The 13 best true crime shows and documentaries of 2024

Netflix started 2024 strong with "American Nightmare," which tells the story of a bizarre kidnapping.

Denise Huskins was forcibly taken from her boyfriend's house in Vallejo, California in 2015 and reappeared two days later over 400 miles away near her family home in Huntington Beach.

Using interviews with Huskins and her boyfriend, Aaron Quinn, the gripping three-part docuseries explains how the authorities suspected she faked the kidnapping in a move similar to the plot of the 2014 movie, "Gone Girl."

But the case takes an even stranger turn when a police officer stumbles onto a disbarred lawyer, Matthew Muller.

Mechanic Dave Kroupa had no idea what he was getting into when he started dating Liz Golyar in 2012.

"Lover, Stalker, Killer" explains how the Nebraska couple enjoyed going out and drinking, but things turned deadly when Kroupa called things off and started dating computer programmer, Cari Farver.

Farver went missing just two weeks into their relationship.

The documentary explores how Golyar killed Farver and impersonated her online to evade the authorities.

"Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV" is a shocking four-part Investigation Discovery docuseries about kids TV channel Nickelodeon and the abuse faced by some of its most famous actors.

The show is based on Business Insider's reporting and explores the allegations that producer Dan Schneider created a toxic work environment at Nickelodeon.

It also sees actor and musician Drake Bell talk publicly for the first time about being sexually assaulted by dialogue coach, Brian Peck.

Spain was shocked when the body of 12-year-old Asunta Basterra Porto was discovered near the city of Santiago de Compostela in 2013.

It was later discovered that her adoptive parents, lawyer Rosario Porto and journalist Alfonso Basterra, murdered her after their divorce.

The tragic death is dramatized in Netflix's "The Asunta Case," which gives audiences an insight into what happened to the couple in the immediate aftermath of the murder.

Hulu's "Under the Bridge" dramatizes Rebecca Godfrey's true crime book of the same name about the 1997 murder of Canadian teenager, Reena Virk.

What makes the show more interesting than a typical crime drama is that it puts Godfrey in the middle of the mystery. The author is played by "Mad Max: Fury Road" star Riley Keough.

Although Godfrey didn't help the investigation in real life, it adds an extra layer of drama to the show, helping to keep viewers invested.

"Baby Reindeer" dramatizes the show's lead actor and writer's experience with stalking, and became a huge talking point after it was released in April 2024.

Richard Gadd plays a fictional version of himself, Donny Dunn, an aspiring comedian who is stalked by a woman called Martha Scott (Jessica Gunning) after he shows her a moment of kindness at the pub where he works.

Gadd also uses the show to also tackle subjects like sexuality and sexual assault. But it became a global phenomenon because audiences tried to track down the "real Martha" online.

In May, 58-year-old Fiona Harvey came forward as the woman the character is based on, but challenged Gadd's depiction of her and has taken legal action against Netflix.

"Dancing for the Devil: The 7M TikTok Cult" dives into the murky world of TikTok dancers and content creators. It starts by looking at Miranda Derrick, a dancer who cut ties with her family after joining the controversial Shekinah Church in Los Angeles.

From there, the compelling three-part series introduces the audience to Shekinah Church pastor Robert Shinn, and explores allegations of abusive behavior and coercion within the church.

Derrick denied being in a cult in June 2024, and said that she has received death threats because of the Netflix docuseires.

Scott Scurlock's life sounds like something out of a Steven Spielberg movie.

In the 1990s, he lived in a huge tree house on his own property and started robbing banks in the Seattle area using makeup and prosthetics to disguise himself.

He even earned himself the nickname "The Hollywood Bandit," because of his techniques.

Scurlock's free-spirited life is the focus of Netflix's "How to Rob a Bank," and features surprisingly honest interviews with his fellow bank robbers and friends.

Another docuseries with some striking similarities to "Gone Girl" is Hulu's "Perfect Wife: The Disappearance of Sherri Papini."

As the title suggests, it revolves around Papini — who went missing after she went for a run in Redding, California, in November 2016. She was found three weeks later in Yolo County, California, 150 miles from home.

The docuseries explains how it took authorities six years to arrest her for faking the kidnapping, while also looking at the ramifications the hoax had on her family.

Audiences learn the jaw-dropping story of prolific Dutch sperm donor, Jonathan Jacob Meijer, in "The Man with 1000 Kids."

Meijer does not appear in the three-part docuseries, but five families who used his sperm to conceive share how they discovered the truth about how many children he has and the subsequent dangers.

Meijer has not been convicted of a crime, but the show bears the hallmarks of the true crime genre.

Meijer confirmed he has over 550 children worldwide, and was banned from donating sperm to new families in 2023.

While many true crime shows on this list focus on the victims, "I Am a Killer" revolves around perpetrators.

Each episode features interviews with a convicted killers in the United States, as they explain the reasons for their crime, their mindset at the time, and how they feel about their actions.

The fifth season arrived on Netflix in October, and features several complex, heartbreaking cases — including that of Ashley Morrison, who was convicted as an accomplice when her boyfriend murdered his grandmother in 2014.

In November, British network ITV released "Until I Kill You," which dramatizes the life of Delia Balmer (Anna Maxwell Martin), a nurse who survived two brutal attacks by her ex-boyfriend, John Sweeney (Shaun Evans).

The authorities later learned that Sweeney was a serial killer, known as the "Scalp Hunter."

The intense four-part drama charts their relationship and how Sweeney went on the run for several years before he was caught. It also looks at the way the legal system treated Balmer, and the trauma she endured when testifying against Sweeney in court.

"The Kings of Tupelo" is another Netflix docuseries featuring a case that almost seems too wild to be true. It revolves around Paul Kevin Curtis, an Elvis impersonator who claims he discovered a fridge full of body parts when he was working as a janitor in a Mississippi hospital.

He claimed that the fridge was part of an illegal organ-harvesting operation, and was trying to publicize his theory when he started feuding with a local Taekwondo instructor, James Everett Dutschke.

The three-part docuseries explains how and why Dutschke went on to frame Curtis for attempting to assassinate Barack Obama with ricin in 2013.