The best true crime dramas of 2024
the true crime that's worth your time
As we reach the end of the first Year in Review (Best Evidence’s fourth annual, I should note), I’m already overwhelmed by all the remarkable best true crime properties I need to catch up on. I now know the year’s best documentaries, longreads, podcasts, and books. My holidays are already running over with options.
Today is a fun one: the best dramatic adaptions of real-life true crime for 2024. Anna Kendrick and Michael Lennox, get ready for your flowers — they’re abundant, below.
But what about you? What was your favorite “based on a true story” of the year? Let us know in the comments.
I really wish FX on Hulu (ugh) hadn’t dropped all nine episodes of their excellent adaptation of Patrick Radden Keefe’s Say Nothing all at once last month. As Sarah notes in her positive review, it falls short mostly when it’s compared to Keefe’s instant classic of a book: not really a fair comparison, but an inevitable one. Like Keefe’s book, though, it’s a lot to take in, and not the sort of thing that the Surgeon General would recommend powering through, as you’re going to hit your recommended daily allowance of bleak real fast.
What most impressed me about the adaptation is that they realized that they couldn’t just film the book, and built their own structure, giving every episode a clear arc, while moving forward the multiple stories being juggled. What works in a book or a long-read doesn’t always work in a dramatic presentation, and that’s a lesson that more adaptations should learn. — Dan Cassino, Professor of Government and Politics at Fairleigh Dickinson University
WOMAN OF THE HOUR — Elon Green, author of The Man Nobody Killed: Life, Death, and Art in Michael Stewart’s New York (coming on March 11, 2025)
I could pick apart things that bugged me about Under the Bridge, like at least 70% of Riley Keough’s character staring into the middle distance as a neon sign saying “DAMAGED” blinked above her head, but I was so anxious for each new ep to drop, and those kids! Those kids were brilliant! I mean, they were horrible, in that specifically vile way only adolescence can wrought. Also didn’t flub it’s 90s references.
And I wrote about it for Best Evidence but I gotta pull my soapbox back out to yap some more – Mr Bates vs The Post Office was emotionally manipulative as all get out, leaning on the considerable charm of British National Treasures™ Toby Jones and Julie Hesmondhalgh, and a post-New Years weekend prime time viewing slot, and it worked: launching the justice for subpostmasters cause into the public eye and staying in the UK headlines to this day. — Margaret Howie, co-founder of Space Fruit Press
Say Nothing (FX). This was my most anticipated true crime project for 2024 and wow did it exceed my very high expectations, not just as an adaptation of an all-time favorite book, but as a work of art on its own. — Susan Howard, Best Evidence contributor (Instagram: @veronicamers)
I know I should pick something way more smart guy, but I am taking this moment to sing the praises of the soapy, sometimes silly party that is Griselda, the Sofía Vergara-strring take on the life and times of trafficker Griselda Blanco. It’s got a lot of the same vroom as the first couple seasons of Narcos but with way more estrogen and way better outfits. And Vergara is just terrific, steely and charismatic and cool. Trust me, it’s a blast. — Eve Batey, Best Evidence co-editor, journalist, and sighthound person.