The public’s obsession with true crime stories has been around for as long as humans have been breaking the law and hurting each other. Take Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood or the 1892 Lizzie Borden murders, for example. References to these horrific crimes are still talked about today, right along with other high-profile cases of recent years. Some people want the thrill of a scary story that really happened, and others are more interested in understanding what makes evil people tick. Regardless of the reasons why, there has been a massive influx of true crime documentaries released on streaming services, with more to come.
Hulu has an excellent selection of true crime documentaries ranging from family scandals, to modern-day con artists, to international drug cartels. Here are the best ones, ranked.
8 Fyre Fraud (2019)
Fyre Fraud is a Hulu documentary by Jenner Furst and Julia Willoughby Nason, which details the epic failure of the 2017 music festival Fyre Fest and its creator, the notorious con artist Billy McFarland. Ads for the festival boasted celebrity appearances, high-profile musical guests, the flow of unlimited liquor, and lavish villas along the Bahamian coast. The festival was promoted by many stars such as Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid, and others. In reality, guests, some of whom had paid upwards of $1,200 for their tickets, arrived to find a field of FEMA tents, dry cheese sandwiches, no transportation, and not a stage in sight. McFarland had racked up $27.4M in debt to investors and was eventually convicted of wire fraud for crimes committed in connection to the festival. He is currently serving a six-year prison sentence.
In the film, Furst and Nason subtly criticized Netflix’s take on the story - their doc called Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened was co-produced by Jerry Media, the same company that was hired by McFarland and was responsible for much of the Fyre Festival promotion. Hulu criticizes their role in the disaster and steps ahead of its documentary rival by interviewing McFarland himself. Frye Fraud is a dark comedy of sorts, pointing the camera at the people involved and letting them dig their own graves. It’s expert commentary on the mirage of social media, the poison of influencer mentality, and the hustlers who capitalize on it all.
7 Cocaine Cowboys (2006)
Billy Corben’s Cocaine Cowboys tells the fascinating story of how Miami became the cocaine capital of America in the 1970s and '80s, and focuses on the notable drug trafficker Jon Roberts who worked closely with a Columbian drug cartel. The film contains archival footage from the time and interviews with law enforcement officers, lawyers, former drug smugglers, and gang members to provide a panoramic picture of the drug trade in Miami from the people who were involved.
Cocaine Cowboys makes available the unbelievable intricacies of international drug trafficking and the rise and fall of what was once the money, murder, and drug capital of the U.S. The film advertises itself as the “incredible true story that inspired Scarface and Miami Vice'' and the original score was composed and performed by musician Jan Hammer, who is well-known for creating the Miami Vice theme song. This is a must-see for any fans of high-profile crime stories.
6 Cold Case Hammarskjöld (2019)
Cold Case Hammarskjöld is a Danish documentary from Mads Brügger, which depicts the death of Swedish diplomat Dag Hammarskjöld in the 1961 Ndola United Nations DC-6 plane crash. The film investigates a theory that the plane was intentionally shot down by a British-Belgian mercenary, based on a 1998 document released by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that outlined an assassination attempt on Hammarskjöld. Brügger believes that the South African Institute for Maritime Research (with alleged ties to white-supremacy) and its leader, Keith Maxwell, were behind the plane crash.
Though certainly a biased portrayal, the film is an entertaining personal investigation into an international government conspiracy. It won the Directing Award for World Cinema Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival and was a finalist for the European Parliament Lux Prize—the first documentary to do so.
5 Cartel Land (2015)
Cartel Land is a documentary by Matthew Heineman about the Mexican Drug War, specifically detailing the vigilante groups who fought against the cartels. The film follows Tim Foley, the leader of an American paramilitary militia group called the Arizona Border Recon, and José Mireles, the leader of a rural Mexican vigilante group called the Autodefensas, as they fight the cartels from opposite sides of the border. Heineman told the New Yorker that his goal was to show “what happens when government institutions fail and citizens feel like they have to take the law into their own hands.”
Upon its release, Cartel Land was featured on over twenty critics’ lists for best documentary or best film of 2015, and was nominated for the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. Among thirty-seven other nominations, the film received nineteen wins, including three Primetime Emmys, two Sundance Film Festival awards, and the Courage Under Fire Award from the International Documentary Association.
4 Three Identical Strangers (2018)
Three Identical Strangers is a heartbreaking story of triplets who were separated at birth. When Edward Galland, David Kellman, and Robert Shafran discovered each other by sheer coincidence at age nineteen, neither they nor their adoptive parents had any clue that the others existed. In 1980, the triplets' unexpected reunion became national news as a heartwarming tale of found family; however, Three Identical Strangers depicts the more sinister truth behind their adoptions. In reality, the boys were the subjects of a clandestine scientific study about “nature versus nurture” and the results of raising identical siblings in different socioeconomic circumstances. The film depicts the harsh realities of being the subject of an involuntary experiment and the difficulties it caused these brothers.
The film received fifty-nine award nominations, including three Primetime Emmys, and won a Critics’ Choice Award, a Directors Guild of America Award, a Dublin Film Critics Circle Award, and a Sundance Film Festival Award for storytelling, among several others.
3 The Painter and the Thief (2020)
The Painter and the Thief is a tale of true crime turned portrait of the human experience. It is a Norwegian documentary from Benjamin Ree that follows the artist Barbora Kysilkokva as she develops a relationship with the man who stole her artwork, Karl-Bertil Nordland. In addition to detailing the crime and subsequent trial, and documenting the search for the paintings, the film follows Kysilkovka and Nordland as they collaborate on a portrait and form a surprising, inextricable bond. Rather than forcing confrontation, the filmmaker (and therefore the viewer) merely acts as witness to the relationship between these two people as it unfolds naturally.
A riveting, moving portrayal of compassion and well-received for its emotional poignancy, The Painter and the Thief was named the best documentary film of 2020 by the BBC, The Washington Post, and The Boston Globe.
2 Crime + Punishment (2018)
Crime + Punishment, from director Stephen Maing, follows a group of Black and Latino whistleblower police officers known as the NYPD12, and a top-notch PI, as they bring a class-action lawsuit against NYC police for enforcing arrest quotas based on race. The film pulls back the curtain on unjust law enforcement practices against people of color and the detrimental effects that causes to the community and the officers who are forced to uphold them - namely, false imprisonment of minority citizens deemed “high risk” and the demotion or firing of minority officers who speak out. Crime + Punishment offers an intimate look at the psychological, societal, and generational effects of a broken system, and the courage it takes to fight back.
Maing was lauded by critics for his unapologetic exposure of the most powerful police department in the country and for the urgency he portrays by telling the stories of the people most affected by that abuse of power. The film won several accolades, including three Emmy Awards.
1 Collective (2019)
Collective is a Romanian documentary by Alexander Nanau that highlights the 2016 public health scandal that occurred after a deadly nightclub fire. Twenty-seven club-goers were immediately killed when a pyrotechnics display sparked a fire that quickly spread through the establishment. However, in the months following the incident, thirty-seven more people succumbed to their injuries, in large part due to lack of proper healthcare at public hospitals. The film follows both a series of investigative journalists at the Gazeta Sporturilor newspaper as they uncover corruption within the healthcare system, as well as the Romanian Ministry of Health’s response to the crisis.
Collective received wide critical acclaim for its exposure of institutional negligence and injustice. The film received fifty-two award nominations, including Oscars for Best Documentary Feature and Best International Feature Film; it won 35 of those awards, including Best Documentary at many international film festivals across the globe.