1. Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father
Recommended by 8 sites; IMDb rank 8.6 – Total:20 points
Released in 2008, “Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father” is a touching film. Director Kurt Kuenne focuses on his friend Andrew Bagby, a young man who was murdered in 2001. The prime suspect? The girlfriend he had just broken up with.
After she was arrested, Shirley Jane Turner announced she was pregnant with Bagby, a boy she’d later name Zachary. The documentary itself is Kuenne’s gift to the child, trying to paint a picture of his father by interviewing relatives, friends and anyone who knew him. While it all starts rather light, with touching messages, it turns into a true crime story as Kuenne follows the legal intricacies of Turner’s arrest and her eventual murder-suicide when she jumped into the Atlantic Ocean with her one-year-old son.
The documentary is dedicated to the memory of Andrew Bagby and his son and on top of all the awards and nominations it receives, it also wraps up our own list of 11 best crime documentaries to watch on Netflix in 2015.
