‘The Keepers’: All the best true crime on Netflix to watch next
We get it, truly. You’ve rewatched Making a Murderer and the Aaron Hernandez docuseries too many times. You’ve cleaned the house on all the Dateline episodes available. You even binged American Vandal because you were desperate for something that felt like a true crime docuseries.
But trust us, you probably still haven’t dug to the bottom of the barrel yet. Just when you think you’re out of content, Netflix comes by with its big sack of originals, dropping true crime shows out the wazoo. So when your Netflix queue has run dry, turn to these films and series to get your true crime fix.
Strong Island
As of late, there’s been a trend where people who were close to devastating murders, whether it be friends or relatives, release a documentary or docuseries showing them trying to solve the mystery. Strong Island continues on this trend, with filmmaker Yance Ford trying to find answers to his brother William’s 1992 murder.
While films like Strong Island are a tough pill to swallow, it shows how twisted the judicial system is when it comes to these murders. William’s killer wasn’t indicted because the all-white jury believed his self-defense claim. It’s a dark journey that if you’re willing to go down, will be extremely informative into the bias of the judicial system.
Wormwood
While true crime murder fans won’t love Wormwood, the conspiracy theorists will love this docuseries. Taking a look at the truth behind Project MKUltra, specifically at the cover up of the death of scientist Frank Olson, Wormwood goes into the truth of the experiments performed during that CIA research project.
Olson’s death is regarded as a suicide, but his son, Eric, believes that Frank was a secret victim of the experiments under Project MKUltra. Director Errol Morris takes us on a journey through the history of MKUltra, and why the CIA would want to cover up Olson’s death as a suicide. While there is a murder at the center of Wormwood, it goes so much bigger than that.
The Keepers
The beloved Sister Cathy Cesnik met her untimely end in 1969. But The Keepers says that Cesnik met the Angel of Death in a coverup against Priest A. Joseph Maskell and the sexual abuse charges against him. Releasing shortly after the award winning Spotlight, The Keepers takes a close look at just one case of sexual abuse in a large web of problems with the Catholic church.
With an investigation led by former students of Sister Cathy’s, The Keepers not only dives into the circumstances around the murder, but the long-standing claims of sexual abuse at the hands of Maskell. The truth of Sister Cathy’s murder is out there, and The Keepers gets one step closer.
The Confession Tapes
What if the people who confessed to a murder during their interrogation were forced into it? The Confession Tapes looks at cases where the “guilty” party claims that they were forced to confess to a crime they didn’t commit, and how the crime actually happened if they didn’t do it.
The Confession Tapes dropped its second season just last year, showcasing more people who have had their entire life ruined thanks to a coerced confession. Again, if you’re into how broken the judicial system can be, even at the early stages with police interrogation, The Confession Tapes is an eye-opening peek behind the scenes.
