Olivia Colman, Renee Zellweger, Hugh Grant – they all take a starring and chilling role in our pick of the best true crime dramas available to watch now.
Landscapers
Olivia Colman and David Thewlis play a killer couple in this blistering drama
Year: 2021
Certificate: 18
Watch now on NOW
Watch now on Sky
Every so often, a drama comes along that seems to redefine the possibilities of an entire genre. That’s the excitement of watching Landscapers, which seems to take the rule book of true crime dramas and tear it up, hopping about in time and even stepping between sets as the story advances in unexpected and enlightening ways.
It’s a real breath of fresh air, and in order to pull off an experiment like this you need two things: a strong cast and a good story. Landscapers has Olivia Colman and David Thewlis as Susan and Christopher Edwards, who murdered Susan’s parents and buried them in a garden. They seem like such a sweet couple when we meet them that we instantly want to know how they could have done this. And we spend four parts finding out in dazzlingly original fashion. (Four episodes)
The Gold
Follow the trail of the Brink’s-Mat fools gold in a thrilling star-studded mini-series
Year: 2023
Certificate: 15
Watch now on BBC iPlayer
This thrilling look at the fallout from the 1983 Brink’s-Mat robbery is truly epic in scope, shot through with humour, horror and the odd detour into social commentary.
Unlike so many heist dramas that focus on the robbers, this takes in a huge range of characters and digs into the nitty-gritty of the ramifications of this spectacular theft.
It opens with the balaclava-hooded gang bursting into the depot. Expecting easily laundered cash, they’ve instead got three tons of gold bullion, which calls for creative thinking to turn it from useless paperweights to spendable dosh.
While the villains tackle the problem, the police have their own difficulties, hampered by widespread corruption and a lack of co-operation between forces.
The cast is huge and peppered with familiar faces, not least Hugh Bonneville as the man leading the police task force and Jack Lowden as ringleader Kenneth ‘Kenny’ Noye – but special mention also goes to Tom Cullen as John Palmer, smelting the gold in a shed at the bottom of his garden, and Charlotte Spencer as the fictional ‘Flying Squad’ detective who has intimate knowledge of the kind of villains she’s chasing. (6 episodes)
Unbelievable
Toni Collette is a detective investigating a rape case
Year: 2019
Certificate: 18
Watch now on Netflix
In a chilling true-life tale, Kaitlyn Dever plays Marie Adler, the 18-year-old American who, in 2015, claimed that she had been raped at knifepoint by a masked intruder but nobody believed her. Only later, after she’d retracted her story under pressure from male detectives and been charged with false reporting, did the truth start to emerge.
Toni Collette and Merritt Weaver play detectives Grace Rasmussen and Karen Duvall, the female officers investigating the case in a fact-based drama that reveals a frightening lack of communication between police departments in different US states. (Eight episodes)
Candy
Jessica Biel stars as a churchgoer – and suspected axe-murderer
Year: 2022
Certificate: 18
Watch now on Disney+
Almost unrecognisable under a curly wig and a set of false teeth, Jessica Biel is icily hard to read as Candy Montgomery, a seemingly perfect church-going wife and mother in 1980s Texas. Seemingly perfect? Well, yes, because after her best friend Betty’s brutal murder with an axe, the police discover that Candy had been having an affair with the dead woman’s husband. Surely Candy can’t also have been the one who wielded the axe that killed Betty – can she?
This engrossing thriller based on real events plays out over five parts shot through with perfect period detail and some great performances. Apart from the fantastic Biel, there’s a beautifully understated passive-aggressive turn from Yellowjackets’ Melanie Lynskey as the ill-fated Betty. (One series)
The Sixth Commandment
Timothy Spall gives the performance of a lifetime in this true-crime tale
Year: 2023
Watch now on BBC iPlayer
When novelist and teacher Peter Farquhar fell for former student Ben Field, an aspiring vicar in his 20s, he couldn’t have known that their names would be forever linked after a shocking crime in 2015 in the Buckinghamshire village of Maids Moreton.
Timothy Spall leads the cast as Peter in this four-part true-crime drama; Anne Reid co-stars as his octogenarian neighbour Ann Moore-Martin, who also fell under Ben’s spell, with Sheila Hancock as potential victim Liz Zettl.
Holding his own among these acting heavyweights is Normal People’s Eanna Hardwicke as Ben, who exudes charm and menace in equal measure, but it’s very much the victims who are the focus of Sarah Phelps’s engrossing tale. ‘I’ve spent a lot of my career writing about murder,’ says the screenwriter, ‘and I think the victim is always the most important element. I wanted to understand and honour the victims, to give them life and dignity.’ (One series)
The Long Shadow
Sensitively handled drama about the hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper
Year: 2023
Watch now on ITVX
The Yorkshire Ripper struck fear into the heart of Britain during his reign of terror during the late 1970s, which left 13 women dead. That sense of dread can be clearly felt in this compelling seven-part true-crime drama that follows the police’s ever more desperate five-year hunt for one of Britain’s worst serial killers.
Kris Hitchen, Lee Ingleby, Stephen Tompkinson, Toby Jones and Jack Deam star as the team who are determined to catch a killer in a sensitively handled drama that brings a new perspective to a well-documented story, while never forgetting the victims. ITV has a good reputation for true-crime dramas, and the care with which this series has been made only adds to that. (Seven episodes)
White House Farm
Gripping true-crime drama about the shocking 80s bloodbath that saw Jeremy Bamber jailed for life
Year: 2020
Certificate: 15
ITVX
A fine example of ITV’s quality true-crime drama output, this digs into a case that many of us will remember playing out in the headlines and news bulletins and which, like many real crimes, can’t be neatly sewn up like the ending of a Midsomer Murders.
When the bodies of five members of the Bamber-Caffell family were discovered at their Essex farmhouse in August 1985, the police thought it was an open-and-shut case. Based on observation of the crime scene and information provided by 24-year-old Jeremy Bamber, they believed that it was his troubled sister Sheila who had shot dead her parents and twin six-year-old sons before turning the rifle on herself.
This six-part drama uses extensive research to explore this shocking and tragic event and its disturbing aftermath. Freddie Fox leads a strong cast as the detached Jeremy, and Mark Addy and Stephen Graham are both excellent as the increasingly confused detectives. The 1980s period detail is pretty good, too. (Six episodes)
White House Plumbers
Comic dramatisation of the Watergate scandal starring Woody Harrelson
Year: 2023
Certificate: 15
Watch now on NOW
HBO’s five-parter starts out like a farcical buddy comedy take on the Watergate scandal, focused on real-life figures E Howard Hunt (Woody Harrelson) and G Gordon Liddy (Justin Theroux), who are part of the shadowy force charged with taking on the enemies of US President Nixon.
The ‘plumbers’ were hired to plug national security leaks, such as that which led to the release of the Pentagon Papers in 1971 and, in the series, Hunt and Liddy act like swaggering masters of the universe. This is particularly true of the fanatically patriotic Liddy, who sports an absurd moustache and is shown delighting in recordings of Hitler at home. He’s a hilarious creation until you remember that he’s based on a real person, and that these events all had real consequences for real people.
The devotion of both men to a political machine that didn’t love them back is ultimately presented as something of a tragedy, especially for their families and particularly for Hunt’s immensely capable wife Dorothy (Game Of Thrones’ Lena Headey), an ex-CIA agent who epitomises the show’s other idea that these men are playing at life while their women are getting on with what actually matters. And, if that’s made it all sound a little dark, don’t worry – it is very funny in the early stages, but that humour does comes with a point. (Five episodes)
Inventing Anna
True crime drama about a con artist who claimed she was an heiress
Year: 2022
Certificate: 15
Watch now on Netflix
Intriguing true crime drama about a woman who managed to scam her way into the American elite and convinced them to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on her.
The nine-part series focuses on Russian Anna Sorokin (played by Julia Garner) who reinvented herself as a German heiress called Anna Delvey and inveigled her way into New York society. Claiming to be worth millions and armed with a plan to open a private members club, she defrauded banks out of thousands while running up huge unpaid bills at some of the city’s top hotels. Along the way she convinced new friends to take out loans which she never paid back.
The story is told through the eyes of investigative journalist Vivian Kent (Anna Chlumsky), who is stunned as she pieces together all the elements of Anna’s deception. (Nine episodes)
A Very English Scandal
Hugh Grant’s superb as disgraced Liberal party Leader Jeremy Thorpe
Year: 2018
Certificate: 15
Watch now on BBC iPlayer
Hugh Grant has grown up a lot on screen – he’s no longer the floppy-haired, bumbling romantic lead or sappy toff from Richard Curtis comedies such as Four Weddings And A Funeral and many more.
This drama in particular proved that, and helped pave the way for serious roles in prestige shows such as US hit The Undoing. As former leader of the Liberal Party Jeremy Thorpe – who stood trial for conspiracy to murder in 1979 – Grant hones in on that upper-class reserve that doesn’t give much away, playing Thorpe as witty and charismatic but also sly and jumpy.
