Real Serial Killers
A list of films based on true serial killer cases.
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- DirectorChris GerolmoStarsStephen ReaDonald SutherlandMax von SydowDuring the 1980s, Soviet authorities hunt for a serial killer who picks his victims in railway stations and commuter trains and lures them into the woods.
- DirectorChuck ParelloStarsC. Thomas HowellNicholas TurturroAllison LangeKenneth is obsessed with the police, he moves to LA with his cousin, Angelo convinces him to start a prostitution business. Frustrated decide on revenge, feeling a great pleasure with her death. The two cousins become addicted to death.
- DirectorAlexander BulkleyStarsJustin ChambersRobin TunneyRory CulkinAn elusive serial killer known as the Zodiac terrorizes the San Francisco Bay in the late 1960s, while detectives aim to stop him before he claims more victims. Based on a true story.
- DirectorDavid FincherStarsJake GyllenhaalRobert Downey Jr.Mark RuffaloBetween 1968 and 1983, a San Francisco cartoonist becomes an amateur detective obsessed with tracking down the Zodiac Killer, an unidentified individual who terrorizes Northern California with a killing spree.
- DirectorJames CoxStarsVal KilmerLisa KudrowKate BosworthIn the police investigation of a brutal crime scene, one man was at the center of it all: legendary porn star John Holmes.
- DirectorJohn McNaughtonStarsMichael RookerTracy ArnoldTom TowlesArriving in Chicago, Henry moves in with ex-con acquaintance Otis and starts schooling him in the ways of the serial killer.
- DirectorMark BlairStarsRobert A. BurnsDennis HillBerkley GarrettAfter being arrested, a Texas man begins confessing to the brutal murder of over 200 women. He recounts his random selection of victims and his traveling companions, his friend and friend's sister. But the police can't be sure whether to believe him or not until he locates a body and shows them some polaroids. Based on the true story of Henry Lee Lucas.
- DirectorTerrence MalickStarsMartin SheenSissy SpacekWarren OatesAn impressionable teenage girl from a dead-end town, and her older greaser boyfriend, embark on a killing spree in the South Dakota Badlands.
- DirectorAlexandre MoorsStarsIsaiah WashingtonTequan RichmondTim Blake NelsonAn abandoned boy is lured to America and drawn into the shadow of a dangerous father figure. Inspired by the real-life events that led to the 2002 Beltway sniper attacks.
- DirectorPatty JenkinsStarsCharlize TheronChristina RicciBruce DernBased on the life of Aileen Wuornos, a Daytona Beach prostitute who became a serial killer.
- DirectorChuck ParelloStarsSteve RailsbackCarrie SnodgressCarol MansellThe story of Ed Gein, who dug up the corpses of over a dozen women and made things out of their remains before finally shooting two people to death and butchering their bodies like beef sides.
- DirectorMichael FeiferStarsKane HodderAdrienne FrantzMichael BerrymanThe twisted and murderous appetites of the notorious Ed Gein, whose depredations in his small town of Plainfield come as quite a shock to his neighbors, especially Deputy Mason, whose mother Vera and girlfriend Erica have gone missing.
- DirectorKeith WalleyStarsDoug ColeBeverly SoteloStacy CunninghamGruesome true story of murderer Richard Speck who killed eight nursing students in one night in Chicago during the late sixties. The story also follows him to his prison fate and uncovers more of his strange behavoir before his death.
- DirectorFritz LangStarsPeter LorreEllen WidmannInge LandgutWhen the police in a German city are unable to catch a child-murderer, other criminals join in the manhunt.
- DirectorJulian JarroldStarsAndrew GarfieldDavid MorrisseyJohn HenshawRookie journalist Eddie Dunford is determined to find the truth in an increasingly complex maze of lies and deceit surrounding the police investigation into a series of child abductions.
- DirectorJames MarshStarsWarren ClarkePaddy ConsidineJames FoxThe Home Office bring in senior Manchester detective Peter Hunter to conduct a secret review of the Ripper investigation to date.
- DirectorAnand TuckerStarsDavid MorrisseyLisa HowardChris WalkerWhen another child goes missing, washed-up solicitor John Piggott unwittingly provides a catalyst for Detective Chief Superindent Maurice Jobson to start to right some wrongs.
