If you are ready to meet some of the real-life monsters, step right in as we take a look at 11 best serial killer documentaries on Netflix streaming in 2015.
Our fascination with serial killers may be explained on several levels, but the bottom line is that we are scared of them. These aren’t some folktales designed to frighten children and make them eat their broccoli, these are real life stories of actual people and their unfortunate victims. These documentaries offer an amazing insight into the heads of some of the cruelest serial killers that ever lived. All of them felt the compelling need to take human lives, as science would have us believe, but what is more terrifying is the fact that they usually live among us, seemingly having normal, everyday lives like the rest of us. Their ability to hide in a plain sight and reconcile their outward appearances of a loving family people with their true nature of savage killers is both fascinating and alarming. If Richard Kuklinski could do it for 30 years, who else among our neighbors could be harboring a secret life?
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If serial killers aren’t really your cup of tea, or you’ve stumbled upon this article late at night, and you’re alone, maybe the list of best military documentaries on Netflix would be a better choice. At least, you won’t be afraid of going into the bathroom or calling the police every time you hear a suspicious noise outside your home.
To rank 11 best serial killer documentaries on Netflix streaming in 2015, we had to devise a system. Going simply by IMDb rating just wouldn’t cut it, although we did include it in our final ranking. We also scoured dozen of lists on most popular sites in order to get an accurate feel for public opinion. We mixed it all together and came up with a genuine Insider Monkey ranking. Let’s see which are the best serial killer documentaries you can watch on Netflix.
11. Payback: Earl Forrest
Site Score: 1, IMDb Score: 5 Overall Score: 5
Directed by Marshall Johnson
Year: 2012
We begin our slideshow with Killer Speak series, episode Payback: Earl Forrest. Forrest killed his neighbor and her friend in 2002 over a methamphetamine deal gone wrong. That wasn’t enough for him, so he ambushed a police patrol that came to investigate and killed a deputy while wounding the sheriff. Forrest is currently in prison, awaiting a death sentence to be carried out.
10. Albert Fish: In Sin He Found Salvation
Site Score: 5, IMDb Score: 1 Overall Score: 6
Directed by John Borowski
Year: 2007
Albert Fish had many nicknames, among them the Werewolf of Wysteria and the Brooklyn Vampire. Not only was he a serial killer, but a cannibal and a child rapist as well. In a first of a several Borowski movies on our list, we can see his life and his evil career, spanning from 1924 to 1932, when he was finally caught. He was executed in an electric chair in 1936.
9. Carl Panzram: The Spirit of Hatred and Vengeance
Site Score: 4, IMDb Score: 3 Overall Score: 7
Directed by John Borowski
Year: 2012
Based on an autobiography Carl Panzram wrote secretly in prison, John Borowski made a film about one of the worst serial killers in America’s history. In his own confession, Panzram stated that he killed 21 people and raped over a thousand, although most of his crime couldn’t be confirmed. The film offers a unique experience of being based on serial killer’s own words and is a chilling insight into his mind.
8. Mad Maks: Maksim Gelman
Site Score: 2, IMDb Score: 7 Overall Score: 9
Directed by Marshall Johnson and Jeremy Saulnier
Year: 2013
On a cold February night in 2011, Maksim Gelman decided it was time for him to take matters into his own hands. He started with his stepfather, who he stabbed 55 times. Next on his list was a woman who rejected him and her mother, who had a misfortune of being with her when Gelman arrived. While fleeing the scene in a stolen car, he ran over a pedestrian, killing him as well. The ending of his killing spree was nothing short of a Hollywood blockbuster. His final victim turned out to be a martial arts fan Joseph Lozito. Mad Max, as the media dubbed him, managed to slash Lozito with a knife several times before being taken down by him.
7. IceCold: Levi King
Site Score: 3, IMDb Score: 6 Overall Score: 9
Directed by Marshall Johnson
Year: 2002
On the night of September 30, 2005, Levi King entered the house of Conrad family in Texas armed with an AK-47 assault rifle and killed Brian, Michell and Michell’s son Zach. Her other child, 10-year old daughter Doan, survived by playing dead when the gunman fired, but fortunately missed, at her while she was in her bed. King drove all the way from Missouri in a pickup truck belonging to his previous victims, Orlie and Dawn McCool. His killing spree ended the next day when he was apprehended by the police. The Killer Speaks episode IceCold: Levi King explains how King became a serial killer and what drove him to murder.
