The 10 Best True Crime Shows to Binge Right Now

Investigate real-life murders, cons, cults and even a 20th-century Jack the Ripper–style series of killings in England

Chris Nashawaty,

Updated January 12, 2026

AARP

Comments

Published February 04, 2025

/ Updated January 12, 2026

amanda seyfreid in a scene from the dropout

Amanda Seyfried as Theranos founder and convicted fraudster Elizabeth Holmes in the limited series "The Dropout."

Beth Dubber/Hulu

You might have noticed that we are living in the age of true crime. Each month brings a flood of new ripped-from-the-headlines documentaries and limited series chronicling real-life murders, stranger-than-fiction cults and charlatans, and long-forgotten cold cases. We’ve all become armchair detectives obsessed with tracking lurid misdeeds, tawdry scandals and wrongful convictions from the safety of our living rooms. And it’s great TV. Here’s our rundown of the 10 best true crime shows streaming right now.

Unsolved Mysteries

We all remember the original Unsolved Mysteries, hosted by the stiff and stentorian-voiced Robert Stack. But in case you weren’t aware, Netflix revived the cold case series a while back, and it’s pretty darn good. In addition to the usual missing persons investigations, the updated show also dabbles in mysteries involving the supernatural, including a visit to the UFO mecca, Roswell, in its fifth and latest season. So get out your tinfoil hats and buckle up. The truth is out there.

Watch it: Unsolved Mysteries

The Ripper (2020)

If it feels like true crime is just an American obsession, guess again. This four-part Netflix docuseries takes us to the other side of the Atlantic, where the British serial killer Peter Sutcliffe murdered 13 women between 1975 and 1980. Known as “the Yorkshire Ripper,” Sutcliffe prowled Manchester and West Yorkshire. This gripping procedural tracks the investigation (and the media frenzy swirling around it) with the rat-a-tat momentum of an episode of Law & Order.

Watch it: The Ripper

The Dropout (2022)

Clear your schedule: This bingeable limited series from Hulu is addictive. Amanda Seyfried plays Elizabeth Holmes, the con-artist founder and CEO of Theranos — a start-up health care company she claimed was able to test for a fleet of diseases with just a single drop of blood. Holmes’ wildly inflated (and mostly fabricated) claims made her a rock star in the tech world and with deep-pocketed venture capitalists who lined up to give her money. But the whole thing was a house of cards built on Holmes’ ever-growing lies.

Watch it: The Dropout

Waco: American Apocalypse (2023)

David Koresh was a self-proclaimed prophet and the guitar-strumming leader of the Branch Davidian religious sect who lived with his heavily armed, rapture-awaiting followers (including their young children) on a remote compound in Waco, Texas. In 1993, after a prolonged standoff with federal authorities lasting 51 days, Koresh’s compound was ambushed and quickly went up in flames, killing nearly 80 people. How did this happen? And more important, why did it have to happen? This gripping three-part documentary series provides many answers, but the profound sense of tragedy remains like a bitter aftertaste.

Watch it: Waco: American Apocalypse

Stolen Youth: Inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence (2023)

Settle in for one very weird tale. This Hulu docuseries chronicles the deeply unsettling case of Larry Ray, a charismatic and manipulative loner who recruited his daughter’s college friends and housemates into a sex cult beginning in 2010. Sarah Lawrence College, a liberal arts school a stone’s throw from New York City, would become an ideal breeding ground for the Svengali-like Ray to prey on the insecurities of youth. Currently serving 60 years in prison, Ray is the sort of stranger-than-fiction bogeyman you simply can’t make up.

Watch it: Stolen Youth: Inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence

American Murder: Gabby Petito (2025)

It sounded like a dream. Twenty-two-year-old Gabby Petito and her fiancé, Brian Laundrie, packed up their white Ford van and hit the road, crisscrossing the country while recording their romantic, free-spirit adventures on video for their social media followers. But in 2021, that dream turned into a nightmare when Petito vanished. After a grueling search, her body was found in Wyoming’s Bridger-Teton National Forest. The culprit was never really in doubt, but the horrific case of Gabby Petito stands as a cautionary tale about the messiness that can hide in plain sight amid the seeming perfection we see every day on Instagram.

Watch it: American Murder: Gabby Petito

Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story (2024)

In 2024, Netflix doubled down on the tale of real-life parricidal brothers Lyle and Erik Menendez, dropping a documentary and a dramatic reenactment in the same year. And while the doc is excellent, the true crime drama starring Javier Bardem, 56, and Chloë Sevigny, 51, as Jose and Kitty Menendez, murdered by their sons in 1989, is TV catnip. During the tabloid-friendly trial, the boys claimed that they’d been sexually abused by their overbearing father for years and that the double parricide was committed in self-defense. The jury wasn’t buying it. Upon the release of this enthralling limited series, the Menendez brothers’ parole request was briefly reopened but ultimately rejected. They remain behind bars.

Watch it: Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story

The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: The Final Chapter (2023)

Cable TV true crime pioneer Investigation Discovery serves up the shocking saga of Natalia Grace, a Ukrainian girl born with a rare form of dwarfism. After being adopted by an American couple, Grace was abandoned when her new parents claimed she was lying about her age and was, in fact, an adult pretending to be a minor. Dun-dun-duh! The Final Chapter recaps the twisted story and brings us up-to-date on how this wild experience affected Grace. This one needs to be seen to be believed. Even then, it’s still hard to wrap your head around.

Watch it: The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: The Final Chapter

American Manhunt: O.J. Simpson (2025)

O.J. Simpson has been a one-man true crime cottage industry since the evening of June 12, 1994, when the bloody bodies of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were discovered outside her Los Angeles condominium. In this engrossing four-part Netflix docuseries, the so-called Trial of the Century gets an epic retelling with special attention paid to the bizarre daily twists and turns that unfolded in an L.A. courtroom. Prosecutor Christopher Darden and one of the defense attorneys, Carl E. Douglas, sit down to relive — and struggle to make sense of — the soap opera trial that gripped the planet.

Watch it: American Manhunt: O.J. Simpson

Death By Lightning (2025)

A wonderfully intense Michael Shannon, 51, breathes new life into one of the most bizarre chapters of American history in this outstanding limited series from Netflix about the 1881 assassination of James Garfield, the 20th president of the United States. With his bushy, Smith Bros. cough drop beard, Shannon portrays the newly sworn-in Garfield as an idealistic but reluctant politician who’s cut down by Charles Guiteau, an obsessive admirer and fame-hunting stalker deftly played by Succession’s Matthew Macfadyen, 51.

Watch it: Death by Lightning

%{postComment}%

Chris Nashawaty, former film critic for Entertainment Weekly, is the author of Caddyshack: The Making of a Hollywood Cinderella Story and a contributor to Esquire, Vanity Fair, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.