25 Best Serial Killer Movies Based on or Inspired by True Stories


Few feelings quite compare to the spine-chilling, heart-dropping rush of watching a great thriller movie. Whether a horror fanatic or not, waiting in anticipation before a serial killer pops out from behind the door has the power to scare the living daylights out of just about anyone.







An even scarier thought that movies can convey is the consideration that some of these incidents and occurrences, however vile or morally corrupt they may be, have happened in real life. As ignorantly blissful as it would be to call it all make-believe, the most monstrous movie villains ever to hit the silver screens are modeled after real-life people and events. Here's a list of some of the best serial killer movies based on true stories.




Updated on October 29th, 2024 by Soniya Hinduja: This article has been updated with additional content to keep the discussion fresh and relevant with even more information and new entries.




25 Woman of the Hour (2024)




Woman of the Hour is a gripping horror/thriller directed by Anna Kendrick in her directorial debut. It delves into the disturbing true story of Rodney Alcala, the infamous “Dating Game Killer.” Kendrick plays Cheryl Bradshaw, an aspiring actress who participates in a 1970s TV dating show and matches with Alcala, one of the contestants on the show. Turns out, her charming date is a serial killer later revealed to have murdered at least eight women.






A Tense Stranger-Than-Fiction Thriller


In addition to already having won the Directors to Watch award at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, Kendrick is receiving incredible praise from both critics and the true-crime-loving girlies for capturing the tense and horrific real-life story of Rodney Alcala. She turns the movie into an immersive experience with the use of time jumps, and while there are some creative liberties taken, Woman of the Hour stands out in its realism and striking critique of violence, a misogynistic society, and its mistreatment of women.





24 The Honeymoon Killers (1970)







The Honeymoon Killers, a classic black-and-white true crime horror directed by Leonard Kastle, is inspired by the true story of Raymond Fernandez and Martha Beck. The former is a con artist and the latter is a lonely, overweight nurse living with her mother in Alabama. When the two meet, Martha becomes romantically involved with Ray, and the two embark on a killing spree as they deceive and exploit single women.



Dark and Disturbing ‘70s Entry


Before landing in Kastle’s lap, who also wrote the screenplay, this movie underwent a series of directorial changes, with Martin Scorsese being the initial choice. Regardless, Kastle’s keen eye made The Honeymoon Killers more raw and unflinching than ever. The black-and-white cinematography and minimalist style paired with Tony Lo Bianco and Shirley Stone’s complex and depraved turns as their respective characters make the movie a gritty and influential addition to the true crime genre.





23 Wolf Creek (2005)





Inspired by the backpacker murders that were committed by Ivan Milat in Australia from 1989 to 1993, the engrossing horror film Wolf Creek focuses on three backpackers in the Australian outback who are targeted by a sadistic serial killer after offering to help the trio when they become stranded at Wolf Creek crater. The slasher's antagonist, Mick Taylor, is directly based on Milat, who over a four-year period, murdered seven young tourists and disposed of their bodies in the Belanglo State Forest; he was convicted of the murders in 1996 and was given seven consecutive life sentences for his brutal crimes.



An Effective Horror


Wolf Creek writer and director Greg McLean began writing the screenplay for the film shortly after Miltat's sentencing in 1997, later stating that, "The movie was really about, 'What would it be like to be stuck in this incredibly isolated place with the most evil character you can possibly imagine, who is also distinctly Australian?'" The horror flick has been praised for its grindhouse look and honest depiction of the grisly murders, while also landing on Esquire's list of the 50 scariest films of all time.






22 The Night Stalker (2016)




Lou Diamond Phillips delivers a downright chilling performance as notorious serial killer Richard Ramirez in The Night Stalker, which centers on the efforts of a fictional lawyer to get Ramirez to confess to a murder another man has been convicted and sentenced to death for. The drama serves as an overview of the killer's heinous and violent crime spree that occurred in 1980s California, which caused widespread panic and hysteria throughout the state and its inhabitants over the course of a year.