It’s quite a feat to pull off all these coiled-up emotions and still cope with the liberally applied humour of Russell T Davies’s script. Thorpe disappeared into obscurity after his scandal; Grant isn’t going anywhere. (One series)
The Thing About Pam
Rene Zellweger is compelling in this true-crime adaptation
Year: 2022
Certificate: 15
Watch now on Paramount+
On 27 December 2011, Russ Faria calls 911 to report that he has returned home to find that his wife Betsy has killed herself, slashing her wrists and, er, stabbing herself in the neck – a fairly unusual method of suicide. ‘Textbook spousal homicide,’ says one of the investigating police officers. Open-and-shut case. The murder definitely can’t be anything to do with Betsy’s overbearing friend, Pam Hupp – can it?
The thing about Pam is that, well… she’s a little bit off. She has certainly raised passive aggression to the level of an art form. Renee Zellweger is brilliantly compelling as Pam, but the Fargo-esque tone of this six-part crime drama does jar somewhat when you remember that it is based on real events. (Six episodes)
Mrs Wilson
Gripping true tale of a widow who uncovers her late husband’s secret life
Year: 2018
Certificate: 12
Watch now on UKTV Play
Watch now on Netflix
Ruth Wilson plays her own grandmother Alison in this gripping three-parter – an incredible true story that could have been sensational were it not handled with such sophistication and an air of dark mystery, with Mrs Wilson as an amateur sleuth using her skill, rigour and resilience to find the sinister truth at her own family’s heart.
It opens in 1963 with the death of Alison’s husband Alec (Iain Glen) and we follow her grief as she reflects on her life with Alec. All it takes is a knock at the door and Alison’s world comes crashing down and the slow reveal, so expertly handled, is a most unusual yet well-reasoned twist. (Three episodes)
The Thief, His Wife And The Canoe
True crime tale about the case of John Darwin, who faked his own death, seen through his wife’s eyes
Year: 2022
Certificate: 12
ITVX
Eddie Marsan and Monica Dolan star as infamous canoeist John Darwin and his wife Anne
John Darwin was a small man who dreamed big, but whose dreams kept sinking to the bottom of a murky puddle, dragging his wife Anne down with him. This four-parter, based on the strange-but-true case in which he faked his own death to claim life insurance, lays out Darwin’s delusion, but it’s Anne’s side of the story that, in many ways, fascinates more. You might choose to judge her harshly, but thanks in no small part to Monica Dolan’s performance as Anne (with Eddie Marsan as John), you can at least see things from her point of view. (Four episodes)
The Widower
Inside No.9’s Reece Shearsmith gives a chilling performance as a real-life wife-killer
Year: 2014
Certificate: 15
ITVX
Munchkin. That’s what Malcolm Webster calls his various wives throughout this three-parter. It’s said with a metallic blankness that chills you a little more each time you hear it. Malcolm (a dead-eyed Reece Shearsmith) was a real-life killer. He was also a spendthrift, and when his first wife, fellow nurse Claire (Sheridan Smith), asks where all their money has gone he takes out an insurance policy, pumps her full of pills, and puts her behind the wheel of a burning car. Wife number two doesn’t fare much better, and you’ve got to wonder how many spouses he’ll get through before the police finally cotton on. (Three episodes)
Welcome To Chippendales
Complex true story of the male strip club founder’s downfall and death
Year: 2022
Certificate: 18
Watch now on Disney+
This addictive drama presents the true story of how Somen Banerjee, the Indian creator of Chippendales, found great success in the US with the male strip club – and then, in 1994, killed himself in prison while awaiting sentencing for murder. That’s a complex life story by any standard, and Banerjee’s sour experience of the American dream provides the spine for an eight-parter filled with colourful characters brought to life by a top cast.
Kumail Nanjiani is mostly known as a comic actor and plays Banerjee with a sense of lightness and hope that makes the character’s later, darker moments of disillusion and rage much sadder. Dan Stevens is on dynamite form as his business partner Paul Snider, a man who isn’t what he seems, while The White Lotus’s Murray Bartlett is chameleon-like as Nick De Noia, who choreographs some eye-popping shows at Banerjee’s club. (One series)
Dopesick
Compelling exploration of the American opioid epidemic
Year: 2021
Certificate: 15
Watch now on Disney+
This eight-parter about the American opioid epidemic has some seriously great acting. Michael Keaton plays a doctor who prescribes the horrendously addictive painkiller OxyContin after being led to believe it is safe. Michael Stuhlbarg is Richard Sackler, who drove the drug’s creation, and part of the family whose name has been removed from so many art galleries in the years since.
