Making a Murderer

2015

Original language: English

documentary
crime

The story

Filmed over 10 years, this real-life thriller follows a DNA exoneree who, while exposing police corruption, becomes a suspect in a grisly new crime.

What it’s like

Cold, overcast Wisconsin in the flat grey of northern winter, with long static shots of courtrooms, snow-dusted lots, and kitchen tables lit by overhead fluorescents. The documentary's palette is muted and institutional: beige interview rooms, municipal blues, the rust and scrapyard clutter of a family property, all shot in a steady, observational style that lets silences run long and lets people's faces do the talking. The score is sparse, a few low, unsettling piano and string phrases used sparingly, so most of the tension comes from ambient hum, phone-call static, and the creak of a courtroom bench. Vibe: bleak, slow-burning unease with a grinding sense of injustice. It suits a grey weekend afternoon or a late evening when you want to be absorbed and pulled into a case, though it is best watched in long stretches because its pacing is deliberately deliberate, with episodes that build dense procedural detail over many hours. Its people are caught in a long, grinding struggle, a family and a wrongly convicted man slowly confronting a system that resists them, and the emotional register is angry and exhausted rather than cathartic. Intensity is high in a restrained way: the crime at the centre is shown through photographs, testimony and reconstruction rather than on-screen gore, but the subject matter includes a murder, sexual assault allegations, and frank discussion of violent death and cruelty, with some disturbing police footage. For viewers who want real-world procedural tension, legal wrangling, and a close-up look at how institutions fail the people caught in them.

More TV shows like Making a Murderer

Closest in mood, pacing and theme. Tell us why you loved Making a Murdererand we’ll explain which ones fit you.