12 Shows Like The Staircase You Need To Watch After The HBO Max Miniseries

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There's a scene early on in HBO Max's eerie, humane mini-series "The Staircase" where Todd Peterson (Patrick Schwarzenegger) returns home. Police cars are everywhere. The scene is grim and focused. Director Antonio Campos' camera follows Todd into his family home, weaving in and out of officers and detectives to discover almost simultaneously his stepmother Kathleen (Toni Collette) dead by the stairs and his father Michael (Colin Firth) an emotional wreck. Michael stalks around the table. He collapses into Todd's arms. He catches a second wind in those arms and lunges towards Kathleen's body before crumbling into a fit of sobs and half-heard words. It's a stunning, powerful moment ... all the more so if you know where "The Staircase" is heading.

"The Staircase" is a masterclass in dramatizing true-life documentaries. Campos's staging and Firth's performance quietly foreshadow why and how Michael will become accused of Kathleen's murder. It isn't written all over his face so much as running within the lines of it. If the best true crime documentaries make compelling art from a deep dive into the psychology of evil and how it affects ordinary humans, the best true crime adaptations invite some of the industry's brightest talents to add imaginative depths and empathy to tales that threaten to be clinical. Here are 12 shows you need to watch after you finish HBO Max's "The Staircase."

In Netflix's "Unbelievable," the crime is horrifying and clear from the jump. Marie (a heartbreaking Kaitlyn Dever) is raped by a mysterious assailant. Under police pressure, she recants her report. Three years later, a series of sexual assaults in Colorado have striking parallels to Marie's retracted story. Viewers of the show see those similarities, only to spend the next six grueling episodes hoping someone on-screen will see them too. Show creators Susannah Grant, Michael Chabon, and Ayelet Waldman found an ingenious narrative structure for "Unbelievable," which is inspired by a true-life case, if only because it never wavers from its focus on the victims. Marie is a clinical study of why multiple systems make it difficult for women to report assaults: after she repudiates her rape accusation, she is punished for "lying." 

Later, criminal charges are filed against her. Dever lets us see Marie's pugnacious determination in the face of these dehumanizing developments, but also the toll they take upon her. It's a mesmerizing performance that invites audiences to see the courage it takes for women to speak their truth about sexual assault. On the other hand, the detectives investigating the Colorado cases (Merritt Wever and Toni Collette) provide a piercing look into the cost of working sexual assault cases and the institutionalized misogyny that's an obstacle at every turn. It will make you angry. It will leave you thinking. "Unbelievable" is not a "who" or "why" done it so much as a "what can we do" moving forward.

Apple TV Plus's "Severance" is one of 2022's most celebrated shows. It's a heady mix of nightmarish world-building, off-kilter comedy, and mystery box plotting drew comparisons to "The Prisoner," "The Office," and "Lost" in equal measure. The show also marks Ben Stiller's second successful outing directing Patricia Arquette. "Escape at Dannemora" was highly touted upon its release, but now it's something of a forgotten curiosity. A seven-episode miniseries inspired by the true story of a 2015 Clinton Correctional Facility escape in upstate New York which led to a massive manhunt, "Dannemora" chronicles the sexual entanglements of a prison worker and two inmates plus their subsequent breakout with equal aplomb. 

It's playful but not precocious. It's deeply felt but never maudlin. At no point does the show feel like a true-crime adaptation, either. For all intents and purposes, "Dannemora" could be an original story from the mind of Ben Stiller and his crackerjack staff and cast (Benicio Del Toro, Patricia Arquette, Paul Dano, and the always welcome Bonnie Hunt) and few would believe otherwise. It's a wonderful program on its own terms, but just as wonderful as a forbearer of "Severance" and a crucial step in Stiller's evolution as a director. He's always been skilled, but "Dannemora" feels like a summation of his talents. That's more than enough reason to check it out. 

So far the year 2022 has produced a remarkable amount of sterling television in its first five months, including David E. Simon's "We Own This City," the smash "Heartstopper," and "Under The Banner of Heaven" (which we'll discuss a little later). Based on the true story of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, "The Dropout" managed to produce the year's single funniest episode to date. "Old White Men," which is directed by comedy vet Michael Showalter ("The Shrink Next Door," "Stella"), follows an evaluatory board for Walgreens (Alan Ruck and Rich Sommer among them) that are determining whether they want to do business with Theranos and its enigmatic CEO, Elizabeth Holmes. 

