20 best shows like Freedom Writers (2007)

An anthology series centered around some of history's most famous criminals.

A seasonal anthology series that tells startling, stranger-than-fiction true crime stories with the first season following Gypsy Blanchard, a girl trying to escape the toxic relationship she has with her overprotective mother.

The stranger-than-fiction account of a prison break in upstate New York in the summer of 2015, which spawned a massive manhunt for two convicted murderers who were aided in their escape by a married female prison employee with whom they both became sexually entangled.

In the late 1960s, a Los Angeles police sergeant with a complicated personal life starts tracking a small-time criminal and budding cult leader seeking out vulnerable women to join his “cause.” The name of that man is Charles Manson.

Carlos is a French-German television and cinema biographical film from 2010, about the life of the 1970s international terrorist Carlos the Jackal, from his first series of attacks in 1973 until his arrest in 1994. It premiered as a three-part TV mini-series on French pay channel Canal+, with the three parts airing on 19 May, May 26 and June 2, 2010. On the same day it premiered on Canal+, the full 5½ hour version was also shown out of competition at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival. Produced by Daniel Leconte of French production company Film En Stock and Jens Meuer of German production company Egoli Tossell Film, in association with Canal+ and French Arte, it was directed by Olivier Assayas from a screenplay by Leconte, Assayas and Dan Franck, and stars Édgar Ramírez as Carlos. The film exists both as a three-part mini-series and a feature film of various lengths between 338 and 319 minutes, but also in several abridged versions, from 187 minutes down to 166 minutes. Classified as a theatrical film as well as a TV film/TV mini-series, Carlos has been awarded both theatrical awards and TV awards; among them the 2010 Golden Globe award for the 'Best Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television', the 2010 Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Foreign Language Film and Best Director, the National Society of Film Critics 2010 award for Best Director, the New York Film Critics Circle 2010 award for Best Foreign Language Film, the 2010 European Film Award for Best Editor, the 2010 Critics Award for Best Film at the São Paulo International Film Festival, and Édgar Ramírez won the 2010 César Award for Most Promising Actor.

A look at the life of notorious drug kingpin, El Chapo, from his early days in the 1980s working for the Guadalajara Cartel, to his rise to power of during the '90s and his ultimate downfall in 2016.

The rise and fall of Bernie Madoff, who's Ponzi scheme bilked $65 billion from unsuspecting victims.

An intense and fictionalized account of actual events and people surrounding Lizzie’s life after her controversial acquittal of the horrific double murder of her father and stepmother in 1892.

A prisoner becomes a lawyer, litigating cases for other inmates while fighting to overturn his own life sentence for a crime he didn’t commit.

8 August 1963: Britain wakes up to news of the biggest robbery in the country’s history. A train has been hijacked and robbed, 35 miles from its arrival in central London. The country is stunned. Who could be behind it? How did they pull off such an audacious raid?

Follow Jim Fitzgerald, the FBI agent who tracked down Ted Kaczynksi, aka the “Unabomber,” and brought him to justice through his expertise in profiling and linguistics.

It's the late 1960s, homosexuality has only just been legalised and Jeremy Thorpe, the leader of the Liberal party, has a secret he's desperate to hide.

The trials and triumphs of one of America’s wealthiest and unhappiest families, the Gettys. Told over multiple seasons and spanning the twentieth century, the series begins in 1973 with the kidnapping of John Paul Getty III, an heir to the Getty oil fortune, by the Italian mafia in Rome.

Factual drama based on the notorious White House Farm murders, and the ensuing police investigation and court case.

The remarkable story of how murderer Charles Sobhraj was captured. As the chief suspect in unsolved murders of young Western travellers across India, Thailand and Nepal’s ‘Hippie Trail’ in 1975 and 1976, Sobhraj had repeatedly slipped from the grasp of authorities worldwide to become Interpol's most wanted man, with arrest warrants on three different continents.

The story of how Detective Superintendent Steve Fulcher deliberately breached police procedure and protocol to catch a killer, a decision that ultimately cost him his career and reputation.

The story of one of the most infamous cases in UK criminal history, that of serial killer Dennis Nilsen. Told through the prism of three men, the series explores the personal and professional consequences of coming into contact with a man like Nilsen.