- DirectorJustin KurzelStarsLucas PittawayDaniel HenshallLouise HarrisBased on true events, 16 year-old Jamie falls in with his mother's new boyfriend and his crowd of self-appointed neighborhood watchmen, a relationship that leads to a spree of torture and murder.
- DirectorRichard FleischerStarsTony CurtisHenry FondaGeorge KennedyA series of brutal murders in Boston sparks a seemingly endless and increasingly complex manhunt.
- DirectorMichael FeiferStarsDavid FaustinoAndrew DivoffKostas SommerBoston Strangler: The Untold Story is an intense true-crime thriller about Albert De Salvo, a wise cracking, small time criminal with an unrelenting sex drive, who ultimately falsely confesses to being the strangler that wreaked havoc in Boston during the early sixties. Guided by his manipulative cell mate, who knows more about the murders than he reveals, they devise a plan to gain all of the notoriety from the killings and the money from the reward. Meanwhile, Detective John Marsden, searches out the truth certain that they were not committed by one man. Fighting the bureaucracy of the day, Marsden lets his emotions get the best of him as he follows the trail of the murders.
- DirectorMichael FeiferStarsKane HodderAmy LyndonOdessa RaeDennis L. Rader systematically tortured and killed innocent victims for over two decades, evading the police for over 30 years while living a seemingly normal life as a husband, father, security officer and church president.
- DirectorStephen KayStarsRobert ForsterMichael MicheleMaury ChaykinAfter 31 years at-large, detectives in Wichita, Kansas home in on the serial killer known as BTK.
- DirectorUlli LommelStarsGeorge KiseleffJacquelyn AuroraGeorgie DonovanAlong twenty years, the deranged serial-killer Gary Ridgway has killed at least forty-eight prostitutes and dumped their bodies in Green River.
- DirectorAmi Canaan MannStarsSam WorthingtonJeffrey Dean MorganChloë Grace MoretzIn the Texas bayous, a local homicide detective teams up with a cop from New York City to investigate a series of unsolved murders.
- DirectorMatthew BrightStarsMichael Reilly BurkeBoti BlissJulianna McCarthyThe story of serial killer Ted Bundy.
- DirectorMichael FeiferStarsCorin NemecKane HodderJen NikolaisenBased on the true story of one of history's most demented serial killers.
- StarsMark HarmonFrederic ForrestGeorge GrizzardThe story of serial killer, Ted Bundy.
- DirectorRob SchmidtStarsEliza DushkuCary ElwesTimothy HuttonBased on the true story of the double initial killings in Rochester, NY.
- DirectorJohn MurlowskiStarsScott Anthony LeetCole WilliamsDusty SorgThe true story of William Bonin a California serial killer.
- DirectorAndrew RobinsonStarsKelly BlatzDaryl SabaraJanel ParrishAfter a school shooting leaves 14 people dead, survivor Sean Ryan is forced to come to terms with loss.
- DirectorAriel VromenStarsMichael ShannonChris EvansJames FrancoThe story of Richard Kuklinski, the notorious contract killer and family man. When he was finally arrested in 1986, neither his wife nor his daughters had any clue about his real profession.
- DirectorSkip KiteStarsWalt KissackGary SharkeyAdam LewisThis drama takes you into the mind of one of the UK's most notorious serial killers, while using archive news footage. We are shown his formative years, the biggest manhunt in police history to capture him and finally his time in jail, through actors and newsreels.
- DirectorUlli LommelStarsAdolph CortezElissa DowlingVictoria UllmannInspired by the true story of the most publicized and deranged serial killer known to everyone as "The Night Stalker."
- DirectorDan GilroyStarsJake GyllenhaalRene RussoBill PaxtonWhen Louis Bloom, a con man desperate for work, muscles into the world of L.A. crime journalism, he blurs the line between observer and participant to become the star of his own story.
- CreatorFrank SpotnitzStarsStuart TownsendGabrielle UnionEric JungmannInvestigative reporter Carl Kolchak, who's after his wife's killer, teams up with Perri Reed, Jain McManus, and their boss Tony Vincenzo to investigate strange crimes in Los Angeles that may contain dark supernatural elements.
- DirectorRick BitzelbergerStarsChristopher StapletonRobert SiskoSean ThomasA film based on the true story of Ed Kemper, a serial killer who murdered ten in Santa Cruz, CA during the late sixties and early seventies.