 50 folks, including festival employees, consultants, would-be revelers and unwitting residents of the Bahamas who got caught in the event’s momentous undertow. These interviews, along with vérité footage shot as the event was coming together and falling apart, are briskly edited by Jon Karmen and Dan Koehler into a fast-moving narrative that has the fascination of the bad traffic accident you just can’t turn away from. ( Read more ) —Kenneth Turan

26. Atlanta’s Missing and Murdered: The Lost Children

2020 | TV-MA | 1 Season | Documentary series HBO Max: Included | Apple TV+: Rent/Buy | Prime Video: Rent/Buy Created by Joshua Bennett and Sam Pollard

Anthony Terrell is grateful that HBO’s “ Atlanta’s Missing and Murdered: The Lost Children ” brought a new spotlight to the terror that gripped Black residents of Atlanta in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when dozens of children and young adults were murdered or disappeared without a trace. Terrell is also thankful that the five-part documentary allowed him to discuss the pain and trauma he has suffered all his life as the survivor of one of the victims of the brutal crime wave — his 10-year-old brother, Earl, was murdered after going to a neighborhood swimming pool. But in the end, he worries it is not enough.

Although Atlanta native Wayne Williams was prosecuted for two of the crimes, the remainder of the cases were closed without being thoroughly investigated. Painful questions have lingered for many of the survivors, who maintain that the real truth behind the murders has never been uncovered. “Atlanta’s Missing and Murdered” presents strong evidence that the Ku Klux Klan and white supremacists belonging to the National States’ Rights Party may have been involved in the killings and the disappearances. The series, the nonfiction “Atlanta Monster” podcast and Season 2 of Netflix’s “Mindhunter” have renewed public interest in the case in recent years. ( Read more ) — Greg Braxton

25. Surviving R. Kelly

2019 | TV-MA | 3 Seasons | Documentary series Lifetime: Included | Netflix: Included | Apple TV+: Rent/Buy Created by Dream Hampton

Lifetime’s documentary series “Surviving R. Kelly” was instrumental in taking the singer down after decades where the star appeared untouchable. Through its blockbuster debut season, sequel “The Reckoning” and a third installment, “The Final Chapter,” it used firsthand accounts, police investigations, court documents and more to chronicle the “I Believe I Can Fly” singer’s increasingly disturbing pattern of sexual, mental and physical abuse of underage girls over two decades. Women who fell under Kelly’s spell, some who were as young as 13, speak out for the first time here, illustrating the dark side of fame, the perils of celebrity worship and double standards when it comes to race in the #MeToo era. In-depth interviews with alleged victims, Kelly’s ex-wife, his brothers, former insiders, friends and journalists who’ve covered the Chicago songwriter and producer paint a picture of a predator whose behavior was consistently overlooked by the industry, his peers and the public while his spiritual hit was sung in churches and schools. ( Read more ) — Lorraine Ali

24. Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey

2022 | TV-MA | 1 Season | Documentary series Netflix: Included Created by Rachel Dretzin

The crimes of Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints leader Warren Jeffs are explored through the firsthand accounts of his former followers in “Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey.” This four-part documentary series chronicles Jeffs’ rise in the FLDS and the crimes he inflicted on the flock who resided in his settlement on the Utah-Arizona border. Ex-members — mostly women — tell the stories of Jeffs forcing them into underage marriages, placing rigid restrictions on their lives, and vowing to destroy them if they ever dared to leave. This documentary gives his victims the chance to tell their own stories, and to explain what really happened inside the twisted world he created. Jeffs was sentenced to life in prison plus 20 years in 2011 for sexually assaulting two girls, but his reign of terror continues to haunt his former followers. — Lorraine Ali

23. Ted Bundy: Falling for a Killer

2020 | Rated 1 8 + | 1 Season | Documentary series Prime Video: Included Created by Trish Wood

There’s no shortage of productions about prolific serial killer Ted Bundy, but many of those narratives rely on the recollections of the highly articulate killer who never seemed to stop talking about himself. “Falling for a Killer” by director Trish Wood takes a different approach by reframing his story through the voices of women who knew him. His former girlfriend Elizabeth Kendall is primary to the story, as she recalls their early halcyon days and, later, signs that something was terribly broken in her handsome yet troubled partner. The story is set against the feminist movement of the 1970s. Kendall and others share their memories of the man they thought they knew in this insightful, five-part docuseries. — Lorraine Ali

22. The Imposter

2012 | Rated R | Documentary Apple TV+: Rent/Buy | Prime Video: Rent/Buy | Peacock: Included Directed by Bart Layton

A whole lot stranger than fiction, “The Imposter” is a documentary that’s disturbing in ways only reality can manage. This is a train wreck you think you see coming, but no matter how prepared you are, the nature and extent of the damage will overwhelm you.

As directed by British documentarian Bart Layton, “The Imposter” tells the story of a dark-skinned French Algerian man, a world-class deceiver and manipulator who managed to convince members of a distraught Texas family that he was their long-lost blond and blue-eyed teenage brother and son. What makes this film so spooky and unnerving is that it shows how much of what we consider to be reality is merely a function of what we want to believe. Next to the power and desires of the human heart and mind, few things stand a chance, certainly not the puny construct we like to call the real world.

The disappeared boy is sassy 13-year-old Nicholas Barclay, who vanished from the streets of San Antonio in 1994. “It gives you nightmares, it really does,” says his still-distressed mother Beverly Dollarhide. “It didn’t make the news. It was just news to us.” Then, three years and four months later, the family gets an out-of-nowhere phone call from Linares, Spain. Nicholas has been found, and he wants to come home. Beyond shocked, Nicholas’ sister Carey Gibson remembers thinking that Linares must be a town in Texas. “You had like 100,000 questions you wanted answered immediately,” she says. “You want it to all happen now.”

The person in Spain, we find out at once, couldn’t be further from the 16-year-old Nicholas. Instead, he is 23-year-old Frédéric Bourdin, eventually known to European authorities as “La Chameleon” for his shape-shifting abilities. “As long as I remember,” he says, looking directly at the camera, bold as brass, “I wanted to be someone else. Someone who was acceptable.” ( Read more ) — Kenneth Turan

21. Who Killed Malcolm X?

2020 | TV-MA | 1 Season | Documentary series Netflix: Included Directed by Phil Bertelsen and Rachel Dretzin.

Abdur-Rahman Muhammad was obsessed with uncovering the truth about Malcolm X’s 1965 murder. The activist and researcher spent 20 years investigating the question of who really killed the civil rights hero during a speech in New York’s Audubon Ballroom, and that quest is at the center of the Netflix documentary series “Who Killed Malcolm X?”

Two men known at the time of the killing as Norman 3X Butler and Thomas 15X Johnson spent decades in prison for the murder. But the case against them was questionable from the start, causing historians and amateur sleuths to raise doubts about the official account of what happened that fateful day. Through archival footage, declassified documents and a number of interviews with former and current Nation of Islam members and retired agents who worked the case, Abdur-Rahman presents a compelling theory that the wrong men took the rap.

He identifies a likely assassin based on his exhaustive investigative research, spurring the Manhattan prosecutor to reopen the case. Then, nearly two years after the docuseries raised its titular question and helped spur a renewed investigation into the assassination, two of the three men convicted in Malcolm X’s killing were exonerated (one of whom is still alive). The series isn’t the tightest of productions, but its impact is immeasurable. ( Read more ) — Lorraine Ali

20. Athlete A

2020 | Rated PG-13 | Documentary Netflix: Included Directed by Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk

Former gymnast Rachael Denhollander became the first woman to report sexual abuse at the hands of Larry Nassar, a physician for USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University. In August of 2016, she filed a Title IX complaint with MSU and told its police department that Nassar had assaulted her when she was a 15-year-old gymnast.

Her story — now at the center of the Netflix documentary “Athlete A” — would compel over 260 female athletes to come forward with their own tales about Nassar’s abuse. In 2017, he pleaded guilty to federal child pornography charges in addition to multiple charges of first-degree sexual assault and will probably spend the rest of his life in prison.

But even though Nassar is behind bars, Denhollander and others in the gymnastics world feel the sport has far more work to do to address claims of systemic emotional, physical and sexual abuse. — Amy Kaufman

19. Allen v. Farrow

2021 | TV-MA | 1 Season | Documentary series HBO Max: Included | Apple TV+: Rent/Buy | Prime Video: Rent/Buy Created by Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering

“Allen v. Farrow,” from investigative filmmakers Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering , goes beyond the scandalous headlines and makes a compelling argument that revered filmmaker Woody Allen got away with the unthinkable. This four-part series explores allegations that Allen abused Dylan Farrow, his adopted daughter with Mia Farrow, when she was a child. The accusations were turned against Farrow in the media. When Allen later married Mia Farrow’s adopted daughter Soon-Yi Previn, Hollywood and the press still largely ignored the unpleasant personal life of their favorite director in lieu of celebrating his work.

Documentarians Dick and Ziering pored over years of custody trial evidence, home movies, recorded phone conversations, photo exhibits and more, piecing together a harrowing picture of Allen as an abuser and master manipulator, and Dylan Farrow as a silenced, disbelieved victim. Allen has long denied the allegations. But here Dylan, now 37, has a platform to tell her side of the story. The result is a convincing and ultimately devastating portrait of Allen. ( Read more ) — Lorraine Ali

18. The Seven Five

2014 | Rated R |Documentary Apple TV+: Rent/Buy | Prime Video: Included Directed by Tiller Russell

It would be hard to imagine a more entertaining corrupt-cop documentary than “The Seven Five,” a slick and fascinating portrait of disgraced New York policeman Michael Dowd. In the late ’80s and early ’90s, Dowd was an officer at Brooklyn’s 75th Precinct, situated in a particularly rough neighborhood that led the city in homicides and police shootings.

Director Tiller Russell relates an evocative tale of cocaine-fueled temptation and greed, interspersing footage from a 1993 hearing for Dowd (who was sentenced to 14 years) with new interviews with the seemingly unrepentant Dowd, his former partner and contemporaries on both sides of the law. The cocky Dowd’s systematic progression from cop on the take to drug trafficker is choreographed with the sort of verve and gusto that gave Billy Corben’s 2006 Miami-based documentary “Cocaine Cowboys” a similar rock ‘n’ roll style.

With a wildly colorful cast of characters (especially the swagger-ific drug lord Adam Diaz) and sound bites (“Forget Beverly Hills … the ghetto is one of the richest neighborhoods there is!”), there’s no missing that “The Seven Five” would make one swell Hollywood movie. — Michael Rechtshaffen

17. Wild Wild Country

2018 | TV-MA | 1 Season | Documentary series Netflix: Included Created by Chapman and Maclain Way

“Wild Wild Country” is a dippy tale of the early 1980s in which East meets West and, out of an attempt to build a paradise, all hell breaks loose.

Directed by brothers Chapman and Maclain Way (“The Battered Bastards of Baseball”), its focus is a dimly remembered but in its time nationally newsworthy religious group — or sex cult, depending on your point of view — led by Indian mystic Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and the city they set out to build on a remote patch of Oregon.

It’s a story of enemies and neighbors, of power plays and paranoia that includes, among other things, attempted murder, arson, electioneering, bioterrorism by fast food, nude sunbathing, the separation of church and state, 10,000 cassette tapes and 93 Rolls-Royces, one of which the guru would daily drive past his admirers.

“Why do they do this?” a TV reporter standing among them wonders. “What do they believe in?”

Rajneesh (later called Osho) and his movement caught on in the 1970s, his ashram becoming a destination of choice for mostly Americans and Europeans seeking enlightenment or spiritual thrills. He promoted, among other practices, a brand of “dynamic meditation” that involved hyperventilation (“designed to arouse the serpent force, called kundalini”); primal-scream catharsis; jumping up and down and saying “Hoo!”; and, finally, silence and stillness. Then maybe some dancing. This might happen with everybody naked. ( Read more ) — Robert Lloyd

16. Sasquatch

2021 | TV-MA | 1 Season | Documentary series Hulu: Included Created by the Duplas s brothers

True crime, weed wars and monster tales meet in “Sasquatch,” and Hulu’s three-part docuseries delivers on all fronts.

This hybrid whodunit/monster-hunter mashup is centered around one central unsolved mystery, and several ancillary riddles, in the Emerald Triangle, a swath of Northern California wilderness across Mendocino, Humboldt and Trinity counties. It’s a region renowned for its natural beauty, marijuana production — and Bigfoot sightings.

Leading us into the tangled woods is investigative reporter David Holthouse, who was working on a Mendocino dope farm in 1993 when a group of terrified men burst into his cabin with claims of finding three mutilated bodies at a nearby farm. The deceased were torn limb from limb, heads ripped from torsos, their parts strewn around the campsite. This wasn’t a drug heist, they said. No marijuana plants were stolen — and there were giant footprints around the scene. It had to be Bigfoot. Or did it? “Sasquatch” sets out to answer that question over three episodes. This is an eccentric offering in the world of true crime, which is part of what makes it so addictive. Monsters come in all shapes and forms, and this series grapples with them all. ( Read more ) — Lorraine Ali

15. A Wilderness of Error

2020 | TV-MA | 1 Season | Documentary series Hulu: Included | Apple TV+: Rent/Buy | Prime Video: Rent/Buy Created by Marc Smerling

Fifty years after his wife and two young daughters were brutally murdered, and 41 after he was convicted of the crime, the case of former Army surgeon Jeffrey R. MacDonald continues to fascinate. Were the Fort Bragg, N.C., murders, as MacDonald has long contended, committed by a group of drug-crazed hippies chanting, “Acid is groovy, kill the pigs?” Or were they, as the prosecution successfully argued, actually the work of MacDonald, who murdered his family in a psychotic rage?

The case inspired Joe McGinniss’ nonfiction bestseller “Fatal Vision,” published in 1983, as well as a hugely successful 1984 TV miniseries based on the book — not to mention Janet Malcolm’s famed 1990 reconsideration “The Journalist and the Murderer.” Now it’s the subject of the FX series “A Wilderness of Error,” based on the book of the same name by Oscar-winning documentary director Errol Morris ( “The Fog of War” ), who has questioned MacDonald’s guilt and the prosecution’s handling of the case.

Morris, whose 1988 film “The Thin Blue Line” actually led to the overturning of a death sentence, wondered whether the testimony of several key people — a woman who claimed she’d been in the house during the murders, a U.S. marshal who alleged the woman confessed to him and a man who allegedly admitted to the killings — had deliberately been overlooked by the prosecution, and whether the initial investigation by the Army had essentially been a shoddy cover-up. ( Read more ) — Lewis Beale

14. Memories of a Murderer: The Nilsen Tapes

2021 | TV-MA | Documentary Netflix: Included Directed by Michael Harte

The life and crimes of Scottish serial killer and necrophile Dennis Nilsen are documented in his own words in this highly competent and deeply creepy 85-minute film, culled from 250 hours’ worth of recordings that Nilsen taped in his prison cell after he killed at least 12 young men between 1978 and 1983. Like Ted Bundy, the soft-spoken Nilsen is highly articulate and even charming, but his cover was an unassuming, mousy demeanor. He recounts the events of his life in poetic prose with flowery language, but it’s the recollections of police, survivors and his own mother that shed light on the monster at the heart of his ghoulish crime spree. Directed by Michael Harte (“Don’t F— With Cats”), this documentary is a master class in pitting a killer’s own warped recollections against the firsthand accounts of those who suffered from his actions. — Lorraine Ali

13. The Central Park Five

2012 | TV-PG | Documentary PBS: Included | Kanopy: Included | Apple TV+: Rent/Buy Directed by Ken Burns, Sarah Burns and David McMahon

Then-New York Mayor Ed Koch didn’t shrink from calling it “the crime of the century.” A TV newscaster talked angrily about evildoers who “blazed a nighttime trail of terror” that culminated in the horrific beating and savage rape of a Central Park jogger on the night of April 19, 1989. The event became an all-consuming national sensation, but, as it turns out, everything everyone thought they knew was wrong.

This is the devastating premise of “The Central Park Five,” a careful, thoughtful documentary that meticulously re-creates what happened on that night and details how and why everything went so terribly off-course. Co-directed by Ken Burns, David McMahon and Sarah Burns, it projects equal parts fury and despair as it reveals how a particular group of individuals was caught in the unforgiving gears of the criminal justice system.

Five black and Latino teenagers, ages 14 to 16, admitted to the rape and beating (though they almost immediately recanted) of the white jogger and served prison sentences ranging from six to 13 years. But, out of nowhere, compelling new evidence, including a startling 2002 confession by a convicted murderer and rapist whose DNA was present at the crime scene, led a judge to overturn their convictions. Yet it is one of the case’s painful ironies that to this day it is the arrest and not the ultimate exoneration that is remembered.

“The Central Park Five” serves as a cinematic primer on what has become one of the most disturbing aspects of our criminal justice system: the ability — and the unabashed willingness — of police to psychologically manipulate people into confessing to things they have not done. ( Read more ) — Kenneth Turan

12. McMillions

2020 | TV-14 | 1 Season | Documentary series HBO Max: Included Created by James Lee Hernandez and Brian Lazarte

James Lee Hernandez and Brian Lazarte’s six-part documentary, “ McMillions ,” is a twisty, many-fingered, onion-layered story tailor-made for cliffhangers and progressive reveals. The HBO series tells the story of the McDonald’s Monopoly game fraud, in which an ex-cop nicknamed Uncle Jerry — in an operation that went undetected from 1989 to 2001 and involved an ad hoc network of “recruiters” and semi-solid citizens willing to participate in what not all fully understood was thievery — managed to scam some $24 million in cash and prizes from the home of the Happy Meal.

It was the subject of a 2018 Daily Beast story by Jeff Maysh, “How an Ex-Cop Rigged McDonald’s Monopoly Game and Stole Millions,” which within days became the subject of a bidding war for the film rights. (Fox won; Ben Affleck is scheduled to direct, Matt Damon to star.) ( Read more ) — Robert Lloyd

11. The Innocence Files

2020 | TV-MA | 1 Season | Documentary series Netflix: Included Created by: Roger Ross Williams, Liz Garbus and Alex Gibney

“The Innocence Files” masterfully examines how innocent people end up in prison and documents the Herculean effort it takes to overturn those wrongful convictions. Though there’s no shortage of heartbreaking television productions about poor folks who are betrayed by the system, this moving, impactful series stands apart. Expertly directed by respected documentary filmmakers Alex Gibney, Roger Ross Williams and Liz Garbus, “The Innocence Files” delivers a potent statement on class, crime and the American justice system. The nine-part series takes its source material from Innocence Project cases, following several wrongfully convicted subjects over three different story arcs. The filmmakers explore common defects in the system — from the use of bogus forensic evidence to unreliable eyewitness accounts — exploring the legal and emotional fallout for all involved. —Lorraine Ali

10. Don’t F— With Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer

2019 | TV-MA | 1 Season | Documentary series Netflix: Included Created by Mark Lewis

A group of Facebook sleuths track down a deranged killer and wannabe internet star in this three-part series from Mark Lewis. Luka Magnotta was courting the idea of celebrity in 2010 when he became famous for all the wrong reasons. The then-28-year-old Canadian was posting online a series of anonymous videos showing him suffocating, drowning and feeding kittens to a snake. A community of outraged internet sleuths coalesced around the goal of outing this animal abuser.

Filmmaker Lewis embedded with several of the armchair detectives, documenting how they pieced together Magnotta’s identity clue by clue. Is that light socket in the background of his video European or American? Are there any identifying background sounds? Their digital legwork proved invaluable to law enforcement when, in 2012, the killer graduated to killing humans. He murdered a 33-year-old computer engineering student from China, Jun Lin, and released a video of the horrific crime online. The series is a wild ride through Magnotta’s sadistic ploys for attention, and the dogged efforts of amateur detectives to stop him. In the end, they were instrumental in his capture during a worldwide manhunt, even if it may have resulted in giving his depraved videos more views than they ever should have had. This doc was one of Netflix’s biggest true-crime hits outside of the problematic “Making a Murderer.” Riveting, but not for the faint of heart. —Lorraine Ali

9. The Crime of the Century

2021 | TV-14 | 1 Season | Documentary series HBO Max: Included Created by Alex Gibney

For more than 20 years, Americans have watched the human cost of the opioid crisis as if it were an epidemic without cause. But what if the crisis had been manufactured through a series of cynical misdeeds involving profit-ravenous pharmaceutical companies, bought-and-paid-for medical professionals and a toothless political and legal system?

You probably wouldn’t be shocked, given what we now know from numerous class-action lawsuits, interviews with recovering addicts and grieving parents, hard news exposés and, yes, lots of documentaries . But Alex Gibney’s gripping two-part docuseries “The Crime of the Century” sheds new light on an ongoing disaster by meticulously tracking the moves of one major kingpin: Purdue Pharma , the drug company that made billions off the addictive and often lethal pain medication OxyContin . ( Read more ) — Lorraine Ali

8. Long Shot

2017 | TV-14 | Documentary Netflix: Included Directed by Jacob LaMendola

Social etiquette crimes are the lifeblood of “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” Larry David’s HBO comedy series where a self-centered guy named Larry offends everyone he meets, and his bad behavior often has a butterfly effect. But here’s one instance where Larry was a good influence, even if it was unintentional.

“Long Shot” tells the story of young father Juan Catalan, an Angeleno who was wrongly accused of the 2003 gang-related murder of a 16-year-old girl in Sun Valley. But Catalan swears he’s innocent. The accused even has an alibi: He was attending a game with his daughter at Dodger Stadium. The prosecutor isn’t buying it, even after Catalan produces proof in the form of ticket stubs. Defense attorney Todd Melnik scraped for anything else that might prove his client’s innocence. Maybe the Dodger fancam? But the fleeting images of the father and daughter aren’t clear enough.

Here’s where David comes in. The actor had been shooting “The Car Pool Lane” episode of the series, where he picks up a sex worker so he can use the carpool lane to make it to the game on time, and the crew were filming in an aisle near Catalan’s seats. Outtakes of the episode were scanned for images of Catalan, and, as David says in the documentary, “There he was. Pretty cool.” “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and subsequent cellphone data helped clear Catalan. This short and simply made documentary chronicles the incredible story of a wrongly convicted soul who was saved by the least likely of men. — Lorraine Ali

7. The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez

2020 | TV - MA | 1 Season | Documentary series Netflix: Included Created by Brian Knappenberger

Netflix documentary series “ The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez ” follows the story of the torture and murder of an 8-year-old child, beaten to death in 2013 by his mother and her boyfriend, and the repeated failure of social workers and police officers to intervene. Directed by Brian Knappenberger, “Gabriel Fernandez” piggybacks on the reporting of Garrett Therolf, who covered the story for The Times as it broke, and later elsewhere, and who appears extensively throughout. (Therolf, an executive producer of the series, brought Knappenberger into the project.) A well-made and conscientious work that includes interviews with people involved in the case and experts regarding it from afar, along with footage of police interviews and courtroom testimony, it is old news and an ongoing story, since we have not reached the end of child abuse or institutional incompetence. ( Read more ) — Robert Lloyd

6. The First 48

2004 | TV-14 | 2 4 Seasons | Documentary series A&E: Included (22 seasons) | Peacock: Included (15 seasons) | Hulu: Included (16 seasons) | Prime Video: Rent/Buy (7 seasons) Created by Nigel Bellis

Three things are a given in each episode of “The First 48”: a homicide, a homicide investigation and hard questions in a bleak interrogation room. This long-running series takes viewers behind the scenes, following a squad of detectives in the first critical hours of a murder. The sense of urgency around each case is implicit in the show’s opening sequence: “The clock starts ticking the moment they are called,” says the narrator. “Their chance of solving a murder is cut in half if they don’t get a lead within the first 48 hours.”

Now in its 24th season, this addictive unscripted series still sets a high bar as it follows detectives in police precincts from Dallas, New Orleans, Birmingham, Tulsa and other U.S. cities. Each hourlong episode is shot vérité-style and set to minimal ambient music, building tension subtly as the story unfolds. The results in each case are unpredictable: Many are solved by the closing credits, while others still remain open. Law enforcement turns to a combination of factors to break their cases, from forensic evidence to witness accounts to lies and confessions in the interrogation room, and no two cases ever shake out in the same manner. In a world where bad people always seem to be getting away with doing bad things, “The First 48” is one place where the quest for accountability always drives the story. — Lorraine Ali

5. O.J.: Made in America

2016 | TV-14 | 1 Season | Documentary series Apple TV+: Rent/Buy | Prime Video: Rent/Buy Created by Ezra Edelman

Comedy, they say, is tragedy plus time. The same equation can also result in revelation, as ESPN’s astonishing documentary series “O.J.: Made in America” proves. There have been many attempts to tell the O.J. Simpson story, to explain why, in 1995, what appeared to be an open-and-shut case of domestic violence taken to its fatal and too-often inevitable conclusion turned into the trial of the century and resulted in acquittal. But all pale beside Ezra Edelman’s 7 1/2-hour chronicle of Simpson’s life and times. Historically meticulous, thematically compelling and deeply human, “O.J.: Made in America” is a masterwork of scholarship, journalism and cinematic art. ( Read more ) — Mary McNamara

4. The Keepers

2017 | TV-MA | 1 Season | Documentary series Netflix: Included Created by Ryan White

The seven-part documentary series “The Keepers” looks at one of Baltimore’s most vexing cold cases through the eyes of the women who continue to push for justice. Sister Cathy Cesnik went missing in November of 1969. Two months later, her body was found in a field not far from her apartment. Five decades later, the murder of the young nun and high school teacher remains unsolved. Policeman and priests — the very people tasked with protecting and consoling the community — are among the case’s prime suspects.

Sister Cathy’s former students at Archbishop Keough High School, such as Gemma Hoskins and Abbie Schaub, have spent the majority of their adult lives trying to solve the murder of their beloved teacher, who was 26 at the time of her death. But as “The Keepers” shows, the list of theories and suspects only grows with time. “The Keepers” is an unusually empathetic true-crime offering that places the memory of Sister Cathy above all else, yet still brings much needed heat to a tragically cold case. ( Read more ) — Lorraine Ali

3. Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer

2021 | TV-MA | 1 Season | Documentary series Netflix: Included Created by Tiller Russell Los Angeles was terrorized by a phantom in the spring and summer of 1985. Creeping into homes at night, he tortured and murdered more than a dozen people, with the San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys the focus of his mayhem: assaulting women in their 80s; kidnapping and molesting children as young as 6; scrawling a pentagram on one of his murder victims and demanding that another pray to Satan.

Netflix’s docuseries “Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer” chronicles the pursuit of the elusive predator though the recollections of the investigators and cops who chased him. Analog detective work — years before cellphone data and DNA became useful investigative tools — and the help of the community led to the capture of demon worshipper Richard Ramirez. His crimes stand out as particularly heinous and evil, even by today’s standards, in a metropolis that’s no stranger to the darkest of crimes ( the Black Dahlia , the Manson Family , the Hillside Strangler) . The four-part series is a powerful and haunting addition to the streamer’s onslaught of true-crime fare, capturing a place and time that many Angelenos regretfully claim as part of their city’s collective history. ( Read more ) — Lorraine Ali

2. The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst

2015 | TV-14 | 1 Season | Documentary series HBO Max: Included | Apple TV+: Rent/Buy | Prime Video: Rent/Buy Created by Andrew Jarecki

“The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst” is a seductive six-part series about a murder, maybe two murders, maybe three. Although its particulars are a matter of public record, it is helpful in watching “The Jinx” to know as little as possible about Durst — the son of a billionaire New York developer, the husband of a woman missing since 1982, just to start — in order to let its strangeness breathe and its cleverly ordered revelations have their full effect. Director Andrew Jarecki — best known for the Oscar-nominated “Capturing the Friedmans” (2003), starts the series in 2001 with the discovery of a headless, limbless torso floating in Galveston Bay and works backward and forward from there. It’s a puzzle box that gives up its secrets slowly and unpredictably. ( Read more ) —Robert Lloyd

1. The Thin Blue Line

1988 | Rated 18+ | Documentary Criterion: Included | Apple TV+: Rent/Buy Directed by Errol Morris

Considered one of the most impactful documentaries ever made, Errol Morris’ “The Thin Blue Line” changed the form and saved an innocent man from death row. Fusing cinematic technique with investigative journalism and activism with art, Morris dissected the troubling case of Randall Dale Adams, a drifter who was charged with the 1976 murder of a Dallas police officer. The officer was shot to death after a routine traffic stop. The evidence pointed to repeat offender 16-year-old David Harris, and the teen bragged to his friends about killing a cop, but he was still able to convince detectives that Adams was the culprit.

Morris used the power of cinema to expose staggering irregularities in the investigation and presented his findings in an exquisite display of experimental filmmaking. His unorthodox approach included haunting reenactments, original music by Philip Glass and profound excerpts from the interviews he conducted. For example, Adams’ co-counsel said she believed that the forces of law and justice, faced with a police killing, went after Adams because, as an adult, he could be sent to the electric chair, while Harris, as a minor, could not. Her theory is just one of many that Morris uses to build an alternate narrative in his film.

The result is a wonderfully made film that confronts injustice, exonerating a wrongfully convicted man while changing the face of documentary film forever. — Lorraine Ali

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Lorraine Ali is news and culture critic of the Los Angeles Times. Previously, she was television critic for The Times covering media, breaking news and the onslaught of content across streaming, cable and network TV. Ali is an award-winning journalist and Los Angeles native who has written in publications ranging from the New York Times to Rolling Stone and GQ. She was formerly senior writer for The Times’ Calendar section where she covered entertainment, culture, and American Arab and Muslim issues. Ali started at The Times in 2011 as music editor after leaving her post as a senior writer and music critic at Newsweek Magazine.

Former Los Angeles Times staffer Ed Stockly handled the TV listings and highlights and was the resident TV Skeptic, occasionally writing about TV shows that feature the paranormal, bad science, mermaids, Big Foot, aliens and quackery.

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281 Crime Essay Topics & True Crime Research Topics

Looking for an exciting topic about crime? This article is for you! Here, you will find the most unique crime topics for your compare-and-contrast essay or problem solution paper. We’ve also included true crime research topics for you to check out!

🔝 Top 10 Crime Essay Topics for 2024

🏆 best essay topics on crime, 🎓 interesting crime essay topics, 👍 good crime research topics & essay examples, 🌶️ hot crime topics for essay, 📌 easy crime essay topics, 💡 simple true crime research topics, ✍️ crime essay topics for college, ❓ crime essay questions.