This drama series is a fictionalized retelling of the story of meth dealer-turned-ATF informant Charles Falco, who spent three years inside one of America's most dangerous motorcycle gangs, the Vagos. Although Falco originally took on the assignment to avoid spending 20 years in prison on drug charges, it eventually evolved into a quest for justice for him. “Gangland Undercover” documents the lives of outlaw bikers, who live in a world in which respect is earned through fear. The series is based on Falco's memoir, “Vagos, Mongols, and Outlaws,” and documented historical research of gang rivalries.

Walking Tall is an American television drama series that ran on NBC in 1981 for one season of seven episodes. The first 5 episodes aired Saturday nights at 9:00 p.m.. The last 2 episodes aired Tuesday nights at 10:00 p.m. NBC reran all 7 episodes from April-August 1981. This one-hour show was based on the 1973 film Walking Tall, which was based on the life of Buford Pusser. Here, Pusser is the sheriff of McNeal County, Tennessee, fighting criminals each week in 1969.

Miniseries based on the true story of Clyde Barrow, a charismatic convicted armed robber who sweeps Bonnie Parker, an impressionable, petite, small-town waitress, off her feet, and the two embark on one one of most infamous bank-robbing sprees in history.

Pablo Escobar: El Patrón del Mal is a 2012 Colombian television series produced and broadcast on Caracol TV, about the life of Pablo Escobar. It is only available in Spanish. There is a version available with English subtitles.

A zoo owner spirals out of control amid a cast of eccentric characters in this true murder-for-hire story from the underworld of big cat breeding.

Based on the true story of Grace Marks, a housemaid and immigrant from Ireland who was imprisoned in 1843, perhaps wrongly, for the murder of her employer Thomas Kinnear. Grace claims to have no memory of the murder yet the facts are irrefutable. A decade after, Dr. Simon Jordan tries to help Grace recall her past.

Cleopatra, the famed Egyptian Queen born in 69 B.C., is shown to have been brought by Roman ruler Julius Caesar at age 18. Caesar becomes sexually obsessed by the 18 year old queen, beds her, and eventually has a son by her. However, his Roman followers and his wife are not pleased by the union. In fact, as Caesar has only a daughter by his wife, he had picked Octavian as his successor.

Documentary series that examines the Jonestown Massacre 40 years later.

In Beacon Heights, a seemingly perfect town, a group of three college friends struggle with the stress of being overachievers. In the aftermath of the town’s first murder, each Perfectionist hides behind a secret, a lie and an alibi.

Inspired by the professional experiences of crisis negotiator Laurent Combalbert who with his partner, Marwan Mery, are among the top negotiators in the world. Together, they travel around the globe to help multinational corporations and governmental agencies with complex negotiations and conflict resolution.

Shiv Prakash Shukla a 25 year age boy from Gorakhpur becomes the deadliest gangster of Uttar Pradesh in 1990s. He works for powerful politicians and involves in organised crimes. The state government felt danger from him and form STF to get him killed in a police encounter by tracking his mobile phone location.

This gritty dramatization of the life of Carlos Tevez shows his rise to soccer stardom amid the harrowing conditions in Argentina's Fuerte Apache.

A missing child causes four families to help each other for answers. What they could not imagine is that this mystery would be connected to innumerable other secrets of the small town.

The terrifying true story of Dr. Christopher Duntsch, a flourishing Dallas neurosurgeon whose patients suddenly begin becoming permanently maimed or dead. As victims piled up, two fellow physicians set out to stop him.

Police detective Peter Wendel leads a cold case group. Based on an original idea by Leif GW Persson, one of Sweden’s most recognized criminologists.

The rise and fall of Fox News founder Roger Ailes, focusing primarily on the past decade in which Ailes arguably became the Republican Party’s de facto leader, while flashing back to defining events in his life.

The Huntress is an American TV series that appeared on the USA Network over subsequent summers of the 2000 and 2001 television seasons. It was inspired by a book about the real bounty hunter, Dottie Thorson, and is also a belated sequel to the 1980 Steve McQueen film, The Hunter.

See the rise of the Guadalajara Cartel as an American DEA agent learns the danger of targeting narcos in 1980s Mexico.

