While there are several fictional horror movies, often the most frightening stories are the real ones.
Of course, many true crime documentaries aren’t for the faint of heart, as they uncover the psychology of criminals, the aftermath for the families and the justice that sometimes doesn’t get served.
Since true crime is such a wide genre, there is no shortage of offerings for people looking to learn more about some of the scariest stories. For instance, The Way Down explores cult leaders, while Devil in the Family unpacks abusive parents and Unknown Number reveals the devastating realities of cyberbullying.
If you’re drawn to the darker side and psychology of human behavior, these true crime documentaries and docuseries will get you hooked.
In the early hours of Sunday, Nov. 13, 2022, four University of Idaho students — Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Ethan Chapin, 20 — were found stabbed to death in their off-campus home. One month later, suspect Bryan Kohberger was arrested in Pennsylvania.
Though he pleaded guilty to four charges of first-degree murder in July 2025 to avoid the possibility of being executed, Kohberger was sentenced to four lifetimes in prison without parole, plus 10 additional years for burglary. Produced before the gag order was lifted, the four-part docuseries One Night in Idaho turns its focus to the families, friends and community members still wrestling with the aftermath, offering a piercing look at a case with many unanswered questions.
Netflix’s Fred and Rose West: A British Horror Story revisits their infamous story, featuring more than 100 previously unheard police tapes and shedding new light on one of the U.K.’s most disturbing serial killer cases.
Watch Fred and Rose West: A British Horror Story on Netflix
This Netflix 2025 true crime documentary revisits the mysterious death of Jason Corbett, an Irish widower who married Molly Martens just a month after losing his first wife. When Corbett was found brutally murdered in their North Carolina home in August 2015, the case led to a series of damning accusations against him and about his second wife and their family.
A Deadly American Marriage sets out to shine “a bright light on the many questions that have lingered since the shocking events of that night.”
Watch A Deadly American Marriage on Netflix
Starting her social media career at 8 years old, internet celebrity Piper Rockelle built a multimillion-dollar empire through viral challenges, staged pranks and seemingly innocent “crush content” with her friends.
However, as Netflix’s three-part docuseries reveals, Rockelle’s “Squad” was an artificially designed group of kid actors — many of whom went on to allege physical, emotional and sexual abuse from Rockelle’s momager, Tiffany Smith, who has denied the claims.
Bad Influence unpacks Rockelle’s case to expose the dark underbelly of child influencers and the adults who profit from their fame.
Watch Bad Influence: The Dark Side of Kidfluencing on Netflix
Popular family vlogger Ruby Franke built a following of more than 2.5 million subscribers on her 8 Passengers YouTube channel, crafting a picture-perfect image of her Mormon family — until her strict parenting methods started to raise red flags.
For couple vloggers Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie, their “van life” adventures painted a perfect picture on social media — but the reality behind the filter was far more disturbing.
After Petito was found strangled to death by Laundrie in 2021, the 2025 Netflix docuseries American Murder unpacks the case that gripped the nation, retracing the couple’s final days and unveiling the chilling secrets they kept off camera.
The 2024 docuseries Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey revisits the allegedly incompetent investigation by the Boulder Police Department and how media sensationalism influenced the public’s perception of the case, while examining several suspects, such as JonBenét’s parents, Patsy and John Ramsey.
This 2024 Netflix documentary dives into their 1989 parricide — killing their parents, José and Kitty Menéndez, after alleging years of sexual abuse — and the high-profile trial that followed, featuring exclusive audio interviews with Lyle and Erik from California’s Donovan Correctional Facility.
Watch The Menéndez Brothers on Netflix
American Murder: Laci Peterson goes deep into the heartbreaking case of Laci Peterson, who went missing on Christmas Eve in 2002 while eight months pregnant. Her body was discovered months later, just one day after the remains of her unborn child, Conner, were found.
In November 2016, Sherri Papini disappeared during her morning jog and resurfaced three weeks later with a far-fetched tale of being abducted by two Hispanic women. For four years, her story baffled investigators, until one day they finally got their answer: Sherri faked her own kidnapping.
Over three episodes, this 2024 Hulu docuseries examines the case, featuring interviews with those closest to it — including her ex-husband, Keith Papini, who shares his side of the story for the first time.
