'I'm obsessed with true crime. Here are the 10 best true crime series of 2022.'

The following contains spoilers for a number of true crime shows. Read on at your own risk... of spoilers.

What is it about true crime that grips us so? Why can't we look away? My guess would be that crime - be it murder or fraud or robbery or anything else - is something most of us will never commit... and that makes us want to understand how and why people do it.

This year has been a standout year for true crime. From Tinder Swindler, to The Girl in the Picture, to The Puppet Master, to Captive Audience, to Worst Roommate Ever, to House of Secrets: The Burari Deaths, the worst of human nature was laid out in all its terrible glory. 

While these true crime documentaries were compelling watches, so too were true crime dramatisations. Inventing Anna, The Dropout, The Staircase - these starred top tier talent in roles that made us shiver and cringe. Some more so than others.

As such, I've decided that it is my duty to rank the best true crime dramas of 2022. I'm excluding all true crime documentaries in this case, so if you don't see your favourite true crime story on this list, it's probably because it is a documentary, not a drama. So don't get all stroppy about it, OK?

10. Inventing Anna, Netflix.

Image: Netflix.

Based on the real-life story of fake German heiress Anna Delvey who conned many of New York's upper crust into giving her money, this Shonda Rhimes miniseries has a lot of shine and shimmer - and nothing much else.

While Julia Garner does a fine job as Anna, everything else about this drama grates. Particularly annoying is journalist Vivian Kent (Anna Chlumsky), one of the few names changed in the show from the real life journo, Jessica Pressler. At one junction in the show, Kent puts off giving birth so that she can finish writing the story about Delvey - a story that had no startling consequences. I mean, it wasn't as though she was breaking news about an injustice that needed telling right then and there. Surely she could have waited a few hours to, you know, bring a child into the world?

Also, the amount of time given to sympathising with Delvey - who defrauded millions from people and organisations - is ridiculous. Sure, she took money from rich people, but that's not to say rich people are not people who worked hard to get rich. Also, taking money from banks and investment firms actually impacts the little people who work there. There is a domino effect. Delvey is a thief, for goodness sake, not a saint.

Can you tell I didn't like this series? What gave it away?

9. The Watcher, Netflix.

Image: Netflix.

This Ryan Murphy series is a weird one. It's based on a true story published in 2018 in New York Magazine, titled 'The Haunting of a Dream House' by writer Reeves Wiedeman. Starring Naomi Watts and Bobby Cannavale as Nora and Dean Braddock, the show follows the Braddock family's purchase of a very nice house in a very nice neighbourhood - which turns out to be a not so nice neighbourhood?

The Braddocks are then sent a series of mildly threatening to definitely threatening letters by a stalker, leading to psychological trauma and them putting the house back on the market mere months after purchasing it. In real life, the case has not been solved. Police are still baffled by who sent the letters.

The show veers wildly from the real-life story, which, in my humble opinion, is to its detriment. The only bright light is an appearance by the effervescent Jennifer Coolidge. Originally commissioned as mini-series, it will now get a second season. What else could happen to the poor Braddocks? I guess we'll have to keep watching.

8. Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, Netflix.

Image: Netflix.

After my colleague, fellow true crime afficionado, True Crime Conversations podcast host, and news editor Gemma Bath wrote an opinion saying that this Dahmer series was too much for her, I began to wonder if I was deranged (but obviously not as deranged as Dahmer). Because I not only watched it with ease, I also thought it was pretty average.

While Evan Peters did an incredible job as serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, who murdered and dismembered up to 17 boys and men from 1978 to 1991 before he was sensationally captured by police, I felt that the series was entirely too long, entirely too slick, and entirely too focused on humanising Dahmer. It also spent very little time on the victims. Creator Ryan Murphy - yep, the same guy who created The Watcher - denies this. 

I've said this before and I'll say it again - there is a shininess to Murphy's productions that I find hard to get into, even though he delves into subject matter that interests me greatly. I don't like his American Horror Story franchise or Glee series either.

I am obviously in the minority because Dahmer was so successful that they are going to do two more anthologies in this Monster series. I'm guessing serial killer John Wayne Gacy, who Murphy "introduced" in Dahmer, will be the next focus.

Watch the trailer for Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story. Post continues below.

7. Black Bird, Apple TV.

Image: Apple TV.

I wasn't too sure about this series when I first started watching, but it grew on me. Mainly because the performances were just terrific.

The story revolves around drug dealer Jimmy Keene (Taron Edgerton) who is offered a deal by police: befriend serial killer Larry Hall (Paul Walter Hauser) and extract information from him, in exchange for a commuted sentence. It is based on the 2010 autobiographical novel In with the Devil: a Fallen Hero, a Serial Killer, and a Dangerous Bargain for Redemption written by Keene, with Hillel Levin.

The series has a number of tense moments that will cause you to grip your armrest hard from the safety of your home while you watch these two people pace around each other like a cat and mouse. But just who is the cat and who is the mouse?

6. Candy, Disney+.

Image: Disney+.

Released in Australia in August, Candy stars Jessica Biel as Candy Montgomery, a normal church-going mother and wife living an ordinary life... who murders her best friend and next-door neighbour, Betty Gore (Melanie Lynskey), with an axe.

"I hit her, and I hit her, and I hit her, and I hit her," Candy testified in court.

She struck Betty 41 times in total.

