Out of all the possible topics to craft a documentary around, true crime has consistently been a popular choice. Combining the public's endless fascination with the macabre and the nature of justice itself, true crime films have maintained long-standing popularity. Now, with the streaming renaissance upon us, the genre is going as strong as ever.
Though the trend has shifted to episodic formats, like miniseries and short seasonal installments, the feature-length crime documentary is still alive-and-well. Furthermore, the cinematic format has given the documentary genre, as a whole, some of its best work to date. Here are the 10 best crime documentary films as of 2020, ranked by IMDb.
Tales Of The Grim Sleeper - 7/10
Filmmaker Nick Broomfield has been steadily churning out thought-provoking, sometimes controversial, documentary films for years now. However, his best and most harrowing film is this 2014 look at a notoriously prolific serial killer who operated in the poor districts of Los Angeles for almost 30 years.
Gradually, through candid interviews and on-the-ground investigation, the film becomes less about the killer, Lonnie Franklin Jr., and more about the way law enforcement's failure to take the murders seriously allowed Franklin to continue operating. Instantly engaging, this pitch-black film is both sobering and necessary.
Taxi To The Dark Side - 7.4/10
This is Alex Gibney's Oscar-winning exposè on the American war crimes committed at the Bagram airbase. Gibney's criticism of the CIA's use of torture and false arrests is focused through the narrative of a local taxi driver named Dilawar, who was taken prisoner by U.S. military and imprisoned at the Bagram facility.
What follows is a true story scarier than any fictional horror tale. The film showcases the journalistic power of the documentary format and instills genuine anger and heartbreak as Dilawar's fate is revealed.
The Imposter - 7.5/10
Proof that truth is infinitely stranger than fiction, this real-life mind-bender was released in 2012 and told the story of "confidence trickster" Frederic Bourdin. Ostensibly an impersonator without a shred of ethics, Bourdin begins pretending to be a young boy who disappeared three years earlier.
After being accepted fully into the missing boy's family, the quirky story begins to take on far more ominous undertones as the family's guilt in the boy's disappearance begins to come into serious question. A murky story told with the finesse of a Hollywood thriller, The Imposter is a must-see for every film lover.
Tickled - 7.6/10
Nick Farrier is a documentary filmmaker who oftentimes includes himself in his work, either in a primary or secondary capacity as a subject. That style can be tricky for many filmmakers. However, Farrier pulls it off spectacularly with this 2016 bizarro look into the world of sexual tickling.
The viewer follows Farrier as he uncovers a whole ring of tickling fetishists producing ethically questionable pornography. A funny and weird film that gets progressively stranger as it goes on, Tickled is one of the genre's more eccentric offerings and contains a handful of genuinely jaw-dropping "Eureka!" moments.
Capturing The Friedmans - 7.7/10
Before he was coaxing millionaires into confessing to murder on TV, Andrew Jarecki directed this Oscar-nominated film about a Jewish family whose lives are upended when the patriarch and his son are arrested for acts of pedophilia.
The film is largely made up of home movies the family took during the tumultuous period, offering a rare and uncomfortable glimpse at a family coming apart at the seams. Far from an easy watch, Capturing the Friedmans provided a unique perspective on generational abuse and the death of the American dream, almost in real-time. A brilliant piece of filmmaking.
The Thin Blue Line - 8.0/10
Many of today's documentarians owe a lot to Errol Morris. Quite possibly the best true crime filmmaker around, Morris has garnered acclaim for his uniquely stylistic techniques. Perhaps his greatest stroke of genius is this 1988 classic about a wrongfully accused man imprisoned for first-degree murder.
Using the music of Philip Glass and a handful of clever re-enactments, Morris methodically assembles his case for the accused man's innocence. Even crazier is that the real culprit is a major player in the film's interview segments, dodging the ever-growing pile of evidence pointing to his guilt.
The Act Of Killing - 8.2/10
One of the most creative documentaries ever conceived, The Act of Killing is Josh Oppenheimer's creation that forces members of Indonesian death squads to face up to their crimes by re-enacting them in various theatrical ways, revealing the truth about the horrors of the 1965 Indonesian massacre that occurred in response to communism.
Using the medium of film in politically-charged ways creates a surreal experience as musical numbers and vintage Hollywood setpieces provide conduits to expose crimes against humanity. Oppenheimer followed the film up two-years later with The Look of Silence, an equally powerful look at the Indonesian disaster.
13th - 8.2/10
Ava DuVernay, director of Selma and When They See Us, directed this Netflix film about the racial inequality present throughout the American prison system. DuVernay's passion and conviction come through in her takedown of systematic racism. As the film moves, DuVernay's central thesis is revealed -- slavery was never abolished, it was simply relegated to the prison system. Using history and statistics to build a rock-solid case for her assertions, 13th is the director's greatest film yet.
Shocking, emotional, powerful, and most of all, important, DuVernay's film proves that crime-based documentaries can be revolutionary indictments of society's flaws.
Paradise Lost: The Child Murders At Robin Hood Hills - 8.3/10
The case of the "West Memphis 3" is one of the most infamous cases of a modern witch hunt. After three young boys were found murdered and mutilated in the woods of Robin Hood Hills, three local teenage metal fans were arrested and convicted of the murders off of essentially no evidence.
A cautionary tale of a community's paranoia overriding logic and due process, Paradise Lost inspired two follow-up films chronicling the case's progress. The three were eventually acquitted and released, but the first film provides a brilliant portrait of mass hysteria and rage.
Dear Zachary: A Letter To A Son About His Father - 8.5/10
A contender for the saddest film ever made, Dear Zachary is as much a true-crime documentary as it is a testament to the power of love and friendship. Filmmaker Kurt Kuenne's emotionally charged tribute to a murdered childhood friend is one of the most developed and organic tributes ever put to digital celluloid.
Kuenne tells his friend, Andrew Bagby's story with an earnest tenderness that elevates the story at the heart into something much more profound and unsettling. Truly a masterpiece, just make sure you have tissues handy.