Television series
Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes
Joe Berlinger builds this four-part series almost entirely out of cassette tapes Bundy recorded with journalists in his final years, layered with courtroom footage, detective interviews, and survivor testimony. It's less whodunit than character study — an attempt to reconcile the articulate, oddly charming voice on the tape with what that voice did. Unsettling, patient, and more about complicity than shock.
If you liked this
Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile2019
Zac Efron plays Bundy from the perspective of a girlfriend who refused to believe the accusations, dramatizing exactly the charm the documentary only lets you hear. A useful, uncomfortable companion piece.
But Some critics felt it stayed too sympathetic to Bundy's magnetism without earning the tension it's borrowing.
Conversations with a Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes2022no page yet
Same format, same team, same unflinching use of a killer's own recorded words — this time paired with far more visceral crime-scene material and grieving families given real voice.
But Considerably grimmer subject matter; the franchise formula starts to feel a little mechanical on a third go.
MINDHUNTER2017
The FBI's real early efforts to understand serial killers by interviewing them, dramatized with cold, meticulous precision. Explains the origins of the profiling language the Bundy tapes assume you already know.
But Slow-burn and dialogue-heavy — this is procedure and psychology, not chase and capture.
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
The Honeymoon Killers1970
It's asking the same question the Bundy tapes ask decades later — how does an ordinary-seeming person seduce their way into someone's trust right before destroying them — just without any of the modern genre's polish or hindsight.
A grimy, black-and-white B-movie made decades before true crime was a genre, based on real killers Martha Beck and Raymond Fernandez, who charmed and murdered lonely women together. Raw, cheap, and strangely riveting.
But Rough low-budget filmmaking and an unglamorous, deliberately unpleasant tone — nothing like the slick Netflix aesthetic.
More like this (8)
The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst2015
A documentary built around a suspected killer's own words, with an ending nobody saw coming. If the Bundy tapes hooked you on the sound of a killer explaining himself, this is the gold standard.
But Ethically murky filmmaking choices sparked real controversy about how the footage was obtained and used.
I'll Be Gone in the Dark2020
Michelle McNamara's obsessive hunt for the Golden State Killer, told with as much attention to the toll of investigating evil as to the evil itself.
But McNamara's own story becomes as central as the case, which some viewers find a frustrating detour.
Wild Wild Country2018
Not a killer's story exactly, but the same queasy fascination with charisma, cult-like devotion, and how far ordinary people will follow a compelling liar.
But It's six hours long and about a religious commune, not a murder case — a genuine tonal shift.
Making a Murderer2015
The series that kicked off Netflix's true-crime obsession, built on the same fascination with what's said versus what's true, this time inside a possibly wrongful conviction.
But Its selective editing became a major point of controversy, complicating trust in the storytelling itself.
Amanda Knox2016
A tight, unnerving documentary where the accused speaks for herself on camera, forcing you to sit with the same discomfort — believing or doubting someone who insists they're innocent.
But Much shorter and lower-key than a four-part series; some will want more depth on the investigation itself.
Casting JonBenet2017
An unusual, formally daring documentary that interviews actors auditioning to play people in the JonBenét Ramsey case, exposing how true crime turns tragedy into performance.
But Deliberately unconventional and a little cold — this is more art project than case rundown.
Tower2016
Where the Bundy series is built from the killer's own voice, this flips the lens entirely onto the people who lived through violence — a formal experiment tackling the same genre from its least-explored angle.
A documentary about the 1966 University of Texas tower shooting, told through rotoscope animation that turns survivor testimony into something closer to memory than reenactment.
But The animation style takes adjustment, and it centers survivors rather than the shooter, which some true-crime fans may find unsatisfying.
American Psycho2000
Both are studies in how easily a killer can pass as charismatic and ordinary; this one just dares to be funny and grotesque about it instead of solemn.
A pitch-black satire about a Wall Street killer whose charm and surface normalcy mask something monstrous — the same unnerving idea as Bundy, filtered through comedy and horror instead of documentary restraint.
But It's fiction, deliberately absurd, and played partly for laughs — a big tonal swing from the sober true-crime register.
Recommended by
MINDHUNTER, The Silence of the Lambs, The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst, Amanda Knox, American Murder: The Family Next Door, Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer, You, The Confession Killer, Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile