Must-Watch True Crime Documentaries for Fans of ‘Worst Neighbor Ever’

Netflix’s newest true crime obsession has viewers rattled, and if you burned through all four episodes of ‘Worst Neighbor Ever’ in one sitting, you are far from alone. The series dives into real cases of neighbors gone bad, from fraud schemes to violent retribution, and it has already climbed the streamer’s charts.

The good news is that this specific brand of suburban dread has been building for years, and there is plenty more where that came from. Here are seven documentaries that deliver the same unsettling mix of bodycam footage, animated reenactments, and true crime horror.

‘Worst Roommate Ever’ (2022)

This is the show that started the entire franchise, and it remains one of the most bingeable entries in the collection. The series highlights four harrowing tales of seemingly harmless roommates who turned into real-life nightmares, including a serial squatter and con artist who terrorized victim after victim.

The series was based on a 2018 New York Magazine article that chronicled the worst living experiences of people who found roommates on Craigslist, and it proved popular enough to earn a second season. Both seasons landed in Netflix’s global Top 10 English-language TV list, cementing ‘Worst Roommate Ever’ as the blueprint for everything that followed.

‘Worst Ex Ever’ (2024)

The franchise took the same anthology format and applied it to romantic partners instead of roommates, and it is just as hard to look away from. Director Cynthia Childs, who also helmed ‘Worst Neighbor Ever’, built the series around the universal fear of not truly knowing your partner, weaving together testimonials, bodycam footage, and animated reenactments.

The first season introduced viewers to exes like Benjiman Foster and Rosa Hill, and the show proved popular enough to score a second season that premiered in May 2026 featuring convicted murderer Wade Wilson. If ‘Worst Neighbor Ever’ scratched an itch, this spinoff will only deepen it.

‘The Perfect Neighbor’ (2025)

This is arguably the most acclaimed documentary in this entire space, and it tells a true story with echoes of what unfolds in ‘Worst Neighbor Ever’. Directed by Geeta Gandbhir, the film follows the 2023 killing of Ajike Owens by her neighbor Susan Lorincz in Ocala, Florida, told almost entirely through police bodycam footage.

The documentary won the Directing Award at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival before Netflix acquired it, and it went on to earn an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Feature. Gandbhir personally knew Owens through family ties, and she has said she made the film to transform grief into purpose rather than simply chase a true crime hook.

‘American Nightmare’ (2024)

This three part series proves that not every neighborhood horror story ends the way you expect. It revisits the bizarre 2015 kidnapping of Denise Huskins from the home she shared with boyfriend Aaron Quinn in Vallejo, California, a case investigators initially dismissed as a hoax inspired by ‘Gone Girl’.

From the filmmakers behind ‘The Tinder Swindler’, the docuseries unpacks how law enforcement’s rush to judgment nearly ruined two innocent lives before a detective linked the crime to a separate home invasion. Netflix called it its highest rated documentary of 2024, and the fallout is still making headlines as more of the kidnapper’s alleged crimes come to light.

‘Maternal Instinct’ (2026)

This documentary swaps neighborhood drama for a different kind of betrayal, though the deception at its core feels just as chilling. It follows Taylor Parker, a woman who spent nearly ten months faking a pregnancy in a small East Texas town before murdering 21 year old Reagan Simmons Hancock and taking her unborn daughter.

Directed by Jessica Dimmock, the film leans on bodycam footage and interviews with investigators and loved ones to trace how the elaborate ruse finally collapsed after a state trooper pulled Parker over. Parker was convicted of capital murder in 2022 and remains on death row in Texas, and the documentary does not shy away from the disturbing crime scene details.

Between betrayed roommates, deadly exes, and neighbors who turn friendly streets into crime scenes, this corner of true crime shows no signs of slowing down. Which of these neighborhood nightmares are you adding to your watchlist first, and did any of them creep you out more than ‘Worst Neighbor Ever’ itself?