I'm a big fan of true crime, and when it comes to docuseries, Netflix has some of the best you'll find. From shows about heinous murders to missing persons, cults, financial crimes, and more, there's your pick of the litter. The best ones will cause your jaw to hit the floor as soon as they start, and it will remain there through to the end, even beyond.
The sign of a great docuseries is if you rush to run a Google search for "where are they now" or to learn more about the situation once it's over. You're totally invested. Beyond your own morbid fascination, learning about stories in the best true crime docuseries can open your mind and actually educate you on everything from online dating to plastic surgery and social media.
1 'Love Con Revenge' (2025)
Image via NetflixOne attribute that makes a docuseries especially good is when it sets out to make a difference, not just capitalize on entertainment value. Love Con Revenge fits the bill in spades. The six-part series follows Cecilie Fjellhøy, one of many victims of Simon Leviev, who eventually became known as The Tinder Swindler. His activities were the subject of the docuseries of the same name, in which Fjellhøy appeared as one of his victims. After being conned by him and losing both money and pride, she sets out to help other vulnerable and manipulated women (and men) in similar situations to recognize what happened and realize they're not alone. She also helped those who wanted to confront the person who took advantage of them, setting out to hold those individuals accountable for their actions.
Fjellhøy bravely relives the horrors she went through for the sake of making sure the same thing doesn't happen to others. As she visits these women to hear their stories and connect the dots, she even, at times, helps them pursue legal action. It's not a perfectly presented docuseries, with moments that could have been tidier and better edited. But for anyone who is single and exploring online dating, Love Con Revenge is one you'll want to watch ASAP before answering that random online message from a potential suitor or dealing with odd requests from them.
2 'Kidnapped: Elizabeth Smart' (2026)
Image via Netflix /Courtesy Everett CollectionIt's so wonderful to know that Elizabeth Smart is thriving now. But back in 2002, she was abducted from her family home in Utah and held captive for nine months. She went through a harrowing experience beyond words, and Kidnapped: Elizabeth Smart, one of many docuseries and other specials you'll find about her case, features accounts from Smart herself, along with never-before-seen material.
It's a blessing that Smart was finally rescued, and while her journey is one that gives any parent of a missing child hope, it's also a stark warning to kids and younger teens about the dangers that lurk outside. Kidnapped: Elizabeth Smart is an emotional story that re-tells not only the horrifying experience of Smart being abducted at 14, but also her incredible resilience. It's oddly uplifting — a story of strength.
3 'Amy Bradley is Missing' (2025)
Image via NetflixOne of the most puzzling cases of the last several decades, 23-year-old Amy Bradley mysteriously went missing from a cruise ship in 1998. The most logical answer is that she fell overboard and potentially jumped, but rumors suggest there's something more to what happened. Are they nothing but wishful thinking, or is there something to them? You'll be unsure what to think when watching Amy Bradley is Missing and learning about the weird things that happened during the trip and reported sightings. The most shocking sighting is the photo of a woman on a sex worker website that looks eerily like an aged-up Amy, leading people to believe that she was trafficked.
Amy Bradley is Missing packs a lot of content in just three episodes, including what happened the night she went missing, the investigation that followed, interviews with people initially deemed suspicious, knowing more than they let on, or sharing their own theories, as well as what her parents, family, and friends continue to do in the years, now decades, that have followed. People have strong feelings one way or another about what really happened, who was involved (if anyone), and if Amy is still alive, with clues that keep coming in. One thing is for sure: you'll never look at a cruise ship vacation the same again after watching this series.
Collider Exclusive · Action Hero Quiz
Which Action Hero Would Be
Your Perfect Partner?
Rambo · James Bond · Indiana Jones · John McClane · Ethan Hunt
Five legends. Five completely different ways of getting out alive — with style, with muscle, with charm, with luck, or with a plan so intricate it probably shouldn't work. Ten questions will reveal which action hero was built to have your back.