• Biological and Psychological Theories of Crime
• How Technology Advances Influences Crime Rates?
• South Africa: Violence and Crime
• The Impact of Crime and Violence on Tourism in Jamaica
• The Consequences of a Crime
• The Impact of Unemployment on Crime Rates
• Racism: “Born a Crime” by Trevor Noah
• Organized Crime: Russian Mafia vs. Italian Mafia
• Importance of Toxicology in Crime Investigation
• How Social Learning Theories Impact Juvenile Delinquency and Crime
• Crime Prevention Programs and Criminal Rehabilitation This paper will analyze the various crime prevention programs and criminal rehabilitation efforts that the criminal justice system engages in.
• Relationship Between Poverty and Crime The paper makes the case and discusses inequality rather than poverty being the prime reason for people committing crimes.
• Concept of Juvenile Crime There has been a considerable rise in juvenile crime arrest and this is causing alarm to parents and the society at large.
• Different Perspectives of Viewing Crime The paper suggests that it is prudent to consider crime as a complicated process that can be understood best by examining it from different perspectives.
• “Crime and Punishment” by Dostoevsky: Analysis of the work “Crime and Punishment”, written by Dostoevsky, concentrates on moral issues and highlights society’s urgent problems in the nineteenth century.
• Situational and Social Crime Prevention Approaches This paper aims to present a distinction between situational crime and social crime prevention. Technology made it complicated how to implement crime theories.
• Crime Commission: Legal and Social Perspectives Crime has various dimensions: legal and ethical. Crime commission helps to integrate all dimensions of the society in the administration of justice.
• Criminal Case Analysis: Criminal Act Synopsis, Crime Identification The case under analysis could fall under the definition of hate crimes – the man intentionally selected these women to conduct an assault and battery.
• Victimization Prevention is an Effective Tool Against Crime Victimization prevention solutions borrowed from the crime prevention sector should militate against the practice of consultation and dispassionate inquiry.
• Peru – Globalization, Environment, Crime and Disease The paper synthesizes a number of legitimate sources to focus on globalization and its effects on Peru with special relation to environmental issues, crime, and diseases.
• The Role of Social Seclusion and Economic Marginalization in Crime This paper explores the role of socio-economic marginalization in crime and the effects of criminal activities on allied populations and the nation.
• Enron Corporation’s Scandal: White-Collar Crime An accounting scandal that shook the corporate world, Enron Corporation’s white-collar crime saw the downfall of one of the world’s most illustrious companies.
• Theories of Crime in Forensic Psychology Forensic psychology as a discipline has become closely correlated with the broad theories of crime that aim at defining the reasons behind the offender’s decision to act.
• Shoplifting: a Crime of Convenience The purpose of the academic-based study was to observe the specific shoplifting tendencies of a broad group of individuals for reducing the number of shoplifting occurrences.
• Aspects of Crime Scene Investigation Crime scene investigation is a real art that requires care and caution. Criminologists must be careful and persistent in their research.
• Psychoanalytic and Social Learning Theories Explaining Crime Among the theories explaining the causes of delinquent youth, two are especially important: social learning theory and psychoanalytic theory.
• Criminal Law – Is Graffiti a Crime or Not? Graffiti has in a key factor been associated with wrongdoings and ill-image driving purposes towards the society.
• Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment” Literary Analysis In “Crime and Punishment”, Dostoevsky tells readers about the tragic events in the streets of St. Petersburg when a student Rodion Raskolnikov commits double murder.
• How Does Poverty Affect Crime Rates? On the basis of this research question, the study could be organized and conducted to prove the following hypothesis – when poverty increases, crime rates increase as well.
• Crime Statistics Sources: Strengths and Weaknesses In the justice system, there are some ways to discuss and evaluate crime, based on the different metrics for documenting it.
• Fight Against Crime and Its General Characteristics Criminology studies crime prevention as a complex dynamic system. Its functioning is connected with the solution of both general tasks of social development.
• Organized Crime and Corporate Crime One of the vices that are prevalent in all societies in the world is crime. This vice is generally associated with negative outcomes for individuals and society at large.
• Crime Prevention Practices Overview The purpose of this paper is to discuss effective crime prevention practices and social development models to prevent crime.
• Concept of Natural Legal Crime The concept of natural crime covers actions that are deemed wrong regardless of whether they are enforced by law.
• Crime Causation Theories While psychological and sociological factors predispose an individual to delinquency, most offenses can be attributed to biological causes.
• Full-Service Crime Laboratory: Forensic Science Forensic scientists study and analyze evidence from crime scenes and other locations to produce objective results that can aid in the investigation and prosecution of criminals.
• The New York Map: A Syndicate Evaluated Crime Network in New York City This paper will largely focus on representing the New York map to show a syndicate-evaluated crime network in New York City.
• Crime in Society: Costs and Response This paper looks at the social and economic costs of crime, how people learn to involve themselves in crime and how communities respond to the crime in society.
• Juvenile Crime in Modern Society The current research will focus on examining the problem of juvenile crime from the social perspective rather than the governmental.
• Identifying Strategic, Tactical and Administrative Crime Analysis This paper aims to reveal the concepts and features of strategic, tactical, and administrative analysis of crimes.
• Crime and Criminals: General Characteristics For a long time, crime has been a subject of discussion among various countries across the globe, with various strategies and inventions being developed to curb the same.
• The England Crime Statistics by Region: Liverpool and Manchester The paper will consider such crime types as violence against personality, sexual offense, robbery, an offense against vehicles, theft, fraud, and forgery, criminal damage, etc.
• Youth Crime Prevention and Needs Assessment To assess needs of youth offenders, one should employ the approach of recidivism prevention and conduct assessment at any stage of the juvenile justice system.
• Conformity, Deviance, and Crime Definitions of conformity and deviance depend on social context, and what is considered a norm in one community or society can be seen as deviant by those outside it.
• Technology-Based Crime and Its Management In the modern world of science and technology, new developments and advancements have changed life and style of living tremendously.
• Whether Crime or Violence Are Justified in a Reaction to Past Trauma This paper presents a debate on whether or not crime or violence should be a justification due to past trauma.
• Trends Influencing Crime Rates Crime is widely considered a failure in the social system and therefore is to be addressed from the perspective of the social construct operation and the trends existing there.
• Aspects of Crime Behavior Crime is a behavior in which moral standards that are appropriate for well-being in society are defined, and set rules are violated.
• Aspects of Crime Against Morality The paper states that crime against morality is an offense of exiting moral values, moral basis, and views shared by the majority of society.
• The First Responding Officer in Crime Scene Investigation: Primary Duties Ascertaining the situation and providing the support needed to the people affected is the earliest objective of the first officer attending (FOA).
• Digital Imaging and Traditional Methods of Crime Scene Technological progress allows police to use innovations in their work routine to make crime scene reconstruction, geospatial analysis, and surveillance more efficient.
• Organized Crime: Forming of the Definition The given work seeks to investigate the process of forming the concept of ‘organized crime’ by governments and justice systems.
• Crime Scene Search and Its Importance The paper states that the inspection is the first and urgent action that the investigator performs even before the initiation of a criminal case.
• Juvenile Crime: Punishment of Juvenile Crime The objective of this paper is to discuss why minors should not be treated as adults in court. They should not also receive life in prison without the possibility of parole.
• Mass Media and Its Link to Crime and the Criminal Justice System In this study, the official website America’s Most Wanted will be analyzed to get a better understanding as to why it is so successful as a TV show and as a tool to fight crime.
• Families, Delinquency and Crime Crime would be considered a major social problem in the United States according to opinion surveys, with the major cause being laxity and inefficiency in parenting.
• Juvenile and Crime: The Reasons and Today’s Situation Reserch reveals that crime activities can include violence and that the whole incidence of gang activity in schools has become quite frequent in the recent years.
• Crime Types and Their Harm to Society This paper discusses the questions related to criminal justice issues, such as types of crimes, the concept of the Dark Figure of Crime, victimless crimes, and others.
• Is There Such Thing as a Victimless Crime? The problem of a victimless crime has been labeled as controversial due to the different opinions surrounding this issue.
• Crime Explanation Using Biology and Psychology A comprehensive theory of Cesare Lombroso has been discussed indicating that criminals could be picked out and determined by their physique, attributes, and appearance.
• The Crime Control Model: Due Process Values The Crime Control Model has been founded on the premise that the most important role of the criminal justice process is the repression of any form of criminal conduct.
• Criminological Theory: Crime Theories and Criminal Behavior Criminal behavior is a type of behavior of a person who commits a crime. It is interesting to know what drives people to commit crimes and how to control these intentions.
• Corporate Occupational and Avocational Crime Corporate crime is classified on the basis of activities, agents, laws broken or products under consideration; however, the most common criterion use is that of activity.
• Corporate Crime: Understanding and Explaining Corporate scandals have become the stories behind many company downfalls and corporate governance reforms throughout the world were triggered by the scandals.
• Fiction Versus Reality: Crime as a Social Phenomenon While making an analysis of various societies of the world at large, it becomes evident that no human society has ever been free from crimes, perversion and deviance at all.
• Crime Scene Investigation Effect in Justice System Movies have been known to influence popular culture in different parts of the world. Analysts believe that the “CSI effect” is one of the fruits of popular culture.
• Cyber Crime : Issues and Threats Cyber crime involves the stealing or manipulation of information effectively distorting its values across global networks.
• Functionalism: Crime and Deviance in Society Issues of crime and deviance directly derive from the functionalist system’s components, which are responsible for ensuring continuous functionality and well-being.
• Bribery as a Crime As a rule, major bribes include payments that are higher than a certain limit which can be considered as an ordinary present.
• Deviance, Crime and Social Control The selected topic from the class text is “Deviance, Crime, and Social Control”. The term deviance “refers to the violations of established contextual, cultural, or social norms”.
• Illegal Immigrants and Its Effects on Crime This paper set out to demonstrate that there is a relationship between the rise in crime and the increase in illegal immigration to the US. It began by highlighting the immigration problem.
• Capital Punishment Does Not End the Crime Capital punishment needs to be abolished due to the belief that it is equivalent to the crime committed, which is unjust and a form of retribution.
• The Bank Robbery Crime Investigation The primary objective of securing the crime scene is to preserve all the evidence that can help trace and identify the bank robbery suspect.
• White-Collar Crime: Definition and Special Features White-collar crimes are defined as deception, concealment, or breach of trust, and the difference between it and other types of crimes boils down to a question of opportunity.
• Budget Narrative for Markia Crime Stopper Program The following is the budget narrative to enable the Markia crime-stopper program initiative to effectively protect, respond to, and report criminal acts in the community.
• Obsession With True Crime and the Reasons for Its Growing Popularity This paper discusses the people’s obsession with true crime and explains its current popularity by some fundamental human needs and specific current conditions.
• Dante’s View on Crime and Punishment Dante believed that the crimes most worthy of penalty were those of abuse of trust, for reasons rooted in sociopolitical factors as well as the philosophy and law of his day.
• Forensics Analysis of Terrorism Crime Scene Terrorism uses calculated violence to generate public fear and panic to establish a specific political agenda within the general population.
• Autistic Disorder and Crime in the United States Prevalence and incidence rates of autistic disorders are not high in the United States. According to Schug and Fradella, the prevalence rates are 5 cases per 10,000 people.
• Managing Crime and Deviance at Public Events and Public Venues The purpose of this article is to consider the problem of crime and deviations at public events and in public places, as well as to propose methods to combat it.
• The Definition of White-Collar Crime by Sutherland Sutherland had an approach to the definition of white-collar crime that was purely rooted in a sociological approach.
• Deterring Juvenile Crime. Bullying and Delinquency Delinquency can be defined as a crime committed by a minor; in the recent few years, cases of juvenile delinquency have been on the rise.
• Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut This article explains the purpose and duties of conscience as depicted in the Mark Twain story, The Facts Concerning the Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut.
• Criminal Justice System: Drugs and Crime The main objective of the criminal justice system is ensuring delivery of justice for all. It mainly concentrates in detection of crime.
• Biological, Biosocial and Classical Theories of Crime The association of biology and criminality based on modifications of the brain also stands as a strong influence on the behavior of an individual.
• Crime Causation Theories: Contrastive Analysis The purpose of this paper is to provide a contrastive analysis of the three crime causation theories in order to define the most prevalent one.
• Nurse Robaczynski’s Case: Crime or Mercy Killing? The nurse had to disconnect her patient’s respirator because he had no chance to survive. However, the opinions of experts in the field, in this case, tend to vary.
• Generali Group: Developments in Financial Crime The paper has outlined recent trends associated with financial crime from a GRC practitioner’s point of view. It has methods for protecting the financial sector institutions.
• Smash-And-Grab Crime: Criminal Investigation The smash-and-grab crime under investigation is a multi-million-dollar burglary that occurred in March 2022 at a Beverly Hills jewelry store.
• Three Items Linked to Policing That Explain Japan’s Low Crime Rate One of the most significant trends observed in Japan over the past years is the low crime rate. The positive trend has promoted peace and socioeconomic progress in the nation.
• Crime in Falkner’s “Barn Burning” and Poe’s “Cask of Amontillado” William Faulkner’s Barn Burning and Edgar Allan Poe’s Cask of Amontillado raise the topic of crimes that go unpunished.
• Examination of a Mock Crime Scene The crime occurred around 9:00 PM on March 11th, 2021, and was discovered and examined approximately at 9:30 PM on the same day.
• Counterfeit Products and Sociological Theories of Crime The paper will attempt to employ sociological theories such as strain theory, social learning theory, and control theory to analyze various aspects of counterfeiting.
• Organized Crime: The Canadian Mafia The Canadian based criminal gang organization engaged in drug trafficking, smuggling, gambling and political corruption.
• We Are Living in a Risk Society Governed Through Crime Society and the world at large are under siege of crime; all sorts of crime from pickpocketing to capital crimes and even treason.
• The Link Between Relative Deprivation and Crime In the paper, the author notes that radical theory has the potential to promote noble ideals as far as social equality and justice is concerned.
• Topology of Corporate Crime and White Collar Crime Corporate crime is pure form of white collar crime. Corporate abuse of power, corporate fraud has a fundamental link with the core concept of white collar crime.
• The Profile of a Crime Victim The profile of a crime victim is generally regarded to be a matter of statistics, while the victims themselves are people of various origins, ages, and occupations.
• “Crimes Against Logic” by Jamie Whyte Crimes against Logic touches the aspect of fallacies through the description of human values and behavior following major actions performed.
• Crime Theories. “Can’t Catch a Break” by Sered & Norton-Hawk By reviewing the contents of the book and comparing and contrasting it with the three theories, one can examine the key concepts of both the book and the theories.
• Organized Business Crime Prosecution and Investigation Mr. Big is charged with operating a criminal enterprise that engages in illicit business activities. The memo proposes the investigative plan to obtain relevant evidence.
• National Crime Prevention Council’s Media Campaign National Crime Prevention Council is among the American educational nonprofit institutions that enable the creation of safe communities by addressing issues such as drugs.
• Banning Violent Video Games Is a Crime Against Artistic Expression This paper discusses the statement that banning violent video games is a crime against artistic expression, credible research, and the first amendment.
• Crime and Factors Influencing It Many modern theories, including biosocial criminology, are beginning to consider various processes occurring inside the body as factors contributing to the commission of crimes.
• Domestic Violence: “Crime in Alabama” by Hudnall et al. The consequences of domestic violence can be associated with deterioration in the population’s quality of life, psychological problems, or even the victim’s death.
• Fear of Crime and Crime Rates As a social phenomenon, the fear of crime can sometimes be more dangerous than the crime itself, leading to distortion in the social order.
• Impact of Immigration on the Economy Looking back on the United States’ history on the issue of immigration, the first immigrants came into the country starting in 1820.
• Oklahoma City Bomber Timothy McVeigh’s Crime Army soldiers performed the deadliest terrorist attack on the territory of the United States, which remained in this status until September 11, 2001.
• Network Security and Cyber Crime, Super-Highway Metaphor Some of the major practices that can be done in ensuring maximum data security and integrity is through making all the servers only accessible by the administrators of networks.
• The Relationship Between Race and Crime in the United States The US media often mentions Latinos in the news when discussing drug trafficking and crimes related to crossing US borders.
• Successful Ways of Preventing Crime by Blundell Successful ways of preventing crime should be based on a variety of methods. Also, crime is considered to be a social issue can say about effective programs are to be developed.
• Preventing Crime Victimization in International Students International students are the students who go to other countries to study and because of this, they face a lot of problems – including becoming the victim of a crime.
• Mechanisms to Fight Serious Forms of Organized Crime in Italy The report analyzes safety in Italy organized crimes range from corporate crime, Neapolitan Camorra and mafia.
• The Role of Forensics in the War on Drugs This essay looks at chemicals that are used by forensic experts and the role forensics play in the war on drugs.
• Predatory Crime Causation and Substance Abuse Problems Substance abuse problems, as the causes of deviant behavior, are a subject of study in biosocial criminological theories.
• The Race, Crime, and Urban Inequality Theory The theory of race, crime, and urban inequality is based on the paradigm of social disorganization theory formulated by the Chicago School.
• Violent Crime in the USA There are many crimes in the world as well as those that are considered as violent. They mean infliction of harm to human life or health and are divided into several types.
• Russian Organized Crime: History & Personalities This research paper seeks to focus on Russian Organized Crime. It will elaborately discuss its history, notable ROC personalities, size and scope, causes, and significances.
• Media and Crime: Shaping of Public Opinion The essay emphasizes how the media exaggerates and portrays false images of a victim and the consequences of crime for a common citizen.
• Assessing Role of Technology in Police Crime Mapping The role of technology in police operations has become pivotal because it aids our law enforcement agencies to do their tasks easier and less time-consuming.
• “Goodfellas” Crime Drama Film by Martin Scorsese Goodfellas is an iconic crime drama film released in 1990. It was directed by Martin Scorsese, also written by him and Nicholas Pileggi.
• Organized and Transnational Crime in Southeast Asia The paper argues that human trafficking, drug trafficking, and money laundering are some of the most acute security challenges that societies in Southeast Asia encounter today.
• Crime Scene Investigation in Media and Real Life The process of identifying and matching a piece of evidence to a particular person is a long process which requires exact sciences and methods.
• Implicit Bias and the Crime Net in the Criminal Justice System An unequal distribution of cases against members of different ethnic groups characterizes the use of force by police officers against citizens in Canada.
• Problem-Focused Policing Reducing Crime Problem-oriented policing entails the identification of factors that raise crime risk, diagnosing them, and establishing solutions to them.
• Post-Crime Investigation Analysis Post-crime investigations are an essential process. One of the most important factors is the scene of the crime and the testimony of the victim and witnesses.
• Hip-Hop and Violence: Does This Music Genre Promote Crime? It is hard to disagree that various types and directions of art are extremely powerful and can have a severe impact on the world and society.
• Technologies to Reduce Crime and Acts of Terrorism Terrorism can be met with a nonviolent, credible, and justifiable reaction if counterterrorism actions are anchored in an accountable and productive criminal justice system.
• Racial Discrimination Cases: Federal Hate Crime Charges in Black Jogger’s Racial discrimination happens when a person is considered unacceptable or is denied the same possibilities as others in a similar position because of their ethnicity, or birth country.
• Asian Hate Crime: Social Limitations and Economic Impact This review focuses on Asian hate and marginalization roots, the current social limitations and economic impacts.
• Crime and Juvenile Delinquency Impact on Justice The contemporary issue of crime and juvenile delinquency has a negative impact on the field of criminal justice since it contributes to disorganization and anomie.
• White-Collar and Corporate Crime White-collar crimes have increased in the modern world due to improved technology. Typically, these criminal activities are financially-motivated and are nonviolent.
• Crime Rates in Urban and Suburban Areas Currently, researchers are paying more and more attention to the consideration of predicates of increased crime rates in urban areas of large cities.
• World War II Atrocities: Crimes Against Humanity This paper focuses on the crimes against humanity in World War II. The crimes are not on the battlefield and are unconnected with specific military activities.
• Overcoming Juvenile Crime: Community Programs Juvenile crime is a complex issue that a single program cannot resolve. There are specialized community programs that work with juvenile criminals and prevent their future crimes.
• Official Crime Data for Policy Development Using official crime data is very important, as it allows the development of policies that target the actual circumstances and avoid biases.
• Online and Offline Museums in Correlation with Crime People may now visit the world’s best museums using standard technologies. In this paper, these three museums will be illustrated from criminology and their correlation with crime.
• Biometrics Recognition and Crime Prevention The current business proposal suggests several recommendations on how to prevent consequent crimes and identify the perpetrators by using biometrics recognition.
• Procedures Within Crime Scene Investigation A crime scene investigation is a complex and multistage research process in which a criminology specialist uses various scientific techniques and methodologies.
• A Legal or Ethical Obligation of Facebook to Assist a Crime Victim Platforms like Facebook should have a moral obligation to assist crime victims as soon as possible after gathering information from its members.
• A Victim as a Dark Figure of a Crime A victim is any person who has suffered moral, physical, or property damage from a wrongful act, regardless of whether he is duly recognized as a victim of this crime or not.
• The Markia Security Crime Stoppers Program The initiative program named Markia Security Crime Stoppers has the objective to reduce the rate of burglaries through a series of preventive measures.
• Rising Crime and Ethnic Inequality in the United States The article raises the up-to-date topic of the sharp increase in the crime rate in the United States. The numbers are exceptionally high among African Americans and Latinos.
• Civil War Veterans and Crime in America Podcast by Handley-Cousins and Earls explores how American society and its disabled soldiers coped with the perceptions of service, disability, and government responsibility.
• Discourse of Fear in Local Crime News Fear is used as one of the formats of the crime news discourse, and it is popular today among many newspapers and advertising companies.
• The Influence of Police Bias on Disparity in Juvenile Crime: Methodology The issue of racial disparity in the criminal justice system remains a topical one. 64% of the charged youth are people of color.
• Ethics and Federal Laws as to Computer Crime With today’s rapid technological advancements, we must be conscious of the potential for cybercrime to create calamity.
• Crime Causes Among Adolescents Aged 12 to 17 Years Project proposal on the paper intended to explore the major reasons for the crime commitment among adolescents of this age group, ways to reduce crime among juveniles.
• Investigating Crime with Age and Mental Illnesses Factors This paper describes a criminal case that implies the elements of both age and mental illness presented by the young female homicide.
• White-Collar Crime and the Whistleblower Protection Program The paper discusses white crimes and how the whistleblower protection program can help and protect the affected employees.
• Theories of Crime and Juvenile Rights The article discusses rights of minors and adults should differ due to the peculiarities of the psychological characteristics of development.
• Comparison of Primary Crime Data Sources Used In the United States The uniform crime report and the national crime victimization survey are the two primary sources of crime data in America.
• Crime against Persons With Disabilities In conclusion, it is evident that disabled populations remain extremely vulnerable to mental, physical, and sexual abuse, as well as violence.
• Hate Crime: History and Prevalence in the US The American Psychological Association defines a hate crime as a legal offense against an individual or property instigated in whole or part by the bias of the offender.
• Violent Crime, Its Forms and Patterns Even though the legal reform associated with the introduction of rape shield laws work, their effectiveness is limited by inconsistent implementation across states.
• Computer Crime Prevention Measures The following paper describes the various prevention tools and procedures that are being followed in relation to computer crime
• Do Increases in Hate Crime Suggest That We Have Become Less Civilized and More Violent? This paper aims to discuss the history of the hate crime concept, as well as the connections between hate crimes, public awareness, and sensitisation to violence.
• The Natural Crime Concept in the Legal System The concept of natural crime covers actions that are deemed wrong regardless of whether they are enforced by law, these crimes have an inherent sense of wrong and harm.
• Social Change and Crime Rate Trends According to Cohen and Felson, structural changes in daily routine activities have a direct influence on the frequency of crime occurrence.
• What Impact Has Feminism Had in the Study of Women and Crime? The most notable impact of feminism on women could be illustrated through the emerging interest of researchers to females in vulnerable communities.
• Psychological Disorders and How They Promote Crime and Conduct Problems Psychological disorders are one of the factors that have a significant influence on crime rates. This paper analyzes psychological disorders and how they promote crime.
• Crime Level Investigation in the United States Two mechanisms that the USA uses to trace the rate of crime in the country are the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) and the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS).
• The Crime of Homicide: History and Laws The project describes homicide, which is the illegal killing of a human being by another. There exist state laws that define the services offered to the victims of homicide.
• Crime Trends in London and Manchester: 2005 to 2009 The latest annual recap by the Home Office suggests that burglaries and violence around the nation may have at least held steady against the prior 2007/08 financial year.
• The Drug Trafficking as Organized Crime Drug trafficking is among the recently organized crimes, and it has a direct influence on the economy as it earns a lot of money.
• Seventh Day Adventists Fight Crime in Jamaica In this article, the author examines the problem of crime in Jamaica and also expresses an opinion on the influence Seventh Day Adventists can have on solving the problem.
• White-Collar Crime Description White-collar crime is among the subtlest, most non-evident, and most impactful types of crime, which affects the population on a scale of millions.
• Drugs and Crime Committed Under the Influence It would be prudent to differentiate between two types of drug-related crimes. There are instances of drug-related crimes and psychopharmacological crimes.
• DNA Analysis: A Crime-Fighting Tool or Invasion of Privacy? The paper argues that DNA analysis is an important crime-fighting tool and bring great benefit despite the likelihood of an invasion of privacy.
• The Sex Crime: Influence of Childhood Experiences Offenders may engage in sex crimes under an influence of having experienced sexual abuse themselves or other traumatic events in their childhood.
• Murder Cases: Technology for Crime Monitoring and Control A new invention in the field of crime monitoring has greatly contributed to a decline in the number of crimes being committed.
• Status Crime: White Collar Crime in Organizations White-collar crime is characterized by inflating the asset values, overstating the reported income and cash flow, and failure to disclose the liabilities in the financial records.
• Crime Trends: Drug Abuse in Adults and Juveniles One notes a mixed trend in the different crimes over the years. Drug abuse, for example, increased steadily from the 1970s in both the adult and juvenile populations.
• Impact of Crime on Civil Liability and Risk: FTCA FTCA of 1946 waived the doctrine of sovereign immunity of the United States government. All federal workers lack defense of their employment and become liable for their wrongdoing.
• White-Collar Crime: Securities and Pension Fraud The PERAC has in the recent past tried to conduct its activities in the best possible way in a bid to eradicate all forms of pension fraud.
• Crime Rate Series. Main Cases Reporting Criminology is a complex study and care has to be taken. The reporting of the level of felony in an area can be used by a myriad of people in society to plan other activities.
• Arms Smuggling as a Form of Transitional Organized Crime The paper sets to discuss how small arms smuggling has affected the social, economical and political well being globally.
• Are Marxist Criminologists Right to See Crime Control as Class Control? Marxist criminology is comparable to functionalist theories, which lay emphasis on the production of continuity and stability in any society.
• Crime, Childhood Trauma, and Health The connection between crime, childhood trauma, poverty, and both physical and mental health would be all-encompassing and complete.
• Reporting Behavior Among Victims of Crime The reporting behavior among victims of crime remains relatively low. Satisfaction level in police operations is among the prominent predictors of crime.
• Crime Intermidiate Houses and Communities Correction centers for crime offenders exist in an assorted list. They may include recreation, trial, parole, public duty, and penalty alternatives.
• Drugs and Crime Description: Federal Drug Statutes This paper identifies the current federal drug statutes; Minnesota State statute that governs controlled substances; statistics on drug convictions at the federal level and Minnesota.
• Hate Crime Laws are a Bad Idea Charley Reese provides his opinion on the adoption of hate crime legislation. He identifies their possible consequences for society in general.
• Is Prostitution a Victimless Crime or Not? Because victimless crimes involve two contentious issues of morality and liberty, the legalization of this category of crime is always disputed on many grounds.
• Aetiology of Violent Crime Violent crime has become a major part of the crime world. Sexual crimes, terrorism, and hooliganism are just some of the violent crimes.
• Children as Perpetrators and Victims of Crime
• Uniform Crime Reporting: Indicator of Crime in the US
• Crime and Criminal Behavior: Assault Concept Study
• Uniform Crime Report: Term Definition
• Syndicated and Organized Crime and Governmental Crime
• Crime in American Society: Causes, Types, Costs, Etc.
• Fear of Victims to Report Crime
• Crime Rate: the Recidivism Rate
• Racism, Crime and Justice and Growing-Up Bad
• Various Issues Related to White-Collar Crime
• Crime Rates: Hawaii
• White Collar Crime – Madoff Affair
• Enhanced Police Patrol Drones for Crime Prone Neighborhoods
• The Effects of Hate Crime Law on Democracy
• Crime Theory Regarding Rape Laws
• Crime and Class Relations Analysis
• Property Crime Rates in Fayetteville, North Carolina
• Uniform Crime Reports: Crime Trends and Repeat Victimization
• Crime in Texas: Security Strategies
• Community Policing: The Alternative Solution to Youth Crime
• Crime and Causation: Robbery
• Crime Statistics Comparison Between Two Universities
• Current Corrections in the Criminal Justice System and Crime Control
• The Case of Shooting at Planned Parenthood: Understanding the Causes of the Crime
• The Profiling of Crime Victims
• The Psychological Underpinning of True Crime Obsession
• The Theory Deviance and Crime
• White Collar Crime, Corporate Crime and Substance Abuse
• Crime Rates in the US and Its Link to the Juvenile Justice System
• Confidential Informants and Crime
• Property Crime and Sociological Typologies: Law Study
• Terrorism as a Transnational Organized Crime
• Crime Among the Juveniles: Causes
• Homeland Security, Race and Crime in the US
• The Relationship Between Drugs and Addiction to Crime
• Crime Situation in Bankstown-Australia
• Drugs and Society Violent Crime: Public Drunkenness
• Should We Rely on Eye-Witness Testimonies to Identify Crime-Suspects?
• Drug Abuse and Crime Correlation
• Presidential Powers: Official Pardon for Crime Granting
• Crime and Justice by Curie
• Feasibility of Modifying Crime Map
• Crime Prevention Programme in Australia
• Criminal Justice and Crime Control in the US
• “White-Collar Crime” Definition and Qualification
• Internationalism: The Issue of Transitional Crime
• Juvenile Crime Concepts Review
• Criminological Theory: Context and Consequences. The Notion of Criminality and Crime
• Crime Rates in the United States over 20 Years
• Sex Trafficking by Organized Crime Groups
• Organized Crime and Drug Trafficking Offenders
• The Crime of Challenging Moral Settings
• Recidivism of Juvenile Crime
• Capital Punishment for Crime Deterrence
• Childhood Crime at School in the State of Texas
• Crime Scene Safety and Security in the United States
• Crime and Delinquency Theories
• Sociological Diversity and Its Impact on Crime Rate
• How Local Television News Viewing Relates to Fear of Crime?
• Capital Punishment as Ineffective Crime Deterrence
• Race and Crime Among Minorities in the US
• Repression and Crime Control
• The Teens, Crime, and Community Project in the US
• White-Collar Crime and Negligence
• “Crime in Post-Katrina Houston” Study by Settles and Lindsay
• Nortel Networks Company’s Corporate Crime
• Flagami Community’s Crime and Health Situation
• US Gun Control Measures and Crime Rates Reduction
• Psychological Help as the Prevent From Possible Crime
• The Racilisation of Crime and Cultural Panics
• Criminality Development in the Documentary A Life of Crime
• How Can Criminology Theories Help in Preventing or Solving Crimes?
• Should Children Who Commit Crime Be Tried as Adults?
• Are Crime Control and Social Welfare Becoming More Punitive?
• How Can Social Science Theory Help Reduce Crime?
• Can Criminological Theories Help Manage Crime in the Workplace?
• Should Government Implement Laws for Cyber Crime?
• Does Imprisoning Drug Offenders Reduce Crime Rates?
• How Does the Holocaust Explodes the Concept of Mass Crime?
• Are Hate Crime Laws Effective?
• What Is the Link Between Drugs and Crime and What Can Be Done Towards Drug-Related Crimes?
• How Does Criminology Help Our Understanding of Crime and Criminals?
• Does Social Deprivation Relate to Crime?
• What Impact Does the Changing Nature of Crime Have on Criminology?
• Are Homeless People More Likely to Become Involved or Be Victims of Crime?
• How Can Technology Help Police and Government Officials Solve Crime?
• Should Crime Victims Have Rights During Criminal Investigations?
• Can Public Works Programs Reduce Youth Crime?
• How Were Crime and Punishment Handled in the Roman Era?
• Are Non-custodial Sentences Soft on Crime?
• How Do Crime Scene Investigations Aid in Prosecution?
• Can Death Penalty Prevent the Rise in Crime Rate?
• Does Longer Incarceration Deter or Incapacitate Crime?
• How Does Corporate Crime Challenge Conventional Definitions of Crime?
• Can Punitive Measures Curtail Crime?
• How Does the Media Use an Ideal Victim in Portrayals of Crime?

