From charming strangler Ted Bundy to “Zodiac Killer”, iconic films have been made about the most unscrupulous murderers to ever exist.
30 Dahmer, 2002
Jeffrey Dahmer
Also known as the Milwaukee Cannibal or the Milwaukee Monster, was an American serial killer and sex offender who killed and dismembered seventeen males between 1978 and 1991.
Before his arrest and conviction for serial murders, chocolate factory worker Jeffrey Dahmer hunts Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for young attractive males to turn into unconscious (eventually dead) human sex toys, current acts which often prompt memories of earlier killings and of dealings with his suspicious.
Director: David Jacobson
Writers: David Jacobson, David Birke
Starring: Jeremy Renner, Artel Kayàru, Matt Newton
Budget: $250 000
Box office: $144 000
Trailer:
29 D.C. Sniper: 23 Days of Fear, 2003
John Allen Muhammad, Lee Boyd Malvo
The D.C. sniper attacks were a series of coordinated shootings that occurred during three weeks in October 2002 throughout the Washington metropolitan area, consisting of the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia. Ten people were killed, and three others were critically wounded.
In October 2002, Chief Charles Moose of the Montgomery County Police Department, heads an effort to track down those responsible for a recent string of murders in Montgomery County, Maryland.
Unable to give anything but small pieces of information at various press conferences held during the 23 dark days, Moose finds himself vilified and derided in many corners as ineffectual and incompetent. Indeed, quite a few newspapers outside the area targeted by snipers came right out and called for Moose’s resignation. But the chief’s dogged persistence ultimately paid off and — in the sort of twist that a professional writer of thrillers might dismiss as inconceivable — the two men arrested for the carnage turned out to be the archetypal “least likely suspects.”
Director: Tom McLoughlin
Writer: Dave Erickson
Starring: Charles S. Dutton, Jay O. Sanders, Bobby Hosea
Trailer:
28 Ted Bundy, 2002
Ted Bundy
Was an American serial killer who kidnapped, raped and murdered numerous young women and girls during the 1970s and possibly earlier.
Ted Bundy is a seemingly well-adjusted law student with a bright future ahead. Intelligent and good-looking, Ted has little trouble earning the affections of Lee, a lovely woman who’s willing to look beyond and accept her fiancé’s sometimes lascivious sexual appetites. But little can prepare Lee for the brutal crimes Ted is about to commit: a six-state crime spree comprising over 30 homicides and hundreds of rapes.
Director: Matthew Bright
Writers: Stephen Johnston, Matthew Bright
Starring: Michael Reilly Burke, Boti Bliss, Julianna McCarthy
Budget: $1 200 000
Box office: $68 700
Trailer:
27 Snowtown, 2010
John Justin Bunting, Robert Joe Wagner
The Snowtown murders between August 1992 and May 1999, in and around Adelaide, South Australia. Most of the bodies were found in barrels in an abandoned bank vault in Snowtown, South Australia, hence the names given in the press for the murders. Only one of the victims was killed in Snowtown itself, which is approximately 140 kilometres (87 miles) north of Adelaide, and neither the twelve victims nor the three perpetrators were from the town.
A charismatic but violent predator takes his girlfriend’s teenage son (Lucas Pittaway) under his wing and makes him an accomplice in a murder spree.
Director: Justin Kurzel
Writers: Shaun Grant, Justin Kurzel, Debi Marshall
Starring: Lucas Pittaway, Daniel Henshall, Louise Harris
Budget: $2 000 000
Box office: $1 349 000
Trailer:
26 Karla, 2006
Karla Homolka, Paul Bernardo
Is a Canadian serial killer who acted as an accomplice to her husband, Paul Bernardo, taking active part in the rapes and murders of at least three minors in Ontario – including her own sister, Tammy Homolka – between 1990 and 1992.
In this film based on actual events, Karla Homolka and Paul Bernardo seem like a typical suburban couple that is, until Paul is implicated in a series of disturbing killings. It turns out Karla married Paul knowing he had raped and killed several girls, including her own sister, Tammy. As the evidence mounts against Paul, Karla is questioned by Dr. Arnold about her level of involvement in the murders.