🎖️Rambo
🍸James Bond
🏺Indiana Jones
🔧John McClane
🎭Ethan Hunt
FIND YOUR PARTNER →
01
You're dropped into a dangerous situation with no warning. What do you need most from a partner? The first few seconds tell you everything about who belongs beside you.
ASomeone who already has three contingency plans running and is calmly working through all of them. BSomeone who reads the terrain instinctively and knows exactly how to use it against the enemy. CSomeone who keeps their nerve and their sense of humour when everything is falling apart. DSomeone who knows the history of wherever we are and what we're walking into. ESomeone with the right contact, the right cover identity, and the right exit already arranged.
NEXT QUESTION →
02
You have to get somewhere dangerous, fast. How do you travel? How you get there is half the mission.
AOn foot through terrain no one else would attempt — I move where vehicles can't follow. BOn a motorcycle, a cargo plane, or anything else that gets me there before I think too hard about it. CIn something that belongs to someone else — borrowed, stolen, or improvised under fire. DFirst class, with a cover identity and a gadget that does something I won't explain until it's needed. EBy whatever means are available — I've driven, flown, and once arrived by camel. The destination matters, not the method.
NEXT QUESTION →
03
You're pinned down and outnumbered. What does your ideal partner do? This is when you find out what someone is really made of.
ADisappears into the environment, flanks them silently, and ends it before I've reloaded. BCracks a one-liner, grabs a fire extinguisher or a chair, and improvises something that somehow works. CProduces a gadget specifically designed for this exact scenario and uses it with infuriating precision. DPulls out a whip, a pistol, and an archaeological insight that somehow gets us out alive. ENeutralises the threat with maximum efficiency and minimum words — they were already three moves ahead.
NEXT QUESTION →
04
The mission is paused. You have one evening to decompress. What does your partner suggest? Who someone is when the pressure drops is who they actually are.
AA bar with terrible lighting, cold beer, and absolutely no questions about feelings. BThe finest restaurant in the city, a bottle of something expensive, and a conversation that is equal parts brilliant and exhausting. CA local dig site, a museum after hours, or a long story about why that particular artefact matters to human civilisation. DPizza. Bad TV. Falling asleep halfway through a movie neither of you were watching anyway. EA debrief that turns into three hours of contingency planning that somehow becomes the most fun you've had all week.
NEXT QUESTION →
05
How do you prefer your partner to communicate mid-mission? Good communication is the difference between partners and a liability.
APrecise and minimal — tell me what I need to know and nothing else. Every word has a cost. BDeadpan and dry — keeping it light keeps me sharp, even when everything is on fire. CEnthusiastic and slightly chaotic — but always with useful information buried somewhere in the noise. DCalm and controlled through an earpiece, with a plan that covers every variable I haven't thought of yet. EBarely at all — silence is a language and they speak it fluently.
NEXT QUESTION →
06
Your enemy is powerful, well-resourced, and has the upper hand. How should your partner approach them? The approach to the enemy defines the partnership.
AInfiltrate their inner circle, learn everything, and dismantle them from inside out before they know we're there. BStudy the historical pattern — every villain of this type has a weakness written somewhere in the past. CGet them talking. The more they monologue, the more time I have to figure out how to beat them. DGo through them. Directly. With as much force as the terrain allows. EFind the one thing they haven't accounted for — there's always one thing — and make sure we're holding it.
NEXT QUESTION →
07
Things go badly wrong and you're captured. What do you trust your partner to do? Who someone is when you need them most is the only thing that matters.
ACome in alone, quietly, and get me out before anyone knows they were there. BHave already been working on the extraction since the moment I disappeared — the plan is already running. CCome in loud, come in fast, and worry about the collateral damage later — I'd do the same for them. DUse every resource, every contact, and bend every rule until I'm out — they don't leave people behind. ECharm their way in somehow, bluff through the hard part, and still manage to look good doing it.
NEXT QUESTION →
08
What does your ideal partner bring to the table that you couldn't replace? A great partner fills the gap you didn't know you had.