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StudyCorgi. (2021, September 9). 281 Crime Essay Topics & True Crime Research Topics. https://studycorgi.com/ideas/crime-essay-topics/

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1. StudyCorgi . "281 Crime Essay Topics & True Crime Research Topics." September 9, 2021. https://studycorgi.com/ideas/crime-essay-topics/.

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StudyCorgi . "281 Crime Essay Topics & True Crime Research Topics." September 9, 2021. https://studycorgi.com/ideas/crime-essay-topics/.

StudyCorgi . 2021. "281 Crime Essay Topics & True Crime Research Topics." September 9, 2021. https://studycorgi.com/ideas/crime-essay-topics/.

These essay examples and topics on Crime were carefully selected by the StudyCorgi editorial team. They meet our highest standards in terms of grammar, punctuation, style, and fact accuracy. Please ensure you properly reference the materials if you’re using them to write your assignment.

This essay topic collection was updated on January 5, 2024 .

The 24 best true crime books about everything from notorious serial killers to horrifying cults

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• From podcasts to documentaries, true crime stories are everywhere.
• True crime books are highly researched accounts of great tragedies.
• Our recommendations include notorious killers and cold case murders.

From murder podcasts to crime documentaries, many of us love the stories behind real crimes. True crime books are highly researched nonfiction reads that detail the people and events surrounding serial murders, kidnappings, and other terrible crimes. Some true crime reads are even memoirs, written by those closest to the tragedies. 

Whether you're fascinated by the true crime genre or are interested in a specific story, these true crime reads take us into the center of it all. These recommendations are bestsellers on Amazon and Bookshop, highly rated favorites from Goodreads reviewers, and page-turners about some of the most notorious crimes in history.

The 24 best true crime books in 2022:

A memoir from a notorious cold case investigator.

"Unmasked: My Life Solving America's Cold Cases" by Paul Holes, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $17.62

Paul Holes was a cold case investigator known for his work on cases like the Zodiac Killer, Laci Peterson, Jaycee Dugard, and, most notably, the Golden State Killer. This true crime memoir looks back on his rewarding and draining career of tracking down killers and sacrificing relationships to bring closure to others. 

A true crime investigation into the Golden State Killer

"I'll Be Gone in the Dark" by Michelle McNamara, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $13.27

The Golden State Killer terrorized California for more than 10 years, committing more than 50 sexual assaults and 10 violent murders before disappearing. Though the police were unable to identify or locate the man, Michelle McNamara was an investigative journalist who was determined to bring him to justice. This book is the fast-paced account of her efforts, and a compelling accumulation of years of dedicated work. Michelle McNamara passed away suddenly during her investigation, but her lead researcher and her husband, Patton Oswalt, collaborated to finish this story, a compelling accumulation of years of dedicated work.

A narrative nonfiction story of survival

"Walking the Bowl: A True Story of Murder and Survival Among the Street Children of Lusaka" by Chris Lockhart & Daniel Mulilo Chama, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $20.68

This true story of survival and endurance centers around the murder investigation of a 10-year-old boy whose body was found in a Lusaka landfill. It follows four children — Moonga, Timo, Lusabilo, and Kapula — in a narrative nonfiction story of their daily lives and those of other "street kids."

A literary true crime classic

"In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $10.29

"In Cold Blood" is a true crime classic, one that reconstructs a senseless murder of four family members in 1959 Kansas, each killed by a shotgun blast inches from their faces. Truman Capote's writing reads like a thriller as he breeds suspense through journalistic research of the crime, the investigation, and the ultimate execution of the killers. This is an in-depth look at the criminals who left almost no clues for the investigators, a book that was once required reading in many schools and now a favorite amongst true crime readers for the depth of characterization and Truman's unique and alluring use of language.

"The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple" by Jeff Guinn, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $14.59

"The Road to Jonestown" is a comprehensive true crime tale of Jim Jones, who was ultimately responsible for the largest murder-suicide in American history. This narrative read follows Jones from his time as a young minister, through affairs and drug use, to the events that lead to the Jonestown Massacre.

The true story and effects of the Highway of Tears

"Highway of Tears: A True Story of Racism, Indifference and the Pursuit of Justice for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls" by Jessica McDiarmid, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $14.89

This true crime read is a history of the Indigenous women who have gone missing or been found murdered along the isolated Highway 16 in British Columbia. Through a series of interviews with those closest to the victims, this nonfiction book examines the effects of these tragedies, the cultural tensions, and the system that has continuously failed Ingedinous people. 

A true crime read that unravels a bestselling diary

"Unmask Alice: LSD, Satanic Panic, and the Imposter Behind the World's Most Notorious Diaries" by Rick Emerson, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $22.57

In 1971, a diary called "Go Ask Alice," which outlined a teenager's destructive descent, was anonymously published and has since sold five million copies. "Unmask Alice" unravels the literary deception of this book and "Jay's Journal," both of which captivated readers with their startling content.

A detailed dive into decades of Hollywood abuse

"Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators" by Ronan Farrow, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $14.90

The investigative story of the abuses and cover-ups surrounding Harvey Weinstein, this true crime book reads like a thriller. Ronan Farrow is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist who fought against an elaborate web of lies to expose the outrageous truths of predatory sexual and harassment in Hollywood, not only from Weinstein but from an industry of offenders who abused their power and silenced their victims. While many readers are likely familiar with this story due to its high publicity, Farrow's elaborate takedown of powerful abusers is worth reading about in detail. 

An inside look into an elaborate con

"Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup" by John Carreyrou, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $11.45

Elizabeth Holmes was the CEO of Theranos, a company that revolutionized the medical industry with a machine that would make blood tests faster and easier. Seen as the female Steve Jobs and hailed as a genius across the media, Elizabeth's net worth quickly rocketed to $4.7 billion and her company to $9 billion — until it was discovered that her product didn't work. The book outlines how one woman managed to defraud medical facilities, FDA researchers, and her own employees, a story of unparalleled corporate fraud and unchecked greed.

A deep-rooted true crime conspiracy resulting in a string of murders

"Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI" by David Grann, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $9.16

When oil was discovered beneath the land of the native Osage in Oklahoma in the 1920s, they became some of the richest people in the world. But, slowly, the Osage were being killed or dying under mysterious circumstances. As the death toll reached 24, the newly established FBI began to investigate. Famously corrupt at the time, the FBI failed to solve the case until the director teamed up with one of the only Indigenous agents to uncover the mystery around one of the most sinister conspiracies in American history. This shocking historical injustice is an important piece of purposefully buried history that needs to be told.

A spotlight on a bloody guerilla campaign and its civilian victims

"Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland" by Patrick Radden Keefe, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $10.99

"The Troubles" was a 30-year conflict in Northern Ireland that began as an effort to end discrimination of the Catholic, nationalist minority. It was a guerilla campaign, with more than half of the people killed being civilians, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) responsible for most of the deaths. "Say Nothing" is the story of the brutal murders committed in the name of this campaign, including that of Jean McConville in 1972, a mother of 10 who was abducted from her home and whose body wasn't discovered until 2003. This is an intricate narrative that used over 100 interviews to construct a portrait of the lasting repercussions of this conflict.

A shocking true crime memoir of survival and forgiveness

"The Pale-Faced Lie" by David Crow, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $13.39

This is a memoir of true crime, the story of David Crow's unlikely survival and success despite a chaotic and traumatic upbringing. David grew up on the Navajo Reservation with his ex-convict father who viciously manipulated him into criminal demands. After managing to escape his father's remorseless grasp, David reaches a climax with his father where he must outsmart him to survive. This is a simultaneously heartbreaking and heartwarming story of the lifelong process of forgiveness despite years of abuse, an insightful and inspirational memoir of resilience.

A true story of survival in the face of maternal evil

"If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood" by Gregg Olson, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $11.99

"If You Tell" is a disturbing read about torture, abuse, and murder from a pscyophathic mother and the bond the sisters used to survive. This book brings to light, in detail, the horrors of torture and neglect that Nikki, Sami, and Tori Knotek endured and held secret through childhood. The story is intense, using the narratives from the daughters, husband, neighbors, and friends to paint the picture of a woman who subjected her children to unspeakable trauma. It is a heartbreaking story of survival, one of three women's exceptional bravery in the face of evil.

A unique perspective on the Ted Bundy story

"The Stranger Beside Me: The Shocking Inside Story of Serial Killer Ted Bundy" by Ann Rule, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $15.99

When Ann Rule, a true crime writer, signed on to write a book about a brutal serial killer of young women, she didn't know it would be about a man with whom she had a lasting friendship — Ted Bundy. Ann struggled to understand how her intelligent and charismatic coworker at the crisis center in Seattle could be accused of such horrific crimes. Refusing to be embarrassed by being fooled by Ted, this book is biographical and autobiographical, telling the story of the notorious and charming serial killer while also narrating Ann's difficulty to accept such a heavy reality.

The story of a hate crime that fueled the Civil Rights movement

"The Blood of Emmett Till" by Timothy B. Tyson, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $14.49

In 1955, 14-year-old Emmett Till was killed after being accused of offending a white woman in a grocery store. This hate crime, in combination with his mother's actions afterwards, spurred a wave of activism in the Civil Rights movement including sit-ins, Rosa Parks' famous "no," and a Supreme Court decision making segregation unconstitutional. This book tells Emmett's story, with new evidence including an admission of innocence from the woman he was accused of offending. 

The investigative journalism that brought justice to unsolved crimes

"Race Against Time: A Reporter Reopens the Unsolved Murder Cases of the Civil Rights Era" by Jerry Mitchell, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $12.49

Jerry Mitchell's work around this true crime book helped reopen decades-old cases left unsolved due to bigoted corruption. In 1964, more than 20 Klansmen killed three Civil Rights activists in what would be known as the Mississippi Burning — a hate crime that took more than 40 years to see convictions. Mitchell profiles the assassination of Medgar Evers, the 16th Street Baptist Church Bombings, the firebombing of Vernon Dahomey, and the Mississippi Burning in his book. His commitment to justice resulted in prison sentences for four Klansmen.

The true story of a gruesome murder

"The Evil Within: The Heartbreaking Story of Becky Watts by her Father" by Darren Galsworthy, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $12.15

This is the shocking story of Becky Watts, murdered and dismembered by her stepbrother in February 2015. Her father, the author, investigates the darkness around his stepson, who he raised as his own, and the strange relationship between him and Becky. It also recounts the nightmarish trial, a story that refuses to shy away from the truth despite the constant pain surrounding every aspect of the account. Used as a tool to help conquer the grief, Becky's father writes a heartbreaking story of a parent's experience beyond devastation and the heartwarming growth of community around Becky's murder.

A true crime account of an infamous series of cult murders

"Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders" by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $12.20

The Manson Family was a 50-person commune and cult led by Charles Manson , responsible for at least nine murders in the 1960s and 1970s. Written by the prosecuting attorney in the Manson trial, this true crime book offers a detailed, first-hand account of the proceedings of the Tate-LaBianca murders from 1969. Carried out by Manson and four of his followers, the murders appeared senseless and random, his cult intriguing and instilling fear worldwide. This is a shocking narrative, gripping and filled with more details than ever before of the murders, the trial, and the societal fascination surrounding the crimes. 

The powerful truth behind a horrible massacre

"Columbine" by Dave Cullen, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $15.49

Hailed as a definitive account of the school shooting in 1999, Dave Cullen spent more than 10 years meticulously reporting and investigating the teenage killers responsible for a high school massacre. This is a harrowing chronicle of the shooting and attempted bombing as well as a year-by-year story of the survivors, the victims' families, and the narrative that shifted as time passed. Cullen analyzes the violence with survivor accounts, evidence from the investigation, and words from the shooters to create a vivid report of a grave tragedy.

The shocking story of an Australian arsonist

"The Arsonist: A Mind on Fire" by Chloe Hooper, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $16.94

This story is about Black Saturday — a series of fires lit in 2009 that became one of the most devastating bushfire disasters in Australia, killing 173 people and destroying approximately 1.1 million acres and 2,000 homes. Hooper uses brilliant storytelling and narrative nonfiction to follow the hunt for a man who lit two fires, analyzing the psyche of the arsonist in combination with the survivors, detectives, and defense lawyers to create an unsettling read of the painful journey to justice.

