For some reason or another, it has become a trending topic to see that people really enjoy true crime series and films. The running joke is that fictional horror movies are frightening, while a show or movie based on real individuals (often serial killers) committing horrible acts is more fascinating. People are naturally drawn to the grotesque, especially when it’s attached to those with disturbing minds, but it is important to remember that when something is based on a true story, there are real victims and survivors out there in the world as well as others who were deeply affected by the events that so many people happily watch on numerous streaming services.
Works like Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile and Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story reached the tops of the charts when they were first released because people were curious about the truth behind a couple of the most elite killers in history, but the casting also had a lot to do with their ratings. Names like Zac Efron, Lily Collins, and Evan Peters being attached to dark series attracted fans. There are hundreds of other series and shows based on real-life crimes and murders, but because of their cast lists or lack of well-known storylines, they are not as popular.
Here are 10 underrated movies based on true crimes that you should watch next.
10 The Girl Who Escaped: The Kara Robinson Story
In 2002, as detailed in People, a 15-year-old named Kara Robinson was approached by a seemingly regular guy passing out pamphlets, but within seconds, she had a gun held to her neck as she was instructed to get into a storage bin in the backseat of his vehicle. Robinson was later gagged and tied up before arriving at the man’s apartment and being help captive for 18 hours while he did unspeakable things to her. The next morning, Robinson was able to free herself from the restraints and carefully make her way out of the apartment before sprinting for help.
Kara Robinson Chamberlain’s story is inspiring for many reasons. She was able to not only escape her abductor, but she also helped three families find closure for their own daughters’ deaths due to her survival skills. The Girl Who Escaped: The Kara Robinson Story depicts the events from Robinson’s abduction all the way to her frustration with her captor taking his own life.
Stream on Hulu
9 Girl in the Basement
While we all know any film that says “based on a true story” will have some changes for a more dramatic effect, the real stories should not be written off as “not as bad” in comparison to the Hollywood version. Girl in the Basement depicts the events that happened to Elisabeth Fritzl for more than 20 years after her deranged father decided she needed to be held captive rather than move away from home when she finally became an adult.
The film changes Fritzl’s name to Sarah Cody, and a few details are tweaked, such as how long she is held in her father’s basement and how many children she had due to her own father raping her. However, the fact that she was still trapped for more than two decades and at the mercy of her ruthless and psychotic father is still horrifying. The real Fritzl was able to escape and get custody of her seven children, and her father was locked away for the rest of his life. Her story is heartbreaking and devastating, yet it is still worth knowing.
Stream on Hulu
8 Lost Girls
There are more unsolved murder cases than anyone would like to admit, but one particular mother refused to let her missing daughter become yet another file that got put away and forgotten. In May 2010, Shannan Gilbert went missing after making a panicked call to 911. Gilbert’s mother, Mary, became her biggest advocate, believing that the police needed to do more to find her daughter. When the police began searching, bodies of other women were discovered, which led to former cold cases being reopened.
Netflix released Lost Girls in March 2020, and at the time, the killer was still at large and some of the bodies still had not been identified. In July 2023, a man was arrested due to sufficient evidence placing him at the scene of the crime and proving that he had spoken with a few of the victims before they died. People hope that the arrest will lead to identification and closure for more families.
Stream on Netflix
7 The Good Nurse
The Good Nurse
- Release Date
- October 26, 2022
- Director
- Tobias Lindholm
- Cast
- Jessica Chastain, Eddie Redmayne, Kim Dickens, Noah Emmerich, Malik Yoba
- Rating
- R
- Genres
- Biography, Crime, Drama
Doctors are typically cut-and-dry with the information they deliver to patients, while nurses have a better bedside manner and seem to be more personable and caring. However, this is clearly not the case for all nurses. In 2003, Amy Loughren started working at Somerset Medical Center in New Jersey, and she quickly befriended a fellow nurse, Charlie Cullen. He became her confidant as Loughren had a medical secret of her own, but she would eventually find out that Cullen had a much bigger secret. After the sudden death of a patient, investigators started looking into Cullen’s past and found that unexplainable deaths popped up in previous hospitals where he had worked.
While The Good Nurse is told like a story where you can see the interactions among the characters representing what really happened, Netflix also released a documentary entitled Capturing the Killer Nurse a month later that gets more in depth with Loughren’s perspective and discusses the trial.
