Best of 2023: True Crime Documentaries
What was the year’s best true crime documentary or docuseries?
the true crime that's worth your time
Just in time for your holiday weekend queue, here are our esteemed panelists’ 2023 doc picks. Are these all shows you can watch on the plane, in front of some googly-eyed kid? Yeah, sure, these youngsters have to learn about real life sometime, right? — EB
1. BS High - documentary on Max, directed by Travon Free and Martin Desmond Roe. The Bishop Sycamore Centurions were an American football team based in Columbus, Ohio. They said they were the high school football team of Bishop Sycamore High School, which ran from 2019 to 2021. After a blowout loss against the elite IMG Academy televised on ESPN, there was intense scrutiny and investigation into the school’s existence - not least because many of the players appeared to be men in their early 20s. The school was found to be a scam, run by “coach” Roy Johnson. While “Coach” Johnson has faced and continues to face a number of charges, including domestic abuse, auto crime, and lawsuits from creditors, operating a fake school is not against the law because nobody thought that anybody would do it. This brilliant documentary gives voice to the young Black men whose bodies were exploited, and questions the blind eyes of those in power to injustice and inequality happening under their feet.
2. Victim/Suspect on Netflix, directed by Nancy Schwartzman, who directed Roll Red Roll among other projects. The documentary follows investigative journalist Rachel de Leon as she uncovers an apparent phenomenon of young women - mostly, some men also - who report sexual assault to the police, and find that not only are their cases not investigated, but within days they are charged with making a false report. To describe something as 'unflinching' can be a turn-off for prospective viewers, but unflinching this is and necessarily so. This documentary has stayed with me since I first saw it in May.
3. Crush, a two-part docu-series on Paramount+, made by the team behind the award-winning documentary 11 Minutes, which told the story of the mass shooting at Las Vegas' Route 91 Harvest music festival. CRUSH steps through the events of the October 29th 2022 Hallowe'en festival in the Itaewon district of Seoul, where unregulated crowds formed a crush which killed 159 and seriously injured 196. The docu-series follows the lead-up to the crush, the event itself, and the heartbreaking aftermath - and the stunning lack of responsibility taken by those in power. Importantly, the series centres the victims and the survivors, and their families.
And honourable mention to Netflix's continuing HOW TO BECOME ... series. It started with How To Become A Dictator in 2021. This year, How To Become A Cult Leader was an excellent follow-up, with How To Become A Mob Boss also released this year. — writer and Crime Seen co-host Sarah Carradine
Even if we weren't close pals I'd still pick HBO's Last Call, adapted and expanded from Elon Green's book of the same name. It also is a model for what true crime storytelling should be in any format. — Author Sarah Weinman, aka The Crime Lady
Lots to choose from this year, actually! I haven't finished Murder In Boston yet, so that's probably in the conversation, along with The Low Country (Max's Murdaugh joint), Last Stop Larrimah, Telemarketers, and the Natalia Grace series, but if have to pick one? Last Call. — Best Evidence co-author Sarah D. Bunting
If I’m thinking of the docuseries that followed the most traditional structure and delivered the most significant argument, I’d go with Last Call: When a Serial Killer Stalked Queer New York. When you talk about centering the victims and sociohistorical contextualization, as far as I’m concerned this is the gold standard.
However, I was also captivated by the innovative style and DIY ethos of Telemarketers. It has true crime bona fides—the telemarketing industry is corrupt and duplicitous in ways I had never considered—but this docuseries also is, at its center, a story about friendship. In that way it reminded me of Pepsi, Where’s My Jet? which doesn’t really cover a crime, but similarly uses a social phenomenon to explore and celebrate the relationship between two misfits. It’s feel-good true crime, if you will. — True Crime Fiction author Tracy Bealer
Who Killed Robert Wone? on Peacock is my pick. Given my fascination with this case, having this docuseries out in the world was revelatory. The experience of having the truly bonkers and confounding elements of this crime put in a visual form was just something I needed. I can’t even argue it’s the best – it was just the most significant docuseries for me. I also really like what I’ve seen so far of Murder in Boston: Roots, Rampage & Reckoning. — Best Evidence contributor Susan Howard
Lyra, directed by Alison Millar, was technically a 2022 release but only got widely seen (and seen by me) this year. It deserves an even bigger audience, as an examination of the state of the Troubles in our post-Brexit age and the fragile social balance undermined by political squabbling and British institutional amnesia; but also of a singular passionate life, a working class queer woman determined to be a journalist in a hostile environment for the profession. By the end I was undone, and then Sinead sang over the end titles and I was broken. — Margaret Howie is a marketing drone by day, co-founder of spacefruitpress.com by night.
If I was on someone else’s panel, and was just emailing my responses in, I’d be one and done: Last Call is a stunning achievement, and deserves all the praise it’s gotten, and more. But I’m not that panelist, I’m the person who just cut and pasted in like 6797072 responses from other people who said Last Call was their pick, so I feel like I need to give you something different. That’s why I’m offering up Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets, which is available for streaming on Amazon Prime.
Not only did it indict the Duggars and the evangelical sect that allowed them to cover up an inter-family sex abuse case, but it put the feet of sideshow reality TV game to the fire. Those of us who consume that content are also to blame, and it doesn’t let us off, either, but it also forgives us for thinking this toxic and allegedly lawbreaking near-cult behavior was all good clean fun. After all, that’s what Warner Bros. Discovery-owned TLC wanted us to think. — Best Evidence co-author Eve Batey
Friday on Best Evidence: What did 2023 have to offer in terms of quality dramatic adaptations? The answer might surprise you.
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