Features a Brilliant Performance by Lou Diamond Phillips


By the time Ramirez was apprehended in 1985, he had allegedly murdered more than 15 people and was ultimately convicted of killing thirteen and sexually assaulting eleven victims. The gripping film successfully depicts the terror Ramirez sowed within the country and its intense aftermath, and Phillips is phenomenal as the violent and disturbed serial killer; Bob Calhoun of Roger Ebert's website lauded the actor in their review, writing, "It's Phillips' brooding intensity that draws you into the film, and will have you locking your back windows when it's over."





21 Next Time I'll Aim for the Heart (2014)







Cedric Anger's take on Alain Lamare and his crimes portrays a shocking picture of just how often people get away with their wrongdoings in plain sight just because nobody stops to take a second look at things. Lamare, or Neuhardt in the movie, a police officer in France, went the extra mile during his patrols to kill young women between 1978 and 1979 and got away with it for a long time. Simply because, as a high-ranking rule-following police official, nobody suspected his blatantly psychopathic behavior, especially in a force comprised of individuals too busy trying to one-up each other to actually try to solve the case.



Character Study of a Cold Killer


Next Time I'll Aim for the Heart is a hidden gem in this list. Hidden, mostly because of its lack of availability to the global audience. With almost everyone in his surroundings ignoring his alarming and never-subtle actions, the movie makes the audience frustrated. Especially as it shows how such genuinely disturbing and disturbed individuals in positions of power can easily get away with those things and what it could mean for our society.








20 Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile (2019)


Extremely Wicked Shockingly Evil and Vile Movie Poster
Release Date
January 26, 2019
Runtime
110 Minutes


Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile follow Liz Kendall (Lily Collins), a single mother who believes she has found the man of her dreams. Her whole world is turned upside-down when he's put on trial for a series of grisly murders. Adamant that he is innocent, Ted Bundy (Zac Efron) defends himself in America's first nationally televised trial. At the same time, Liz struggles to come to terms with the truth.



Efron's Meticulous Talents Shine


Zac Efron's mental health was reportedly put to the test for the gripping, controversial Netflix effort that chronicles the crimes of Ted Bundy from the perspective of Liz, his longtime girlfriend, who refused to believe the truth about him for years. Along with Efron, the film also stars Lily Collins, John Malkovich, Jim Parsons, Jeffrey Donovan, Dylan Baker, Terry Kinney, and Haley Joel Osment. The "shockingly evil" subject matter is based on the book The Phantom Prince; My Life with Ted Bundy by Elizabeth Kendall. Efron owns the role, despite the backlash that the film seems to glamorize the real-life serial killer.






19 The Clovehitch Killer (2018)




Inspired by the life and crimes of Dennis Rader, the Kansas serial killer who deemed himself BTK (for "bind, torture, kill"), the coming-of-age thriller The Clovehitch Killer focuses on a 16-year-old boy who makes the chilling realization that his seemingly picture-perfect family may not be all it seems when he suspects his father is a violent killer. Dylan McDermott is phenomenal as Don Burnside, the devout Christian patriarch who harbors a gruesome, secret identity in which he stalked and strangled 10 women a decade earlier before going dormant.






Patient but Suffocating


The film draws direct parallels to Radner's story, as he was also a family man, a member of the church council, and even a Cub Scout Leader; he was convicted of killing 10 people between 1974 and 1991 before being arrested in 2005. His daughter Kerri struggled with the devastating realization that her father was a horrific killer, expressing how her childhood was ordinary and that they were a "normal American family." The Clovehitch Killer earned acclaim upon its release, with Paste Magazine declaring it "a devilish movie that does beautifully what horror films are meant to—vex us with fear—through the most deceptively simple of means."