Five teens from Harlem become trapped in a nightmare when they're falsely accused of a brutal attack in Central Park.

American fashion designer Halston skyrockets to fame before his life starts to spin out of control.

Belgravia, London, November 7th, 1974. Sandra Rivett, nanny of the aristocratic Lucan family, is found beaten to death. Shortly thereafter, the prime suspect, John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan, mysteriously disappears. When the manhunt begins, the subsequent scandal shakes the foundations of the British ruling class like never before.

Marriage, family, career, everything in Claude's life is a success. Mayor of his town, he is almost certain to become senator. For his beloved grandson Lucas, life is much less cheerful: his parents are divorcing and he's awkward and ill at ease. One day he accuses his grandfather of rape.

Through globalization, many countries have been opened and barriers removed to ensure easy trade, travel and cultural diversity. However, this openness has given opportunities to criminals looking to exploit the system and ultimately threaten our global safety. As Europe has become a "safe house" for criminals eluding law enforcers, a special kind of law enforcement team is needed to handle specific ongoing crimes on a global level. "Crossing Lines" is the story of one such team, made up of five international cops, headed by Captain Daniel. The team - comprised of individuals who have little in common - must learn to live and work under the most dangerous and potentially deadly conditions. Housed in an unused storage section underneath the ICC, this mismatched team faces bureaucratic, jurisdictional and cultural obstacles while traversing continents in pursuit of justice.

Chronicles the life of Judy Garland, from her first public performance in 1924 until her death.

Arthur & George is a three-part adaptation of Julian Barnes' novel about Sherlock Holmes creator Arthur Conan Doyle as played by actor Martin Clunes. Set in 1906 in Staffordshire, Hampshire and London the drama follows Sir Arthur and his trusted secretary, Alfred ‘Woodie’ Wood as they investigate the case of George Edalji, a young Anglo-Indian solicitor who was imprisoned for allegedly mutilating animals and writing obscene letters.

Relive a heroic fight for survival during the Iraq War, when the 1st Cavalry Division from Fort Hood was ferociously ambushed on April 4, 2004, in Sadr City, Baghdad — a day that came to be known in military annals as “Black Sunday.”

Those Who Kill is a Danish crime TV series from 2011, which follows a fictitious unit within Copenhagen Police which specialises in investigating serial murders. The series was aired as five two-part stories in Denmark, but has aired as five feature film length episodes in most other countries. A separate 92 minutes feature film, Fortidens skygge, which forms a continuation and ending of the series, premiered in Danish cinemas on 15 March 2012, and is being aired as a final, sixth episode of the series in many other countries, such as the UK and Germany. The series is created and written by Elsebeth Egholm and Stefan Jaworski, with various other screenwriters helping out as episode writers, among them Siv Rajendram, Rikke De Fine Licht and Morten Dragsted. Directors have been Birger Larsen, Niels Nørløv and Kasper Barfoed. The series is a Danish-German-Swedish-Norwegian co-production. Although originally planned to run for several seasons, Danish TV2 announced in October 2011 that there would be no further seasons made, due to falling viewer shares after the first few episodes. TV2 programming manager Keld Reinicke stated that, "We have no plans to continue the series as it never gave us the audience share we expected in Denmark."

An anthology series that delves into the players, the crime and the media circus, detailing the day-to-day battles of the trial and unveiling the shocking truth of what really went down when the cameras stopped rolling.

The true story of a decades-long conflict between the Los Angeles Police Department, under the determined leadership of Police Chief William Parker, and ruthless criminal elements led by Mickey Cohen, a one-time boxer who rose to the top of L.A.'s criminal world. The series is a fast-paced crime drama set in Los Angeles during the 1940s and '50s. It's a world of glamorous movie stars, powerful studio heads, returning war heroes, a powerful and corrupt police force and an even more dangerous criminal network determined to make L.A. its West Coast base.

The two-night scripted miniseries “Houdini” follows the epic tales of Harry Houdini as he emerges as America’s first bonafide world-renowned superstar.

Based on the extraordinary true story of Alec Jeffreys' discovery of DNA fingerprinting and its first use by Detective Chief Superintendent David Baker in catching a double murderer.