Unlike the episodes which preceded it, "Old White Man" is howlingly hysterical. It shifts its perspective to a cadre of corporate stooges, whose business is evolving past its need before their very eyes. In doing so, "The Dropout" becomes a more multifaceted show and sneakily reminds its audience that Holmes' fraud touched millions of lives, from one-percenters to sick patients. This is why "The Dropout" matters. Besides boasting career-best work from Amanda Seyfried (who should be in every award-season conversation from here on out), Elizabeth Merriwether's show is as focused on the victims of Holmes's crime and the institutions which bolstered it as it is gritty details. Does it take creative liberties? More than likely. Do those make its story more effective? Yes, absolutely. Check out all of it whenever you get a chance.

True crime exists, on some level, to make the unspeakable palatable. If the subjects of crime documentaries and adaptations cover unspeakable acts of violence, degradation, or sexual misconduct, it follows that these documentaries and adaptations (at their best) would give audiences a reason to swallow the uneasy meal in front of them. They make it easier because it's worth doing. In the case of "Under The Banner of Heaven," audiences ingest a gruesome crime involving Brenda Lafferty (Daisy Edgar-Jones) and her fifteen-year-old daughter, plus multiple versions of Mormonism. 

The series adaptation of Jon Krakauer's controversial book by Academy Award-winning writer Dustin Lance Black ("Milk) takes pains to differentiate between sympathetic Morman sects like The Relief Society and the Morman religious fanatics that commit the show's awful inciting incident. It also calls into question the nature of religion itself and asks how thin the line is between believers and those who use God's name in support of violence. That's an uneasy pill to swallow, and the show has received its praises and thoughtful detractions in equal measure. Yet there's no doubt that it succeeds as a true-crime experience. Whatever one makes of Krakauer and Black's perspective, their storytelling offers a window into a world both fairly criticized and potentially misunderstood. It's palatable appointment television.

If "National Treasure" succeeds because it uses the distance from its source material to belay its effectiveness, "A Very English Scandal" works because it tells a true story strangely. Russel T. Davies and Stephan Frears' adaptation of the Jeremy Thorpe affair is far funnier than the plot details would suggest. Thorpe (a deliciously wry Hugh Grant) and Norman (Ben Whishaw) have a relationship in their youth. Years later, Thorpe marries a woman, and an agitated Norman threatens to expose the secret of Thorpe's sexuality. Political coverups, accidental death, and planned-upon murders ensue.

Again, not the stuff of classic comedies, but Davies and Frears (plus their very game cast) locate the heart of the story's ridiculousness, honing in on the inherently madcap nature of trying to keep a secret hidden or someone quiet. The show effortlessly builds to a series of sterling courtroom scenes, and the nonstop volley of retorts, snipes, and witty come-ons will appeal to viewers who like their true crime on the lighter side. "A Very English Scandal" is a must-watch, whether you know of the Thorpe affair or not.

There is no greater modern chronicler of American excess or spectacle than Ryan Murphy. The auteur has built his career on understanding why America keeps watching criminal trials, reality television, and is more likely to watch CNN when they're covering the impeachment of Bill Clinton than foreign policy. Murphy makes shows which match the sensationalism of the events that inspired them, and his style is nothing if not appropriately excessive.

That's not the case in "The People Vs OJ Simpson." In the first installment of Murphy's now long-running anthology series, Murphy dials it all the way back. The show builds a sinister yet empathetic tone bereft of superfluous gestures. The casting feels like a series of stunts (Cuba Gooding Jr. as OJ Simpson, David Schwimmer as Robert Kardashian), but it's eerily spot-on. Gooding Jr. knows all too well what leaving the light of stardom feels like, and he channels what feels like personal angst into the performance of his career. Schwimmer is hysterically pleading but also moving. John Travolta, Sarah Paulson, and countless others cannot approach the star-making turn of Sterling K. Brown as co-prosecutor Christopher Darden. "The People Vs. OJ Simpson" is a stirring look at one of the 20th century's most visible crimes as well as the class, racial, and gender-driven fault lines it exposed in America. It is Ryan Murphy's finest work and one of this century's best miniseries.