Looking for something to make your pulse race and your hair stand on end? The best true-crime documentaries and docu-series crawl with dark secrets and shocking twists, whether their subject is a missing child, a dead roommate, or a criminal cover-up.

Here, 11 sinister, real-life stories sure to catch you in their grip and make your heart pound at every turn.

This eerie 1988 film examines the shooting death of Dallas police officer Robert W. Wood and the wrongful conviction of Randall Dale Adams for his murder. In its creeping, slow build, The Thin Blue Line exposes the dark contortions of the justice system and the ways it can reroute the course of a life. Set to a cascading musical score by Phillip Glass, the film was released to critical acclaim for its lurid noir style.

Jarecki’s 2003 film about the disturbing secret of an American family in Great Neck, New York, debuted at the Sundance Film Festival, where it earned the Grand Jury Prize for Documentary. Home videos capturing scenes of family life in the Friedman household take on an unsettling quality when the predatory behavior of the father and eldest son comes to light.

Oscar-winning director Jean-Xavier de Lestrade tells a twisting tale in his 2004 docu-series about the prosecution of novelist Michael Peterson for the murder of his wife Kathleen. With footage filmed inside the courtroom and the Durham, North Carolina, home where Peterson claimed Kathleen took a fatal tumble down the stairs, The Staircase offers unprecedented insight into the real-time fall-out of Peterson’s indictment. Tense and engrossing, the series stuns at every turn.

This 2015 docu-series explores the series of murders linked to real-estate scion Robert Durst, who agreed to be interviewed for the project. Durst, the heir to a New York real estate fortune, was investigated for the unsolved disappearance of his wife Kathie in 1982, the murder of his friend Susan Berman in 2000, and the murder and dismemberment of his neighbor Morris Black in 2001. Discoveries made during production—and a shocking confession caught on a live mic—make this HBO series a chilling and consequential work.

In 1985 in Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, Steven Avery was arrested for the sexual assault and murder of Penny Beernsten. Eighteen years later, he was released from prison and exonerated with the help of DNA evidence linking the crime to another man. Then, in 2005, Avery was arrested again for the murder of Teresa Halbach, a woman who had last been seen near Avery’s auto salvage yard. This gripping Netflix docuseries chronicles the suspicious workings of the Halbach murder case and eyes the suspected killer.

This 2016 Netflix documentary focuses on the prominent murder trial of an American abroad: 20-year-old University of Seattle student Amanda Knox, who in 2009 was convicted in Italy for allegedly killing her roommate, Meredith Kercher. Knox’s frightened, youthful face was splashed across international tabloids as authorities and reporters continued to unspool the details of Kercher’s death. Featuring interviews with law enforcement, journalists, and Knox herself, the film zooms in on this overseas nightmare.

Director Ezra Edelman’s five-part Oscar-winning docu-series contemplates the man at the heart of the so-called “Trial of the Century.” Before he was tried for the murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown and her boyfriend Ron Goldman, O.J. Simpson was a celebrated American athlete and media personality. Made in America situates Simpson’s story within the larger narrative of race relations in the US, focusing on a series of violent crimes targeting Black people in the Los Angeles area during the time of Simpson’s rise and considering how the vagaries of criminal justice and celebrity factored into his intensely scrutinized trial.

A group of journalists, athletes, and families made headlines in 2018 when they united to expose the sexual abuse and harmful practices at the heart of USA gymnastics, perpetrated by the women’s team doctor Larry Nassar. Athlete A uncovers the system that abused and silenced some of the world’s leading athletes—and their redemptive fight for justice.

When Dan Schneider’s son, Danny, was murdered while purchasing crack cocaine in New Orleans in 1999, Dan set out to find answers about his son’s killer. His search brought him to a “pill mill” proliferating illegal opioids, whose source he sought to expose through his own one-man investigation. This Netflix series tells the fascinating story of a small-town pharmacist confronting the sweeping tragedies of the opioid crisis.

Girl in the Picture details the troubled life of Sharon Marshall, the crimes of the man who claimed to be her father, and the mystery surrounding her true identity. This hair-raising documentary pieces together the horrors beneath a sunny surface, with details from an FBI investigation and the perspectives of people who knew Marshall—or thought they did.

The Murdaugh family enjoyed power and prominence in the Lowcountry region of South Carolina for multiple generations. However, a series of unsolved deaths—a roadside hit and run, a fall down the stairs, a boating accident—cast a cloud of suspicion around the current generation of Murdaughs and their 1,700-acre estate, Moselle. A moment of reckoning came in 2023, when Alex Murdaugh was found guilty of killing his son Paul and wife, Maggie—a story that made headlines and fits into the web of tragedies explored in this 2023 docu-series.