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18 No Man of God (2021)




Speaking of Ted Bundy, No Man of God also centers on the killer who, in 1980, was sentenced to death by electrocution. In the following years, he agreed to share the details of his crimes, but only with one man, Bill Hagmaier (Elijah Wood). The movie is based on the true story of the bizarre and complex relationship that formed between an FBI agent and an incarcerated Ted Bundy (Bill Kirby) in the years leading to his execution. The standout performances alone make this one a can't-miss, especially for fans of the dark subgenre.



Tough to Look Away From


Hagmaier recorded over 200 hours with Bundy. At the time, he was one of the five members of the original Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU). As Bundy's execution neared, and he had exhausted all his appeals, he began confessing details of his crimes, from methods, motivations, and acts committed after the murders, in a bid to avoid the electric chair. No Man of God brings light to a story that is usually ignored in the face of portraying a darker, more fearsome side of the coin.






17 The Strangers (2008)




Although it started off as low-rated and critically ignored when it was first released in theaters, Bryan Bertino's The Strangers has since become a significant cult classic in the true crime genre. What makes this movie so unique is that it is based on two different heinous activities that shook people. One of them being the Manson family murders and the other one coming from Bertino's personal experiences of having his neighborhood raided by invaders in his childhood. As a result, the impact of those events is evident not only in the material but also in the way the story is presented.






A Cult Classic


In a unique spin, unlike many other movies based on serial killers and such tragic events, Bertino refuses to take a deeper dive into the minds of the killers or explain the motivation behind such heinous crimes. In doing so, he presents the cases as they are, a cold look at the brutality committed by said killers without trying to sympathize with them. This is what makes The Strangers all the more brutal, bleak, and a more realistic account of such tragic events, which helped it earn its much-deserved cult-classic position.





16 The Frozen Ground (2013)







The Frozen Ground is a thriller based on real-life serial killer Robert Hansen, a.k.a. the Butcher Baker. In the film, Hansen is portrayed by John Cusack. Jack Halcombe (Nicolas Cage) is the Alaskan State Trooper trying to end Hansen's reign of terror. He had become aware of the large number of women going missing in the area and decided to investigate. With the help of a criminal profiler, he was able to narrow down suspects, eventually finding his way to Hansen.



Not For the Faint-Hearted


Hansen abducted, sexually assaulted, and murdered 17 women in and around Anchorage, Alaska, between 1971 and 1983. Hansen would turn his victims loose in the secluded Alaskan wilderness and hunt them down with a Ruger Mini-14 and a knife. He mainly targeted sex workers. The idea behind this was that he chose women he saw as inferior, as a form of revenge for being rejected by women his entire life. If you like creepy movies, this is one for you, as the premise of being hunted for sport is spine-chilling.








15 Scream (1996)




Wes Craven's iconic '90s slasher Scream took the world by storm when audiences watched in horror as Hollywood it-girl Drew Barrymore was brutally murdered by the terrifying Ghostface in the opening scene of the cult classic. In the highly influential film, teenager Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) and her friends are terrorized by a deranged, masked killer in the fictional town of Woodsboro, California. Writer/creator Kevin Williamson drew inspiration for the premise of Scream from Danny Rolling, A.K.A. the Gainesville Ripper, a notorious Florida serial killer who murdered five students in 1990. Rolling would mutilate his victims' bodies and pose them in sexually provocative positions, targeting petite white brunettes with brown eyes.






Kick-Started a Franchise


In the Wes Craven masterpiece, Ghostface often calls and taunts his victims before attacking them, focusing mainly on young females who are alone and vulnerable (much like Rolling did). Scream is credited with revitalizing the horror/slasher genre and helped launch a lucrative and enduring film franchise that holds up even today and attracts a huge following with each new movie, breathing fresh and modern air into the genre.