A historical restoration of humanity to forgotten victims

"The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed" by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $10.49

In 1888, five women — Polly, Annie, Elizabeth, Catherine, and Mary-Jane — had little in common despite their murders by an unidentified man dubbed "Jack the Ripper." As the personality coined to fill the gap grew, the stories of these women were buried beneath a narrative of a serial killer who targeted "prostitutes" — a false narrative that resulted in the dismissal of the victims by a society that devalued sex workers. More than a century later, Hallie Rubenhold profiles the difficult lives of these Victorian women that history chose to forget, restoring the humanity of the victims diminished by the legend of "Jack the Ripper." 

The real investigation that led to justice

"Devil's Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three" by Mara Leveritt, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $13.33

"Devil's Knot" is a highly researched account of three men released after 18 years in prison, despite two life sentences and one death sentence. In 1933, three teenagers, alleged members of a satanic cult, were charged with the murders of three 8-year-old boys. This book outlines the investigation and conviction as well as how their unprecentented release from prison was a miscarriage of justice set right. It is a terrifying case, one that incites anger from readers over a narrow-minded town and the "witch hunt" style trial driven by fear that put three teenagers in prison. 

The true story of assaults on one college campus

"Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town" by Jon Krakauer, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $15.31

This is the horrifying story of how law enforcement failed the rape victims at the University of Montana, where the Department of Justice investigated over 350 sexual assaults between 2008 and 2012. Jon Krakauer used interviews and discarded evidence to show how police and the school chose to believe the accused even when there was surmounting evidence from the victims. The horrible experiences of several women in Missoula demonstrate the importance of taking sexual assault allegations on campus seriously. 

A true crime story that reads like fiction

"The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America" by Erik Larson, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $9.50

This book uses alternating narratives to tell the story of two men during the construction of the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. Daniel Burnham, an architect, was tasked to construct the "White City" that would save Chicago's reputation, despite nearly insurmountable personal and professional odds. Meanwhile, H.H. Holmes used his charm and newly constructed hotel to lure women into gruesome horrors that would lead to their untimely deaths. This true crime nonfiction book is so elaborately researched and written, it reads like a historical fiction thriller.

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The Best True Crime Books of 2019

A look at the year's best crime nonfiction..

If anyone came into 2019 thinking true crime had had its day, well, hopefully you didn’t put too much money down on that wager. The phenomenon continues, and why shouldn’t it? The kinds of true crime stories authors, podcasters, and documentary makers are telling seem to get more sophisticated, nuanced, and emotionally powerful with each passing year. The crime stories the culture is consuming with such a voracious appetite aren’t the lurid, semi-exploitative tales of yesteryear, but rather ambitious and empathetic portraits of crime and its effects. 2019 saw an increasing shift toward the perspective and stories of victims and of the historically voiceless. It saw, also, some of the hardest-hitting, most urgent investigative journalism of the day. In short, everything good nonfiction literature should be can be found right here in the true crime space.

It’s been a rewarding, illuminating year for true crime readers, and there’s every sign of more to come. For now, we’re looking back at the very best and most accomplished crime nonfiction books of the year, with a host of notable selections below.

Patrick Radden Keefe, Say Nothing (Doubleday)

In Say Nothing , Patrick Radden Keefe takes us into the murky history of the Irish Troubles’ Disappeared—a flashpoint both during the conflict and in the ability to process its legacy. Keefe traces the history of the Troubles through the murder of a mother of eight, kidnapped for her supposed support for the British. Keefe uses this single incident as a jumping off point to explore every aspect of the conflict, and in particular, the memorialization of conflict through oral history projects (when Boston College embarked on an effort to record the stories of the conflict, the IRA had fractured over the Good Friday Agreement and some were willing to talk; their stories ended up leading to a surprising reckoning both in Ireland and abroad). A thrilling tale all the more harrowing because it is entirely true, Keefe’s magnum opus takes us through the personal and political for a story as human as it is honest. Beautifully and forcefully written, well-researched, and not to be missed.

Peter Houlahan, Norco ‘80 (Counterpoint)

Southern California in the 1970s was a bank robbery hot zone, but there was one robbery in particular that caught public attention, shifted law enforcement tactics and attitudes, and seemed to incorporate strands of nearly all the day’s cultural movements, from the self-help gurus sweeping the state to the militarization of grassroots ideological collectives. Peter Houlahan tells the story of a small outfit of bank robbers who started out small-time and followed their apocalyptic leader onto the national stage as a job turns violent. Like American Heiress in the summer of 2016, this looks like the true crime book that will launch a hundred conversations.

Rachel Monroe, Savage Appetites: Four True Stories of Women, Crime, and Obsession (Scribner)

Rachel Monroe’s essay collection Savage Appetites is a revelation. There’s been a host of articles over the past decade (and further) asking why women love true crime (as if this should even be a question, given how long feminine ghoulishness has been an established fact). While most like to embrace a simplistic answer that has women interested in true crime as a mode of self-protection, Rachel Monroe knows that the answer is far more complicated. Through examining four archetypes of true crime obsession, illustrated by the cases of four distinct women, Monroe is able to present a layered portrait of women with a host of motivations, not all flattering, but all equally valid. Savage Appetites is one of several books to come out interrogating our societal interest in true crime, and our need to second-guess the interests of women. 

Jessica McDiarmid, Highway of Tears (Atria)

Jessica McDiarmid’s Highway of Tears is, quite possibly, the most depressing book ever read; partly because it depicts an ongoing crisis, but also because this crisis, despite massive public outcry, has failed to be addressed. For decades, Indigenous women and girls have been disappearing along the notorious “Highway of Tears” in British Columbia, where young women with few transportation options are often forced to hitchhike as the only way to get where they need to be, and where cell phone service and police call buttons are virtually nonexistent. National outcry spurred by Indigenous activism led to a plan by the Canadian government to increase safety measures along the highway, but with little budget and an increasingly conservative political stance, the government has failed to implement any of these safety measures. McDiarmid concludes the book not with the capture of a killer (or killers, as is suspected), but with the announcement that protections for Indigenous women and girls in Northern British Columbia are so poor, and removal of children from parents so frequent, as to constitute a modern-day genocide. 

Cara Robertson, The Trial of Lizzie Borden (Simon & Schuster)

 We’ll never stop being curious about Lizzie Borden, or the legal machinations that helped her get away scot-free, and The Trial of Lizzie Borden satisfies on both fronts. This meticulously researched true crime account of Lizzie Borden’s dramatic trial brings in newly unearthed materials for a novel take on a case that continues to fascinate and horrify in equal measure. Of particular note is Robertson’s choice to not speculate about Borden’s likely guilt or innocence, but instead to focus on what interest in the case revealed about the stifling lives of upper-class women of the era. 

Anita Anand, The Patient Assassin (Scribner)

In 1919, the dusty gathering place of Jallianwallah Bagh in the Northeastern Indian city of Amritsar became the site of a shocking bloodbath when British efforts to suppress perceived local unrest turned violent, and British soldiers opened fire into the crowd. A young man named Udham Singh swore vengeance against the British commanders responsible for the massacre, and spent the next 20 years engaged in a quest for vengeance that would take him all over the story. Anita Anand uses Singh’s life to tell not only a thrilling story of adventure and vengeance, but also to explore the harsh methods used to keep colonial hierarchies in place.

Hallie Rubenhold, The Five: The Untold Stories of the Victim of Jack the Ripper (Scribner) [OR]

The premise of Hallie Rubenhold’s fastidious and respectful book is so intuitive and obvious it’s horrifying that no one has presented its argument to such a thorough extent before: it profiles the five women who were killed by Jack the Ripper during the famous Whitechapel murder spree in 1888. In 131 years of cultural fascination with Jack the Ripper, the emphasis has largely been on the anonymous serial killer, and not on the five women whose lives not only completely ended at his hand, but were also absorbed into his legacy: Polly Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly. The book honors them; it is about their entire lives before their tragic ends, illuminating what it meant to live as a woman in Victorian society rather than die as one. 

James Polchin, Indecent Advances (Counterpoint)

Polchin’s harrowing account of the history of violence against queer men hits shelves on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots. It’s perfect timing for a book that dives deep into these never-before-told true crimes, and looks at the power mainstream messaging had on both the violence and the mounting resistance. Resurrecting a forgotten era of queer history, Polchin masterfully weaves brutal true crime research with critical analysis of the social history, exploring the way the media and nascent psychological theories were weaponizing prejudice and perpetuating a deviant stereotype of gay men.

Evan Ratliff, The Mastermind (Random House)

Ratliff has been opening eyes with his penetrating journalism from far-flung corners of the tech and criminal underworld for years, putting him in a perfect position to tell the shocking story of Paul LeRoux, a crime kingpin for the new century. LeRoux began as a programmer who saw a gap in the internet’s black market and began to fill it—with drugs, guns, and eventually all manner of contraband and illicit activity, building one of the world’s most formidable and deft criminal networks. Ratliff’s investigative chops and tech savvy are second-to-none, and in The Mastermind he’s able to tell both a gripping true crime story and a larger tale about the evolution of organized crime in the internet era.

Mark Bowden, The Last Stone (Atlantic Monthly)

In 1975, two girls were kidnapped from a mall outside Washington D.C. The kidnappers left few viable clues and while the region was glued to the story, authorities were stymied. Almost forty years later, a detective’s revelation sparked a new investigation into the case and a suspect imprisoned on other charges who, along with his reclusive family, seems hellbent on keeping his secrets. Bowden, now an acclaimed author of epic crime and war histories, knows the case inside and out—he was a young reporter just starting out in Baltimore when he was tasked with covering the story. In The Last Stone, he dives back into the case alongside the detectives and tells with enormous skill and empathy the story of those missing girls and the effort to bring their assailants to justice.

___________________________________

Notable Selections

Randall Sullivan, Dead Wrong: The Continuing Story of City of Lies, Corruption and Cover-Up In the Notorious BIG murder Investigation (Atlantic Monthly Press) · Maureen Callahan, American Predator (Viking) · Claire Harman, Murder by the Book: The Crime That Shocked Dickens’s London (Knopf) · JoeAnn Hart, Stamford ‘76: A True Story of Murder, Corruption, Race and Feminism in the 1970s (UOI Press) · Matthew McGough, The Lazarus Files: A Cold Case Investigation (Henry Holt) · Dan Bilefsky, The Last Job: The “Bad Grandpas” and the Hatton Garden Heist (W.W. Norton) · Carson Vaughan, Zoo, Nebraska: The Dismantling of an American Dream (Little A) · Josh Levin, The Queen (Little, Brown) · Casey Cep, Furious Hours (Knopf) · Kate Fazzini, Kingdom of Lies (St. Martin’s) · Ryan Jacobs, The Truffle Underground (Clarkson Potter) · Karen Abbott, The Ghosts of Eden Park (Crown) · Fred Vermoral, Dead Fashion Girl (Strange Attractor Press) · Sady Doyle, Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers  (HMH) ·

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The 26 True Crime Books Everyone Needs to Read

Because the real world is more terrifying and unsettling than fiction.

Every product was carefully curated by an Esquire editor. We may earn a commission from these links.

But why do we hunger so powerfully for these stories? Why are we willing to commit hours of our lives to them, whether they appear on the page or on the screen? When it comes to literary true crime, these stories grip us unlike any other genre. For every suspense novel that shocks and awes readers, there are real life stories that make those fictions seem tame and predictable. True crime is a loaded genre: the best authors do not sensationalize violence and human suffering, but they provide context and depth to the crimes they study. Many of them highlight the fallibility of the legal system and the ruinous forces of internalized racism and misogyny. In these excellent books, we’re reminded that true crime does not simply consist of a neatly constructed narrative with a criminal mastermind and heroic detectives and ideal victims. Life, and crimes, are so much messier than that. We've rounded up some of our favorites, which cover a wide swath of crimes highlighting a wide swath of societal origins and implications.

Scoundrel, by Sarah Weinman

What do William F. Buckley, Jr., an aspiring book editor, and a convicted killer have in common? More than you’d expect. In Scoundrel , Sarah Weinman traces the path of destruction of Edgar Smith, a manipulator and misogynist who was sentenced to death for the murder of a teenage girl in 1960s New Jersey. While on death row, Smith caught the attention of conservative pundit Buckley, who advocated for Smith’s release and also got him a deal with a book editor at Knopf. Weinman goes deep into the archives to show how Smith, a provocative letter-writer, convinced a wide variety of people of his innocence even as she makes a larger, salient point about whose lives get cut short, and who gets second chances (and book contracts!).

Doubleday Empire of Pain, by Patrick Radden Keefe

A saga that’s more about intergenerational greed than intergenerational trauma, Empire of Pain chronicles the rise and fall of the Sackler family. Although their name can be found on many buildings and museums, the Sacklers are now most widely known for owning Purdue Pharma, the drug company that marketed the painkiller Oxycontin knowing it would be addictive. Patrick Radden Keefe traces the family’s earliest days in America when the patriarch’s compulsive work ethic launched the family up by the bootstraps, and the latter generations who became so inured to wealth that they seemingly lacked awareness or compunction for significantly contributing to the opioid epidemic that destroyed so many lives.

We Keep the Dead Close, by Becky Cooper

As a Harvard undergrad, Becky Cooper had heard rumors about an ambitious female grad student in anthropology who had an affair with a professor, and who had then been murdered in 1969. The killer was never found. Forty years later, Cooper begins an investigation herself, slowly and steadily becoming more and more obsessed with the case. Even as Cooper reveals a complicated list of suspects that expands rather than narrows through the book's unfolding, We Keep the Dead Close implicates the institution of Harvard as a whole and the ways its centuries of elitism and discrimination have caused many kinds of violence.

Vintage Furious Hours, by Casey Cep

A winning combination of true crime and literary biography, Furious Hours introduces readers to the book that Harper Lee meant to write after the wild success of her 1960 debut, To Kill a Mockingbird . In the 1970s, Lee began to study the real-life case of the Reverend Willie Maxwell, a Southern preacher who was accused of murdering five family members for insurance money, and who was later killed himself at a family member’s funeral. Cep details how Lee became obsessed with getting all of the nuanced details of the case right (unlike her childhood friend Truman Capote did in his true crime opus In Cold Blood ), and writes an illuminating chunk of the book that Lee was never able to finish.

Vintage Bad Blood, by John Carreyrou

More business books should show up on best true crime lists. Here’s a juicy one that’s about the miraculous machine that can pull detailed health data from just a small drop of blood. It once was worth millions. Trouble is, it doesn’t work and has never worked. The focus of Bad Blood is on Elizabeth Holmes, the young and ambitious CEO of Theranos, who hoodwinked some of the most prominent businesspeople and politicians in America in her quest to build a company and girlboss the device to market. Wall Street Journal reporter Carreyrou takes readers from the first tip he ever received about the wild misdeeds happening at Theranos, to the many hours he spent building a case, to the moment when he finally published his exposé and the dominos began to fall.

Celadon Books Last Call, by Elon Green

In the 1980s while the AIDS epidemic was ravaging New York City, it was also turbocharging anti-queer hate crimes. Such crimes were often unreported because victims didn’t trust that the police would help or protect them. Against this backdrop, a serial killer lured victims from the relative safety of Manhattan’s piano bars, those oases in the city where all were welcome to schmooze over music and drinks. Elon Green’s extraordinary reporting uncovers a case that has gone under the radar too long, giving victims and their loved ones the attention they deserve

Scribner Savage Appetites, by Rachel Monroe

Savage Appetites is not so much a straightforward true crime book as it is a captivating exploration into why women in particular are drawn to the darkest and most depraved of real life stories. Rachel Monroe is a generous guide through the world of true crime, never dismissive of enthusiasts even as she turns a critical eye toward our consumption of the genre and the problems that arise when we look for simple stories to explain complicated situations. Savage Appetites is a great book to have on hand and refer back to as you’re reading other titles on this list.

Simon & Schuster Party Monster, by James St. James

Originally titled Disco Bloodbath , this is a true account of a murder within a particular subculture: the New York City club kids of the late eighties and early nineties who partied like it was their jobs. Written by one of the most over the top insiders, Party Monster details the highs and lows of the scene—the fashion, the sex, the indulgence, the nasty drug hangovers. The work culminates in the 1997 conviction of a club promoter named Michael Alig, who committed a particularly gruesome crime.

Liveright Publishing Corporation American Fire, by Monica Hesse

A gripping, fast-paced story with an asset that few true crime books have: no body count. The story of serial arsonists who tore through the economically depressed rural Accomack County, American Fire is more about the good people of the area and the volunteer firefighters working overtime than it is about the villains—but even then, and with no spoilers, the Freudian motivation of the culprits are fascinating.

Harper I'll Be Gone in the Dark, by Michelle McNamara

Author Michelle McNamara died suddenly in the process of writing this game-changing investigation of the Golden State Killer. That the book feels triumphant even after tragedy upon tragedy is a testament to McNamara’s skill as a reporter and the determination of her husband (comedian Patton Oswalt) to tie up loose ends and push forward with the publication.

Anchor Shot in the Heart, by Mikal Gilmore

Norman Mailer’s The Executioner’s Song told the story of Gary Gilmore, the first murderer to be executed in the United States (in 1977) in nearly a decade. That Gary’s younger brother Mikal is a celebrated journalist in his own right makes him the ideal writer to tell the story from a much different perspective, weaving a multigenerational story of dysfunction, abuse, and what drives a person to become a killer.

Bloomsbury USA The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher, by Kate Summerscale

At a time when the job of the detective was fairly new, Inspector Jonathan Whicher was the best of the bunch in Victorian London. When a young child was found dead with a slit throat in 1860, Whicher was brought in to investigate. Unfortunately, his hunch that the child’s family was involved was true, although there was no way for him to prove such a thing at the time. Although his story ends with perceived failure, the clever and tough Whicher became the real life model on whom so many of literature’s best detectives are based.

Twelve Columbine, by Dave Cullen

In an age when school shootings take place in America nearly every day, it can become way too easy to tune them out. Dave Cullen’s reportage on the shooting at Columbine High School in 1999 is more important now than ever. Even as he details how Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold managed to plan and execute a massacre, he is careful to give dignity to all involved—the teachers, the students, their parents.

FLATIRON The Fact of a Body, by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich

Part memoir, part investigation into the murder of a six year old boy in the early nineties, The Fact of a Body explores how our personal experiences shape how we see crimes and the people who perpetrated them. The author’s own experience with sexual abuse is the lens through which she approaches the pedophile and confessed murderer who she’s supposed to help defend in court.

Penguin Books The Poisoner's Handbook, by Deborah Blum

In the early days of the twentieth century, murdering people with arsenic or cyanide was easy-ish because such poisons were untraceable. That changed in 1918. Deborah Blum’s history of the birth of forensic science in New York City, when a new medical examiner made great strides in toxicology, is a must-read for fans of Jazz Age transgressions with a generous dose of chemistry.