ATechnology that shouldn't exist yet and the training to use it under any conditions. BSurvival instinct so refined it borders on supernatural — and the scars to prove it's been tested. CKnowledge of history, language, and culture that makes them invaluable in places where force is useless. DThe ability to walk into any room in the world and immediately become the most trusted person in it. EStubbornness that refuses to accept a situation is hopeless — and the improvisational skill to back it up.
NEXT QUESTION →
09
Every partnership has a cost. Which of these can you live with? No one comes without baggage. The question is whether you can carry it together.
AA partner who never fully switches off — always watching exits, always calculating threats, even at dinner. BA partner who gets the job done brilliantly but has the emotional availability of a locked filing cabinet. CA partner who makes everything ten times more complicated than it needs to be — but who always comes through. DA partner who gets personally attached to every relic, ruin, and artefact we encounter, which slows everything down. EA partner who was not built for this and knows it — but shows up anyway, every time, without being asked.
NEXT QUESTION →
10
It's the final moment. Everything is on the line. What do you need from your partner right now? The last question is the most honest one.
AOne line. Absolutely dry. Delivered like the world isn't ending. Then we move. BNothing said at all — just a look that means we both already know what has to happen. CA plan I don't fully understand that somehow accounts for everything, delivered in thirty seconds flat. DA piece of historical context that reframes the entire situation and tells us exactly what to do next. ESomeone who steps forward instead of back — because that's who they've always been.
REVEAL MY PARTNER →
Your Partner Has Been Assigned Your Perfect Partner Is…
Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse.
Rambo
Your partner doesn't talk much, doesn't need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you've finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You'll never need to ask if he has your back. You'll just know.
James Bond
Your partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it'll take you a moment to remember what's actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You'll never be bored. You'll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing.
Indiana Jones
Your partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar's eye and a brawler's instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn't matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you'll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them.
John McClane
Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren't so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay.
Ethan Hunt
Your partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you've finished reading the briefing, and the plan he's settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn't exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.
↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ
4 'American Nightmare' (2024)
Image via NetflixIf you saw the movie Gone Girl, many call American Nightmare the real-life version. In that film, a woman goes missing, and her husband is instantly painted as the guilty party. The public perception and media reporting interpret everything he does as a sign of guilt, from his facial expressions to his supposed lack of emotion. In the end, his wife actually faked her own kidnapping; he was innocent all along.
American Nightmare is about a similar situation, except when Denise Huskins returned home after a crazy story about masked men coming into their home in the middle of the night and holding her hostage, no one believed her. They felt it was a hoax and that she was pulling a Gone Girl. Without revealing too much, American Nightmare slowly chronicles the story through three episodes, making you feel a range of emotions as Denise and her husband try to navigate the complex situation, the authorities try to make sense of it, and the public becomes quick to judge. If nothing else, like the movie, American Nightmare helps you understand how easily perception can change, things can be misinterpreted, and the media can shape public opinion.
5 'Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich' (2020)
Image via NetflixIn 2016, James Patterson wrote a novel about convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and in 2020, the miniseries Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich was developed based on it. The four-part series tells Epstein's backstory, including his rise to power and tremendous wealth, along with the disturbing accusations against him, the first investigation into him, and his eventual demise.
For anyone familiar with Epstein, given how prominent his name has become once again, this docuseries provides useful insight from survivors themselves, including the late Virginia Giuffre. There's also commentary from individuals who used to work for Epstein and the former police chief. It's enlightening, giving the victims a platform to tell their stories in a way that makes you want to stop and listen to the side that's most important in this fight.
6 'Bad Influence: The Dark Side of Kidfluencing' (2025)
Image via NetflixThere are only three episodes in Bad Influence: The Dark Side of Kidfluencing, but it's essential viewing for parents of young kids, especially teenagers. It's an important watch before giving your kids permission to use social media. For those even considering allowing their children to experiment in the world of "kidfluencing," this docuseries might make you think twice.
