Real-life stories of grisly crimes have always had a primal pull on our collective imagination. It’s now axiomatic that if there’s anything that sells better than sex, it’s true crime. In the last decade, the genre has blown up into a media behemoth, with more and more cliffhanger podcasts, television shows, and documentaries released each year, spinning murders and mysteries into engrossing narratives. Yet these stories also raise uncomfortable questions—about the role of the media in criminal justice, the objectivity of nonfiction filmmaking, and our voyeuristic fascination that fuels this phenomenon.

At this year’s Sundance Film Festival, Film Comment Editor Devika Girish moderated a conversation with three nonfiction filmmakers from the festival's lineup whose works question and subvert the expectations of the true-crime mode: Charlie Shackleton (Zodiac Killer Project), David Osit (Predators), and Geeta Gandhbir (The Perfect Neighbor). The panelists explored the origins and popularity of the true-crime trend, and its implications for both audiences and media-makers.

Catch up with all of our Sundance 2025 coverage at filmcomment.com