15 Most Disturbing True Crime Documentaries Of All Time, Ranked

This article contains discussions of child abuse, mental health, and sexual assault.

Over the past several years, true crime has become more popular than ever in all sorts of forms, from films based on true crime stories to fictionalized TV shows about famous murderers to long podcasts dissecting (pun very much intended) some of the grisliest crimes in human history. So when it comes to true crime documentaries, which aim to capture the most "real" version of any given salacious story, which are the very best?

While we implore you to check trigger warnings on each and every one of these documentaries, as they address everything from state violence to devastating child abuse to sexual assault. Still, if you want to learn the real stories behind some of the most disturbing headlines, give these 15 must-watch true crime documentaries a try — as these are some of the very best found within the ultra-popular genre.

Geeta Gandbhir's 2025 Netflix documentary "The Perfect Neighbor," which earned a best documentary nomination at the 98th Academy Awards, is a searing and unforgettable story about a devastating shooting in a small Floridian city ... but the way Gandbhir tells this story is what makes this documentary truly stand out from the pack. In June of 2023, a woman from Ocala, Florida named Susan Louise Lorincz shot and killed her Black neighbor Ajike Owens, after a long series of disputes where Lorincz claimed that Owens' children were encroaching on her property while she played. This documentary charts what happened before, during, and after the shooting, but it takes an unconventional approach in doing so.

Rather than traditional camera footage, "The Perfect Neighbor" uses body camera footage from Ocala police officers to let this story unfold. "The Perfect Neighbor" is shocking, harrowing, and devastating, but it's also a necessary watch to fully understand what happened between Lorincz and Owens ... and understand more about gun violence in America. 

You probably having a passing familiarity with the case of Gypsy Rose Blanchard and her late mother, Dee Dee Blanchard, who spent Gypsy Rose's childhood convincing the young girl that she suffered from a number of ailments that all turned out to be various fabrications. If you only knows the basics of this case but want to learn more about what would drive a mother to do this — and, conversely, what would drive a daughter to kill her mother, as Gypsy Rose did to Dee Dee — you'll definitely want to watch "Mommy Dead and Dearest," the 2017 HBO helmed by Erin Lee Carr.

For years of Gypsy Rose's life, she was abused by her mother, who confined her to a wheelchair she didn't need and even utilized a feeding tube, all the while claiming that Gypsy Rose needed all of this unnecessary medical attention. Though this story was also dramatized in the Hulu miniseries "The Act," with Patricia Arquette as Dee Dee and Joey King as Gypsy Rose, you should watch "Mommy Dead and Dearest" to find out the real story ... especially because, as of 2023, Gypsy Rose was released from prison on parole and has continued sharing her story.

If you've ever thought about just how scary it would be to lose all of your memories, the 2019 documentary "Tell Me Who I Am" will really freak you out. Released in 2019 and directed by British filmmaker Ed Perkins, this Netflix documentary tells the story of twins Alex and Marcus Lewis — specifically, the fact that in 1982, Alex was involved in a devastating motorcycle accident that left him with no memories of his life aside from being able to recognize Marcus. 

Told across three distinct parts, we watch as Alex essentially learns how to function in society all over again, approaching his new beginning with an innocent wonder ... but without spoiling the horrifying twists of "Tell Me Who I Am" here, it turns out that Marcus is hiding some absolutely horrific truths from his brother in an attempt to protect him from the terrors of their shared past. "Tell Me Who I Am" is devastating, but there's something bizarrely beautiful about watching Marcus rebuild Alex's memory, despite everything.

The story behind Andrew Jarecki's 2015 true crime docuseries "The Jinx" is almost crazier than the actual story itself — "almost" being the key word here. After Jarecki made his 2010 film "All Good Things" starring Ryan Gosling and Kirsten Dunst and partially based the story on alleged crimes committed by New York real estate heir Robert Durst, something shocking happened. Durst reached out to Jarecki himself and asked if the director might be interested in making a docuseries about the "real" story. Jarecki obliged, and that's how we got "The Jinx," which was made for HBO and spans six shocking episodes in its inaugural season.

Basically, Durst, a notably strange and obscenely wealthy man, was suspected of a series of murders of people close to him, including one of his neighbors and his ex-wife. Throughout the series, Durst's story and demeanor gets weirder and weirder, culminating in a presumed confession that, stunningly, led to Durst's arrest. A second season of "The Jinx" hit HBO in 2024, but nothing will ever feel quite as special and shocking as that first outing.

Released in 2023 — the same year that a bombshell story about the very same topic dropped in New York Magazine — Zachary Heinzerling's Hulu documentary "Stolen Youth: Inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence" dropped three full episodes, and that title does explain quite a lot. In 2008, a man named Larry Ray ended up basically living on the campus of the idyllic, pastoral liberal arts college in upstage New York along with his daughter, Talia Ray. While there, he started, for lack of a better term, a full-fledged cult, where various students of the school fell under his spell and started answering to Ray and Ray alone.