A cautionary tale, the three-part series dives into a world painted as glamorous that, in the situations depicted here, was actually filled with alleged abuse and exploitation. It's a warning sign to parents and kids themselves that not everything is always as it seems. There's a cost for viral fame, and it might be one you're not willing to pay when seeing the potential dark downsides depicted on this show.
7 'Bad Surgeon: Love Under the Knife' (2023)
Image via NetflixPaolo Macchiraini was eventually convicted, charged with causing bodily harm by using equipment and performing surgeries on patients that were not supported by evidence. Many of these patients ended up sick, and some died. But Bad Surgeon: Love Under the Knife doesn't only focus on this — it is framed by a story told by reporter Benita Alexander, whom he attracted with his charms and allegedly conned.
The story, told from Alexander's perspective, is a brave account of how she claims to have been fooled by his constant lies, slowly realizing that weird details about him just didn't seem to add up. Love can make you blind and naïve. The series also follows his work and things that were happening with his research and patients, and suspicions that began to arrive at the hospital where he worked. Macchiarini was the subject of the second season of the Peacock series Dr. Death, but this story, told from the perspective of a woman who was so close to him, raises important questions about fraud and manipulation in the medical space.
8 'Conversations With a Killer' (2019–2025)
Image via NetflixConversations With a Killer is several seasons long, each one covering a different serial killer in history. As one of the most disturbing documentaries, each one is as intense and unsettling as the last. It begins with The Ted Bundy Tapes and includes The John Wayne Gacy Tapes, The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes, and The Son of Sam Tapes as well. Featuring hours of archival interviews with these killers and looking into their lives, childhoods, motives, and crimes, each season is a good education on some of the most well-known serial killers in history.
Conversations With a Killer will give you chills, and while there isn't necessarily any new information presented that you don't know already, the presentations and hearing words right from their mouths is disturbing but also horrifyingly fascinating. The series will help you understand the psychology behind what was going on in their brains.
9 'Don't F**k With Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer' (2019)
NetflixDon't F**k With Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer isn't so much about the awful actions of convicted Canadian killer Luka Magnotta as it is the fascinating behind-the-scenes story many might not know about. It involves a woman who predicted what he might do long before he did. While surfing the dark web at night, data analyst Deanna Thompson came across a disturbing video of a young man disturbingly harming a cat. She was so taken aback that she felt compelled to share information on Facebook and seek out the help of others to try to pinpoint his identity and location. Her thought: based on what he was doing, he may escalate and harm a human soon. She was right.
The three parts of Don't F**k With Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer, one of the best true crime docuseries, cover both Magnotta's childhood and actions, including the eventual murder of Jun Lin, as well as Thompson and her group of amateur sleuths trying to piece together clues in videos to find the location of this man committing horrifying acts and posting them online. It's a story that proves ordinary people can make a difference if they care enough to investigate. Sometimes, you can do so right from the comfort of your own couch.
10 'Trainwreck' (2022–2025)
Image via NetflixTrainwreck is a unique case in that it's like an anthology with different editions that each cover a different strategy. Some present as a single movie-length feature and some as a multipart miniseries, but each one dives into a situation that either involves a crime of some kind or at least a tragedy that should have been considered a crime, even if justice wasn't really served. From The Astroworld Tragedy about the events that saw several people crushed, injured, and die during a crowded concert with allegedly improper crowd control, to The Cult of American Apparel about the alleged mistreatment of employees at the rising clothing store, to the hilarious only in hindsight Poop Cruise when travelers were stuck aboard a ship with plumbing that stopped working and led to a horrifying experience, there's so much covered in the nine available editions.
Each one serves to retell a story that ultimately led to negative circumstances, even if no one was ever truly held accountable for it. With every series self-contained, you can pick and choose or watch them all in succession and get a completely unique story each time. They are beautifully presented, evoking emotions, whether that's sadness, anger, or frustration at how situations that really happened in history were handled.
English (US) ·