If you type “true crime” into the Netflix search field, you’ll be presented with an astonishing collection of shows, many of them indistinguishable from one another.
The offerings include Occult Crimes, Corrupt Crimes, Stalkers Who Kill, Nurses Who Kill, Killer Couples, Killer Kids, Killer in the Family, Inside the Mind of a Serial Killer, and Killer Women with Piers Morgan. How do you even begin to sort them apart? Are they all the same? And are any of them actually good?
We’re here to help. Hidden among the genre’s vast selection of bad reenactments, gleeful-sounding narrators, and disgusting, exploitative dreck, you’ll find quite a few worthwhile productions.
Here are the best true-crime series currently available to watch on Netflix.
"The Detectives"
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Not to be mistaken for the comedy series of the same name, this three-part BBC production explores the investigation of several sexual assaults in and around Manchester, including a case related to the Jimmy Savile scandal. The Detectives combines immediacy and intimacy with a helpful analytic distance, and it focuses on the emotional impact on the detectives (many of them female) as well as the sensitivity and trust required when trying to help rape victims find justice.
"Making a Murderer"
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Netflix’s first breakout true-crime hit, Making a Murderer subsequently came under scrutiny for its filmmakers’ possible bias in creating the series, as well as for an unnecessarily generous edit that occasionally turns “unhurried” into “seriously, this is too slow.” It’s still a worthwhile story, though, especially in a moment when true-crime series look more and more like long-form serialized stories, and less like Cops. Its successes and its mistakes will be benchmarks for the genre for a long time.
"Partner in Crime"
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Maybe you don’t want something in the vein of the newer style of long-form true crime. Maybe you’re looking for one of the classic series. If these are the sorts of shows you want to watch, I’m going to assume you already know about Forensic Files, a granddaddy of the genre. But did you know about Partners in Crime, a series that explores “Hong Kong’s most bizarre murder cases”? One of the show’s main investigators is Dr. Carl Leung, a man described as “a forensic dentist, sexologist, and funeral parlor director.” And the first episode is about a head found inside a Hello Kitty doll.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider