Top 10 Must-Watch True Crime Documentaries
#10: “Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal” (2021)
This documentary tells a tale of corruption and fraud in American education. Wealthy parents were charged with bribing universities to accept their children. Among the 50 charged were famous actors like Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin. At the heart of the scam was former coach William “Rick” Singer and John Vandemoer. Director Chris Smith used wiretap transcripts and blogs to piece together the story, along with reenactments. Smith also got the participation of Singer’s former business associate to find out information on the coach.. All in all, this documentary is eye-opening in exposing the ways the wealthy game the system.
#9: “Tales of the Grim Sleeper” (2014)
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Documentaries about serial killers are not unusual, but director Nick Broomfield’s film about the murderer called the Grim Sleeper also highlights perceived indifference by the police in capturing the killer. Relating the story of Lonnie Franklin Jr., eventually charged in 2010 with murdering 10 young Black women, it includes activists who claimed police weren’t motivated because many of the victims were poor drug users or sex workers. Franklin took a 14-year hiatus from killing, earning him the nickname “Grim Sleeper” when he resumed. Eventually, he was arrested on a felony charge unrelated to his murders - but that gave the department a DNA sample which finally led to his arrest. Broomfeld’s film reveals this chilling but all-too-familiar tale of murder, systemic indifference, and racial bigotry.
#8: “The Invisible War” (2012)
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This award-winning film is another blood-curdling exposé on institutional indifference. This time, it concerns the most heinous of crimes committed by people sworn to protect and defend. Utilizing countless interviews by veterans, director Kirby Dick investigates endemic sexual assault in the military. The victims include soldiers assaulted by their own servicemen, only to be disbelieved and even retaliated against. Due to military hierarchy, many have even had to report their assault to their own attackers! As a result, few assailants are prosecuted and convicted. “Invisible War” not only sheds light into toxic aspects of military culture, but also into flaws in our own culture.
#7: “Athlete A” (2020)
Systemic abuse and cover-ups are not just confined to the military. This documentary follows the crimes of Larry Nassar, a doctor who sexually assaulted hundreds of women, many of them young female gymnasts. Starting in 2015, Maggie Nichols, Rachael Denhollander, and Jessica Howard, among other gymnasts, accuse Nassar of mistreatment. It turned out that allegations of carnal assault went back years, covered up by Steve Penny, the USA Gymnastics CEO. Penny was eventually charged with evidence tampering, though the charges were later dismissed. Directors Bonni Cohen and John Shenk follow reporters for “The Indianapolis Star” as they investigate the case against Nassar. By the time Nassar was convicted, more than 260 victims had accused Nassar of gross mistreatment.
#6: “Amanda Knox” (2016)
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It was a case that had captivated the whole world. Amanda Knox, an American exchange student living in Italy, was convicted twice of murdering her roommate. In this documentary, directors Rod Blackhurst and Brian McGinn allow Knox to tell her own side of the story. Despite evidence suggesting another perpetrator, the Italian police investigated Knox and her then-boyfriend for their unusual behaviors. Tabloids followed suit, demonizing Knox as a femme fatale obsessed with sex and the occult. And as it turned out, chief prosecutor Giuliano Mignini had a history of baseless and sexist theorizing, as well as abuses of power. In the end, Knox spent four years in Italian prison before she was finally acquitted in 2015.
#5: “The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley” (2019)
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This film follows infamous entrepreneur Elizabeth Holmes and her company Theranos, which promised to diagnose 200 diseases with just a few drops of blood. Hailed as a wunderkind, Holmes managed to convince investors in the value of Theranos’s Edison machine. There was one small problem: Edison did not work. Undeterred, Holmes and her team ignored bad news on the machine’s efficacy. Director Alex Gibney investigates Holmes’s motives—was she an arrogant idealist or a cynical fraud? Either way, Holmes’s hubris left a trail of victims—and at least one self-inflicted death—in her wake.
#4: “Mommy Dead and Dearest” (2017)
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There are some crimes that are truly so bizarre they are stranger than fiction. The murder of Dee Dee Blanchard by her daughter Gypsy Rose Blanchard was the result of some truly horrific abuse. Blanchard convinced people that her daughter was ill, when in fact Gypsy Rose was in perfect health. Blanchard went so far as to insert a feeding tube into her daughter and consign her to a wheelchair. Desperate to escape, Gypsy Rose and her then-boyfriend carried out the murder. Dee Dee Blanchard was so unstable that her own relatives were not at all sad to see her go. Gypsy Rose is now out on parole, no doubt scarred by her ordeal.
#3: “The Imposter” (2012)
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Another bizarre true crime is the subject of this lauded 2012 documentary. Nicholas Patrick Barclay, a 13-year-old from Texas, disappears in 1994 but apparently reappears three years later in Spain. But as it turns out, the man was an imposter, French impersonator Frédéric Bourdin. He altered himself to look like Nicholas, fooling even Barclay’s own mother. Bourdin was eventually arrested thanks to the work of investigators, but that is not the end. Bourdin alleges that the family killed Nicholas—their acceptance of Bourdin was an attempt to cover up their crime. Director Bart Layton shows all sides of the story and leaves us begging the question: Was this family truly the victims of an unrepentant con man or is there something more sinister at work?
#2: “The Thin Blue Line” (1988)
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This is the film that changed the way documentaries were made forever. Errol Morris’s film follows the case of Randall Dale Adams, accused of shooting Dallas police officer Robert W. Wood in 1976. Although all the evidence pointed to 16-year-old David Harris, Adams was the one convicted and sentenced to death. Morris’s use of reenactments and a cinematic style deviated from the standard verité style of documentaries. As a result, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences refused to consider it for Best Documentary. Morris’s film also managed to secure a confession from Harris himself via voiceover. Finally, Adams was released after 12 years in prison.
#1: “The Central Park Five” (2012)
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Most people have heard of the infamous 1989 case of five Black and Latino teenagers wrongly accused of gang assault. Browbeaten into making false confessions, the teens were convicted. The real criminal, Matias Reyes, finally confessed to the assault, supported by DNA evidence. By then, however, the five teens had largely served their sentences, between seven and 13 years. “Central Park Five” exposes the racial and class divides that led to this miscarriage of justice. Not only that, but it tells this grisly history through the point of view of the five teens themselves. The now-exonerated men filed a lawsuit against the City of New York, which eventually agreed to a settlement after several years’ resistance.