The murder occurred after Candy and Allan, Betty's husband, struck up an affair. After a number of sexual encounters, Allan told Candy he couldn't continue with the affair any longer. When Betty confronted Candy about the affair, she admitted to it but said it was long since over.

Like her turn in 2017's The Sinner, Biel shows her acting chops in this terrible tale of jealousy and lust. And Lynskey, as always, is just fantastic to watch as the distressed Betty.

A psychiatrist would later testify that Candy suffered a "dissociative reaction" and it was in this state that she killed Betty. Extraordinarily, she served no jail time, is still with her husband, and now works in mental health.

This once again proves that truth - and true crime - is stranger than fiction.

5. A Friend of the Family, Peacock TV.

Image: Peacock TV. 

Based on the extraordinary true story of the Broberg family, this miniseries follows the events of a popular 2017 true crime documentary on Netflix titled Abducted in Plain Sight.

The sheer craziness of this story is what makes it so compelling. In 1974, child abductor and rapist Robert "B" Berchtold kidnaps and abuses 12-year-old Jan Broberg after he forms a close friendship and sexual relationships with both Jan's mother and father. After returning Jan to her family, Berchtold kidnaps her again when she is 14.

Produced by both Jan and her mum, Mary Ann, and starring The White Lotus's Jake Lacy as Berchtold and Anna Paquin and Colin Hanks as Jan's parents, this nine-part series is stunningly told. If you've watched Abducted, you'll love this. And, once again, you'll wonder: How on earth did this happen?

Listen to Mamamia's True Crime Conversations podcast. Post continues below.

4. Under the Banner of Heaven, Disney+.

Image: Disney+.

This is the best kind of true crime drama: people you care about, murderers you want to bring to justice, and a slow unwinding of the truth.

Based on the 2003 book Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith by Jon Krakauer, the show follows Detective Jeb Pyre (a superb Andrew Garfield) as he investigates the murders of Brenda Lafferty (Daisy Edgar-Jones) and her 15-month-old baby, Erica. The series delves into the inner workings of the Church of the Latter-day Saints and fundamentalist Mormonism, as it slowly becomes clear that Brenda's husband's family is somehow involved in her and Erica's death.

Since this only recently dropped on Disney+, I won't give away much here. All I'll say is that you should watch it. It hurts in all the right ways that true crime dramas should.

3. The Dropout, Disney+.

Image: Disney+.

Amanda Seyfried was so good at playing fraudster Elizabeth Holmes that fellow actor Jennifer Lawrence, who was supposed to play Holmes in a separate production, backed out of the film.

"I thought [Seyfried] was terrific. I was like, 'Yeah, we don't need to redo that.' She did it," Lawrence told The New York Times.

Based on the life of Holmes, who was recently convicted of fraud and sent to 11 years in prison - while pregnant with her second child - the story follows her as a wide-eyed university student with a brilliant (but ultimately impossible) idea and how she parlayed that into a billion dollar company, Theranos. Seyfried is perfection in the role, and there is an incredible scene where she lowers the octave of her voice to gain the signature Elizabeth Holmes pitch as she stares at herself in the mirror. Sometimes you even root for her, which I think says a lot about Seyfried's acting rather than Holmes's real persona.

It's nice to see Seyfried get the attention she deserves from this role, given the fluff she has been in over the years. Naveen Andrews is also stellar as Sunny Balwani, who Holmes was romantically involved with and who she claims was abusive.

2. The Girl from Plainville, Stan.

Image: Stan.

I've just realised, as I write this story, how many brilliant roles went to women playing real-life characters. In The Girl from Plainville, Elle Fanning is 17-year-old Michelle Carter, a student who is accused of encouraging her boyfriend, Conrad Roy III, to die by suicide via text.

The series switches nicely between past and present, showing how the two met, their interchanges, their social circle, their families, and everything that led to the shocking death of Conrad, who died in 2014 after filling his truck with carbon monoxide. It's an indictment on the modern day world.

Michelle was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to two and a half years in jail. In January 2020, after serving 11 months, she was released.

What I liked about this show is its patience in telling a complicated story. It lingers on Conrad, the victim, which is good and right and just. It lingers on Michelle, the accused, which allows us to understand her. It takes its time, but not so much that it loses its narrative flow. 

1. The Staircase, Binge.

Image: Binge.

The Staircase tells the story of novelist Michael Peterson (Colin Firth) who is accused of killing his wife Kathleen (the always wonderful Toni Collette) in December 2001. It's based on the 2004 French-produced documentary The Staircase - sometimes known as Death on a Staircase - which was a multi-year project spanning all the way to 2018.

Due to the immense popularity of the documentary, which immersed itself in the lives of the Peterson family including Michael's legal case, the dramatised version was bound to be a hit. Of course, talent like Firth and Collette helped a lot too.

But the story itself is compelling: Was Michael's sexual relationships with men the catalyst for him killing Kathleen? What about his friend who died and was also found at the bottom of a staircase? Could an owl really have killed Kathleen?

This is the show that keeps me up sometimes. I lie awake at night thinking about it - about THAT scene. You know the one, right? The one with Toni Collette on the staircase? 

Yeah. It is horrific. To be honest, that scene almost made me stop watching. Almost. But I kept at it, and I'm glad I did. This is my top pick for true crime dramatisations - it is an intimate look at the Peterson family and every single actor is fantastic in their given roles. 

Just like in the documentary, at the end, I still didn't know what to think. Did he? Didn't he?

Only two people know the real answer. And one of them is dead.

Feature Image: Netflix/Disney+.

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