Based on a True Story
It’s official, Happy Fall everyone!
The best season of the year is calling for some dark stories. These stories don’t come from a skilled writer or an amazing Director (though a good direction always helps), but from the spectacular, unique and crazy real life. These stories break our trust in the world, they make us wonder if the people we interact with daily could be a psychopath, a scammer, a liar or a current victim.
I am talking about Documentaries!
Documentaries don’t usually get my attention as much as traditional movies or shows. But once I start watching a documentary I stuck to it until the end of it.
And that describes my last couple of months. I sat down to watch a very recommended series and continued watching more and more. Until today, I have been able to collect a list of the most interesting ones.
1 – What the Truth Hides: The Asunta Case
The original name is: “El Caso Asunta: Operation Nenufar”. A Netflix documentary about the death of a young girl in the north of Spain. As soon as I discovered that there was a documentary about this case I knew I had to watch it. I remember I was still living in Spain when the tragedy happened. All TV channels were speaking about this happening, it was an extremely prominent case and every channel, magazine and newspaper had an opinion on it.
Asunta was an adopted child living with her wealthy family in Galicia. One morning she was found dead. The teachers, friends, parents and her phone messages uncover some of the clues that guided the investigators of this murder.
Nowadays people are still contradicted by all of the information, but I loved how detailed the Documentary was, explaining every little step of the investigation that took place, from the time when she was found to the day they decided to send her parents to prison.
The documentary was made in 2017 but I read that the mother committed suicide in prison in 2020 without ever confessing. So that part is not included in the series.
I watched it in Spanish, but I highly recommend this one if you can watch it in your country. Don’t forget to share your opinion with me. Do you think the parents did it? I still haven’t made up my mind about it.
2 – The Killing Of JonBenét
Asunta’s case left me so shocked that I came straight to one of the most renowned murders of all time.
JonBenét was another child from another privileged family, this time in America. From an early age, her parents made her a beauty star, regularly sending her to beauty pageant contests. Her murder is still unsolved.
Most of this documentary involves professionals like criminologists and crime Psychologists giving their opinions on the case and the family.
Turns out JonBenét’s brother sued the filmmakers of the series as soon as they released the documentary. He also gave an interview with Dr Phil not too long ago. I think It’s pretty interesting to watch if you are into investigations and murders.
3 – Untold: The Girlfriend Who Didn’t Exist
If you need a break from homicides, you can give this “Catfish-like Documentary” a chance. It is the story of a professional athlete who was lied to in order for him to believe that he was in a relationship with a woman.
The most interesting part of these chronicles is listening to the athlete and the person who created the fictional persona online.
This series reminds us how mean the media can be. At the time of the event, everyone had a joke to make on the poor guy. He saw his career, family and mental health suffer because of it.
4 – The Tinder Swindler
Talking about catfishing!
In this case, the girls who decide to date this tinder user will find exactly what they saw on the dating app, but they didn’t expect what was coming for them!
If you haven’t heard about this one, where have you been? Is a great documentary if you are currently using dating Apps to meet a potential partner. It reminds you how easy is to fake a personality, identity and even a lifestyle on Social Media.
5 – Tell Me Who I Am
This one was pretty hard to watch.
“Tell me Who I am” narrates the story of two twin brothers after one of them suffers an accident that makes him lose his memory.
His life, starting from zero, is built on memories that his brother tells him.
Now, as two adults, the brother decides to open up completely and reveal to his twin the truth about their upbringing. And it is nothing like he made it look.
6 – The Rise of The Murdoch Dynasty
The Murdochs are one of the richest families in the world.
With absolute control over the media in multiple countries, many people consider Rupert Murdoch the most powerful man in the world.
The documentary focuses on the upbringing of his children and how the media mogul made his kids compete against each other for the inheritance of his empire.
You will recognise a few familiar faces in this series’ popular cast.
Some say that the family from the TV show “Succession” is based on this family.
Hopefully one of these stories got your interest. Would you add any other Documentary to the list?
14 Comments
Ruth
I saw your post yesterday and thought about giving the first documentary of your list a try (the Assunta case). I managed to find it and it was such a good documentary!! However, very creepy (it’s nightmare fuel) and leaves you thinking. I totally recommend it though
I have seen some of the other ones that you mentioned but will be checking the other ones!!
Kiira Smith
I’m glad you could find it, it is very creepy indeed but some of the others are even creepier so watch out!
Jamie
Great list. I have seen some of these and my favourite from those ones was the JonBenet one (not because of the documentary format itself, but because I found it quite interesting) – Many people think the family did it
Kiira Smith
Yes, most people believe in the family participated in the murder, but the interviews they gave were pretty strange especially the brother’s interviews.
Sarah
I have seen the ‘Girlfriend who didn’t exist’ – fascinating case.
Zero sympathy for Roneisha / Naya, he/she is truly a despicable person
Kiira Smith
Agree, couldn’t see a drop of guilt or regret from her part :/
John Malone
Great list, I haven’t seen all of them but some are very good – I would add the recent Dahmer tv show by Netflix
Kiira Smith
Thanks John 🙂 Dahmer’s show is on fire right now, I have watched 2 episodes so far!
Manon
My favourite one from this list is Tell me Who I Am. I found recently this post on Reddit which digs deeper into the family:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Ijustwatched/comments/kw8ltk/ijw_tell_me_who_i_am_2019/
Kiira Smith
Thanks for sending the link, the post had a lot of information I didn’t even think about. Will check it out!
Jia
I love documentaries, will have to start watching these in the next few days!
Kiira Smith
Thank you Jia I hope you like them 🙂
Fernando
I have lived in Spain for a few years and I found the Asunta case to be terrifying. Who did it? What happened?
Such a strange, sad case. Could the father have been that masked intruder who broke into the home and tried to strangle her? Perhaps the parents wanted to make it look like the family were being targeted over a couple of months? In the first episode of the series a journalist from an important local newspaper says somebody who had keys to the house must have done it because at that time in the early morning nobody could get through the door of the apartment block without one. Plus the neighbour from the flat below Asunta and Rosario’s apartment had a really noisy, really untrusting dog that always barks at things like that. If it always alerts of the entrance of the cleaning lady at 6:00am every Thursday how is an unknown person not noticed at 4:30am? The implicit premise is that it was someone with both keys and someone the dog knew by voice, steps or the like. Then again that’s not very strong as a proof and it could be Alfonso or it could be Rosario’s lover, I don’t know why she wouldn’t have given him keys to the house even though Asunta was technically unaware of this relationship. It’s not unheard of.
Kiira Smith
There are so many unanswered questions about the case.
The mother broke up with the lover and one day after that the girl was attacked? Also, the people who had the keys should have been investigated further. The fact that the girl was attacked at night by an intruder and the mother didn’t call the police is extremely weird to me.
About the untrusting dog…I didn’t think much of it, maybe the intruder was very quiet? And why was the girl so drugged the days before?
It’s such a difficult case but I don’t think new information is coming out soon :/