True Crime fan? The best documentaries available to watch now on Sky Hero Image

True crime stories are phenomenon that have swept people up for centuries, with a new case gripping the world week-on-week, or something you end up tracking for years for the truth to come out.

Here at Sky, we have series and films that cover every type of criminal case you can think of – whether it’s a billion-dollar schemes, a morally ambiguous tale where you fall more on the side of the criminal, or a fight for justice when the system fails them.

As a Sky customer, you have access to every documentary available on Sky Crime and Sky Documentaries as part of your standard package – and that includes hundreds of hours of true crime stories that are sure to leave you captivated.

If you’re not sure where to start – don’t fret, we’ve got you covered for that as well.

Here are our recommendations of the best must-watch documentaries you can watch right now.

I Love You, Now Die

I Love You, Now Die follows the complicated criminal trial of Michelle Carter, an American teenager charged with luring her boyfriend, Conrad Roy to his death via text messages.

While they only met in person a handful of times, Carter and Roy created a relationship via their phones across two years. When Roy took his life in 2014, a devastated Carter held memorial services and fundraisers in his name.

But investigators later found messages that saw Carter actively encourage him to kill himself, with her erratic behaviour mirroring that of Lea Michele’s character in popular musical comedy Glee.

She was then arrested for involuntary manslaughter, with the case tracking just how complicit Carter was in his death. The defence argued Roy, who had a history of depression, did so of his own free will, and fought for her freedom under the rights of free speech and her being 17 at the time of the death.

The Vow

The Vow, follows the rise and fall of NXIVM, an organisation launched by Keith Raniere in 1998, that promised self-help guidance but devolved into a cult.

On signing up, Raniere offered ‘a methodology for enhancing human experience and behaviour’. But by 2019, Raniere and one of his most devout leaders, Smallville star Allison Mack, were convicted of sex trafficking and forced labour conspiracy.

Speaking to former members of the group, The Vow opens up on how Raniere indoctrinated them, and eventually led them to joining a secret sub-sect of the group known as DOS, which required them to be branded with Raniere and Mack’s initials.

The Jinx

The Jinx: The Life and Crimes of Robert Durst is an Emmy-winning six-part documentary series tracking three mysterious deaths all connected to the eccentric heir to a billion-dollar real estate empire.

First suspected in the 1982 disappearance of first wife, Kathie McCormack, he caught police attention again in 2000 after the murder of his close friend Susan Berman. Just 10 months Durst’s neighbour Morris Black was killed and dismembered in Texas, and yet Durst was acquitted at trial.

Central to the documentary were intimate discussions with Durst himself, who had never been convicted, nor spoken publicly about the accusations made against him at that time.

As experts start giving their insight, and the net begins to close in, a major slip-up by Durst unwittingly provides shocking results that blow the murder cases wide open.

Season one follows the case up until 2014, while season two - which is set for release on April 22 2024 - tracking the eight years after the game-changing original documentary series.

Read more about The Jinx.

The Essex Murders

In this three-part documentary, The Essex Murders takes a deep dive into the history and context of the so-called 'Essex Boys' murders of three men in 1995.

On December 7, 1995, the bodies of 38-year-old Anthony Tucker, 37-year-old Patrick Tate and 26-year-old Craig Rolfe were found by farmer Peter Theobald and friend Ken Jiggins.

They had been shot dead the night before in a blue Range Rover on a small farm track.

All three were drug dealers, known as the ‘Essex Boys’ who distributed ecstasy across the county, with Tucker also working as nightclub security, and Tate an amateur bodybuilder.

The murders triggered an investigation known as Operation Century, which ultimately produced no arrests with their tactics, including threatening phone calls to suspects, later being highly criticised.

Read more about The Essex Murders.

Dahmer on Dahmer: A Serial Killer Speaks

Jeffrey Dahmer has been cemented in history as one of the most sickening serial killers of all-time. Nicknamed the Milwaukee Cannibal, Dahmer targeted young men between 1978 and 1991, luring them to his home where he drugged, violated and murdered them.

In many cases, he would then eat their remains, or keep parts of their body in his house.

In this documentary, with interviews filmed before Dahmer’s death in 1994, the killer talks about his crimes with journalist Nancy Glass, providing a unique insight into what made him kill.

They also speak to those that knew the quiet loner as he was conducting his spree undetected - with homophobia at the time helping him evade justice.

