Best TV Shows & TV Series Based On True Events


22 John Adams, 2008

John Adams

Adapted from David McCullough’s Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, this lavish seven-part miniseries chronicles the life of Founding Father John Adams, starting with the Boston Massacre of 1770 through his years as an ambassador in Europe, then his terms as vice president and president of the United States, up to his death on July 4, 1826.

The life of one of the USA’s Founding Fathers, its second President, and his role in the nation’s first 50 years.

Director: Tom Hooper
Writers: Michelle Ashford, Kirk Ellis, David McCullough
Starring: Paul Giamatti, Laura Linney, Stephen Dillane

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21 Mr Bates vs. The Post Office, 2024

Mr Bates vs. The Post Office

One of the greatest miscarriages of justice in British legal history where hundreds of innocent sub-postmasters and postmistresses were wrongly accused of theft, fraud and false accounting due to a defective IT system.

The British Post Office scandal, also called the Horizon IT scandal, involved Post Office Limited pursuing thousands of innocent subpostmasters for apparent shortfalls caused by faults in Horizon, an accounting software system developed by Fujitsu.

Director: James Strong
Writer: Gwyneth Hughes
Starring: Toby Jones, Monica Dolan, Julie Hesmondhalgh

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20 The Borgias, 2011-2013

The Borgias

In the fifteenth century, Pope Alexander VI tries to control all power in Italy with the help of his several sons, through murder, intrigue, war, and marriage alliances.

The rise to power, and start of a dynasty, of the Borgia family. Rodrigo Borgia ascends within the Catholic Church, becoming Pope Alexander VI. The position brings with it many enemies, internal and state-based, and he has to use all of his abilities of diplomacy, ruthlessness, charm, and the power of the church to stay in power, and alive. Luckily, his children are equally ambitious.

Directors: Neil Jordan, Kari Skogland, John Maybury
Writers: Neil Jordan, Guy Burt, David Leland
Starring: Jeremy Irons, François Arnaud, Holliday Grainger

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19 The Crowded Room, 2023

The Crowded Room

In Manhattan in the summer of 1979, a young man is arrested for a shocking crime, and an unlikely investigator must solve the mystery behind it before the true criminal strikes again.

Billy Milligan, also known as The Campus Rapist, was an American man who was the subject of a highly publicized court case in Ohio in the late 1970s. After having committed several felonies including armed robbery, he was arrested for three rapes on the campus of Ohio State University. In the course of preparing his defense, psychologists diagnosed Milligan with dissociative identity disorder. His lawyers pleaded insanity, claiming that two of his alternate personalities committed the crimes without Milligan being aware of it. He was the first person diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder to raise such a defense, and the first acquitted of a major crime for this reason, instead spending a decade in psychiatric hospitals.

Directors: Brady Corbet, Mona Fastvold Lerche, Kornél Mundruczó
Writers: Akiva Goldsman, Todd Graff, Suzanne Heathcote
Starring: Tom Holland, Tom Holland, Emmy Rossum

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18 American Crime Story, 2016-2021

American Crime Story

An anthology series centered around America’s most notorious crimes and criminals.

A drama series that examines infamous historical American crimes. In Season 1, «The People vs OJ Simpson», we follow the OJ Simpson murder trial of 1994-95. Season 2, «The Assassination of Gianni Versace», covers the murder of fashion designer Gianni Versace in 1997. Season 3 The Monica Lewinsky affair.

Directors: Ryan Murphy, Anthony Hemingway, Michael Uppendahl
Writers: Scott Alexander, Larry Karaszewski, Sarah Burgess
Starring: Sarah Paulson, Annaleigh Ashford, Sterling K. Brown

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17 The Tudors, 2007-2010

The Tudors

Epic series reveals the scandalous life of a young king whose affairs and obsession with producing a male heir changed marriage, the church, and the world.

The House of Tudor was an English and Welsh dynasty that held the throne of England from 1485 to 1603. They descended from the Tudors of Penmynydd, a Welsh noble family, and Catherine of Valois. The Tudor monarchs ruled the Kingdom of England and the Lordship of Ireland (later the Kingdom of Ireland) for 118 years with five monarchs: Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I. The Tudors succeeded the House of Plantagenet as rulers of the Kingdom of England, and were succeeded by the Scottish House of Stuart.