The details contained in "Stolen Youth" are, put simply, devastating; not only did Ray mentally abuse many of the impressionable young college students he ensnared, but many of them gave him money and some were even forcibly coerced into sex work by Ray. Thankfully, also in 2023, Ray was, according to the Department of Justice, sentenced to 60 years in prison for charges that included racketeering, sex trafficking, forced labor, and even tax evasion.

Ever since the Catholic church sex abuse scandal broke containment in 2002 — a shocking reveal that was fictionalized in the Oscar-winning 2008 film "Spotlight" — there's been a stricter eye cast on religious institutions that are suspected of covering up sexual crimes against anyone, especially minors. The 2017 Netflix docuseries "The Keepers," which details a particularly shocking and unsettling series of sexual abuses that culminated in the apparent murder of a nun who was willing to tell the world about a priest's misdeeds, is just one of these abhorrent stories.

Directed by Ryan White, "The Keepers" posits that former priest Joseph Maskell, who died in 2001, was responsible not just for widespread abuse at the all-girls Archbishop Keough High School in the Baltimore area, but for the murder of nun and teacher Catherine Cesnik, whose body was found in 1970. Because Maskell went to his grave denying any involvement and proclaiming his innocence, we may never know what really happened here ... but "The Keepers" does an admirable job of presenting the evidence.

The twists and turns in Mark Lewis' 2019 documentary "Don't F**k with Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer" are genuinely insane, and even though this series is undeniably disturbing, it ends with the perpetrator being brought to justice (something we can't say for every entry on this list).

Here's where it begins. In 2010, a man named Luka Magnotta uploaded a video onto the internet that appeared to show him killing two small kittens ... and if you've ever spent even a moment on the Internet in your life, you know that pretty much everybody on it loves cats. Understandably, a vigilante group hoping to bring Magnotta to justice popped up, meeting over Facebook to uncover more information about Magnotta's crimes against animals.

Then, in 2012, Magnotta was arrested for something similar but very different: the murder of Chinese college student Jun Lin, who was killed in Montreal. Magnotta, a deeply sick individual, mailed Lin's body parts after his murder and was subsequently convicted in 2014. Strangely, these Internet vigilantes did help take this abhorrent man down, and you can see how in "Don't F**k with Cats."

Based on the best-selling 2018 book by Michelle MacNamara, "I'll Be Gone in the Dark" aired on HBO in 2020, presenting both MacNamara's tireless search for the real identity of the Golden State Killer and an ode to MacNamara herself, who passed away in 2016 before finishing the nonfiction bestseller. (A few of the book's final chapters were completed by friends and colleagues.) MacNamara's work did help bring the killer, Joseph James DeAngelo, to justice ... and this docuseries is a touching ode to her mission, especially because MacNamara's widower, comedian and actor Patton Oswalt, serves as an executive producer and helps tell her story.

The best and most important thing about "I'll Be Gone in the Dark," though, is that it never lionizes or glamorizes the killer himself. Instead, we hear from his actual victims (or their relatives) about the impact his attacks had on their lives, giving audiences a difficult and unfortunately rare look at the trauma that people endure after coming face to face with a deeply violent human being, or after losing their loved ones to a monstrous killer.

Released in 1996 and directed by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, the HBO documentary "Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills" actually has two sequels following up on the shocking reveals of the first one ... but let's focus on the film that started it all.

"Paradise Lost" centers around a group of young boys dubbed the "West Memphis Three," who were all convicted — as teenagers, no less — of the murders of three younger boys. In the spring of 1993, the Three — Jessie Misskelley Jr., Damien Echols, and Jason Baldwin — were convicted of the murders of Steve Edward Branch, Christopher Byers, and Michael Moore despite a lack of clear physical evidence tying the former group to the latter. Still, the prosecution was successful and argued that the entire thing was a Satanic ritual performed by Echols, Misskelley Jr., and Baldwin.

Told using a "question and answer" format (with Berlinger and Sinofsky remaining firmly behind the camera), "Paradise Lost" is notable for one other weird thing: the soundtrack is all Metallica music. Apparently, the West Memphis Three were fans of the band, and Berlinger and Sinofsky convinced Metallica to license their songs for the project. If you're a true crime fan who also loves Metallica, this one's for you.

In 2009, there was a massive car accident on the Taconic State Parkway in Mount Pleasant, New York — all caused by a woman named Diane Schuler who drove her minivan into oncoming traffic. So what happened here? That's what we learn in the 2011 documentary by Liz Garbus simply titled "There's Something Wrong with Aunt Diane," which released on HBO and speaks to Schuler's friends and loved ones to determine why the woman caused such a massive and deadly accident.