Watch Perfect Wife: The Mysterious Disappearance of Sherri Papini on Hulu
Netflix delivers a hard-hitting three-part docuseries that dives into a dark corner of the billion-dollar app.
Directed by Derek Doneen, 2024’s Dancing for the Devil: The 7M TikTok Cult tells the unsettling story of young dancer Miranda Derrick, who signed up with a management company called 7M, which turned out to be a religious group led by Shekinah Church pastor Robert Shinn. The former leader has faced allegations of sexual abuse and coercing members into cutting off contact with their families — all of which Robert, his associates, 7M and the Shekinah Church vehemently deny.
Watch Dancing for the Devil: The 7M TikTok Cult on Netflix
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 committing (to which he shockingly confessed on camera).
When Aaron Quinn reported the abduction of his girlfriend, Denise Huskins, to the police in March 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.
The 2024 three-part docuseries American Nightmare dives headfirst into several thought-provoking issues, like victim blaming and the glaring inadequacies in the criminal justice system.
Watch American Nightmare on Netflix
Featuring exclusive interviews with the survivors, the 2023 documentary from CNN Films and HBO Max explores the most bizarre mass kidnapping of all time.
In Chowchilla, Calif., three masked men hijacked a bus carrying 26 school children — demanding a $5 million ransom — before loading them into soundproofed vans that drove them to the underground chamber where they were buried alive.
Watch Chowchilla on HBO Max
It’s the story that left the world in disbelief. This ID documentary series follows Michael and Kristine Barnett, the white-picket-fence couple who adopt a young Ukrainian girl with dwarfism, Natalia Grace, and later accuse her of being an adult masquerading as a 6-year-old.
However, the saga unearths new layers in the second season as Natalia shares her harrowing experiences with her adoptive parents and has a face-to-face confrontation with Michael.
Exposing the household’s disturbing secrets that never made it on-screen, 2023’s Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets touches on serious subjects such as sexual abuse, child pornography and religious trauma.
Watch Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets on Amazon Prime Video
After Margaret “Maggie” Murdaugh, 52, and her son, Paul Murdaugh, 22, were found murdered at their hunting lodge in June 2021, their family’s veiled history of corruption began to surface.
This 2023 docuseries centers on the Murdaughs, South Carolina’s illustrious legal dynasty, whose members were tied to multiple homicides, financial fraud and other alleged crimes. Eerily timely, shortly after this series came out, Alex Murdaugh was found guilty of Maggie and Paul’s murders and sentenced to two life sentences in prison.
Directed by Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer’s Tiller Russell, this 2023 three-part limited series narrates the events that led up to the 1993 Waco massacre, one of the most infamous and fatal police sieges in American history.
Watch Waco: American Apocalypse on Netflix
Stolen Youth chronicles the disturbing case of Larry Ray (né Lawrence Grecco), a man who lured his daughter’s college roommates into a sex cult beginning in 2010.
In April 2022, Ray was convicted on 15 counts — including sex trafficking, extortion and racketeering conspiracy — and sentenced in 2023 to 60 years in prison. Over three hour-long parts, Hulu gets a closer look with personal accounts and unseen footage from Ray and the survivors.
Watch Stolen Youth: Inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence on Hulu
The rise and fall of Warren Jeffs, the disgraced former president of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is chronicled in this 2022 four-part docuseries. Jeffs married as many as 78 wives, including 24 underage girls, and oversaw the abuse of other women and children.
He was arrested in 2006 and later convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 2011. The show includes stories from survivors and ex-members of the polygamy-practicing group. (The LDS church has said the FLDS has no affiliation with the wider church.)
Presenting himself as the son of a Russian-Israeli diamond mogul, Leviev used Tinder to manipulate women into financially supporting his extravagant lifestyle, all while pretending he needed the money to escape his “enemies.”
In mid-1980s Los Angeles, serial killer Richard Ramirez lurked at night for victims to torture and murder. The crimes and eventual arrest of Ramirez, known as the “Night Stalker,” are documented in this gripping four-part series.
Produced by brothers Anthony and Joe Russo, this three-part docuseries will leave you feeling spooked. Seven years after disappearing from his California home in 1972, 14-year-old Steven Stayner escaped his kidnapper, Kenneth Parnell, and returned to his family in 1980.
Years later, the Stayner family was thrust into the spotlight again following the horrific crimes of Steven’s serial killer brother, Cary Stayner.
