7 True Crime Dramas to Watch on Netflix After Baby Reindeer

Baby Reindeer has taken Netflix viewers by storm, with many comparing it to Stephen King’s Misery.

Richard Gadd, 34, stars as hopeful comedian Donny in the seven-part biopic he wrote based on his real-life trauma from a stalker, who one day arrived at the pub where he worked as a bartender with no money, so he gave her a free Cup of tea.

He quickly paid for that cup of tea, constantly dogged by disturbing messages before Martha (Jessica Gunning) infiltrated every corner of his life, shouting profanities at his performances, ruining his dates and even breaking into his house.

It has been hailed as a masterpiece for the compassionate way it handles its themes, earning a perfect Rotten Tomatoes score.

After the rollercoaster of emotions in Baby Reindeer, many of us will be looking for our next binge watch – and Netflix has plenty of dramas based on shocking real stories that almost seem too wild to be true.

The viewer

American Horror Story’s Ryan Murphy brought The Watcher to our screens in 2022 and it shocked and disturbed audiences when they realized the events had actually happened.

The thriller centers on married couple Dean (Bobby Cannavale) and Nora Brannock (Naomi Watts) who, after moving into their dream home, receive threatening letters from a terrifying stalker known as The Watcher.

The real-life incidents, linked to the ‘Watcher’ house in New Jersey, follow scar letters sent to a couple after they bought a house for $1.4 million (£1.2 million) in 2014.

The anonymous and mysterious letters forced them to put the house back on the market in 2017, with the identity of the stalker still a mystery.

Incredible

Toni Collette and Merritt Wever star in the heartbreaking Unbelievable, which came to Netflix in 2019.

It follows the harrowing story of Marie Adler (played by Kaitlyn Dever), an 18-year-old from Washington who claimed to have been tied up and raped in her bedroom in 2008 while in foster care.

But when her foster parents, ex-boyfriend and the male police officers all express their distrust in Marie’s story, the teen begins to doubt herself and later denies the attack ever happened after convincing herself it was a dream .

The officers pressure Marie to drop her claim, but nearly two years later, two female detectives (Collette and Wever) begin investigating a new series of seemingly unrelated attacks.

When they see us

The critically acclaimed Netflix series When They See Us tells the heartbreaking and infuriating story of The Central Park Five.

They were five teenage boys convicted of the rape and assault of Trisha Meili, which took place in Central Park in 1989.

She had no memory of the attack when she recovered, but investigations led to a group of black and Latino boys being taken into police custody, despite not having appropriate times and locations for the crime.

Despite initially being found guilty, their convictions were overturned in 2002, twelve years after they were sent to prison.

Invent Anna

Inventing Anna is the wild story of Anna Delvey, starring Julia Garner.

The story is based on the article written by journalist Jessica Pressler entitled ‘Maybe She Had So Much Money She Just Lost Track of It’, which was published in New York Magazine in 2018.

It unravels Delvey’s deception when her real name is revealed to be Anna Sorokin, as she worms her way into New York’s elite without ever spending a cent – and nearly secures a multi-million dollar loan for the club and art foundation of its private members.

By the time she was caught, it was estimated that her frauds were worth around $275,000 (£242,000).

The People vs. OJ Simpson: American Crime Story

OJ Simpson’s death has brought this true-crime series about his infamous murder case to public attention.

In 1994, OJ’s wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her boyfriend Ronald Goldman were stabbed to death, but after a highly publicized trial, OJ was unanimously found not guilty. In 1997, he was unanimously found liable for wrongful death in a civil case.

Griselda

Starring Sofia Vergara, Griselda took Netflix by storm when it released earlier this year.

The Modern Family star plays infamous Colombian drug lord Griselda Blanco, the “Cocaine Godmother” whose reign of terror spanned the 1970s and even terrified Pablo Escobar.

She fled her home in Colombia at the age of 19 and eventually made her way to Miami in the late 1970s, where she saw her vast cocaine empire blossom against the backdrop of the city’s deadly drug war.

She is believed to be behind more than 200 murders until her eventual incarceration in 2004 and her own sudden murder in 2012.

The spy

Sacha Baron Cohen is far from ready for his roles in Borat and Bruno in this Netflix series.

He stars as former Mossad agent Eli Cohen, who was brought in to spy on the Syrian government and gather information in the 1960s. He lived undercover in Damascus and eventually became chief advisor to the Minister of Defense there.

However, he was later sentenced to death in 1965 after Syrian counterintelligence authorities discovered his true identity.

Despite international pleas for clemency, he was publicly hanged in Marjeh Square in May 1965.

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