Best TV Shows & TV Series Based On True Events

Real life has served as inspiration for movies and television shows ever since the dawn of the cinematic art form. Depicted with varying degrees of accuracy, these stories are usually chosen for their absurd yet realistic situations. Whether it’s an important moment in history or an ordinary event, the true stories behind great productions are retold in a dramatized light that exposes its most relevant aspects for narrative purposes.

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33 The Dropout, 2022

TV series that chronicles Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes attempt to revolutionize the healthcare industry after dropping out of college and starting a technology company.

Theranos Inc. was an American privately held corporation that was touted as a breakthrough health technology company. Founded in 2003 by then 19-year-old Elizabeth Holmes, Theranos raised more than US$700 million from venture capitalists and private investors, resulting in a $10 billion valuation at its peak in 2013 and 2014. The company claimed that it had devised blood tests that required very small amounts of blood and that could be performed rapidly and accurately, all using compact automated devices that the company had developed. These claims were proven to be false.

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32 We Own This City, 2022

The Gun Trace Task Force is one of the Baltimore Police Department’s most celebrated units, with extraordinary arrest and seizure rates. However, beneath this glamorous exterior lies a web of corruption. The driving force behind is the unit’s larger-than-life leader, Sergeant Wayne Jenkins.

The story centers on Sergeant Wayne Jenkins, one of eight officers who were convicted on various corruption charges in 2018 and 2019.

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31 Five Days at Memorial, 2022

Doctors and nurses at the intensive care unit of a New Orleans hospital struggle with treating patients during Hurricane Katrina when the facility is without power for 5 days.

Hurricane Katrina was a devastating and deadly Category 5 Atlantic hurricane that caused 1,392 fatalities and damages estimated at $186.3 billion in late August 2005, particularly in the city of New Orleans and its surrounding area.

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30 Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, 2022-2024

The story of Jeffrey Dahmer, one of America’s most notorious serial killers, partly told from the point of view of his victims. The series dives into the police incompetence and apathy that allowed the Wisconsin native to go on a multiyear killing spree. It dramatizes multiple instances where Dahmer was almost apprehended, but ultimately let go. Dahmer was a cleancut guy, who was repeatedly given a free pass by cops, as well as by judges, who were lenient when he had been charged with crimes.

Jeffrey Lionel 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. Many of his later murders involved necrophilia, cannibalism, and the permanent preservation of body parts—typically all or part of the skeleton.

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29 Baby Reindeer, 2024

The story follows writer and performer Richard Gadd’s warped relationship with a female stalker and the impact it has on him as he is ultimately forced to face a deep, dark buried trauma.

Based on a compelling true story, the hit 2019 Edinburgh Fringe one-man stage-play Baby Reindeer follows the writer and performer Donny Dunn’s warped relationship with his female stalker and the impact it has on him.

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28 Escape at Dannemora, 2018

A female prison employee in upstate New York becomes romantically involved with a pair of inmates and helps them escape.

The 2015 Clinton Correctional Facility escape was a jailbreak that took place on June 6, 2015, when two inmates, Richard Matt and David Sweat, were discovered missing during a 5:17 a.m. bed check at the maximum security Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York, United States. Matt was serving 25 years to life and Sweat was serving life without parole, both for murder. The two prisoners had escaped by cutting a hole in their cell walls gaining access to the utility areas behind and above their cells. Eventually they cut a hole in a steam pipe and used the pipe to escape from the prison into the city sewer, with tools obtained from two cooperating prison employees. Nearly three weeks after the escape, Matt was found in Malone, New York, where he was shot and killed; two days after that, Sweat was shot and taken into custody.

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27 Rogue Heroes (SAS Rogue Heroes), 2022

1941. British forces are on the retreat in North Africa and Rommel is heading for Egypt. Three British Lieutenants – David Stirling, Jock Lewes and Paddy Mayne – have an idea for a force that will operate behind enemy lines, attacking key installations – airfields, supply depots etc. Thanks to the work of Lt. Colonel Dudley Clarke, an intelligence officer, the ideal unit, the Special Air Service Brigade, already exists…on paper. Now it is up to Stirling, Lewes and Mayne to make it a reality.

The origins of the British Army Special Air Service (SAS) during the Western Desert Campaign of World War II.

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26 Manhunt, 2017-2020

FBI profiler James R Fitzgerald is brought onto the Unabom task force, a team investigating the bombings and murders perpetrated by an unidentified man know simply as the Unabomber. Many of the methods he will use to identify the perpetrator are new and untested.

