Top 5 true crime documentaries released on Netflix in 2025

BY BROOKLYN MCKINNEY

Multimedia Journalist

As someone who used to constantly consume true crime documentaries, it became difficult to find something new to watch about a case I’ve never heard of – or even a renowned one covered from a fresh perspective. 

Sometimes I would just shut off the podcast, close the book in front of me or find something else to stream because it felt like an endless loop of listening to the same stories about the same people over and over again. 

I began to miss that feeling of discovering a new story, becoming fascinated with a different criminal’s motives and outraged by the injustices of the tragic fate of the victims or the handling of the case, completely immersed in the search for answers.

But as this already popular genre begins to grow, so does the number of cases to choose from. 

For those of you searching for something new, here are some releases from Netflix this year that caught my eye and even led me in the direction of some interesting books. 

1. “American Murder: Gabby Petito”

This documentary follows the strange disappearance of van-life vlogger Gabby Petito just two months into her cross-country road trip with her fiancé, Brian Laundrie. Was she taken out of thin air, or was there trouble in paradise?

Not only do interviewers dig into the case itself while slowly unraveling the secrets of this young couple’s rocky relationship, but also Gabby’s essence as a person, making viewers feel connected to her family and friends who grieve the legacy she left behind. 

2. “Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer”

The series, as well as a Netflix original thriller released in 2020, was based on the bestselling novel “Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery” by Robert Kolker, a journalist for the New York Times. 

A desperate mother’s search to find her missing daughter, Shannon Gilbert, is the catalyst of the police investigation of several unsolved murders of female prostitutes whose bodies had been found along the South Shore of Long Island. 

Thorough research immerses us in the lives of the victims as well as police force corruption and possible leads along the way. After several decades of a fight for answers from the families of these missing women, the identity of the killer is finally revealed.

3. “Con Mum”

A pastry chef from London reconnects with his biological mother during the COVID-19 pandemic. When mother and son reunite, Dionne Marie Hannah appears to be a wealthy and charitable old woman bound by a wheelchair and two different types of cancer, but appearances can be deceiving. 

A mother, by nature, is supposed to nurture and protect her children, but Hornigold’s instincts to trust his own could cost him everything. Exclusive interviews with Hornigold’s then pregnant wife, as well as his friends and even Dionne’s business associates, take viewers down a winding road full of plot twists to uncover the devastating truth.

4. “Chaos: The Manson Murders”

While Charles Manson documentaries are just a tad overdone, Netflix chooses to cover this tragedy yet again with an adaptation of bestselling biography “CHAOS: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties” by Tom O’Neill and Dan Peipenbring. 

This documentary dives into the warped minds and lives of Manson’s followers,a world of conspiracies on mind control and CIA experiments that turn our historical understanding of a pivotal moment in history completely upside down.

5. “From Rockstar to Killer”

French actress Marie Trintignant died in 2003 after being violently attacked in a hotel by her rockstar boyfriend, Bertrand Contant. While there was no doubt that he had killed her, was this A-list tragedy simply a crime of passion or cold-blooded murder? Only time will tell as the shock of this case divides the nation. 

This documentary investigates the case, biased coverage of the press surrounding it and a drastic shift in public opinion following the rise of the #MeToo movement started by feminists around the world in 2017.