The Best True Crime Documentary -- Day 2
More true crime documentaries to judge!
Yesterday we started our 2019 legal March Madness feature, wherein we try to determine the very best true crime documentary. Because who doesn’t love binging Netflix (or Hulu or Amazon Prime) for their dose of “oh my god, I can’t believe this is real”?
Today, we reveal the second half of the bracket and you can start voting to determine which is your favorite.
(1) Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father v. (16) Capturing the Friedmans
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Just when you think Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father has completely gutted you and left you a sobbing mess, it ups the ante in a completely devastating way. The documentary was conceived by Kurt Kuenne when his friend Andrew Bagby was murdered. The woman suspected of his murder was pregnant with Bagby’s child and thus became inspiration for this 2008 documentary.
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The 2003 documentary Capturing the Friedmans is a shocking look at the investigation of Arnold and Jesse Friedman for child molestation. The movie is bigger than the charges against the father and son, and looks at the striking family dynamics at play.
(1) Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father v. (16) Capturing the Friedmans
- Dear Zachary (74%, 322 Votes)
- Capturing the Friedmans (26%, 112 Votes)
Total Voters: 434
Loading ...(2) Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills v. (15) Breaking Vegas: The True Story of the MIT Blackjack Team
Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Informational Programming and spurred by two sequels, which continued following the same story of the West Memphis Three, Paradise Lost 2: Revelations, and Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory. The documentary looks at the case against Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley, Jr., and Jason Baldwin who were convicted of the murder and sexual mutilation of three boys: Christopher Byers, Michael Moore, and Stevie Branch.
Who doesn’t like the story of clever, plucky people that take on a big institution for personal gain? The real story behind the famous card counting scheme has been so popular it’s inspires multiple books, movies, and documentaries.
(2) Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills v. (15) Breaking Vegas: The True Story of the MIT Blackjack Team
- Paradise Lost (87%, 338 Votes)
- Breaking Vegas (13%, 51 Votes)
Total Voters: 389
Loading ...(3) Evil Genius: The True Story of America’s Most Diabolical Bank Heist v. (14) Dirty Money: Drug Short
Pretty much from the opening minutes of Evil Genius: The True Story of America’s Most Diabolical Bank Heist, I was screaming at the TV screen. The movie tries to parse out who, exactly was responsible for a bank robbery and the death of Brian Wells, who died by a collar bomb during the robbery, and it will leave you infuriated.
Dirty Money: Drug Short lures you in thinking they’ll be talking about convicted pharma bro Martin Shkreli, but instead pulls off one of the most effective bait and switches as it details the rise and fall of Valeant Pharmaceuticals. The entry of this documentary may strike some as misplaced, because despite investigations by the SEC, the U.S. Attorney’s Offices in Massachusetts and New York, the state of Texas, the North Carolina Department of Justice, the Senate’s Special Committee on Agin,g and the House’s Committee on Oversight and Reform there’s never been a formal allegation of legal wrongdoing by the company. But Dirty Money expertly tells the tale of activity that should maybe be illegal expertly, and is so on our list.
(3) Evil Genius: the True Story of America's Most Diabolical Bank Heist v (14) Dirty Money: Drug Short
- Evil Genius (85%, 347 Votes)
- Drug Short (15%, 59 Votes)
Total Voters: 406
Loading ...(4) Cropsey v. (13) Goodnight Sugar Babe: The Killing of Vera Jo Reigle
Cropsey is the documentary on our list that scares me the most. The subject, Andre Reed, was convicted of the kidnapping (the jury deadlocked on a murder charge) of Jennifer Schweiger — a crime that rocked my hometown and led to countless “stranger danger” lessons. The movie also details other unsolved missing children cases and the way urban legends fed the fear which led to the outcry over the Schweiger case.
The people who murdered Vera Jo Reigle may be convicted, but as laid out in Goodnight Sugar Babe, the reasons why Reigle was killed may be much more convoluted and twisted than authorities believe. This documentary’s interviews with Cheri Brooks (aka “Sugar Babe”) the crime family matriarch that may have organized the crime for shocking reasons are chilling.