Director: Joel Bender
Writers: Michael D. Sellers, Manette Rosen, Joel Bender
Starring: Laura Prepon, Misha Collins, Misha Collins
Budget: $5 000 000
Box office: $130 000
Trailer:
25 Wolf Creek, 2004
Ivan Milat, Bradley John Murdoch
Ivan Milat commonly known as the Backpacker Murderer, was an Australian serial killer who abducted, assaulted, robbed and murdered two men and five women in New South Wales between 1989 and 1992. Bradley John Murdoch is an Australian criminal serving life imprisonment for the July 2001 murder of English backpacker Peter Falconio in Australia.
Three backpackers travel into the Australian Outback only to find themselves stranded at Wolf Creek crater. Once there, they are encountered by a bushman, Mick Taylor, who offers them a ride back to his place. Little do the three know that their adventure into the Outback would be a complete nightmare after the backpackers find a way to escape.
Director: Greg McLean
Writer: Greg McLean
Starring: John Jarratt, Cassandra Magrath, Kestie Morassi
Budget: $1 000 000
Box office: $30 765 000
Trailer:
24 Evilenko, 2004
Andrei Chikatilo
Was a Soviet serial killer nicknamed The Butcher of Rostov, The Rostov Ripper, and The Red Ripper who sexually assaulted, murdered, and mutilated at least fifty-two women and children between 1978 and 1990 in the Russian SFSR, the Ukrainian SSR, and the Uzbek SSR.
In 1984, in Kyiv, schoolteacher Andrej Romanovich Evilenko is dismissed from his position after attempting to rape a pupil. Driven by his psychopathic urges and embittered by the collapse of the Soviet Union, Evilenko begins to rape, kill, and cannibalise women and children. It is hinted throughout the movie that Evilenko somehow gained the power to hypnotise his victims, which accounts for their lack of resistance and his continuous evasion of the authorities.
Director: David Grieco
Writer: David Grieco
Starring: Malcolm McDowell, Marton Csokas, Ronald Pickup
Budget: $9 700 000
Box office: $87 000
Trailer:
23 No Man of God, 2021
Ted Bundy
After more than a decade of denials, he confessed to 30 murders committed in seven states between 1974 and 1978. His true victim total is unknown and likely significantly higher.
In 1980, Ted Bundy was sentenced to death by electrocution. In the years that followed, he agreed to disclose the details of his crimes, but only to one man. During the early days of the agency’s criminal profiling unit, FBI analyst Bill Hagmaier met with the incarcerated Ted Bundy in the hopes of understanding the psychology of the serial killer and providing closure for the victim’s families. As Hagmaier delves into Bundy’s dark and twisted mind, a strange and complicated relationship develops that neither man expected. Based on actual transcripts of interviews between FBI analyst Bill Hagmaier and the incarcerated Ted Bundy, No Man of God is nothing short of riveting.
Director: Amber Sealey
Writer: Kit Lesser
Starring: Elijah Wood, Luke Kirby, W. Earl Brown
Box office: $215 000
Trailer:
22 The Clovehitch Killer, 2016
Dennis Rader
Is an American serial killer known as BTK (an abbreviation he gave himself, for “bind, torture, kill”). Between 1974 and 1991, he killed ten people in Wichita and Park City, Kansas, and sent taunting letters to police and media outlets describing the details of his crimes.
After Tyler finds a cache of disturbing images in his father’s possession, he begins to suspect that the man he trusts most in the world may be responsible for a series of unsolved murders.
Director: Duncan Skiles
Writer: Christopher Ford
Starring: Dylan McDermott, Charlie Plummer, Samantha Mathis
Box office: $167 000
Trailer:
21 The Golden Glove (Der goldene Handschuh), 2019
Fritz Honka
Was a German serial killer. Between 1970 and 1975 he killed at least four women from Hamburg’s red light district, keeping three of the bodies in his flat.
Fritz Honka is a lonely, weird-eyed German man who staggers around even when he isn’t drunk and surprisingly manages to remain employed, once even as a security guard. He is in awe of pretty women and worships them. Scabby old alcoholic women though are taken home, treated poorly, sometimes killed, and their body parts stuffed away in his apartment.
Director: Fatih Akin
Writers: Fatih Akin, Heinz Strunk
Starring: Jonas Dassler, Margarete Tiesel, Katja Studt
Box office: $604 000
Trailer:
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