The Guardian invited readers to share their favourite true crime television series, resulting in a collection of personal recommendations spanning classic documentaries, streaming hits and podcasts-turned-shows. Contributors described how these programmes affected them emotionally and intellectually, from prompting reflection on wrongful convictions and police corruption to providing purely entertaining, larger-than-life viewing. The responses highlight the genre's range, from serious investigative journalism to more sensational fare.

Readers cited titles including the BBC's Unsolved: The Boy Who Disappeared, about missing teenager Damien Nettles, and an unnamed Storyville documentary about a wrongly accused Black teenager. Others named Tiger King, about big-cat owner Joe Exotic, a documentary on family vlogger Ruby Franke's child abuse case, Mobeen Azhar's series on a murder in Huddersfield, Netflix's Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes, and Dear Zachary, the deeply personal film by Kurt Kuenne about the murder of his friend Andrew Bagby.