14 10 Rillington Place (1971)







Based on the story of John Christie, a British serial killer who has murdered eight people, this film focuses on how he lured women and strangled them to death at his flat, 10 Rillington Place. Richard Fleischer ensures that the reality of Christie's crimes is reflected through the film. An important factor in this particular film is that it also focuses on the way in which Timothy Evans was wrongly executed via the death penalty for Christie's crimes. Therefore, it looks at the law and justice of the time, which is not something many serial killer films focus on.



As Powerful as it's Perplexing


In his review of the film, Adam Scovell of BBC calls it "the ultimate in British true crime drama," because 10 Rillington Place focuses more on fact as opposed to fiction. Directed by Fleischer and starring Richard Attenborough, Judy Geeson, and more, the movie is a true-to-reality version of a notorious case and while it may have been considered more authentic and absorbing back in the 1970s than now, the movie manages to induce paranoia with most of the scenes.



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13 From Hell (2001)




From Hell is a 2001 psychological thriller directed by Albert and Allen Hughes. The plot follows Frederick Abberline, a Chief Inspector played by Johnny Depp, in his hunt for the renowned real-life supervillain everyone refers to as "Jack the Ripper." Dawning in 1888, Jack the Ripper was the name given to a mysterious culprit who killed and tortured five, and likely even more women, all found within a mile radius of each other.






Visually Arresting and Chilling


Knowing the person responsible for such heinous crimes was never found, caught, or identified at all is perhaps even more haunting than the startlingly mutilated state these victims were found in. Gripping but never unsympathetic in its portrayal, the movie features an impressive performance from Depp. Based on a book rooted in conspiracy, From Hell is very entertaining and befitting of what happened in history, but it is not entirely, wholeheartedly accurate.





12 The Tenderness of Wolves (1973)




Based on the crimes of Fritz Haarman, the killer who inspired Fritz Lang to make the formative 1931 serial killer movie M, the movie shows the bleak reality of a world where people are way too invested in surviving a crumbling society and the utter lawlessness that comes with it to ever question the people around them. As was the case with the First World War ravaged Germany when the crimes took place. As a result, someone as blatantly creepy as Haarman got away with constantly dumping huge bundles into rivers, or trading a seemingly never-ending supply of boys' clothes or dubious cuts of meat to the local shops sourced from his 24 victims.




Nasty and Unsettling, but Worth the Watch


The Tenderness of Wolves shows a bleak, monstrous reality of how far humans can go when presented with the opportunity of getting away with our actions. With every frame saturated with despair, The Tenderness of Wolves paints a frustratingly chilling picture of what could befall a society in collapse and the people punished with the task to survive it through the microscopic lens of "The Vampire of Hanover" as Haarman was nicknamed in regard to his habit of drinking the blood of his victims. Although not as popular as some of the others on this list, this movie holds a special place among the fans of arthouse and horror movies who can connect with its extremely hopeless outlook on life.





11 The Boston Strangler (1968)





Loosely hinged on a true story from the early '60s, The Boston Strangler centers around a man named Albert Desalvo, played by Mauro Lannini, who was convicted for murdering 13 women and sentenced to life in prison on the account. After suffering a traumatic upbringing, Desalvo would go on to lead a lecherous and diabolical life.



Turns the True Story Into a Sensation


This epic espionage, directed by Richard Fleisher, does a great job both educating and entertaining audiences on the wicked inner workings of an evil mind. Pirates of the Caribbean's Kiera Knightly starred in a 2023 film about the killer, titled Boston Strangler, in which she played the role of Loretta McLaughlin, the reporter who first broke the story of the Strangler and challenged sexism in the 1960s to report on Boston's most notorious killer.








10 The Snowtown Murders (2011)




Australia's most famous massacre was made into a movie in 2011 with Justin Kurzel's directorial debut, The Snowtown Murders. Between August 1992 and May 1999, three young men named John Justin Bunting (Daniel Henshall), Robert Joe Wagner (Aaron Viergever), and James "Jamie" Spyridon Vlassakis (Lucas Pittaway), carried out what would become known as the "bodies in barrels murders." The details of the gruesome killings are harrowing, involving both torture and cannibalism.



