14 Must Watch True Crime Docs

When I launched my podcast Reality Life with Kate Casey in 2016, I was driven by a deep curiosity about human behavior and the stories behind the headlines. Since then, I’ve interviewed countless true crime subjects, executive producers, and directors — each conversation offering a behind-the-scenes look into how these jaw-dropping stories come to life.

Below is a curated list of 14 must-watch true crime documentaries — some you may already know, and others you’ll be glad to discover. Each one is paired with an episode of my podcast where we dig even deeper into the case, the making of the documentary, or the real people at the center of it all. Consider this your true crime watchlist — with a companion guide.

1. Amanda Knox (Netflix)

Amanda Knox is a 2016 American documentary film about Amanda Knox, twice convicted and later acquitted of the 2007 murder of Meredith Kercher.

Kercher was a British student on exchange from the University of Leeds who was murdered at the age of 21 in Perugia, Italy. Kercher was found dead on the floor of her room. By the time the bloodstained fingerprints at the scene were identified as belonging to Rudy Guede, an Ivorian migrant, police had charged Kercher's American roommate, Amanda Knox, and Knox's Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito. The subsequent prosecutions of Knox and Sollecito received international publicity, with forensic experts and jurists taking a critical view of the evidence supporting the initial guilty verdicts.

My interview with Amanda Knox.

2. Captive Audience: A Real American Horror Story (Hulu)

Produced by brothers Anthony and Joe Russo, this three-part series will leave you feeling spooked. Seven years after disappearing from his California home, 14-year-old Steven Stayner escapes his kidnapper and returns to his family. Years later, the Stayner family were again thrust into the spotlight following the horrific crimes of Steven's serial killer brother, Cary Stayner.

My interview with Steven’s daughter, Ashley Stayner.

3. The Keepers (Netflix)

This superb docuseries tackles the unsolved murder of Cathy Cesnik, a beloved nun and Catholic high school teacher in Baltimore. After disappearing on Nov. 7, 1969, Cesnik's body was found nearly two months later -- but to this day, the killer remains unnamed. In the '90s, the case returned to the spotlight after one of Cesnik's former students accused the high school's chaplain of sexual abuse, and claims that she was taken to Cesnik's then undiscovered corpse and threatened. Director Ryan White pieces together the story through conversations with friends, relatives, journalists, government officials and Baltimore citizens, hoping to uncover the truth.

My interview with Gemma Hoskins.

4. Girl in the Picture (Netflix)

Directed by Skye Borgman, it is based on the books A Beautiful Child and Finding Sharon by Matt Birkbeck, who also served as executive producer. The story is centered on a young girl known as Sharon Marshall, who was abducted by a federal fugitive Franklin Delano Floyd and then raised as his daughter. Over the course of the next two decades, she was sexually assaulted by Floyd, forced to marry him and ultimately died in a suspicious hit-and-run accident in 1990. The film follows the shocking events that transpired afterward and the years-long efforts by Birkbeck, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, and the FBI to find her true identity. The film was released on July 6, 2022.

My interview with author Matt Birkbeck.

5. Wild Wild Country (Netflix)

Wild Wild Country is a six-part Netflix documentary series that tells the unbelievable true story of the controversial Indian spiritual leader Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (later known as Osho) and his followers, who in the 1980s built a massive commune in rural Wasco County, Oregon.

My interview with the directors.

6. Icarus (Netflix)

Icarus is a 2017 American documentary film by Bryan Fogel. It was an initial attempt by Fogel to expose the inadequacy of existing policies and procedures to catch athletes who use banned performance-enhancing substances. But later, the project shifted its focus after pressures related to the World Anti-Doping Agency's investigation of doping in Russia led Grigory Rodchenkov, the head of the Moscow Anti-Doping Laboratory and one of Fogel's primary advisors, to flee Russia and become a whistleblower.

My interview with the director Bryan Fogel.

7. The Jinx (HBO)

In HBO's Emmy-winning 2015 docuseries, director Andrew Jarecki sat down with wealthy New York City real estate heir Robert Durst, interviewing him about the three murders he was accused of (to which he shockingly confessed on camera). Now, nearly a decade later, HBO revisits the aftermath and shares what happened next — chronicling Durst's life sentence and his death at age 78 in January 2022 — in Part Two.

My interview with the director Andrew Jarecki and executive producer Zac Stuart-Pontier.

8. American Nightmare (Netflix)

When Aaron Quinn reported the implausible abduction of girlfriend Denise Huskins to the police in 2015, he found himself initially cast as the prime suspect, only to witness a jolting reversal as they — along with the media — shifted the responsibility onto her, accusing her of orchestrating a Gone Girl-style smokescreen. A three-part docuseries, American Nightmare dives headfirst into several thought-provoking issues, such as victim blaming and the glaring inadequacies in our criminal justice system.

My interview with producers Felicity Morris and Bernadette Higgins.

9. Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey (Netflix)

The rise and fall of Warren Jeffs, the disgraced ex-president of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is chronicled in this four-part docuseries. The show includes stories from survivors and former members of the polygamy-practicing group. (The LDS church has said the FLDS has no affiliation with the wider church.) Jeffs married as many as 78 wives, including 24 underage girls, and oversaw the abuse of other women and children before his subsequent arrest and conviction.

My interview with the director Rachel Dretzin.

My interview with Elissa Wall.

10. Burden of Proof (HBO)

This four-part HBO docuseries follows a man determined to uncover the terrible truth behind his sister's disappearance at any cost.

My interview with director Cynthia Hill and Stephen Pandos.

11. Tinder Swindler (Netflix)

This 2022 docuseries tells the story of conman Simon Leviev (born Shimon Hayut), who swindled an estimated $10 million from people around the world. Presenting himself as the son of a Russian-Israeli diamond mogul, Hayut used Tinder to manipulate women into financially supporting his extravagant lifestyle, all while pretending he needed the money to escape his "enemies."

My interview with the producers.

12. The Imposter (Prime Video/Peacock)

The Imposter is a 2012 documentary film about the 1997 case of a French confidence trickster Frédéric Bourdin, who pretended to be Nicholas Patrick Barclay, an American boy who had disappeared in Texas at the age of 13 in 1994.

Have you seen this episode.

13. The Staircase (Netflix)

In 2001 novelist Michael Peterson's wife died, and he claimed she perished after falling down stairs at their home. The medical examiner, however, determined that she had been beaten with a weapon, which led to Peterson becoming a suspect in what would become a murder investigation. This series, which began with eight episodes in 2005 before being updated in 2013 and 2018, follows the investigation as it proceeds from Peterson's arrest to a verdict being reached in the ensuing trial. The real-life courtroom thriller offers a rare and revealing inside look at a high-profile murder trial and an examination of contemporary American justice.

My interview with author Diane Fanning.

14. The Devil Next Door (Netflix)

A Cleveland grandfather is brought to trial in Israel, accused of being the infamous Nazi death camp guard known as Ivan the Terrible.

The story behind the series episode.