Stream on Netflix
6 Bully
While Bully understandably received a lot of criticism and negative reviews due to the characters’ lacking depth and the amount of nudity, the film should still raise concern due to the actual murder that it depicts. In 1993, a 20-year-old man named Bobby Kent was killed by seven people, including his best friend and a girl he thought wanted to be with him. Supposedly, Kent had physically or sexually abused nearly everyone in the group, and they decided to take action.
The film is less than stellar due to its lack of direction with not knowing whether it needed to be more of a black comedy film with the “based on a true story” tag tied to it, or if it was meant to keep things on a surface level because real teens and young adults often lack the in-depth perception of what they are doing when a strong group mentality is formed. Either way, the film has slipped below a lot of true-crime buffs’ radars, but it is worth the watch to see what teens truly are capable of.
Stream on The Roku Channel
5 Girl in the Bunker
While The Lovely Bones touched a little on what it was like for a young girl to be caught in the woods by a stranger and soon stuffed away in his remote underground bunker, Girl in the Bunker gives a more accurate portrayal of what happened to Elizabeth Shoaf after she got off the school bus one afternoon. Vinson Filyaw impersonated a police officer to gain Shoaf’s trust, and he managed to get her into his secluded hideout, where he kept and raped her for 10 days.
The film shows how Shoaf was able to humanize herself to her captor by asking him about his own interests and engaging in conversation. This tactic is what helped her survive her kidnapping, and the trust she built with Filyaw over the week allowed her small advantages that led to her rescue as well as his arrest.
Stream on Hulu
4 The Gabby Petito Story
Towards the end of 2021, the names Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie were broadcasted on nearly every news station across America. Petito had supposedly gone missing or decided not to come back home with her fiancé, Laundrie, after a road trip, and the nation was worried about the young woman. Rumors went around, Laundrie himself went into hiding, and, eventually, two bodies were discovered. The details between the beginning of their trip and the bodies being found are hazy, but that has not stopped people from trying to piece everything together.
Hocus Pocus actress Thora Birch was so moved by the story and need to fill in gaps that she directed the Lifetime filmThe Gabby Petito Story to offer an idea of what may have gone down between the couple. From police tape footage to the evidence that was provided, this movie does its best to recount how and why two promising people ended up dead.
Stream on Hoopla
3 Blue-Eyed Butcher
The Innkeepers star Sara Paxton takes on a dramatic role in Blue-Eyed Butcher as she portrays Susan Wright, a woman who killed her husband in their Texas home back in 2003 by stabbing him nearly 200 times. She then buried his body in the backyard, cleaned up the mess she made, and carried on about her business.
The film portrays the emotional turmoil everyone in the courtroom had about the conflicting stories as to why this seemingly normal mother and wife would take her own husband’s life. Was he abusive in any sort of way? Was she simply trying to end the marriage but did not know what steps to take? The story is devastating for everyone involved, but justice needed to be served.
Stream on Tubi
2 The Girl Next Door
Jack Ketchum’s The Girl Next Door
- Release Date
- July 19, 2007
- Director
- Gregory Wilson
- Cast
- Blythe Auffarth, Daniel Manche, Blanche Baker, Grant Show, Graham Patrick Martin, Benjamin Ross Kaplan
- Rating
- R
- Genres
- Crime, Documentary, Drama, Horror, Thriller
While all true-crime films are horrifying in their own way, The Girl Next Door is not something you should watch casually or simply because you like the murder-mystery genre. The story depicts what really happened to a teenage girl named Sylvia Likens in the 1960s. Likens’ parents worked out a deal with a woman named Gertrude Baniszewski where she would take in Likens and her younger sister while they were away. Baniszewski agreed, but after a short time, she decided to take out her frustrations on the elder sister.
To say Likens was brutally tortured would be a gross understatement. Baniszewki, several of her children, and even neighborhood kids would harm Likens as she was tied up, starved, and deprived of basic human rights. She was cut, hit, kicked, burned, and sexually abused in front of others. The film does an incredible job at portraying the real life events, but it is important to know that a lot of details are still missing.
Stream on Prime Video
1 Karla
Misha Collins, best-known for playing Castiel in Supernatural, paired up with the Orange is the New Black star Laura Prepon in the horrifying true-crime film, Karla. Collins portrays the serial rapist and killer Paul Bernardo while Prepon plays his wife, Karla Homolka. The story starts with a psychologist trying to get Karla to relay what she and her husband did, but through a series of flashbacks and muddling through the lies, even Karla does not seem to know the full extent of what her husband did.
While the story does an excellent job of portraying the aftermath Karla finds herself in and her struggle to recall details of how she helped her husband rape and kill young women, the true story of Bernardo’s past is much scarier.
Rent on Prime Video
