5 Most Intense True Crime Documentaries Ever, Ranked
The true crime documentary genre has been seeing a new surge of popularity in the past few years, and if you’re into it, here are the five best, most intense films uncovering the crimes of the past.
5. Sins of Our Mother (2022)
Revealing the tragic events that led to a double child murder, Sins of Our Mother follows one Lori Vallow who, after having been a loving and Christian mother and wife, falls in love with Chad Daybell, a religious cult-ish book author.
Impressed by Chad’s book series Standing in Holy Places, Lori blindly follows him until she’s convinced to kill her two kids, Tylee Ryan and Joshua Jaxon “JJ” Vallow.
4. The Vow (2020)
In The Vow, we get to watch a self-help organization become a cult. NXIVM, a cult led by one Keith Raniere, was operating for twenty years straight, and its operations involved human trafficking, racketeering, forced labor, crimes against minors, etc.
NXIVM started all the way back in 1998, and it wasn’t until 2018 that Keith Raniere was sentenced to 120 years in prison and an all-too-low fine of $1.75M.
3. I’ll Be Gone in the Dark (2020)
The title of this documentary is a direct quote from the criminal it follows. Known by many different nicknames, Joseph James DeAngelo was considered to be many different people as he was committing his crimes across all of California.
DeAngelo is best known as the Night Stalker or the Golden State Killer. While he operated between 1974 and 1986, he was only caught and sentenced in 2018.
2. Helter Skelter: An American Myth (2020)
Perhaps the most well-known cult leader in all of the United States, Charles Manson was in charge of the Family — his very own group of people hypnotized by his charisma and drugs who lived at the Spahn Ranch and followed his every word.
Charles Manson’s Family was behind the Tate/La Bianca murders that shook America back in the day, and Helter Skelter gives a closer look at the cult.
1. Jonestown The Life & Death of Peoples Temple (2006)
Reverend Jim Jones’s cult The People’s Temple relocated to Guyana to avoid the US authorities and managed to stay under the radar until the cult’s victims’ concerned relatives got Congressman Leo Ryan on their side to help in their search.
This story resulted in the Congressman’s death…and Jones persuaded 909 (!) of his indoctrinated followers to drink cyanide, which resulted in a mass suicide of his cult.