Justice: Crimes, Trials, and Punishments, by Dominick Dunne

No one covered the lifestyles of the rich and infamous better than Dominick Dunne. His novels covered ripped from the headlines gossipy tales of upper class evil, but his Vanity Fair columns still had keen observations with the extra bonus of being fact-checked. Ranging from subjects like O.J. Simpson and the Menendez Brothers, to Claus von Bülow and the man who murdered Dunne’s own daughter, the essays in this collection are unmissable and haunting.

Vintage My Dark Places, by James Ellroy

One of the best living crime writers, James Ellroy reveals the personal tragedy from which his obsessions emerged in his most personal book. Ellroy’s mother was murdered in 1958 when he was ten years old, and as an adult in 1994 he teams up with an LAPD officer to find her killer. Even when the murderer appears to be in reach, it’s clear that the chaos he brought to the author’s life remains unresolved

Vintage Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, by John Berendt

A 1981 shooting and its fallout are the subject of this epic about life and death in the city of Savannah. Rich with the kind of diverse cast of characters you’d find in a novel, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is as rich in ambience and local color as it is in plot.

Doubleday Killers of the Flower Moon, by David Grann

A wonderfully researched, beautifully written history of injustice taken to horrifying lengths. When a string of murders plagued the oil rich Osage Indian nation in the 1920s, the Feds were brought in to investigate. David Grann traces their probe, revealing corruption at every layer of law enforcement and government, and the inhumanity that rampant greed so often breeds.

Riverhead Books The Brothers, by Masha Gessen

It isn’t enough to just track the American experience of the two Chechnyan brothers who were responsible for the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. Journalist and activist Masha Gessen provides context for the actions of the siblings, tracing their lineage through a stream of war-torn countries so that by the time they arrived in America, their (often righteous) anger elevated to unforgivable, murderous levels.

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The 31 best true crime shows to watch right now

In 2024, there's no shortage of true crime content.

From TV series to podcasts to feature-length documentaries, the obsession with true crime only continues to build, leading to a swarm of shows ranging from well-known serial killers to cults in the middle of the desert.

Amid all the many picks out there, we selected a few of the best true crime shows across streaming platforms, from Netflix to Hulu.

The picks range from documentaries like "Sex, Lies and the College Cult " to fictional renderings based on true events, like "Love and Death." Sometimes, there are multiple versions of the same story, rendered in different formats: "Abducted in Plain Sight" was the documentary version of Jan Broberg's story ; "Friend of the Family" has actors playing the parts.

Find your next true crime binge watch below, ranging from stories of disappeared airplanes to crooked financiers to mysterious orphans. But beware: Since they’re based on true stories, they’re arguably scarier than the scariest horror movies .

'American Nightmare'

"American Nightmare" became the latest true-crime show to take the U.S. by storm in January, making it to the top of the Netflix charts hours after it was released.

The three-part documentary series follows the home invasion and subsequent abduction of Denise Huskins, and how investigators first focused on her then-boyfriend, Aaron Quinn, as a suspect.

Matthew Muller, a former Marine and immigration attorney, later pleaded guilty to her kidnapping . Huskins and Quinn, now married, told TODAY.com about the questions they still have about the case in February.

'The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard'

Gypsy Rose Blanchard came back into the spotlight when she was released on parole in December 2023, three years early from her 10-year prison sentence for murdering her mother.

Blanchard, 32, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for her role in helping her then-boyfriend kill her mother Dee Dee Blanchard.

Blanchard's mother appeared to have had Munchhausen syndrome by proxy, a psychological disorder in which a caretaker makes someone ill or creates the illusion of them being ill in order to receive attention, and forced her daughter to undergo multiple surgeries and treatments for diseases and disorders she never had.

"The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard" is one of several documentaries about the case , and can be streamed on the Lifetime app or on streaming services with a Lifetime add-on.

This dramatized true-crime show tells the story of how Griselda Blanco, portrayed by Sofia Vergara, became known as La Jefa (The Boss) and Godmother as she ruled the Miami drug scene in the late 1970s and 1980s. 

The six-episode fictionalized series starts with Blanco's arrival in the U.S. from Colombia as a single mother raising three sons, and follows her as she uses her ruthless charm to handle the dark business of drug trafficking.

‘MH370: The Plane That Disappeared’

What happened to Malaysian Airlines Flight 370? This Netflix series explores the flight that disappeared over the South China Sea in 2014. While it’s not exactly a crime, true crime addicts have been obsessed with the mystery of what happened to the plane and the 239 people on board. This series follows what happened in the hours and days after the flight went missing, and continues to search for answers as to what happened, even nine years later.

‘The Curious Case of Natalia Grace’

Surprisingly, the case of Natalia Grace wasn’t the inspiration behind the 2009 film “Orphan,” where a family adopts a young girl who is not who she says she is. “The Curious Case of Natalia Grace,” which you can stream on Max, follows the true story of Kristine and Michael Barnett, who in 2010 adopted Natalia, who they believed was a 6-year-old Ukrainian orphan with a rare bone growth disorder. Their happy family dynamic quickly changed with allegations came forward that their daughter was really an adult pretending to be a child.

‘American Manhunt: The Boston Marathon Bombing’

This Netflix series revisits the Boston Marathon bombing , with exclusive interviews and archive footage that sheds new light on the tragedy. Two brothers, Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, detonated two bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013 , killing three people and injuring hundreds of others. After the FBI identified the brothers as suspects, an hourslong manhunt began throughout the Boston suburbs, ending in Tamerlan’s death and Dzhokhar’s arrest.

‘Madoff: The Monster of Wall Street’

Financier Bernie Madoff was behind one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in history, and this Netflix docuseries shows how he did it. Following Madoff’s rise to power, the $64 billion scheme and his eventual downfall, “Madoff: The Monster of Wall Street” shows how he was able to get away with the scheme for so long, despite the people around him seeing major red flags.

‘Missing: The Lucie Blackman Case’

More than 20 years after British tourist Lucie Blackman went missing in Tokyo, this Netflix documentary looks back at the investigation that gripped the U.K. and Japan. Blackman, a 21-year-old flight attendant, visited the Casablanca club in Tokyo’s Roppongi district, and was last seen leaving the club on July 1, 2000. When Blackman’s friend gets a call from a stranger saying Blackman joined a cult and would never be seen again, police began a monthslong search for her and the man they believed abducted her.

'Abducted in Plain Sight'

True crime fanatics first became familiar with director Skye Borgman through her documentary "Abducted in Plain Sight." The film shares the shocking story of Jan Broberg, a young girl in Idaho who was kidnapped by a family friend twice over several years in the 1970s, first when she was 12 and again at 14.

'Love and Death'

Elizabeth Olsen stars in this Max series as Candy Montgomery, a Texas mother and churchgoer who stabbed the wife of a man she was having an affair with 41 times in 1980. "Love and Death" shows a dramatized version of the lead up to Montgomery's affair with Allan Gore, played by Jesse Plemons, the killing of his wife Betty Gore and Montgomery's murder trial .

'Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed'

The murders of Jose and Kitty Menendez in Beverly Hills, California, in 1989 shocked Southern California, and the trial where the couple's sons were eventually convicted of brutally murdering their parents captivated the nation. The Peacock series "Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed" recaps the brothers' two trials, and features new allegations from a member of the Puerto Rican boy band Menudo, which could cast doubt to the brothers' murder convictions and give them evidence to appeal for a new trial.

'Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal'

This three-episode Netflix series focuses on the downfall of Alex Murdaugh , a former lawyer who was convicted of killing his wife and youngest son earlier this year. His conviction capped his stunning fall from grace as a respected attorney following in the footsteps of several generations of lawyers in South Carolina's lowcountry region. The series also investigates mysterious deaths with ties to the family, including their housekeeper , and a deadly boating accident involving Murdaugh's youngest son Paul.

'Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story'

Ryan Murphy's dramatized retelling of the life of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer was a massive hit on Netflix when it was released in October, reaching 1 billion view hours in its first 60 days, making it only one of four series to achieve the record, according to the streaming platform. The success didn't come without some backlash from the families of Dahmer’s victims , some of whom said the show never reached out to them and and criticized the show for humanizing Dahmer's slayings and motives.

'A Friend of the Family'

Keeping in line with the new trend of dramatizing true crime documentaries, “A Friend of the Family” stars Jake Lacy, Colin Hanks, Anna Paquin, McKenna Grace and more in a retelling of the story behind “Abducted in Plain Sight.” While the documentary focuses on the shocking nature of a family friend kidnapping a 13-year-old girl twice, this Peacock series is more of a slow burn look at how Robert Berchtold was able to deceive and abuse the entire Broberg family.

'The Staircase'

Novelist Michael Peterson called 911 to report his wife had fallen down the stairs of their North Carolina home and died in 2001, sending off a years-long investigation and legal battle regarding how Kathleen Peterson died — and if he killed her. This French produced documentary available on Netflix explores the theories of how she died, and follows Peterson's trial, conviction and later appeal that leads him to walk free.

Yes, you read that right — there's two true crime shows called "The Staircase." In addition to the documentary on Netflix, Max also created a dramatized version of the story starring Colin Firth and Toni Collette.

'Sins of Our Mother'

Another Skye Borgman documentary series, "Sins of Our Mother," follows the case of Lori Vallow , who was convicted of killing two of her children after being sucked into what her family called the world of doomsday beliefs. The Netflix series features exclusive interviews with Vallow's oldest son, Colby Ryan, who provides insight into the family’s back story.

"Sex, Lies and the College Cult"

This Peacock series investigates Larry Ray, a man who moved into his daughter’s college dorm room at Sarah Lawrence University and started an abusive sex cult . Ray was later convicted of extortion, sex trafficking, forced labor and money laundering charges in 2022.

'The Dropout'

Amanda Seyfried stars in Hulu's dramatized series that recounts the rise and fall of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes . Holmes was later convicted of defrauding investors of her biotechnology company and sentenced to more than 11 years in prison .

'Who Killed Robert Wone?'

Even the most tuned in true crime fans may not have heard of the case of Robert Wone. Wone, a lawyer, was killed while spending the night at a friend’s house in Washington, D.C. in 2006, and there were inconsistencies with the crime scene and what witnesses told authorities. No one has been charged in his murder, though the three men home at the time of his death were charged, and later acquitted of, obstruction of justice and conspiracy counts.

'Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer'

This Netflix documentary series investigates Richard Ramirez, one of the most vicious serial killers in the U.S. Ramirez tormented the Los Angeles area in the 1980s, and was later convicted of 13 counts of murder and numerous other charges for his role in his attacks across California.

'The Tinder Swindler'

"The Tinder Swindler" tells the story of three women who were duped by a man they met on the dating app Tinder. The women accused Simon Leviev of posing as a wealthy, jet-setting diamond mogul who was allegedly able to con the women out of millions of dollars . In the documentary, the women plan payback, leading to Leviev's arrest (though he was released just five months into his Israeli prison sentence for fraud). Leviev told Inside Edition that he is a "legit businessman."

'This Is a Robbery'

"This is a Robbery" investigates an art heist from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. At least one thief stole 13 works of art, including works from Degas, Vermeer and Manet, from the museum in 1990, a crime that is still unsolved. The museum is still offering a $10 million reward for information leading to the recovery of the artworks, if you happen to know something (or think of something after watching the doc).

'Murder Among the Mormons'

In 1985, a trio of bombings left two people dead in Salt Lake City and shocked the Mormon community when a trove of early Mormon letters and diaries were found in the vehicle of a third bombing victim. This Netflix series goes deep on the world of forged religious documents to reveal who was behind the bombings, and constantly keeps you guessing.

'I'll Be Gone in the Dark'

This series available to stream on Max focuses on the case of the Golden State Killer, who murdered 10 people and raped dozens more, and how true crime author Michelle McNamara unmasked the man behind the slayings.

'Don’t F**k With Cats'

In one of the more bizarre true crime offerings on this list, "Don't F**k with Cats" tells the story of how a group of strangers came together to find a man who filmed himself killing two kittens and posted the video online. The amateur online sleuths spark an international manhunt for the killer with twists that get weirder and weirder.

HBO's "The Vow" follows members who joined NXIVM, a cult masquerading as a self-improvement group . NXIVM's leader Keith Raniere was convicted of sex trafficking , racketeering conspiracy and other charges, and explain the emotional toll their involvement with the group had on their lives. For another dive, "Seduced" on Starz follows India Oxenberg's story more intimately, as her mother fights to free her from the cult's ideological grip.

'Wild Wild Country'

Obsessed with cult documentaries? You are not alone. "Wild Wild Country" follows Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, the leader of a movement that started in India and led to him building a "utopian" society in the middle of Oregon. But peace doesn't last for long, as Oregon locals clash with the religious group's followers, leading to a national scandal.

'The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story'

Dramatizing one of the most famous trials of the modern era, "The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story" provides a look at the murder trial where O.J. Simpson was accused of killing his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. The series stars Cuba Gooding Jr., Sarah Paulson, John Travolta and more.

'Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel'

This Netflix series investigates a series of mysterious deaths the Cecil Hotel, which has been called Los Angeles' deadliest hotel (it at one point housed serial killer Richard Ramirez). One of the most famous stories at the Cecil Hotel is the disappearance of college student Eliza Lam, who was staying at the hotel while on vacation and seen on surveillance footage making strange movements in the hotel's elevator before she vanished. Lam's body was later found in the water tower on the roof of the building, in a mystery that is still unsolved.

'Sophie: A Murder in West Cork'

In 1996, the murder of French television producer Sophie Toscan du Plantier shocked Ireland and remains one of the country's most famous murder cases. This Netflix series features interviews with residents of West Cork, Ireland, and focuses on different theories and motives of who could have committed the crime.

Anna Kaplan is a news and trending reporter for TODAY.com.

108 Serial Killer Essay Topics & Examples

🔝 top-10 serial killer research paper topics, 🏆 best serial killer topics & essay examples, 🎓 good serial killer research topics, ⭐ argumentative essay topics about serial killers, ❓ research questions about serial killers.

• What is the nature of serial killers?
• Criminal profiling of John Wayne Gacy.
• Popular culture: true crime documentaries.
• The mind of H.H. Holmes.
• Psychological research of serial killers.
• Nature vs. nurture: are serial killers born or made?
• Cold cases: The Zodiac Killer.
• The story of Ted Bundy.
• Serial killers and forensic science.
• Psychology and sociology of Jeffrey Dahmer.
• The Psychology of Serial Killers These are just a fraction of questions that require answers in order to have a complete understanding of the psychology of serial killers.
• Frankston Serial Killer: Background, Crimes, and Motives At the time, the police noted that Denyer was with his girlfriend. The letter claimed that Denyer knows his whereabouts, and that he was planning to break out of prison to kill him.
• Richard Angelo: A Serial Killer and His Ethical Dilemma The convicted claimed he made the injections to cause crises to be able to revive patients and become a hero in front of his colleagues.
• Arthur Shawcross and His Serial Killer’s Behavior Although most of his victims were killed in the late 1980s, his case still evokes a lot of debate since he is considered to be one of the most demonstrative examples of prisoners who were […]
• Jeffrey Dahmer: Serial Killer At the center of the legal debate was the interpretation of insanity, and how it could be utilized to absolve a criminal. George Palermo, a psychiatrist, made the conclusion that Dahmer was not insane.Dr.
• Edmund Kemper: The Serial Killer Kemper committed most of the murders in one year and confessed to his crimes only after he killed his mother. However, in a short time, Kemper decides to stop and report on his crimes to […]
• J. Dahmer as a Sexually-Motivated Serial Killer The paper at hand is devoted to the investigation of the life, personality, and criminal behavior of one of the most notorious American serial killers of 1980s-1990s, Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer.
• Criminal Profiling of Serial Killers Ted Bundy was one of the most famous serial killers of the 20th century. These are the types of serial killers that will target gays, minorities, and prostitutes.
• American Serial Killer Joseph Paul Franklin’s Crimes The reason for changing his name as because he wanted to join the Rhodesian Army and due to his criminal background, he was forced to change the name. The couple were killed and Franklin confessed […]
• Serial Killers: Tommy Lynn Sells It is believed that in October of the same year he killed a 13-year-old girl in Missouri and moved to Texas.
• Albert Fish – the Serial Killer Fish’s mother, forced to look for another source of livelihood due to her inability to take care of her son following the death of his father, took him to Saint John’s orphanage in Washington.
• Aileen Wuornos: The Serial Killer After four years since the birth of Aileen, her mother abandoned the family, leaving the girl and her brother with their maternal grandparents, whom the girl considered her birth parents.
• Serial Killer Imagery: “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates The present paper argues that whereas Arnold Friend is portrayed by Oates as a “superhuman” copy of Carl Schmid, the murderer, and the situation with Connie is partially sketched from the case of Alleen Rowe, […]
• Aileen Wuornos: Anatomy of a Female Serial Killer Moreover, feminist scholarship has recently begun to examine serial murder as “sexual terrorism” or as a perpetuation of gynocide, the systematic crippling, raping and/or killing of women by men.
• Ted Bundy, an American Serial Killer He was part of the team that worked in the campaign of the Republican governor of Washington, who later rewarded him with a recommendation letter.
• Ted Bundy, a Serial Killer and Psychopath The same was said about Ted Bundy, one of the most notorious serial killers in the criminal history of the United States.
• Serial Killers: Law Enforcement Response to Serial Killing The law enforcement agencies such as the FBI maintain that there are several serial killers in the United States and they are expected to increase and hit an epidemic proportion with many people losing their […]
• Serial Killer Psychology: Eileen Wuornos Eileen was a woman without remorse as she was not bothered by the death of her victims. It is said that her intention was to capture the attention of the man she was dating.
• The Crimes of Charles Manson, Serial Killer Even though his people did it himself, he was not involved in this, and the organization of a particular group of people is not in itself an immoral act but is prohibited in some places.
• Serial Killer Profiling Dimensions In order to better understand their practices and attempt to put a stop to their actions prematurely, there was a need for proper classification and consequent analysis.
• Serial Killers in Modern American Society Based on the above-stated arguments, this paper forms research for evidence from some of the serial killers in modern American society and various tactics utilized by the investigative departments to determine and differentiate between serial […]
• Principles of Justice: Serial Killers and Rapers On the same note, Ernest van de Haag mentions the use of principals relating to the utilitarian perspective where the law would be lenient and work for the greater good of people as a whole […]
• Serial Killers, Their Crimes, and Stereotypes The other serial killers presented in the killers list also conform to the stereotypes presented in Fox’s and Levin’s article. Most of the killers also rape, mutilate, and degrade their victims in order to feel […]
• Serial Killers and Their Social Construction Social construction of serial killers has become the subject of various studies, and it is recognized today that the social position, social interactions, and perceived social image may play a significant role in the process […]
• Charles Manson: Serial Killer Profile One of the first crimes that he committed was connected to a stolen car that Manson took to have some fun and visit his relatives.
• A Study on Serial Killers: “Encounter and death: The Spatial Behavior of U.S. Serial Killers” From an analysis, of the article, it is evident that the research focuses on the geographical locations that surround the killings; the location of the first meeting between the serial killers and their victims, the […]
• Serial Killers: Women and Men Comparison Most of the time, crimes of men serial killers are heard regularly as they are more horrible than that of women serial killers. The physical counting of the men serial killers victims is very high […]
• Serial Killer “Theodore Robert “Ted” Bundy” As much as the psychiatrists related his problems to mental disturbances, this was not a major issue that determined the outcome of the cases.
• A Serial Killer: Typology and Abnormal Psychological Gratification
• Luis Garavito: The World’s Worst Serial Killer
• Existentialism: Serial Killer and Right Things
• Charles Cullen: Healthcare Serial Killer
• Israel Keyes: The Reluctant Serial Killer
• Countess Elizabeth Bathory: Serial Killer
• Arousal Theory and the Serial Killer Jeffery Dahmer
• The Dangerous Mind of a Serial Killer
• Clifford Olson: Canadian Serial Killer
• The Development of Serial Killers: A Grounded
• Exploring the Life and Possible Motives of Serial Killer
• How Edward Theodore Gain Became a Serial Killer
• Blood Loss, the Decline of the Serial Killer
• Sociological Theories: Rationalization and Motivation of the Serial Killer
• Serial Killer Era: So Many Murders in 1970 – 2000
• Famous Serial Killer: Jack the Ripper
• Defining the Factors That Contribute to Serial Killer’s Identity
• Deadly Motives: The Hedonistic Drive of Serial Murder
• Details of a Typical Female Serial Killer
• Profiling Art and Australian Serial Killer Ivan Milat
• Brilliant Serial Killer Jack the Ripper
• America’s First Serial Killer
• Serial Killer and Racism: African-Americans and Serial Killing in the Media
• Life and Death of a Serial Killer: Are Serial Killer Born or Created?
• Serial Killer: Erikson’s Theory-Based Analysis of the Behavior of Robert William Pickton
• Differential Association Theory and Serial Killer
• Aileen Wuornos America’s First Female Serial Killer
• Mary Bell Was Britain’s Youngest Serial Killer
• Criminal Shadows: Inside the Mind of a Serial Killer
• America’s Sweetest Serial Killer – Sugar
• Unique Characteristics of a Serial Killer
• American Serial Killer: Albert Fish
• Serial Killer: The Mechanism From Imagination to the Murder
• Critical Theories: Crime Ted Bundy Serial Killer
• The Uncatchable Serial Killer: No Motive, No Victim Profile
• Serial Killers: Death and Life in America’s Wound Culture
• The Life of a Serial Killer: Edmund Emil Kemper Lii
• Criminal Justice: The Criminology Behind Serial Killers
• Canadian Serial Killer: Robert Pickton
• What Are Serial Killers?
• Are Serial Killers Born Psychopaths or Pushed to That Limit?
• What Causes Serial Killers to Kill?
• How Do Serial Killers Get Attention?
• What Makes Serial Killers Kill?
• Why Are the People Interested in Serial Killers?
• What Is the Nature of Serial Killers?
• How Do Juveniles Become Serial Killers?
• What Is in the Mind of Serial Killer?
• How to Cure a Serial Killer?
• What Steps Are Taken by the Country to Control Serial Killers?
• Where Did the Term “Serial Killer” Come From?
• What Are the Main Objectives of a Serial Killer?
• Is It Possible to Diagnose a Would-Be Serial Killer?
• What Are the Common Types of Serial Killers?
• How Does a Serial Killer Differ From a Maniac?
• What Lies Behind a Serial Killer’s Signature?
• Are There Naturally Born Serial Killers?
• What Makes a Serial Killer Tick?
• Are There Death Penalty Alternatives for Serial Killers?
• What Makes a Serial Killer Do What They Do?
• Are Humans Naturally Good or Evil?
• What Is the Difference Between a Mass Murderer and a Serial Killer in Modern Culture?
• Is There a Tendency to Increase or Decrease in Serial Killings in the Us in the XXI Century?
• Can Modern Therapies Available for Sociopathic and Psychopathic Disorder Set Serial Killers to Rights?
• What Are the Effects of Childhood Abuse on Serial Killing Behavior?
• How Are the Serial Killers Portrayed in Hollywood Compare to Real-Life Serial Killers?
• What Are Some of the Trademarks of Female Serial Killers?
• Do Serial Killer Partners Always Have a Dominant Personality and a Submissive Personality?
• How Has Modern Technology and Criminology Made It More Difficult for Serial Killers to Remain at Large?
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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Crime Essay Topics: 25+ Interesting Ideas for Your Next Paper

