Television series
Killer Ratings
- Serial killer
- Biopic
- Very dark
A darkly gripping Brazilian true-crime documentary about a talk-show host who orchestrated murders to boost his crime-show ratings, then broadcast their aftermath. It's a compact, propulsive examination of ambition, sensationalism and moral collapse told across five episodes. For anyone fascinated by how media incentives can warp human behaviour into something monstrous.
Should you watch it?
Watch it if you are drawn to true-crime documentaries that examine how a crime was packaged as entertainment, and to the uneasy question of who was watching and why.
Skip it if the subject is a real killing and the tone stays grim, so if true-crime fatigue has set in or you want distance from real violence, this will feel heavy.
What it asks of you: Seven episodes of about fifty minutes each, a single season, paced like a close reading of the evidence, so it wants steady attention rather than background viewing.
Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.
If you liked this
The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst2015
A masterclass in documentary storytelling. Six hours following a wealthy man through interviews, archival footage and police records, building suspicion into something overwhelming. Andrew Jarecki's pacing is phenomenal.
But Extremely long. The investigation unfolds slowly, and if you need quick resolution rather than atmosphere, it can feel padded.
Making a Murderer2015
Two seasons interrogating a Wisconsin murder conviction through unprecedented access to police files and interrogation tapes. Raises real questions about the justice system and the power of documentary narrative itself.
But The filmmakers' bias is obvious in the edit. If you find partisan storytelling frustrating, this will test your patience.
DAHMER - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story2022
Ryan Murphy's dramatisation of the serial killer case told from the victims' families' perspective, not Dahmer's. Ten episodes of genuine pathos and institutional failure. Brutal but necessary.
But Graphic violence and deeply disturbing content. Not escapism; it sits with real human suffering in a way that's exhausting.
Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Killer Ratings
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Nightcrawler2014
Both argue that profit motive turns crime into content, and content consumption into complicity. The host and the cameraman are the same impulse in different media.
A fictional film about a freelance videographer in LA who sells footage of crime scenes to news stations. It's the logical extension of Killer Ratings' theme: what happens when the medium itself becomes the predator. Visceral and morally merciless.
But Extremely dark with no sympathetic character to anchor you. It's a descent into nihilism disguised as a thriller, which some find punishing rather than illuminating.
More like this (6)
I'll Be Gone in the Dark2020
A podcast writer investigating the Golden State Killer case; becomes a documentary about obsession, true crime consumption, and what happens when a case actually closes. The finale is earned catharsis.
But Shifts focus partway through from the crime to the investigator's personal story. If you want a pure crime narrative, this gets introspective.
Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes2019
Joe Berlinger (of The Paradise Lost trilogy) lets archival interviews with Bundy speak for themselves. Chilling, methodical, and smartly resists dramatising or psychoanalysing him.
But The public's fascination with charismatic killers feels complicit here. If you're uncomfortable with that reflection, the restraint won't save you.
The Staircase2022
A thirteen-year legal battle over a death on a staircase, told across eight episodes with the precision of a crime procedural. Juggles doubt, evidence and the unreliability of narrative itself beautifully.
But Lengthy and deliberately ambiguous. It doesn't answer the central question, which works thematically but can feel frustrating as a viewer.
The Confession Killer2019
Two episodes about a man who confessed to over 600 murders—almost all of them false. Questions what confession actually proves and why systems reward it anyway.
But Deliberately disorienting. It refuses to build traditional narrative, which is the point but will frustrate viewers wanting clear resolution.
Satantango1994
Both examine communities where the strongest prey on the vulnerable, and institutions fail to protect them. Sátántangó just does it with the aesthetics of poetry instead of crime journalism.
A seven-and-a-half-hour Hungarian masterpiece about con artists and desperation in a dying collective. Slow, hypnotic, and completely in another aesthetic register, but it's about the same failure of systems and predators within them.
But Brutally slow. Black and white, subtitled, shot in long takes. If you want narrative momentum or conventional cinematography, this will test every cell of your patience.
The Queen of Versailles2012
Like Killer Ratings, it captures someone whose hunger for more corrodes everything around them. But it does so through intimate access and observation rather than investigation.
A documentary about a wealthy couple building a massive mansion during the 2008 financial collapse. It's about ambition, greed and the blind spots of those who have insulated themselves from consequence. Darkly funny and genuinely tragic.
But Structurally loose and sometimes shapeless. It's more portrait than argument, and some viewers find that messiness frustrating.
Recommended by
Ted Bundy: Falling for a Killer, Exhibit A, Conversations with a Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes, Unmasking a Monster: Aileen Wuornos, The Killer in My Family, The Anarchists, Cheaters, Swipe Right on the Devil, Evil Lives Here