(4) Cropsey v. (13) Goodnight Sugar Babe: The Killing of Vera Jo Reigle
- Cropsey (61%, 189 Votes)
- Sugar Babe (39%, 122 Votes)
Total Voters: 311
Loading ...(5) Enron: Smartest Guys In The Room v. (12) Abducted In Plain Sight
The documentary about one of the biggest financial scandals in the history of the country, Enron: Smartest Guys In The Room, certainly deserves a spot in our bracket. You’ll find yourself disgusted by the smug hubris of Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling and the financial machinations that led to the collapse of Enron.
Just in case you haven’t seen Abducted in Plain Sight, I won’t spoil the twists and turns which are guaranteed to leave your jaw on the floor. The 2017 documentary is about the kidnapping of Jan Broberg Felt, but I promise you won’t see all the craziness coming. It’s wild.
(5) Enron: Smartest Guys In The Room v. (12) Abducted In Plain Sight
- Abducted In Plain Sight (78%, 324 Votes)
- Enron (22%, 94 Votes)
Total Voters: 418
Loading ...(6) Leaving Neverland v. (11) Beware the Slenderman
What more is there to say about Leaving Neverland, the 2019 documentary that details the allegations of Wade Robson and James Safechuck, who both accuse Michael Jackson of sexual abuse? The movie describes Jackson’s alleged abuse in horrifying detail, and it’s pretty clear you’ll never listen to the King of Pop’s music in the same way again.
What happens when an online urban legend makes its way into the real world and motivates an attack on a child? That’s the disturbing true crime story behind Beware the Slenderman. Two 12-year-olds, Anissa E. Weier and Morgan E. Geyser, stabbed their friend Payton Leutner 19 times during a game of hide and seek in the woods. The girls said they committed the shocking crime to appease the Slenderman, an online horror story creation.
(6) Leaving Neverland v. (11) Beware the Slenderman
- Leaving Neverland (61%, 229 Votes)
- Slenderman (39%, 146 Votes)
Total Voters: 375
Loading ...(7) OJ: Made In America v. (10) Mommy Dead and Dearest
O.J.: Made in America has a prestigious pedigree, as it won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 89th Academy Awards. It was produced as part of ESPN’s 30 for 30 series, and traces the trajectory of O.J.’s life, from his days playing as a football star at the University of California to his eventual 2007 conviction on robbery charges. Oh, and his acquittal for the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman also get some attention.
On the other side is the twisted tale of Dee Dee Blanchard and her daughter, Gypsy Rose Blanchard. Gypsy Rose and her boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn, were arrested for the murder of Dee Dee, but it’s the reasons behind the crime will really leave you stunned.
(7) OJ: Made In America v (10) Mommy Dead and Dearest
- Mommy Dead (64%, 255 Votes)
- O.J. (36%, 144 Votes)
Total Voters: 399
Loading ...(8) The Seven Five v. (9) The Central Park Five
The last matchup features two films aboout terrible miscarriages of justice in the 1980s in New York City. The first is the 2014 documentary The Seven Five, which tells the tale of corruption in the NYPD’s 75th precinct in the 1980s. The film largely focuses on the misdeeds of Michael Dowd, and uses footage obtained from the Mollen Commission, a task force put together in 1992 to investigate the NYPD.
The last film in this year’s bracket is by famed documentarian Ken Burns, who along with David McMahon and Sarah Burns, tells the tale of the wrongful conviction and eventual exoneration of Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana and Korey Wise known as The Central Park Five. The men were convicted of the assault and rape of a woman jogger in one of the most publicized attacks of the 1980s.
(8) The Seven Five v (9) The Central Park Five
- Central Park Five (74%, 238 Votes)
- Seven Five (26%, 82 Votes)
Total Voters: 320
Loading ...Polls are open until Tuesday, happy voting!