by  Antony W

December 5, 2023

Your next crime essay has to be on point. You have to prove to your professor that you understand themes of individual restraint, social behavior control, crime deterioration, criminal law, or anything related to crime. The first step is to choose a compelling topic to explore.

In this post, we give you a list of crime essay topics and ideas that you can explore. Whether you’ve started brainstorming or you feeling hopeless because you’re running late, these ideas can save you a lot of time.

Remember, how well and easy you write a crime essay depends on topic selection. So you should be careful to choose an idea that you can explore within the scope of the assignment. Read the assignment brief to determine which essay to write and how long it should be. Everything else builds on the topic you choose. 

Key Takeaways

• Look at different theories, contemporary issues, and sub-disciplines linked to crime to understand the different areas you can explore.
• Determine what fascinates you about crime in relation to law essays , coursework, and assignments.
• Write down the aspects of crime and social justice that most appeal to you and then narrow down your option to one area.
• Choose a specific topic that fits within your interest.

Best Crime Essay Topics

The following is a list of the best crime essay topic that you might find interesting for your next assignment:

Society and Justice Topics

• Rehabilitation and moralities
• The key characteristics of employment and crime
• Delinquency cases in children
• Community service and criminals
• Crime prevention in children
• Social ecology and abandoned peoples
• White-collar crimes and their consequences
• Is moral panic a new danger or an ordinary issue?
• Socio-economic background and crime
• Bad parenting and juvenile delinquencies
• Social changes in the United States is a problematic issue
• The pros and cons of background criminal checks
• Are new prisons necessary in the United States of America?
• Write an essay on rehabilitation and recidivism
• Social institutions and criminal justice
• Causes of victimization
• Justice as a norm in today’s society
• Criminal justice, sociology & psychology
• Social cohesion and criminal justice
• The prosecution of children as an adult in the United States of America
• Criminalizing homelessness in the United States of America and the world
• Cyber-bullying and cyber-stalking
• The role of education in keeping a safe society
• How to help abused children
• Children and online offenders

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Police and Policing Topics

• Ethical dimensions of policing and criminal justice: an analytical study
• Unpacking contemporary instances of police corruption: case analyses
• Militarization of law enforcement in the United States
• Examining instances of police brutality
• Police-public interactions and controversial issues in the United States
• Police as catalysts for societal change in the United States
• Critiquing crisis intervention training in policing
• Exploring systemic police abuse in the United States’ criminal justice framework
• Assessing the efficacy of predictive policing in law enforcement practices
• Tracing the historical trajectory of American policing from a contextual perspectives
• Advantages and dilemma of community support for policing in neighborhoods

Capital Punishment Essay Topics

• Understanding racial disparities in the criminal justice system and their societal ramifications
• Examining solitary confinement’s psychological impact on prisoners
• Critical assessment of mandatory minimum sentences in drug offense cases
• Ethical quandaries surrounding the employment of informants in criminal investigations
• Evaluating bias and discrimination in predictive policing algorithms
• Private prisons’ influence on the structure and functioning of the justice system
• Assessing rehabilitation programs’ efficacy in reducing recidivism
• Ethical considerations and data usage of technological surveillance in law enforcement:
• Decriminalization versus legalization perspectives over drug criminalization:
• Policy implications of mandatory drug testing for welfare recipients
• Impacts of bail reforms pretrial detention and systemic equity
• An assessment of efficacy of poverty, crime, and programmatic interventions

Criminal Law Essay Topics

• Intersecting legal and ethical dimensions of the death penalty
• Examining plea bargains: Implications and functionality in justice systems
• Evaluating the impact of mandatory minimum sentences on crime reduction
• Race, ethnicity, and the dynamics of the criminal justice system
• The role, reliability, and significance of forensic science in criminal investigations
• Unpacking the relationship between poverty and crime rates
• Forensic psychology’s contributions to profiling in criminal investigations
• Evaluating its effectiveness of community policing in crime prevention and resolution
• Protecting victims’ rights within the criminal justice framework
• Ethical concerns and algorithmic biases in predictive policing applications
• Understanding mental health’s interplay with criminal behavior
• Exploring drug decriminalization or legalization: impacts on crime
• Surveillance ethics: Legitimacy and considerations in public spaces
• Media influence and its role in shaping public perception in criminal trials
• Implications and rectification of sentencing disparities based on socioeconomic status
• Assessing hate crime legislation’s efficacy in prosecution and prevention
• Restorative justice’s role in recidivism mitigation
• Emerging technologies in criminal law: AI, facial recognition, and privacy concerns
• Technology’s influence on criminal investigations and privacy rights
• Effectiveness of rehabilitation programs in recidivism prevention

Criminal Justice Essay Topics

• Regulatory frameworks and security protocols
• Understanding eligibility and protection in witness security programs
• Patterns and profiles of abduction, ransom, and recurring behaviors
• Contemporary challenges and priorities for law enforcement
• Forensic science’s role and evolution in modern criminal justice
• Evaluating the effectiveness of community corrections programs
• Identity theft in today’s context: Risks and impactful consequences
• Forgery incidents: Prevalence in workplaces, government, and academia
• Addressing issues and improvement strategies of prison living conditions:
• Real-world application of prosecution laws
• Anatomy of a criminal trial: The processes and key components explained
• Navigating ethical challenges in law enforcement from a critical perspective
• Exploring historical insights and lessons from the evolution of criminal courts
• Religious motive crimes: Understanding sentencing and punitive measures
• The impact and ethical considerations of the media’s role in crime narratives
• Problem-solving courts: Resolving foundational issues in justice systems
• Distributive justice’s significance in the framework of criminal justice
• Mechanisms and taxonomies in categorization of crimes
• Looking at the methodologies and considerations for jury selection processes:
• The role of crime mapping in modern criminal justice dynamics

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About the author 

Antony W is a professional writer and coach at Help for Assessment. He spends countless hours every day researching and writing great content filled with expert advice on how to write engaging essays, research papers, and assignments.

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Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Cult Justice’ on Hulu, A True Crime Series Focusing On Cult Leaders, How They Were Caught, And The Voices Of Their Victims

Where to stream:.

• Cult Justice

Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Synanon Fix’ On HBO, A Docuseries About The Drug-Treatment Community-Turned-Cult

Stream it or skip it: ‘the program: cons, cults and kidnapping’ on netflix, a docuseries where former students revisit a disciplinary school that was a torture chamber, ‘one tree hill’s bethany joy lenz publicly identifies the “abusive” religious cult she spent 10 years in, 11 best new shows on netflix: march 2024’s top upcoming series to watch.

Cult Justice joins the raft of true crime content over at Hulu with an eight-episode first season written by journalists Michel Bryant and Brian Ross and exec produced by the team at Law & Crime, the network founded by journalist and On Patrol: Live host Dan Abrams . Each installment highlights the personalities and practices of cult leaders, features commentary from law enforcement authorities and lawyers, and includes interviews with the cults’ victims and survivors. In the first episode, we learn how the supposed Christian ministry set up by Tony Alamo and his wife Susan transformed into a cult that justified polygamy and child sex abuse from its defiant founder, a self-described prophet of God. 

CULT JUSTICE : STREAM IT OR SKIP IT? 

Opening Shot: “Another one half hour of the truth!” In creaky, blurry old footage, Tony and Susan Alamo appear as part of their 1970s television ministry. We then hear the voice of attorney David Carter. “There were the allegations of polygamy, the allegations of the beating of the children, and there were allegations of underage brides…” 

The Gist: “If we are a cult, you’d have to say any of the fundamentalists were cultists.” It’s a pretty bold statement from Susan Alamo, especially because she goes on to compare herself to Martin Luther, the fourteenth century theologian and founder of the Lutheran faith. But what’s even more bold about the piece of archival footage is how unapologetically nasty she is. When the Alamos founded their ministry near Hollywood in the late 1960s, investigative journalist Debby Schriver says it wasn’t kindness and nurturing values that inspired them. It was grift, plain and simple, and they were aggressive and threatening about signing up converts.  

The Alamos eventually migrated with their flock to a compound in Arkansas, and in 1982, when Susan died of breast cancer, Tony had her body embalmed and put on display, where he forced his followers to pray at her feet. His rule over the cult also became more extreme. As the group’s “prophet,” he said he was allowed multiple wives – but only him, of course – and also began to groom the young daughters of his followers as underage child brides. Alamo was charged with beating another child, became a fugitive in 1989, and was eventually caught and convicted of tax evasion.

But that didn’t stop the cult. Released in 1998, Alamo returned to the welcoming arms of his true believers, and targeted eight-year-old Desiree Kolbek as his next victim. Kolbek, who is interviewed extensively in Cult Justice , eventually escaped the compound, and it was her testimony that contributed to Alamo’s second arrest and conviction, this time for transporting minors across state lines for sex. “ You’re the cult, not us,” grumbles a profoundly unapologetic Tony Alamo in footage from his criminal deposition. He also calls Carter, the attorney, a scumbag. The level of mean is astonishing, and that’s before Alamo even gets to defending his disgusting, unrepentant views on sex with children. It’s ugly stuff, and the federal authorities and prosecutors interviewed for Cult Justice credit Kolbek with having the courage to not only escape Alamo’s clutches, but stand up to him in court.     

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The four-part docuseries Ministry of Evil: The Twisted Cult of Tony Alamo was produced by Sundance TV in 2019; these days it’s available through Prime Video. And Hulu also features Stolen Youth: Inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence , a three-parter that details one of the more unexpected and bizarre turns toward cult behavior to have emerged in recent years.   

Our Take: Just when you think there are no more cults to be uncovered by today’s thriving true crime industry, along comes the next show to feature more of their stories. Cult Justice stays pretty bare bones with its production. There is no narrator, but nor are there the touches of directorial flair or dramatic flourishes in storytelling that have emerged as hallmarks of true crime in the Netflix era. Instead, Cult Justice keeps it journalistic. And while it seems to have spent very little on graphics and titles, and allows for way too many moments where the same photo or piece of foggy footage is used over and over again, the docuseries does build a solid frame for the cult victims interviewed to share their journeys. The visual aesthetic here is minimal. But the stories Cult Justice tells are powerful.    

Sex and Skin: The court deposition of one of Tony Alamo’s child brides, in which she describes his pattern of chronic sexual abuse, is difficult to watch.

Parting Shot: “As long as we have human beings, we will have cults,” says Debby Schriver, the investigative journalist. “All of us are vulnerable, when we’re looking for something, needing something. And we’re easy marks for anyone who wants to take advantage.”

Sleeper Star: Federal prosecutor Kyra Jennings highlights the moral vacancy at work inside Alamo’s cult, which he called a Christian foundation. “The astounding thing to the prosecution team in this case is the parents knowingly put their children, meaning their girls, in the hands of a predatory pedophile.”

Most Pilot-y LIne: “Tony possesses a rare combination of some charisma, biblical knowledge, and sociopathic tendencies,” David Carter says. “And when you get that mix in a person as they come to power, within a religious group, their tendency is to get more and more abusive.” It’s the old David Koresh method, and Carter says Alamo followed it to a “T.”

Our Call: Stream Cult Justice if you’re a true crime completist. There is absolutely no wow factor to the look and feel of this docuseries. But it does uphold the importance of victims’ narratives as a bulwark against the ghastly behavior of a cult leader such as Tony Alamo.  

Johnny Loftus ( @glennganges ) is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.

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20 essential movies and TV series based on true crime

Posted: April 5, 2024 | Last updated: April 5, 2024

The best stories are often ripped straight from the headlines. As such, there are a slew of excellent films and TV series inspired by true crime, especially as interest in the genre has boomed in recent years. 

Flip through the slideshow below for 20 of the most essential television series and movies, all based on true crimes. From Brian De Palma's take on "The Black Dahlia" to Renee Zellweger in "The Thing About Pam," this list is essential watching for true-crime fanatics. 

"The Watcher"

Based on a true story about a family in New Jersey who bought their dream home only to find out that it came with a creepy stalker, this Hulu series stars Jennifer Coolidge, Naomi Watts, and Bobby Cannavale. 

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"Dirty John"

This story, based on the actual relationship between its titular character and a California woman, is almost too weird to believe. Listen to the L.A. Times podcast first, then stream the Bravo series starring Connie Britton on Peacock. 

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"The People v. O.J Simpson: American Crime Story"

Ryan Murphy takes on one of the most notorious cases in all of true-crime history in "The People vs. O.J. Simpson." Thanks to a star-packed cast, including excellent performances from John Travolta and Sarah Paulson, it's worth watching even if you feel like you already know everything there is to know about the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. 

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"The Trial of the Chicago 7"

Directed by Aaron Sorkin, this Netflix film is based on the trial of the Chicago 7, a group of activists who were arrested and charged with conspiracy after the fiasco that was the 1968 Democratic National Convention. It stars Sacha Baron Cohen as the radical activist Abbie Hoffmann, and "Succession" star Jeremy Strong as Jerry Rubin, who founded the Yippies. 

"Dr. Death"

If you're planning a surgery any time soon, you may not actually want to watch "Dr. Death." This Peacock series tells the story of Dr. Christopher Dunstch, a Texas spinal surgeon who maimed his patients, some of whom died, in botched surgeries. 

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"Mindhunter"

This Netflix series, based on the 1995 book "Mindhunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit," is a must for anyone who appreciates the science — and art — of criminal profiling. 

"Changeling"

It's nearly impossible to believe that this Clint Eastwood film is based on a true story. It centers around the 1928 disappearance of a California boy who's later reunited with his mother...or so it seems. Angelina Jolie stars as the mother, who's convinced that she's being lied to, in this harrowing story. Stream on HBO Max. 

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"In Cold Blood"

This 1967 film is based on Truman Capote's groundbreaking true-crime book of the same name, and is arguably responsible for kicking off our national true crime obsession. For those unfamiliar with the story, it's based on the true story of a family that was murdered in Holcomb, Kansas in what was originally intended to be a robbery. Stream on YouTube or Amazon Prime. 

"Spotlight"

Named after the "spotlight" team at the Boston Globe, this film depicts a group of journalists as they seek to unravel a child sex abuse scandal within the Catholic church, which later earned the organization a Pulitzer Prize. The film, starring Stanley Tucci, Mark Ruffalo, and Rachel McAdams, was equally lauded, and took home the Best Picture award at the Academy Awards. 