Murder At The Cottage

On December 23, 1996, the small town of Dunmanus West in West Cork, Ireland was rocked when Sophie Toscan du Plantier was found beaten to death outside her holiday home.

A television producer usually based in France, Sophie was married to French filmmaker Daniel Toscan du Plantier, but was alone at the cottage at the time of her death.

Ian Bailey, a British journalist living nearby, was the first reporter on the scene, but later became the prime suspect in the case. He maintains his innocence to this day, but French courts found him guilty ‘in absentia’ when he didn’t turn up to the trial.

France has continued to extradite him from Ireland in the years since, but with Irish courts never convicting him, the case remains unsolved and complicated.

In Murder At The Cottage, Bailey and others who knew Sophie open up about the life lost, and the near 30-year fight that has come in the years since to bring the truth to light.

Chimp Crazy

In this four-part documentary series, Chimp Crazy delves into the world of Tonia Haddix, the self-proclaimed ‘Dolly Parton of Chimps’ whose love of pink is only matched by her love of primates.

She spends her days caring for animals in captivity, but has a particular bond with adult male chimp, Tonka, who she will do anything to protect.

So when the authorities threaten to take Tonka away from Tonia, she triggers a wild cat-and-mouse chase in order to keep him with her.

Read more about Chimp Crazy.

Tell Them You Love Me

A documentary The Guardian called “vital, challenging TV”, Tell Them You Love Me follows a controversial relationship with Anna Stubblefield and a 30-year-old non-verbal man with cerebral palsy.

Derrick Johnson had never spoken a word in his life, and his parents were informed when he was a child he had severely limited intellectual capability – but Anna disagreed, beginning to work with him.

Over the following two years, Derrick was taught by Anna to type on a keyboard and even attended college classes. It was later revealed they had become intimate, with Anna insisting they were in love. When the relationship was disclosed to Derrick’s family, Anna was arrested and charged with sexual assault.

The relationship, and the criminal trial that followed, would challenge our perceptions of disability and the nature of consent. Was Anna right in her assessment of Derrick? Or were there more sinister motivations at play?

Read more about Tell Them You Love Me.

Monster In The Morgue

Monster In The Morgue is a two-part documentary series taking a deep dive into the three-decade crime spree of David Fuller.

Evading suspicion and arrest for two murders in 1987, Fuller was finally brought to justice in 2007 after DNA finally connected him to ‘The Bedsit Murders’.

But this only proved to be the start of a horrific revelation, with a raid on the hospital electrician’s house revealing a cache of photographs and videos showing Fuller abusing and defiling the dead bodies in the morgue where he worked.

It was later estimated at least 101 bodies of women and girls were abused by Fuller during his crimes.

The series delves into the 30-year-long investigation that finally put Fuller behind bars, speaking to police officers involved in the case, as well as people who lived in the area at the time and knew Fuller.

Find out more about Monster In The Morgue.

The Inventor: Out For Blood in Silicon Valley

At the beginning of 2015, Elizabeth Holmes was declared a pioneer in the medical research field. Her company, Theranos, was set to change the world forever by helping diagnose millions with illnesses thanks to a simple prick of the finger.

Fast forward to just over a year later, and Holmes’ empire had collapsed to nothing. At the time of writing, Holmes is in prison for fraud. Her ‘Edison’ machines didn’t work – and they never had, with Holmes lying to win over investors as she branded herself in the public eye as the medical industry’s Steve Jobs.

In The Inventor: Out For Blood in Silicon Valley, the rise and fall of Theranos is put under a microscope, and how Holmes and her partner, Sunny Balwani, were eventually caught, with insight from those that worked at the company and brought it down.

The Paradise Lost Trilogy

Told over a period of 18 years, Paradise Lost and its two sequels tracks a murder case in real time – starting in May 1993 with the murder of three eight-year-old boys in Arkansas.

At the time, three goth teenagers were blamed for the murder in a wave of ‘Satanic Panic’ – with all three eventually going to jail, and their so-called “ringleader” Damian Echols ending up on death row.

But over time, it becomes clear that there was more to the story than meets the eye, and that the wrong people are in prison. Soon, a simple true crime documentary turns into a decades-long trilogy following the fight for justice both for the three little boys, and for the men dubbed the West Memphis Three.