In the apparently lucrative industry of true crime documentary films, HBO Max skews more “journalistic integrity” than “exploitative sensationalism.”
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Max → skew → sensationalism
That’s why the genre’s HBO titles are more along the lines of “Sobering and Deeply Troubling Revelations of Our Morally Fraught Society” than “An American Homicidal Trainwreck of Mental Illness,” which you’ll find over at Netflix.
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you → ’ → Netflix
Does that mean HBO true crime tends to be more, y’know, boring than at other streamers?
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crime → mean → streamers
It just means that the network tends to be more responsible with its reportage, and less trashy.
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network → mean → reportage
But that doesn’t mean HBO eschews borderline-hyperbole – after all, this is the streamer that offered us Thought Crimes: The Case of the Cannibal Cop and Ken and Barbie Killers.
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that → mean → Cop
It just means there might be (emphasis on the word might) a bit more substance beneath the tabloid tone.
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It → mean → tone
That’s why this roundup of HBO Max’s 10 must-see true crime docs ranges from topically tawdry to Oscar-winning.
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roundup → ’ → docs
And either way, these movies (listed in no particular order) are all fascinating in their own way.
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movies → list → way
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Alabama Solution is only loosely in the vein of what we typically consider to be “true crime,” but this 2025 Oscar-nominated doc absolutely deserves more eyeballs — and what’s happening behind prison walls in Alabama is absolutely criminal.
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happening → consider → Alabama
Filmmaker Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman use contraband cell phone footage taken from inside prisons to document routine civil rights violations, a method that generates significant tension.
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that → use → tension
They also follow the money: State officials would rather dole out settlements to plaintiffs than stop abusing prisoners, because the labor prisoners are forced to do is ultimately more valuable.
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prisoners → follow → prisoners
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In 2014, two 12-year-old girls believed they were doing the bidding of the internet meme character Slender Man when they stabbed a girl to death at a slumber party.
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they → believe → party
This is a somewhat problematic doc considering the ages of the people involved, but it explores the upsetting conglomeration of urban legends, internet culture, bullying and mental illness in youth culture.
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it → consider → culture
Yes, it’s disturbing.
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it → ’ → ?
Read more about Beware the Slenderman Stream beware the slenderman
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Here’s where the true crime genre eats its own tail.
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genre → read → tail
Mostly Harmless digs into the case of a body found in a campsite on the Appalachian Trail, and how, after attempts to identify the John Doe hit a dead end, police get help from amateur keyboard-warrior true crime “detectives.”
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police → dig → detectives
The story gets weirder and more soap operatic as those internet sleuths get competitive with their evidence and theories (no, the guy wasn’t a space alien).
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guy → get → evidence
What we end up with is a fascinating microcosmic view of the human condition in both the story of the John Doe and the people who quested to learn who he really was.
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he → end → Doe
Read more about They Called Him Mostly Harmless stream They Called Him Mostly Harmless
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Director Daniel Roher won an Oscar for this documentary profile of Alexei Navalny, the Russian politician who opposed President Vladimir Putin, and was nearly fatally poisoned for his trouble — the first time, anyway.
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who → read → trouble
The film profiles Navalny in 2021, after his recovery, and in documenting his next steps, it’s as gripping as any thriller Hitchcock could’ve cooked up.
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Hitchcock → profile → thriller
This is where true crime and “activist” documentaries come together, with highly dramatic results.
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This → come → results
After the documentary was released, Navalny was once again imprisoned, in Siberia.
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Navalny → release → Siberia
He died there.
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He → die → ?
It took independent investigations to determine he was poisoned.
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he → take → investigations
Read more about Navalny Stream nAVALNY
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This could be a loose sequel to Navalny: Residents of quaint English town Salsbury didn’t realize that the unassuming immigrant in their midst, Sergei Skribal, used to be a Russian military officer who flipped allegiances and spied on Vladimir Putin for MI6.
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who → read → MI6
He was friendly and mostly kept to himself, all that.
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He → keep → himself
Until Sergei and his daughter Yulia were poisoned with a deadly nerve agent that’s become the signature nasty move of the Putin regime, prompting an international kerfuffle that people in quaint English towns never experience.
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people → poison → towns
The incident also prompted a series of implications that went beyond troubling and became fatal.
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that → prompt → troubling
Not to make light of the subject matter, mind you – this digs into the What Happened of the infamous “2009 Taconic State Parkway crash,” in which Diane Schuler drove the wrong way on the highway, causing a head-on collision that killed her, her daughter and three nieces, and the three occupants of the other vehicle.
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that → make → vehicle
Schuler’s husband fought and fought against the toxicology report that sullied his late wife’s reputation as an upstanding citizen and devoted mother, causing a years-long high-profile soap-operatic legal rigamarole that even involved the filmmakers.
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that → fight → filmmakers
That title — also incredibly true-crimey — derives from the nutso film about Christina Crawford’s allegedly abusive upbringing by her very very famous mother, Joan Crawford.
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title → derive → mother
The real life story of this doc is more disturbing, though: In 2015, Gypsy-Rose Blanchard and boyfriend Nicholas Godejohn murdered her mother, Dee Dee Blanchard.
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Blanchard → murder → mother
They pleaded guilty.
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They → plead → ?
They went to prison.
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They → go → prison
And Gypsy-Rose justified her misdeeds: Dee Dee allegedly perpetuated medical child abuse, a.k.a. Munchausen syndrome by proxy, on her daughter for years.
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Dee → justify → years
Gypsy is interviewed in this doc, which examines the troublesome mental health issues that underscore this disturbing story.
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that → interview → story
Read more about Mommy Dead and Dearest Stream Mommy Dead and Dearest
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No list of true crime docs can exist without a requisite dose of nasty corporate malfeasance – especially if it’s directed by Alex Gibney (see also: Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room).
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it → read → Room
The Inventor may be the definitive one from the last decade or so, profiling the misdeeds of Elizabeth Holmes, she of the fake-ass deep voice, who, as the head of healthcare company Theranos, took zillions of dollars for research on would-be groundbreaking blood testing techniques.
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who → profile → techniques
It was all a scam, and as Holmes faced the music, a cottage industry of documentaries and miniseries and books and podcasts and, and, and… all told her salacious story.
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all → face → story
Yet another doc, You Can See Everything, drops this fall
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You → see → Everything
…and 10 more, not listed.
The Aporia