An in-depth look at how an FBI profiler helped track down the terrorist Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber.

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25 Waco, 2018

The FBI and ATF seize religious leader David Koresh’s Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas in the spring of 1993.

The Waco siege, also known as the Waco massacre, was the siege by U.S. federal government and Texas state law enforcement officials of a compound belonging to the religious cult known as the Branch Davidians between February 28 and April 19, 1993.

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24 The Spy, 2019

Israel, 1959. The Mossad are desperate to embed a spy in Syria and select Eli Cohen, an unassuming yet fervently patriotic accountant. After training he assumes the identity of a Syrian national living in Argentina and uses this as a means to gain entry into Syria.

Based on the life of Israeli spy Eli Cohen.

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23 Versailles, 2015-2018

In the wake of the Fronde in 1667, the French nobility had begun to defy and disobey the monarchy. Young King Louis XIV decides to move the court from the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye near Paris to his father’s former hunting lodge near the hamlet of Versailles as a means to force their submission. As Louis renovates and expands his new Palace of Versailles, the nobles—displaced from their usual surroundings, but compelled to accompany the king—become embroiled in increasingly dangerous intrigues.

In 1667, 28-year-old all-powerful king of France, Louis XIV, decides to build the greatest palace in the world – Versailles. But drained budget, affairs and political intrigues complicate things.

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22 John Adams, 2008

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.

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21 Mr Bates vs. The Post Office, 2024

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.

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20 The Borgias, 2011-2013

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.

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19 The Crowded Room, 2023

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.

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18 American Crime Story, 2016-2021

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.

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17 The Tudors, 2007-2010

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.

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16 Black Bird, 2022

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.

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15 Feud, 2017-2024

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.

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14 Maid, 2021

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.

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13 Unbelievable, 2019

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.

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12 Dopesick, 2021

“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.

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11 Generation Kill, 2008

Following multiple recon marines during the invasion of Iraq in 2003, a group of mixed personalities, you see the dysfunctionality of the military, and on other times, how formalized and heroic it can be. A Rolling Stones reporter joins reconnaissance marines invading Iraq and recounts the mix of horrors and hilarity he encounters during his time there.

A Rolling Stone reporter, embedded with The 1st Recon Marines chronicles his experiences during the first wave of the American-led assault on Baghdad in 2003.

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10 Boardwalk Empire, 2010-2014

Set in the Prohibition era of the 1920s Boardwalk Empire is the story of Enoch “Nucky” Thompson, the treasurer of Atlantic County, Atlantic City, New Jersey. Due to his relationships with mobsters as well as political contacts, the Federal Government start to take an interest in him. His lavish lifestyle seems at odds with his position, and as well as his connections, there is prolific bootlegging in the area.

An Atlantic City politician plays both sides of the law by conspiring with gangsters during the Prohibition era.

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9 Snowfall, 2017-2023

The story follows numerous characters on a violent collision course, including Franklin Saint, a young street entrepreneur on a quest for power; Gustavo “El Oso” Zapata, a Mexican wrestler caught up in a power struggle within a crime family; Teddy McDonald, a CIA operative running from a dark past who begins an off-book operation to fund the Nicaraguan Contras; and Lucia Villanueva, the self-possessed daughter of a Mexican crime lord. In “Snowfall,” people are working toward their ultimate goals of money, power, and influence as 1984 begins in Los Angeles.

A look at the early days of the crack cocaine epidemic in Los Angeles during the beginning of the 1980s.

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8 When They See Us, 2019

Five teens from Harlem become trapped in a nightmare when they’re falsely accused of a brutal attack in Central Park.

In 1989, a jogger was assaulted and raped in New York’s Central Park, and five young people were subsequently charged with the crime. The quintet, labeled the Central Park Five, maintained its innocence and spent years fighting the convictions, hoping to be exonerated. This limited series spans a quarter of a century, from when the teens are first questioned about the incident in the spring of 1989, going through their exoneration in 2002 and ultimately the settlement reached with the city of New York in 2014.

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7 The Pacific, 2010

December 1941. Pearl Harbour has been attacked by Japan and the US has entered World War 2. Robert Leckie immediately enlists in the Marines. Eugene Sledge would like to enlist but a heart condition prevents him from doing so. John Basilone is a Sergeant in the Marines. These are their experiences in the Pacific Theatre of World War 2.