6. H. H. Holmes: America’s First Serial Killer
Site Score: 9 IMDb Score: 3 Overall Score: 12
Directed by John Borowski
Year: 2004
Dr. Henry Howard Holmes was one of the first – and probably worst – serial killers in history. During his trial, dubbed “the trial of the century” in 1895, he confessed to 27 murders, although only 9 were confirmed. But his suspected death toll is much bigger and can be as high as 200 victims. All of his killings were done in his hotel, which he designed specifically for the purpose of murdering people in mind, compete with the torture rooms. John Borowski’s film was 4 years in the making and includes reenactments, testimonies, and documents from the trial. It received several awards.
5. The Iceman Tapes: Conversations with a Killer
Site Score: 2, IMDb Score: 10 Overall Score: 12
Directed by Arthur Ginsberg and Tom Spain
Year: 1992
The story of Richard Kuklinski aka The Iceman is morbidly fascinating one. His transformation from a serial killer to a Mafia hitman and from that to a criminal boss has all the elements of a Hollywood crime thriller. He managed to keep his criminal activities hidden while on having a wife and three children and keeping the façade of a loving family man for 30 years. He was convicted of 5 murders, but according to his own statements, he killed between 100 and 250 people. In a chilling interview, he reveals his secrets to the audience, although some would argue that some of them are best kept uncovered. Still, The Iceman Tapes: Conversations with a Killer is a fascinating insight into a serial killer’s mind and a fifth place on our list of best serial killer documentaries on Netflix streaming in 2015.
4. Cropsey
Site Score: 7, IMDb Score: 2 Overall Score: 9
Directed by Joshua Zeman and Barbara Brancaccio
Year: 2009
Joshua Zeman and Barbara Brancaccio set out to make a film about one of the most popular urban legends in New York, Staten Island’s Cropsey, a boogeyman who snatches children from the streets and takes them to abandoned houses littered across Staten Island to kill them. What they discovered quickly turned an imaginary boogeyman into a real one, named Andre Rand. Rand was allegedly responsible for the kidnapping and murder of five children, although the jury convicted him of only two of those, Jennifer Schweiger and Holly Ann Hughes. The film received several awards, including 2009 Tribeca’s Grand Jury Prize and IndieWIRE’s 2009 Best Undistributed Film.
3. The Act of Killing
Site Score: 7, IMDb Score: 10 Overall Score: 17
Directed by Joshua Oppenheimer
Year: 2012
The Act of Killing is not a documentary on serial killers in a conventional sense. It deals with the Indonesian killing in 1965 and 1966, when some 500,000 to one million communists and their sympathizers were killed by various armed groups, often encouraged by the Indonesian government. The movie features several death squad leaders, who have personally committed and ordered murders during the purge. One of them, Anwar Congo, claimed to have killed more than a 1,000 people. They also admitted to extortion and blackmail of their victims. The movie was highly praised by the critics and have received numerous awards, including the Best European Documentary and The Stanley Kubrick Award for Bold and Innovative Filmmaking among others. It was nominated for the best documentary in 2014 Academy Awards and was named one of the top 50 films of the decade in the Guardian’s list.
2. Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer
Site Score: 10, IMDb Score: 8 Overall Score: 18
Directed by Nick Broomfield
Year: 2002
A sequel to his own documentary Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer, Nick Broomfield’s Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer deals with the Aileen Wuornos’ death sentence and the controversy that followed it. Despite being pronounced “of a sound mind” by the state’s psychiatric examiners, Broomfield’s film offers plenty of evidence that prove otherwise. Aileen Wuornos, a prostitute that was convicted of the murder of six men in the period between 1989 and 1990, claimed that she killed them in self-defense. She also claimed that a big alien mothership is coming for her on the eve of her execution, which puts to doubt any claim of her being mentally healthy enough to be executed in the first place.
1. The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst
Site Score: 8, IMDb Score: 11 Overall Score: 19
Directed by Andrew Jarecki
Year: 2015
While it may be questionable if Robert Durst belongs to this list, since he hasn’t been convicted of three murders minimum which would qualify him for the title of a serial killer, the story is fascinating enough that we decided to include it on the list. After all, it isn’t every day you get to see a rich heir charged with murder and dismemberment. The series, consisting of six episodes, led to the arrest of Robert Durst as it presented new evidence uncovered during the filming. The series won two Emmy awards, as well as Television Critics Association’s Award for Outstanding Achievement in Movies, Miniseries, and Specials and it is the best serial killer documentaries on Netflix streaming in 2015.