Both believe they’re doing the right thing and, in Sackler’s case, that’s fascinating because the most interesting bad guys are those who believe they have the moral high ground. (One series)
The Vanishing Triangle
True unsolved disappearances and murders of women in Ireland
Year: 2023
Watch now on Acorn TV
The Vanishing Triangle is the name given to the area in Ireland where a number of women disappeared and were murdered during the late 1980s and 1990s. This six-part drama, loosely based on the book Missing, Presumed by former police officer Alan Bailey, follows a reporter (Normal People’s India Mullen) who, in 1996, writes an article about the murder of her mother that triggers a wave of interest in the case. Downton Abbey’s Allen Leech plays the dependable-looking detective who begins to re-investigate, but meets resistance from a senior officer. Could a serial killer be behind the crimes?
The drama does a good job of exposing the scale of the unsolved cases here, and the understated cast bring a carefully calibrated emotional punch to the story that it barely needs. Overall, the series is a small scale but focused and atmospheric production, a mix of police and journalistic drama that weaves a disturbing portrait of 1990s Irish society as it goes. (Six episodes)
The Pembrokeshire Murders
Fascinating dramatisation of the search for a serial killer with Luke Evans as the dogged detective
Year: 2021
Certificate: 12
ITVX
Bullseye! Who’d have thought a TV quiz could have helped catch a murderer? But that’s what happened with John Cooper, a one-time contestant on the darts-themed show – and a serial killer. Since Cooper is played by Keith Allen in this fine three-parter, you never doubt that DCS Steve Wilkins (Luke Evans) has the right man in his sights. Still, there’s instinct and there’s proof. ‘Where’s your hard evidence?’ rasps the chief constable. ‘Waiting for us to find it, ma’am.’ Find it he does, in an investigation that never stops being fascinating. (Three episodes)
Vanishing Act
A missing conwoman and the true-crime case that gripped Australia
Year: 2023
Certificate: 15
ITVX
‘I got busted. I freaked out. I topped myself… If you believe that story you will believe anything.’
So begins this latest addition to the true-crime mystery canon that dramatises a case that gripped Australia just as the Covid lockdown lifted: the disappearance of Melissa Caddick, a businesswoman whose millions were entirely ill-gotten.
Narrated by Melissa, the voiceover keeps it light and airy, even as she’s describing the discovery of her severed foot when it washes up on a beach in New South Wales. Melissa is clearly an unreliable narrator (she’s a conwoman after all!), but we’re meant to believe that she is alive and well, just missing a foot, despite the fact that, officially, she has been declared dead.
This is the kind of true-crime story that has it all – glamour, mystery, sex, fraud and death. Portrayed by Wentworth’s Kate Atkinson, it’s easy to see how seductive Melissa and her promises were – to family, friends and acquaintances who unwittingly joined her investment scam. For them it was a tragedy, but for us it makes for a highly entertaining mystery. (Three episodes)
Dirty John
Eric Bana and Connie Britton star in a terrifyingly creepy true crime series
Year: 2018
Certificate: 15
Watch now on Netflix
There have been two series of Dirty John. The first is the better, and stars Eric Bana as John Meehan, a charming psychopath who made a career out of conning women and stealing drugs. By the time we meet him he has already been jailed for drugs offences and had a history of blackmailing women.
Connie Britton plays Debra Newell, a rich and successful Los Angeles interior designer who had already been married four times when she became his next victim. They met via an online dating website for the over-50s, with Meehan posing as a doctor who’d served as a volunteer in Iraq. In fact, he’d been trained as an anaesthesia specialist but was disbarred for stealing drugs.
Debra’s apparent gullibility is jaw-dropping. While her two daughters Ronnie and Terra instantly hated Meehan, Debra was completely taken in and within just a few weeks, during a trip to Las Vegas, they got married.
The series is based on a hugely popular Los Angeles Times podcast in which Debra and her family talk about how their lives were ripped apart by Meehan and how his terrifying hold on them only ended after a horrific killing.
The second series, Dirty John: The Betty Broderick Story, sees Hollywood stars Christian Slater and Amanda Peet portray one of America’s most notorious marriage meltdowns of the 1980s. The show reveals all about the acrimonious split that led to American housewife Betty Broderick being convicted of killing her former husband Dan and his second wife. (Two series)
