It was a late Friday night, around 9:15 pm. It had been a long week for Mr. and Mrs. Doe, and the only thing they wanted to do was relax and enjoy a night of entertainment. The rain and thunder set the tone for what was about to happen in the Doe residence. As they grabbed their popcorn and blankets and made sure their security system and sensors were up and running, they sat in front of their TV, turned to Netflix, and found their next true crime documentary. Their night of relaxation soon turned into a tense, mystery-filled evening.
Usually, people tend to run away when they hear the word murder. But for true crime enthusiasts, there’s nothing like the adrenaline rush that comes when watching a crime documentary or listening to a true crime podcast. Whether it’s the mystery of “whodunit” or an outlet to forget their problems, people who watch crime documentaries seemingly can’t get enough. With streaming services like Netflix coming out with a new crime documentary virtually every other day, Smart Home Solutions wanted to know which crime documentary is being searched for the most. From The Tinder Swindler to Making a Murderer, here are the crime documentaries that Americans searched for repeatedly.
No Cold Case Here—The Tinder Swindler and Athlete A Sit Atop the Crime Documentary Mountain
You won’t need to spray luminol to see that the Athlete A documentary and The Tinder Swindler on Netflix were the two most popular (or most searched for) crime documentaries in the past year. Athlete A was released during the pandemic in 2020. Not all crime documentaries are about murder, as this one follows the story of USA gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar’s sexual abuse of up-and-coming gymnast stars like Maggie Nichols since 2012. The Tinder Swindler, another non-murder mystery, looked into the life of the Israeli conman Simon Leviev and how he was able to, well, swindle innocent women into giving him money. Both of these crime documentaries garnered the most searches across 22 states. Check out some other popular documentaries that states across America were searching.
Gunshot Residue (Interesting Findings)
- While not at the top of our list, The Keepers was still searched in 10 states, coming in second place. One of the highest-rated documentaries on IMDb (8.1, tied with Wild Wild Country), The Keepers explored the cold case of Catherine Cesnik, a nun murdered in 1969. Although the docuseries was released in 2017, it was still searched in states like Arizona and Maryland, which is where the mystery originally took place.
- Colorado and Washington, DC like to search outside the box, as they were the only states that searched Amanda Knox and The Staircase the most, respectively. Amanda Knox was an American exchange student in Italy who was wrongfully convicted of murdering her roommate and spent time in an Italian prison before (SPOILER ALERT) being acquitted four years later. The Staircase followed the trial of Michael Peterson, who was convicted of murdering his wife.
- Making a Murderer hit Netflix like a train in 2015 and became one of the most-watched crime documentaries in recent history, winning four Primetime Emmy Awards in 2016. Season two came out three years later with not as much fanfare. Still, three states searched the crime documentary to follow the story of Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey and how their lives were affected after they were wrongfully accused of murder.
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Methodology
Smart Home Solutions researched the top Netflix crime documentaries using Cosmopolitan, Tudum, and Netflix Browse by Genre. They kept the top 10 with the highest search volume and used Google Trends to analyze the popularity in each state.
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