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"Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile"

Starring Zac Efron as the notorious serial killer Ted Bundy, "Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile" begins just as the walls are starting to close in on Bundy after the killing of multiple women. The film, available for streaming on Netflix, takes its name from comments made by the judge who sentenced Bundy to the death penalty in 1979. 

"Lost Girls"

Starring Amy Ryan and Dean Winters, "Lost Girls" is the harrowing story of a group of young sex workers on Long Island who were killed by a serial killer who still has not been identified. Stream it on Netflix. 

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"The Dropout"

Amanda Seyfried is uncanny as Elizabeth Holmes, the Silicon Valley CEO who is on her way to prison for defrauding investors over her company's technology — or lack thereof — in this Hulu dramatization of the Theranos saga. 

"The Staircase"

Colin Firth stars as Michael Peterson, the North Carolina man who was first convicted of murdering his wife after she fell from a staircase in their home. Peterson's conviction was later reduced to manslaughter, but don't be surprised if this series doesn't inspire more questions than answers. Stream on Netflix. 

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"Catch Me If You Can"

This 2002 Spielberg classic is among the great true crime films, and is based on the dubiously 'true' story of Frank Abagnale, a legendary fraudster who participated in a wide range of schemes, some decidedly more outlandish than the other. Stream on HBO Max. 

"When They See Us"

Director Ava DuVernay's acclaimed series "When They See Us" is equal parts gripping and devastating. Based on the true story of five men who were wrongfully accused of sexual assault in New York City in 1989, it's an unflinching look at the injustices that are often perpetrated in the American criminal justice system. Stream on Netflix. 

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"The Thing About Pam"

This series, based on the murder of a Missouri woman, stars Renee Zellweger as the unhinged Pam Hupp, a woman who is as unpleasant as she is deadly. Its arguably flippant tone has inspired criticism, but Zellweger's portrayal of Hupp makes it worth watching. Stream on Amazon Prime Video. 

"Monster"

Charlize Theron stuns in this Oscar-winning portrayal of notorious female serial killer Aileen Wuornos, who admitted to killing seven men in her time as a sex worker. Theron's performance is especially nuanced in "Monster," delving deep into Wuornos's traumatic childhood and adult life. 

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"Unbelievable"

Based on an actual investigation into a series of sexual assaults in Colorado and Washington, "Unbelievable" tells the story of a woman who is charged with a crime after authorities believe she lied about being sexually assaulted. The truth, though, is much more complicated, and was only discovered after extensive reporting. Stream on Netflix. 

"The Black Dahlia"

Brian De Palma brought noir — and one of the 20th century's most notorious murders — into 2006 with "The Black Dahlia." Starring Josh Hartnett and Scarlett Johansson, this film feels a little campy in 2023, but it's still a good way to start learning about this still-unsolved crime. Stream on YouTube or Vudu. 

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"JFK"

Oliver Stone's take on one of the most chilling crimes in American history — the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas — is a must for anyone who can't get enough of the history (and conspiracy theories) tied to this shocking event. Stream on HBO Max. 

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American Diva: Extraordinary, Unruly, Fabulous

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Mixing memoir and cultural criticism, poet Paradez unravels why such megawatt stars as Tina Turner and Serena and Venus Williams have been maligned for the same larger-than-life personas and talent that bring them fame and adoration. Written with panache that befits its subject, this is an impassioned look at what it means to be a powerful woman on the public stage.

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Cue the Sun! The Invention of Reality TV

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Dancing on My Own: Essays on Art, Collectivity, and Joy

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Guest Essay

Truth Is Drifting Away From True Crime

By Sarah Weinman

Ms. Weinman is an author and the editor of the forthcoming anthology “Evidence of Things Seen: True Crime in an Era of Reckoning.”

During the end credits of the recent film “ Boston Strangler ,” which dramatized the real-life efforts to crack that criminal case, there’s a notation that addresses the fate of a convicted murderer named George Nassar who, the movie states, is “still in prison in Massachusetts.” I’ve long been fascinated with the Strangler case and Mr. Nassar’s connection to it, so this detail caught my attention — since I was pretty sure I recalled an interview from a few years back in which he announced that he had terminal prostate cancer. As it turns out, Mr. Nassar, who told authorities that his cellmate had confessed to being the Strangler, died in 2018 at a prison hospital in Jamaica Plain.

As a writer and editor of true crime, I might be more sensitive to these sorts of factual errors than most people. But they are part of a troubling trend. Errors like the one in “Boston Strangler” threaten the integrity of true crime, which as a genre has grappled with whether the stories it tells about crimes are, in fact, true.

True crime has always had a volatile relationship with facts. A century ago, tabloid newspapers routinely hyped up the most lurid aspects of a crime, even if there were few verifiable facts to be had. One reason the Hall-Mills murders of 1922 remain unsolved is that the press trampled all over the crime scene, literally and metaphorically.

Truman Capote, who is credited with inventing the modern true crime genre with “In Cold Blood,” radically expanded its creative possibilities — even as he resorted to making things up for effect. The book’s final scene in the cemetery, in which the detective visits the Clutter family’s graves with the daughter’s best friend? Invented out of whole cloth. Capote even landed in jail after he refused to take the stand because, according to a death-row prisoner, Capote would have had to reveal that he’d lied about their interview. The crime journalist Jack Olsen once said of Capote’s book that it “made true crime an interesting, successful, commercial genre, but it also began the process of tearing it down.”

Accuracy is not the only challenge that true crime practitioners face. Janet Malcolm’s “The Journalist and the Murderer” famously explores the inherent ethical dilemmas in earning a subject’s trust — especially if it’s a story of violence, trauma and tragedy. Malcolm wrote that “the writer-subject relationship seems to depend for its life on a kind of fuzziness and murkiness, if not utter covertness, of purpose.”

Given this fraught history, you’d think that modern true crime practitioners would proceed with utmost care and caution. In reality, the opposite is true, plunging true crime into a credibility crisis — thanks to the pressures of a voracious market for documentaries, docuseries, podcasts and movies purporting to be based on real events.

The variety of lapses are as plentiful as the examples are. HBO’s blockbuster 2015 documentary series “The Jinx,” about the murderer Robert Durst, was lauded for its shocking twist ending — which was later revealed to be the product of editing that manipulated the timeline for maximum impact. “Making a Murderer,” a Netflix series which debuted the same year, stirred public outrage over an apparently unjust conviction — and then it came out that the show had omitted evidence that supported the prosecutor’s case.

Beyond factual lapses and questionable techniques, the rush to feed the true crime beast has led to all sorts of slippery practices. The limited series “Dahmer” on Netflix retold a well-documented story with a new, exploitative gloss — over the objections of family members of Dahmer’s victims, who protested that the series was “retraumatizing over and over again.” As the market becomes more competitive, true crime filmmakers have raced to lock down exclusive access to sources, preventing other journalists from reporting out a story, as happened in the case of a film about the women R. Kelly assaulted.

The proliferation of true crime podcasts has led to some honorable examples of investigative journalism, such as “In the Dark,” which won two Peabody awards for its re-examination of mishandled murder cases. But for every podcast like that, there are 10 (or more) in which so-called experts speculate on infamous mysteries with far more eagerness than authority.

These slipshod approaches have real-world consequences. Richard Walter, an expert criminal profiler whose testimony led to many convictions, was recently revealed to be a fraud . That’s particularly disturbing not only for those wrongfully imprisoned thanks, in part, to his faked credentials but for the way his fakery hid in plain sight for decades. Walter had become a hero to some in the true crime community, lionized in books that were more interested in chronicling his dramatic exploits than in the authenticity of his expertise.

Given a figure as egregious as Walter, it may seem ungenerous to call out an error in a film like “Boston Strangler” — after all, we tolerate, and even expect, a certain level of embellishment in our entertainment, even in those works based on real events. But this misstep illustrates how, increasingly, stories of tragedy (and, ironically, stories of dogged journalistic reporting) have become simply another form of intellectual property to be put through a churn of repackaging and reselling.

It’s become a familiar cycle: A criminal case becomes a book, becomes a podcast, becomes a documentary, becomes a scripted series or a film, becomes another, more sensational film. There are now even true crime cookbooks . But somewhere at the start of it all an actual crime took place, leaving behind not just facts but victims and survivors. Where does a true crime cookbook leave them?

At its best, true crime grapples with what can and cannot be uncovered and verified about the past, and even incorporates those challenges into the story. I’m thinking of two recent books, Alex Mar’s “Seventy Times Seven,” a compassionate account of mercy for a teenage girl on death row, and Roxanna Asgarian’s “We Were Once a Family,” on the heartbreaking failures of child foster systems to prevent senseless deaths. Both demonstrate the impact that great true crime can have. They give a full accounting not just of the details of the crimes but of the lives of those affected by violence, exploring whether the legal system can truly provide justice.

But if the facts aren’t there, or they’re flatly wrong, or they’re twisted beyond recognition, then true crime transforms into something closer to lurid fiction — and the entities cashing in on it are making a cynical, shortsighted bet. If creators want to benefit from the frisson of a “true” story, they must honor the truth — it’s that simple. If true crime practitioners give up on doing better and succumb to the temptation of exploitation, that would be a crime in and of itself.

Sarah Weinman is the crime and mystery columnist for the Book Review; the author, most recently, of “Scoundrel”; and the editor of the forthcoming anthology “Evidence of Things Seen: True Crime in an Era of Reckoning.”

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The 7 Best New Shows on Netflix in April 2024

Ben travers.

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Ah, April. Spring isn’t just in the air, it’s on our television sets . Baseballs are zipping through the air. Flowers are blooming in the park. Desperate TV networks are capitalizing off national holidays with religious programming . It’s all happening, and Netflix is playing along. Not only did the streaming giant get an early jump on the Emmy race by launching the confusing awful ambitious “3 Body Problem” in March (giving voters enough time to wade through its arduous episodes), but April has its own awards contender in “Ripley.”

I would be surprised if any other April original series draw the TV Academy’s attention, but we should never write off a series executive produced by Norman Lear (“Good Times” gets the animated reboot treatment this month), nor can a nature documentary series from Netflix be considered out of the running (especially one narrated by Cate Blanchett, like the forthcoming “Our Living World”). Greg Berlanti isn’t known for producing awards bait; he’s a people-pleaser, and “Dead Boy Detectives” fits snugly next to similar populist teen dramas like “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina” and The CW’s superhero shows (which also stream on Netflix). But hey, “The Flight Attendant” made a little Emmy noise in its first season (landing Berlanti one of his two total nominations), so maybe a Neil Gaiman adaptation can, too.

Still, the biggest story of the month still isn’t what Netflix created, but what it’s acquired. “Sex and the City” becomes the latest HBO original to stream on Netflix, which is both a sound financial decision for the cash-strapped Warner Bros. Discovery and an awful branding choice for HBO, which has been operating under the subscribers-only access model since before Netflix first tu-dummed. Extra eyeballs around Carrie & Co. may generate renewed interest in “And Just Like That,” the Max-exclusive sequel series, but without new episodes arriving anytime soon, the scheduling of this “SATC” Netflix drop remains deeply suspect.

Can any of Netflix’s originals compete? Does it matter what subscribers are watching so long as they’re watching it on Netflix? The debate will rage on across Hollywood, but fans can rest assured they’ll find something worth streaming in April. Maybe it’s “Sex and the City,” maybe it’s “Ripley,” maybe it’s “The Circle.” Spring is in the air, so why not stay inside and watch TV?

1. ‘Ripley’

Release Date: Thursday, April 4 Writer/Director: Steven Zaillian Cast: Andrew Scott, Johnny Flynn, Dakota Fanning, Eliot Sumner, Maurizio Lombardi, Margherita Buy, John Malkovich Format: 8 hourlong episodes Best Reason to Watch: Following in the footsteps of Anthony Minghella’s feature adaptation of “The Talented Mr. Ripley” is a prospect daunting enough to be discouraging — for creators and fans alike. But as untouchable as the 1999 film feels, it’s best to remember that Tom Ripley is a character who originated with Patricia Highsmith, an author whose thrilling work has inspired everything from “Strangers on a Train” to “Carol.” Just Ripley, her suave identity thief, has popped up in “Purple Noon” (1960), “The American Friend” (1977), “Ripley Under Ground” (2005), and “Ripley’s Game” (2002) — and those are just the movies. Now, Steven Zaillian (“The Night Of,” “The Irishman,” “Moneyball”) is taking a turn in an eight-episode interpretation of “The Talented Mr. Ripley” with Andrew Scott as the titular talent. Originally developed at Showtime, the black-and-white series was shot on location in Italy by Oscar winner Robert Elswit (“There Will Be Blood,” “Good Night and Good Luck”). There’s a lot of reasons to be excited about this one — even if you (rightly) treat Minghella’s version as gospel.

2. ‘Sex and the City’

Release Date: Monday, April 1   Creator: Darren Starr  Cast: Sarah Jessica Parker, Cynthia Nixon, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis, Willie Garson, Mario Cantone, David Eigenberg, Evan Handler, and a whole slew of now-famous guest stars   Format: 94 half-hour episodes  Best Reason to Watch: As “And Just Like That” shovels dirt on the grave of its beloved predecessor, perhaps it’s a good thing that HBO agreed to license one of its legacy originals to Netflix, so audiences old and new can see for themselves just how great Carrie, Miranda, Samantha, and Charlotte were at their best (you know, when they were all on the same show).  

3. ‘Good Times’

Release Date: Friday, April 12  Showrunner: Ranada Shepard  Executive Producers: Norman Lear, Stephen Curry, Seth MacFarlane, Ranada Shepard   Cast: J.B. Smoove, Yvette Nicole Brown, Jay Pharoah, Marsai Martin, Slink Johnson, Rashida “Sheedz” Olayiwola  Format: 8 half-hour episodes  Best Reason to Watch: Norman Lear’s extraordinary legacy lives on in yet another reboot of yet another classic sitcom from the late Hollywood icon. This “Good Times” still follows the Evans family as they persevere in a housing project on the South Side of Chicago, only this family is a few generations past Florida and James’ kids, and, oh yeah, it’s an animated series. With a strong voice cast and the approval of Lear himself (before he passed), here’s hoping this “Good Times” can find the same creative success as the recent reboot of “One Day at a Time.” 

4. ‘Dead Boy Detectives’

Release Date: Thursday, April 25  Showrunners: Steve Yockey, Beth Schwartz   Executive Producers: Greg Berlanti, Jeremy Carver, Sarah Schechter, Steve Yockey, Beth Schwartz  Cast: George Rexstrew, Jayden Revri, Kassius Nelson, Briana Cuoco, Yuyu Kitamura, Ruth Connell, Jenn Lyon  Format: 8 hourlong episodes  Best Reason to Watch: Originally developed at Max (back when it was still HBO Max), “Dead Boy Detectives” is TV’s latest attempt to adapt one of Neil Gaiman’s popular comic book series (after “The Sandman,” “Good Omens,” and “American Gods”). This one follows Edwin Payne (George Rexstrew) and Charles Rowland (Jayden Revri), two everyday best friends who also happen to be ghosts who run a detective agency. They’ve chosen to stay on Earth to do good (rather than retire to the afterlife), and the duo spends their days solving supernatural mysteries plaguing the planet’s still-living people. Does that sound like a little bit of a throwback? Like an “X-Files” successor where ghosts solve a new creepy case each week? Well, with super-producer Greg Berlanti behind the scenes, it could be, but it’s also part of the same universe as “The Sandman,” so it’s got a bit of modern DNA (aka IP) as well.  

5. ‘The Circle’ Season 6

Release Date: Wednesday, April 17   Executive Producers: Shane Byrne, Tim Harcourt, Stephen Lambert, Daisy Lilley, Susy Price, Chet Fenster, Richard Forster, Toni Ireland  Format: 16 hourlong episodes  Best Reason to Watch: I dunno, you guys. I dipped my toe back in the reality TV cesspool for “The Traitors,” and I’ve felt dirty ever since. “The Circle” Season 6 is moving from England to Atlanta, GA, if that does anything for ya, and it’s always nice to see Michelle Buteau. But… by now, you know if this is your bag or not. Happy for everyone who’s ready to jump through the hoops, but I can’t join in at this time. 

6. ‘Our Living World’

Release Date: Wednesday, April 17   Creative Team: Ben Roy (producer), James Honeyborne (Executive Producer), Kate Hall (Head of Production), Steve Barnes (Editor), Mark Robertson (Editor)s   Cast: Cate Blanchett, Cute Animals  Format: 4 hourlong episodes  Best Reason to Watch: Cate Blanchett narrates the latest nature docuseries filled with stunning photography and zero other distinguishing factors. Even as a professional critic who’s reviewed a number of these, I would be hard-pressed to outline significant differences between Netflix’s current crop of “Planet Earth” successors, including “Our Planet,” “Our Planet II,” “Life on Our Planet,” “Our Universe,” “Our Great National Parks” (I think this one has Obama), “Night on Earth,” “Earthstorm,” and so on and so forth. But hey, there’s nothing wrong with appreciating the natural elements from the comfort of your nonbiodegradable couch, especially with Cate Blanchett as your tour guide. 

7. ‘Black Sails’

Release Date: Wednesday, April 17   Creators: Jonathan E. Steinberg, Robert Levine  Cast: Toby Stephens, Hannah New, Luke Arnold, Jessica Parker Kennedy, Tom Hopper, Zach McGowan, Toby Schmitz, Clara Paget  Format: 38 hourlong episodes  Best Reason to Watch: What’s a pirate’s favorite pattern? Arrrrrgyle. (It’s a pirate show! I’m tired! Have a good month!) 

The Rest of Incoming TV

“100 Days To Indy” Season 1 (available April 4)   “I Woke Up a Vampire” Season 2 (available April 4)  “Parasyte: The Grey” (available April 5)  “Spirit Rangers” Season 3 (available April 8)  “Anthracite: Secrets of the Sect” (available April 10)  “The Hijacking of Flight 601” (available April 10)  “Unlocked: A Jail Experiment” (available April 10)  “As the Crow Flies” Season 3 (available April 11)  “Heartbreak High” Season 2 (available April 11)  “Meekah” Season 2 (available April 11)  “Midsummer Night” (available April 11)   “The Fairly OddParents” Seasons 4-5 (available April 15)  “Bros” (available April 18)  “The Upshaws” Part 5 (available April 18)  “CoComelon Lane” Season 2 (available April 22)  “Brigands: The Quest for Gold” (available April 23)  “Fight for Paradise: Who Can You Trust?” (available April 23)  “Deliver Me” (available April 24)   “Don’t Hate the Player” (available April 24)  “The Asunta Case” (available April 26)  “Boiling Point” Season 1 (available April 29)  “Fiasco” (available April 30) 

TV Leaving Netflix in April

“Imposters” Seasons 1-2 (unavailable April 4)  “The Nice Guys”*** (unavailble April 8) “Barney and Friends” Seasons 13-14 (unavailable April 30)   ***not a TV show, but boy, wouldn’t it make for a good one?  

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