Highly Discomforting to Watch


Not only was this one of the vilest trials South Australian courts had seen to date, but it also lasted longer and received more worldwide publicity. Whimsical and compelling to the core, Kurzel immaculately captures the catastrophic impact these three men — four, counting their getaway grave digger Mark Haydon — had on Australian history.






9 Monster (2003)




Whoever thinks only men can take the crown for violent and murderous intent has never heard of Aileen Wuornos. For those who fall under this category, Monster, a biographical crime film written and directed by Patty Jenkins, is a great watch. Starring household name Charlize Theron, Jenkins' creative masterpiece retells the sinister story of a struggling young lady as she works her way from the streets to a next-level crime: murder.



Charlize Theron Disappears Into a Demanding Role


Wuornos, both in real life and on the big screen, was a prostitute prosecuted for slaughtering seven men, whom she served as clients, between the years of 1989 and 1990. A crowd-pleaser doubling as a semi-fictional chronicle about one of the most disreputable female serial killers in true-crime history, Monster became a triple threat to the theaters when it won multiple Academy Awards upon release in 2002.




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8 My Friend Dahmer (2017)




Riveting from start to finish, the 2017 American adaptation was directed by Marc Lynch and is, hinted in the title itself, based on none other than the Milwaukee Cannibal himself. Ross Lynch stars as Dahmer and former Naked Brother's Band actor-artist Alex Wolff plays John "Derf" Backderf. Backderf is the cartoonist who inspired the movie's making with his graphic novel of the same name he wrote back in 2012. However, as the narrative reveals, Backderf is more than just a talented artist and vivid storyteller. Up until the killings began in 1978, he was Dahmer's real-life high school buddy.




Before Dahmer Became a Villain


Jeffrey Dahmer may very well be the most infamous serial killer of all time, and My Friend Dahmer might be the best biography-based psychological thriller film about him ever made. It is accurate in the portrayal of his teenage years as well as the lead-up to his exploitative nature. On Rotten Tomatoes, it holds an approval rating of 86%, with a critical consensus that describes it as a movie that "opens a window into the making of a serial killer whose conclusions are as empathetic as they are deeply troubling."





7 To Catch a Killer (1992)







John Wayne Gacy might have single-handedly created Coulrophobia (fear of clowns) with his reign as the formidable "Killer Clown," and To Catch a Killer paints a perfect picture of why. Truly terrifying to anyone and equally entertaining for horror-film fanatics, the 1992 two-part television saga, directed by Eric Till, details the gruesome and gory past of a sadistic serial killer who sexually assaulted and brutally butchered over 30 young boys.



Extremely Gruesome


Despite the unspeakable nature of his crimes, the most frightening element to consider, whether dramatized or bona fide facts, is the costume he wore while committing them. And a red-squeaky nose was not the only prop he used. Gacy also wore a completely different, seemingly kind, and neighborly personality to mask his grueling, bloodthirsty face.





6 Helter Skelter (1976)







Named after the famous Beatles' song, Helter Skelter, directed by Tom Gries, is a psychological-thriller television drama released in 1976. Giving the word cult classic a whole new meaning, the flick is based on the horrible atrocities committed by the Manson Family. The Manson family murders are among the most arduous archives to dip into, and this movie certainly measures up.



Holds Up Even 30 Years Later


Manson first came into the public eye when it was discovered that he had orchestrated the Tate-La Bianca murders in 1969. While he did not commit the murders himself, he was able to get his followers to commit the crimes for him, resulting in seven deaths. Manson is now dead, having passed away on November 20, 2017, after four decades in prison. The movie is not for the faint-hearted because of its unfiltered and cold depiction of the crimes. Its 100% Rotten Tomatoes score is a testament to its faithfulness to the facts and the source material.




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