13 Of Netflix’s Most Gripping True-Crime Documentaries To Watch On Halloween

For some, the ideal Halloween night consists of binge-watching those evergreen, fictional scary movies. Meanwhile for others, nothing beats a superb thrilling documentary, or miniseries, that will equip them with greater information.

This year’s Halloween, true-crime addicts are in for a great treat as Netflix, the ideal streaming platform, provides everything from monetary real murder mysteries to puzzles and narratives that make you reconsider your own interpersonal connections. 

Glitz compiled a selection of the finest true crime films available on Netflix, featuring stories that discover murders, investigate life-changing sentences, and even show how deadly the world wide web can be.

Netflix’s Best True-Crime Documentaries

1. American Murder: The Family Next Door (2020)

Christopher Watts confessed to murdering his two young girls and pregnant wife in 2018, and the news rippled throughout America. What most of the press coverage failed to do was give a complete image of the family’s intricate relationships, which is why American Murder: The Family Next Door steps in to fill the voids.

2. Our Father (2022)

Our Father tells the tale of Donald Cline, an Indiana-based doctor who specialised in women’s fertility. Donalds Cline’s patients and workers were unaware that Cline was secretly inseminating them with his own sperm, and hence, investigations rapidly took place. 

3. Memories of a Murderer: The Nilsen Tapes (2021)

Many true crime documentaries convey the account of a crime or murder via another’s perspective, but Memories of a Murderer: The Nilsen Tapes gets you inside the killer’s head. The documentary employs recorded narration from jail by Dennis Nilsen, a known British serial murderer, who discusses his killings and reasons.

4. Night Stalker: The Hunt For a Serial Killer (2021)

This series chronicles the tale of one of the most ruthless and dreaded criminals in LA history, using disturbing film and conversations with persons associated with the case. Under the sunny splendour of 1985 Los Angeles, The Night Stalker conducted horrible murders and eluded arrest for a long time before two investigators got fixated with catching him.

5. The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann (2019)

A look at the Madeleine McCann mystery, in which a 4-year-old British girl went missing from her bed while on vacation in Praia da Luz, Portugal. The 8-part documentary examines every aspect of the media firestorm to probable blunders in what is largely considered as the largest missing individual case in world history.

6. Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel (2021)

Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel is a four-part miniseries that highlights the Cecil Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles, which has been associated with tragic deaths as well as hosting criminals during the previous century. 

It’s also where Elisa Lam, a 21-year-old Canadian student, was residing when she abruptly disappeared in 2013. Lam’s disappearance, and the film that surfaced showing her in the hotel elevator, sparked a slew of conspiracy theories, prompting a world community of online investigators to band together to resolve the mystery.

7. The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez (2020)

Gabriel Fernandez, then eight years old, was killed in 2013 as a consequence of terrible and sustained maltreatment by his own mother and her partner. Following the incident, a call for truth and responsibility erupted in Los Angeles County. 

This tragic six-part documentary provides some inside glimpse at the prosecution as well as an eye-opening inquiry of government institutions that failed to safeguard Gabriel amid many complaints and warning flags.

8. Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich (2020) 

In this four-part documentary adapted on James Patterson’s 2016 book of the same name, victims of convicted sexual offender Jeffrey Epstein’s famed “pyramid scheme” band together to discover his conspiracy of affluent and influential confidantes. The series is as terrifying as it is angering in the post-MeToo era.

9. The Tinder Swindler (2022)

The Tinder Swindler stands out among the countless real crime productions that have followed death and murder. However, the story depicts a skilled con artist who utilised the famous dating app Tinder to trick unsuspecting women into falling for a swindle that cost them thousands of dollars by masking himself with fictitious aliases.

10. Why Did You Kill Me? (2021)

Why Did You Kill Me? investigates the recurring theme of a victim’s family going beyond the ordinary in campaigning for justice After Crystal Theobald, 24, is murdered, her family utilises MySpace to learn more about her death, illustrating the influence of social media yet again.

11. Abducted in Plain Sight (2017)

Jan Broberg, who was kidnapped twice by her neighbour Robert Berchtold in Idaho in the 1970s, is the protagonist of Abducted in Plain Sight. Broberg is now an actress who went on The View to discuss the Netflix film and how she believes “grooming” had a role in her disappearance.

12. Tell Me Who I Am (2019)

When Alex loses his memory following a terrible motorcycle crash, he wants his twin, Marcus, to tell him everything about his life, but he soon realises that Marcus is concealing a deadly family secret. This emotional and heartbreaking documentary was shortlisted for a British Independent Film Award for Best Documentary.

13. The Staircase (2018)

The Staircase tells the dramatic story of Michael Peterson, a thriller novelist suspected of murdering his wife Kathleen when she is discovered death at the foot of their home’s staircase, and the 16-year legal fight that ensued. Jean-Xavier de Lestrade, an Academy Award-winning documentary director, was allowed extraordinary insight to the case soon after Kathleen’s murder in Durham, North Carolina in 2001.

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