5 Best True Crime Series That Will Keep You Glued to the Screen, Ranked by Rotten Tomatoes
From sophisticated investigations and legal battles to in-depth analysis of motives and social context.
True crime allows you to peer into the darkest corners of the human psyche and the tangled labyrinths of justice from the safety of your own home.
Long gone are the days when this genre was limited to documentaries – it has evolved into intense psychological cinema where reality is often more terrifying than any fiction.
5. 'The Serpent', 2021
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 80%
1975. Alain and Monique, a young couple living in Bangkok, are actually criminals hiding behind false names. Alain's real name is Charles Sobhraj, and Monique's is Marie-Andrée Leclerc.
They met in Thailand, where Charles' charm immediately captivated Marie and she joined his criminal activities without hesitation.
They ingratiated themselves with tourists, lured them to their apartment, drugged, robbed, and murdered them. The duo would have continued their murderous ways with impunity if not for Herman Knippenberg, a diplomat who was on their trail.
4. 'Delhi Crime', 2019-...
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 84%
The series begins with a man and a woman who are found naked and beaten on the side of the road. The young couple had been returning from a movie that evening on a bus with five other men and a driver.
The men attacked the young couple, and the woman was subjected to a particularly brutal assault. She did not survive. Police Commissioner Vartika Chaturvedi, a woman raising a daughter, takes this case particularly seriously.
She assembles a team of top specialists and is determined to find and punish the culprits at any cost.
3. 'The Act', 2019
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 88%
The police received a call from neighbors of the Blanchard family who were concerned about the suspiciously quiet house. Around the same time, a terrifying post appeared on social media claiming that an unknown person had killed Dee Dee Blanchard and raped her teenage daughter, Gypsy.
Dee Dee's body was found in the house, but Gypsy was nowhere to be found. Police were concerned about the girl's fate because she had been confined to a wheelchair since childhood.
Everyone in the neighborhood knew Gypsy had leukemia, asthma, muscular dystrophy, and several other chronic illnesses.
2. 'The Staircase', 2022
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 92%
In December 2001, crime novelist Michael Peterson called 911 to report that his wife had fallen down the stairs. She died from her injuries before the ambulance arrived.
Peterson insisted that he had been in the backyard the entire time and that he did not know how the tragedy had happened. However, the police don't believe him – there is too much blood, and the scene looks more like a murder. Michael becomes the prime suspect.
1. 'Unbelievable', 2019
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 98%
August 2008. 18-year-old Marie Adler is a troubled girl who, according to social workers and her foster parents, loves being the center of attention.
One day, she calls the police and reports that she was sexually assaulted. She claims the attacker entered her room through the window while she was sleeping. However, detectives could not find any evidence, and given Marie's reputation, they concluded that she had made it all up.
Under pressure, the girl admits that the rape never happened. Three years later, however, several similar cases occur across the state.
