Published Updated

Sort by

Three-Sided Stories: Documentaries on Court Cases

As Robert Evans said in his memoir, "There are three sides to every story: your side, my side, and the truth." Whether it's an embarrassing miscarriage of justice or a real life whodunnit, these are documentary exposés on scandalous lawsuits, criminal trials, and other controversial court matters where the facts are never as clear as they might first seem.

Related lists:
Lock-Up Docs: Looking Between the Bars
Trigger Warnings: Documentaries About Gun Culture
Darkumentaries: Docs About Death, Mayhem, and Tragedy
All of my lists:
List Index

  • Making a Murderer
  • Evil Genius
  • The Staircase
  • Brother's Keeper
  • The Thin Blue Line
  • Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal
  • The Phantom
  • Outcry
  • The Case Against Adnan Syed
  • I Love You, Now Die: The Commonwealth v. Michelle Carter
  • The Past Is Never Dead
  • Who Killed Garrett Phillips?
  • The Chillenden Murders
  • The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson
  • Disgraced
  • The Keepers
  • Long Shot
  • Mommy Dead and Dearest
  • Out of Thin Air
  • Time: The Kalief Browder Story
  • The Trial
  • The Trial: The State of Russia vs Oleg Sentsov
  • Amanda Knox
  • Fantastic Lies
  • O.J.: Made in America
  • Killing for Love
  • Shadow of Truth
  • Southwest of Salem: The Story of the San Antonio Four
  • The Bolivian Case
  • Dream/Killer
  • The Fear of 13
  • The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst
  • 3 ½ Minutes, 10 Bullets
  • The Witness
  • You Belong to Me: Sex, Race and Murder in the South
  • Brothers of the Black List
  • Captivated: The Trials of Pamela Smart
  • David & Me
  • Emergency Call - A Murder Mystery
  • Happy Valley
  • Love and Terror on the Howling Plains of Nowhere
  • A Murder in the Park
  • The Newburgh Sting
  • 91 Bullets in a Minute
  • Once Upon a Crime: The Borrelli – Davis Conspiracy
  • Tales of the Grim Sleeper
  • Whitey: United States of America v. James J. Bulger
  • The Cheshire Murders
  • Goodnight, Sugar Babe: The Killing of Vera Jo Reigle
  • Little Hope Was Arson
  • Small Small Thing
  • Without Charity
  • An Unreal Dream: The Michael Morton Story
  • The Central Park Five
  • Expendable
  • Revision
  • Scenes of a Crime
  • The Staircase II: The Last Chance
  • West of Memphis
  • Better This World
  • Crime After Crime
  • Give Up Tomorrow
  • Hot Coffee
  • Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory
  • Incendiary: The Willingham Case
  • In the Land of the Free...
  • Life with Murder
  • No Tomorrow
  • Cropsey
  • If I Die Tonight
  • Presumed Guilty
  • The Last Word
  • Witch Hunt
  • One Minute to Nine
  • Strange Culture
  • The Trials of Darryl Hunt
  • The Road to Guantanamo
  • Operation Spring
  • Hungry for Monsters
  • Capturing the Friedmans
  • Bus 174
  • Murder on a Sunday Morning
  • Raw Deal: A Question Of Consent
  • Made in the USA
  • The Jaundiced Eye
  • Paradise Lost 2: Revelations
  • Reckless Indifference
  • Scottsboro: An American Tragedy
  • Stranger with a Camera
  • Mumia Abu-Jamal: A Case for Reasonable Doubt?
  • Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills
  • The Devil Never Sleeps
  • Incident at Oglala
  • Who Killed Vincent Chin?
  • December 12th
  • The Murder of Fred Hampton
  • Sacco & Vanzetti
  • The People vs. Paul Crump