Baby Reindeer has taken Netflix viewers by storm with many comparing it to Stephen King’s Misery.
Richard Gadd, 34, stars as hopeful comedian Donny in the seven-part biopic he wrote based on his real-life trauma of a stalker, who one day arrived at the pub where he worked as a barman without any money so he gave her a free cup of tea.
Quickly he paid for that cup of tea, constantly hounded in disturbing messages before Martha (Jessica Gunning) infiltrated every corner of his life, shouting abuse at his gigs, crashing his dates and even making her way into his home.
It’s been hailed a masterpiece for the compassionate way it handles the themes within, earning a perfect Rotten Tomatoes score.
Following the rollercoaster of emotions in Baby Reindeer, many of us will be looking for our next binge-watch – and Netflix has plenty of drama series based on shocking real stories that seem almost too wild to be real.
The Watcher
American Horror Story’s Ryan Murphy brought The Watcher to our screens in 2022 and it shocked and disturbed audiences when they realised the events actually happened.
The thriller centres on married couple Dean (Bobby Cannavale) and Nora Brannock (Naomi Watts) who, after moving into their dream home, receive threatening letters from a terrifying stalker known as The Watcher.
The true incidents, linked to the ‘Watcher’ house in New Jersey, follow scar letters sent to a couple after they bought a house for $1.4million (£1.2million) in 2014.
The anonymous and mysterious letters forced them to put the house on the market again in 2017, with the stalker’s identity still a mystery.
Unbelievable
Toni Collette and Merritt Wever star in the heart-breaking Unbelievable, which came to Netflix in 2019.
It follows the harrowing story of Marie Adler (played by Kaitlyn Dever), an 18-year-old from Washington who claimed in 2008 to have been tied up and raped in her bedroom when in a foster home.
But when her foster parents, ex-boyfriend and the male police officers all express distrust in Marie’s story, the teen begins to doubt herself, later denying that the assault ever happened after convincing herself it was a dream.
The officers pressure Marie into withdrawing her claim, but nearly two years later, two female police detectives (Collette and Wever) begin investigating another series of seemingly unrelated attacks.
When They See Us
Acclaimed Netflix series When They See Us tells the heartbreaking and infuriating tale of The Central Park Five.
They were five teenage boys who were convicted of the rape and attack of Trisha Meili, which took place in Central Park in 1989.
She had no memory of the assault when she recovered, but investigations led to a group of Black and Latino boys being taken into police custody despite them not having matching times and locations to the crime.
Despite initially being found guilty, their convictions were vacated in 2002, twelve years after they had been sent to prison.
Inventing Anna
Inventing Anna is the wild story of Anna Delvey, with Julia Garner in the lead role.
The tale is based on the article written by journalist Jessica Pressler titled ‘Maybe She Had So Much Money She Just Lost Track of It’, which was published in New York Magazine in 2018.
It unravels Delvey’s deceit as it is uncovered her real name is Anna Sorokin, as she conned her way into the New York elite without ever spending a penny – and almost secured a multi-million dollar loan for her private members’ club and art foundation.
By the time she was caught, it was estimated her frauds were worth around $275,000 (£242,000).
The People Vs OJ Simpson: American Crime Story
The death of OJ Simpson has brought this true crime series about his infamous murder trial to public attention.
In 1994, OJ’s wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman were stabbed to death but after a very publicised trial, OJ was found unanimously not guilty. In 1997, a civil case found him unanimously liable for the wrongful deaths.
Griselda
Starring Sofia Vergara in the titular role, Griselda took Netflix by storm when it dropped earlier this year.
The Modern Family star plays real-life notorious Colombian drug lord Griselda Blanco, the ‘Cocaine Godmother’ whose reign of terror spanned the 1970, even terrifying Pablo Escobar.
Running away from her home in Colombia at 19, she eventually made her way to Miami in the late 1970s where she saw her vast cocaine empire flourish against the backdrop of the city’s deadly drug war.
She is thought to be behind more than 200 murders up until her eventual incarceration in 2004 and her own sudden murder in 2012.
The Spy
Sacha Baron Cohen is far from his roles in Borat and Bruno in this Netflix series.
He stars as former Mossad agent Eli Cohen, who was enlisted to spy on the Syrian government and gather information in the 1960s, living undercover in Damascus and eventually becoming Chief Adviser to the Minister of Defence there.
However, he was later sentenced to death in 1965 after Syrian counter-intelligence authorities discovered his true identity.
Despite international pleas for leniency, he was publicly hanged in Marjeh Square in May 1965.
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