The Mail’s TV critics have rounded up the best dramas based on real-life crimes – these shows are a must-watch for all fans of the genre.
From a critically-acclaimed retelling of the hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper, to Jessica Biel’s role as a housewife turned cold-blooded killer, plus a murder mystery starring Elvis’s granddaughter, Riley Keough – add these chilling true crime programmes to your watchlist now…
1. 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)
2. 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)
3. Des
David Tennant plays against type as the serial killer Dennis Nilsen in this gripping three-part true crime drama
Year: 2020
Certificate: 15
Watch now on ITVX
This chilling three-part true crime drama gets straight to its strongest suit – David Tennant’s eerily calm performance as the Muswell Hill Murderer, Dennis Nilsen, who killed at least 12 people between 1978 and 1983.
Tennant’s Nilsen is chatty and detached in interviews after his arrest, interested in why he committed the murders and impatient for progress in the search for the bodies. ‘I want these people identified and laid to rest as much as you,’ he tells DCI Peter Jay (Daniel Mays), as if the police were the ones in the wrong.
The drama digs into Nilsen’s character through interview scenes, and has some chillingly graphic language. The script is based on the book Killing For Company: The Story Of A Man Addicted To Murder by Brian Masters. Masters spoke intensively to Nilsen, who liked to be called Des, while he was in prison and is played here by Jason Watkins.
If you want to watch a documentary on the subject, The Real Des: The Dennis Nilsen Story is also available on ITVX. (Three episodes)
4. 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)
5. Under The Bridge
Murder mystery drama starring Riley Keough, based on real-life events
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
Watch now on Disney+
In 1997, a quiet island in British Columbia, Canada, is rocked when 14-year-old Reena Virk fails to return after attending a party with her friends.
When the search for the girl becomes a murder investigation, a novelist who grew up in the town named Rebecca Godfrey (played by Riley Keough – of Daisy Jones And The Six fame, who also happens to be Elvis’s granddaughter) returns to the area to look into the case.
Discovering a tangled mess of jealousy and menace among the area’s teenaged girls, Rebecca begins to wonder if some of them could have been behind Reena’s death.
A fictionalised account of a genuine crime (the real-life Rebecca Godfrey wrote the investigative book that inspired the series), this is a dark and unsettling eight-part mystery. Keough again proves that she’s a talent on the rise, but watch out too for a fine turn from British actress Archie Panjabi (The Good Wife) as Reena’s mother. (Eight episodes)
6. Deceit
Harrowing true tale of an undercover hunt to catch a killer
Year: 2021
Certificate: 15
Watch now on Channel 4
Watch now on Acorn TV
The shocking murder of Rachel Nickell on Wimbledon Common in 1992 has been extensively covered in true-crime documentaries, but this four-part drama gives a different take on what was to be a long and exhausting investigation.
Niamh Algar plays the police officer who goes undercover to gather intelligence on the prime suspect, Colin Stagg.
Even if you know the outcome, this is still a fascinating look at the process of undercover work and the toll it takes, with a superb performance from Algar that really brings home the risk the officer took, if not with her life, then with her sanity. (Four episodes)
7. Dopesick
Compelling exploration of the American opioid epidemic
Year: 2021
Certificate: 15
Watch now on Disney+
Watch now on BBC iPlayer
This eight-parter about the American opioid epidemic has some seriously great acting. Michael Keaton – who won an Emmy for his performance – plays a doctor who prescribes the horrendously addictive painkiller OxyContin after being led to believe it is safe.
Michael Stuhlbarg is Richard Sackler, the billionaire businessman who drove the drug’s creation, and is 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. (Eight episodes)
8. Quiz
Michael Sheen plays Chris Tarrant in a dramatisation of the coughing scandal on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?
Year: 2020
Certificate: 12
Watch now on ITVX
It’s easy to forget what a huge deal Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? was when it began, back in 1998.
No one had given away £1 million on UK TV before, and this breezy drama charts both the show’s creation – by a bunch of swaggering TV types who see themselves as gods – and the great coughing scandal.
Michael Sheen gives an eerily accurate performance as Chris Tarrant, and Matthew Macfadyen is Major Ingram in a razzle-dazzle three-parter that bowls along at a grand old pace, and manages to be both tense and in no way difficult to watch.
The script comes from James Graham (Sherwood) and it’s directed by Stephen Frears (The Queen). (Three episodes)
9. White House Farm
Gripping true-crime drama about the shocking 80s bloodbath that saw Jeremy Bamber jailed for life
Year: 2020
Certificate: 15
Watch now on 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)
10. Griselda
Fact-based drama about a female crime boss starring Sofia Vergara
Year: 2024
Certificate: 18
Watch now on Netflix
Almost unrecognisable under a raft of prosthetics designed to mimic the hawk-faced profile of real-life drug boss Griselda Blanco Restrepo, Modern Family star Sofia Vergara is icily impressive in this six-part miniseries.
A story of female empowerment and brutal criminality in equal bloody gobbets, it charts the Colombian immigrant’s rise to become one of the most powerful and feared drug importers in Miami.
It’s all the more powerful a story because, when she first arrives with children in tow, Griselda’s position is very precarious indeed. You can see the vulnerability in her face, although it doesn’t last too long.
Created by many of the same team behind Narcos and with Vergara acting as producer, it’s exciting, dark and no-holds-barred stuff that brings the freewheeling cocaine underworld of the 1980s US to dangerous life.
Episode one grabs you by the throat right from the start with this quote from Pablo Escobar: ‘The only man I was ever afraid of was a woman named Griselda Blanco’. You’ll see why in short order. (Six episodes)