Worse still, there were other people in the car with Schuler, most of whom died with her in the collision — including her own 2-year-old daughter and her three nieces — with just Schuler's 5-year-old son surviving with serious injuries. "There's Something Wrong with Aunt Diane," a title chillingly taken from a call that one of the nieces made to her father before the crash, is a searing, devastating portrait of what happens when a person in the throes of addiction makes an inexplicable and horrible decision.

Scientology has been a subject of heated discussion for years, especially as its popularity grows in celebrity circles — and in 2015, documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney took a close look at the religious institution run with an apparent iron fist by David Miscavige. Based on "Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood and the Prison of Belief" by Lawrence Wright, Gibney delves deeply into the secretive organization, even touching on the fact that Miscavige's wife, Nancy, has been missing for quite some time.

From descriptions of the intense tests taken by hopeful Scientologists (called "auditing") to investigations about the large Scientology compound and even allegations of widespread imprisonment as punishment, "Going Clear" isn't a traditional "true crime documentary," but it's a horrifying watch nonetheless ... and even gets some major Hollywood stars involved in the process. (Tom Cruise may be one of the best movie stars to ever do it, but unfortunately, you will leave "Going Clear" feeling just a little skeptical of his whole deal.)

In 2022, co-directors Rachel Dretzin and Grace McNally joined forces to pull back the curtain on infamous cult leader Warren Jeffs and his tight grip over the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, a subsect of Mormonism that Jeffs created in 2002 and subsequently abused in "Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey." The eerie title even comes from a woman who was anonymously interviewed for the docuseries known only as "Charlene," who said this was part of a mantra repeated by the women under Jeffs' control; as she put it, the goal of saying and following this mantra was "to be in control of your emotions and you didn't display things like anger or resentment or frustration."

Jeffs, who is incarcerated as of this writing for plenty of counts of child sexual abuse — many of his wives were minors — created an oppressive, horrific environment for the women who were part of his "church," in a small Utah community known as Short Creek. If you think you know everything about Warren Jeffs and his crimes, think again ... and watch this docuseries.

The second piece of work by Andrew Jarecki on this list after "The Jinx," the 2003 documentary "Capturing the Friedmans," which also aired on HBO, is somehow even more disturbing than the one Jarecki would make over a decade later. This particular story centers around the titular Friedman family — specifically, father Arnold and his son Jesse — and sort of like "The Jinx," Jarecki stumbled into this unbelievably dark story while working on something else entirely. In fact, the project was originally a short film about a man working as a party clown named David Friedman; while working on that, Jarecki discovered some incredibly dark secrets about Friedman's father and brother.

As it turns out, Arnold had been arrested in the 1980s for possession of intimate photos of minors; he was able to find his victims through a computer class he taught, aided directly by Jesse. Using Friedman family videos and firsthand evidence whenever possible, Jarecki wisely let this story unfold ... and paved the way for him to make more stunning and horrifying true crime documentaries like this and "The Jinx."

Directed by Skye Borgman ("Abducted in Plain Sight") and based on two books by Matt Birkbeck — "A Beautiful Child" and "Finding Sharon" — the 2022 Netflix documentary "Girl in the Picture" tells the gut-wrenching story of a girl allegedly named Sharon Marshall. As a young girl, Marshall was kidnapped by a man on the run from the law named Franklin Delano Floyd, and though the man raised her as his daughter, he also spent years committing vile acts against the young girl and forced her to marry him. Worse still, Marshall died in a car accident before authorities could speak to her directly.

Thanks to Borgman and Birkbeck's work, "Girl in the Picture" continues the mission to fully identify Marshall — whether or not that's really her name remains unconfirmed — and get justice for the man who tormented her. This is a tough watch, but it's worth your while.

No other true crime documentary will, hopefully, ever be more disturbing than "Dear Zachary" — which is why it's at the very top of this list. Directed by Kurt Kuenne and subtitled "A Letter to a Son About His Father," this movie focuses on Kuenne's real friend Andrew Bagby, who met a strange woman named Shirley Jane Turner and who later was found murdered. After Bagby's murder, Turner revealed that she was expecting his child ... which is where this story somehow takes an even worse turn.

"Dear Zachary" is infamous for being one of the most disturbing true crime documentaries in the genre's history, and we won't spoil the conclusion here — but it will truly leave you shaken to your core. Still, if nothing else, watch it to honor Bagby's memory — and to appreciate Kuenne's thoughtful portrait of his late friend.

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

If you or someone you know needs help with mental health, please contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741, call the National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264), or visit the National Institute of Mental Health website.

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