It is based primarily on the memoirs of two US Marines: With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa by Eugene Sledge and Helmet for My Pillow by Robert Leckie. It also draws on Sledge’s memoir China Marine and Red Blood, Black Sand, the memoir of Chuck Tatum, a Marine who fought alongside Basilone at Iwo Jima.

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6 Mindhunter, 2017-2019

In the late 1970s, two FBI agents broaden the realm of criminal science by investigating the psychology behind murder and end up getting too close to real-life monsters.

Mindhunter is based on the 1996 book Mind Hunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit, by former special agent John Douglas and Mark Olshaker. For years, Douglas pursued some of the most notorious serial killers and rapists, developing profiling techniques to catch them. The book goes behind the scenes of some of his highest-profile cases, including the man who hunted prostitutes in Alaska, the Atlanta child murderer, and Seattle’s Green River killer. To hone in his profiling methods Douglas interviewed and studied a skew of serial killers. Several book and TV characters have been based in part on him, including Jack Crawford in Thomas Harris’ The Silence of the Lambs, Will Graham on Hannibal and Jason Gideon on Criminal Minds.

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5 Narcos, 2015-2017

A chronicled look at the criminal exploits of Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar, as well as the many other drug kingpins who plagued the country through the years.

Pablo Escobar was a Colombian drug lord, narcoterrorist, and politician, who was the founder and sole leader of the Medellín Cartel. Dubbed “the king of cocaine”, Escobar was one of the wealthiest criminals in history, having amassed an estimated net worth of US$30 billion by the time of his death – equivalent to $70 billion as of 2022 – while his drug cartel monopolized the cocaine trade into the United States in the 1980s and early 1990s.

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4 The Crown, 2016-2023

This show focuses on Queen Elizabeth II as a young newlywed faced with leading the world’s most famous monarchy while forging a relationship with legendary Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill. The British Empire is in decline, the political world is in disarray, but a new era is dawning. Peter Morgan’s masterfully-researched scripts reveal the Queen’s private journey behind the public façade with daring frankness. Prepare to see into the coveted world of power and privilege behind the locked doors of Westminster and Buckingham Palace.

Elizabeth II was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until her death in 2022. She was queen regnant of 32 sovereign states over the course of her lifetime and remained the monarch of 15 realms by the time of her death. Her reign of 70 years and 214 days is the longest of any British monarch or female monarch, and the second-longest verified reign of any monarch of a sovereign state in history.

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3 The Offer, 2022

Al Ruddy is working as a programmer at the Rand Corporation but sees an opportunity to produce TV shows and movies. Mario Puzo is a struggling author whose wife gives him an idea to write a book on the Mafia. Joe Colombo is a rising crime boss. Their three worlds are about to collide, resulting in the making of one of the greatest films of all time.

Oscar-winning producer Albert S. Ruddy’s never-before-revealed experiences of making The Godfather.

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2 Chernobyl, 2019

On April 26, 1986 the Chernobyl nuclear power plant near Pripyat, Ukraine experienced a malfunction which resulted in a core explosion in reactor 4. This miniseries follows Valery Legasov, the lead scientist working to control the disaster, Boris Shcherbina, a Soviet politician representing the interests of the Soviet government during the disaster, and Ulana Khomyuk, a nuclear physicist working to uncover the truth about what really happened at Chernobyl. This series tackles the problems that arise when the truth is ignored and kept from the public, begging the question: “What is the cost of lies?”.

The Chernobyl disaster began on 26 April 1986 with the explosion of the No. 4 reactor of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant near the city of Pripyat in the north of the Ukrainian SSR, close to the border with the Byelorussian SSR, in the Soviet Union. It is one of only two nuclear energy accidents rated at seven – the maximum severity – on the International Nuclear Event Scale, the other being the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident. The initial emergency response and subsequent mitigation efforts involved more than 500,000 personnel and cost an estimated 18 billion roubles – roughly US$68 billion in 2019, adjusted for inflation. It was the worst nuclear disaster in history, and the costliest disaster in human history, costing an estimated US$700 billion.

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1 Band of Brothers, 2001

The story of Easy Company of the U.S. Army 101st Airborne Division and their mission in World War II Europe, from Operation Overlord to V-J Day.

Based on interviews with survivors of Easy Company, as well as soldiers’ journals and letters, this 10-part series chronicles the experiences of these young men who knew extraordinary bravery and extraordinary fear.

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