Directors: Ciaran Donnelly, Jeremy Podeswa, Dearbhla Walsh
Writer: Michael Hirst
Starring: Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Henry Cavill, James Frain

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16 Black Bird, 2022

Black Bird

Jimmy Keene is sentenced to 10 years in a minimum security prison but he cuts a deal with the FBI to befriend a suspected serial killer. Keene has to elicit a confession from Larry Hall to find the bodies of as many as eighteen women.

Larry Hall is an American kidnapper, rapist, murderer, and suspected serial killer. An aficionado of the American Revolution and Civil War, Hall traveled around the Midwest for historical reenactments and is believed to have abducted, raped, tortured, and murdered dozens of girls and women.
In 1998, the FBI reached out to a Chicago businessman named James Keene, who was serving a ten-year prison sentence on a drug conspiracy charge. After having learned of Keene’s affability, charm and charisma, and worrying that Hall could win his appeal against his conviction for the Roach kidnapping, the bureau offered to totally commute and erase Keene’s sentence if he agreed to be transferred to the same maximum security prison as Hall to befriend him and obtain the locations of the bodies of his victims. Keene agreed to the proposition and Hall eventually confessed to him that he had killed Reitler. Hall showed Keene a map he was working on of the American Midwest with red dots and names over it representing his victims.

Directors: Michaël R. Roskam, Joe Chappelle, Jim McKay
Writers: James Keene, Dennis Lehane
Starring: Taron Egerton, Paul Walter Hauser, Sepideh Moafi

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15 Feud, 2017-2024

Feud

An anthology series centering on famous feuds, including Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, and Truman Capote and the New York elite.

The first season (subtitled Bette and Joan) centers on the backstage battle between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford during and after the production of their 1962 film What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?.
The second season (subtitled Capote vs. The Swans) focuses on the end of Truman Capote’s friendships with many New York socialites nicknamed «The Swans» when he lightly fictionalizes their lives in published excerpts from his ultimately unfinished novel Answered Prayers.

Directors: Gus Van Sant, Ryan Murphy, Gwyneth Horder-Payton
Writers: Jaffe Cohen, Ryan Murphy, Michael Zam
Starring: Jessica Lange, Susan Sarandon, Alison Wright

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14 Maid, 2021

Maid

After fleeing an abusive relationship, a young mother finds a job cleaning houses as she fights to provide for her child and build them a better future.

Inspired by the powerful New York Times best-selling memoir Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive by Stephanie Land.

Directors: John Wells, Helen Shaver, Nzingha Stewart
Writers: Molly Smith Metzler, Bekah Brunstetter, Marcus Gardley
Starring: Margaret Qualley, Andie MacDowell, Nick Robinson

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13 Unbelievable, 2019

Unbelievable

The true-crime miniseries «Unbelievable» explores the difficulties in conducting investigations into sexual assault. It weaves together two stories: the first is that of Marie, a young woman who reports being raped and eventually recants her story due to trauma and police pressure. In the meantime, two tenacious investigators, Karen Duvall and Grace Rasmussen, are investigating a string of uncannily similar sexual assaults in different states. As their investigation goes on, they identify a potential serial rapist and reveal the institutional flaws in the legal system that deter victims from coming forward. «Unbelievable» exposes the terrible effects of sexual assault, the value of taking victims seriously, and the tenacious pursuit of justice by those who are willing to persevere.

Based on the 2015 news article «An Unbelievable Story of Rape», written by T. Christian Miller and Ken Armstrong about the Washington and Colorado serial rape cases. It also draws from their 2018 book A False Report, based on the same research.

Directors: Lisa Cholodenko, Michael Dinner, Susannah Grant
Writers: Ken Armstrong, Susannah Grant, T. Christian Miller
Starring: Kaitlyn Dever, Toni Collette, Merritt Wever

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12 Dopesick, 2021

Dopesick

“Dopesick” examines how one company triggered the worst drug epidemic in American history. The series takes viewers to the epicenter of America’s struggle with opioid addiction, from the boardrooms of Big Pharma, to a distressed Virginia mining community, to the hallways of the DEA. Defying all the odds, heroes will emerge in an intense and thrilling ride to take down the craven corporate forces behind this national crisis and their allies.

The series takes viewers to the epicenter of America’s struggle with opioid addiction, from the boardrooms of Purdue Pharma, to a distressed Virginia mining community, to the hallways of the DEA. The limited series is inspired by the New York Times bestselling book by Beth Macy.

Directors: Michael Cuesta, Barry Levinson, Patricia Riggen
Writers: Benjamin Rubin, Danny Strong, Jessica Mecklenburg
Starring: Michael Keaton, Peter Sarsgaard, Michael Stuhlbarg

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