If you’ve finished watching Baby Reindeer, you’ll know by now that the new Netflix show is based on the shocking true story of a real-life stalking ordeal from creator and star Richard Gadd’s life.
The actor and writer mined his own personal history to retell the years-long ordeal he endured with a stalker, and you’d be surprised just how much of the show is actually true to life.
Those real elements are certainly a big reason why Baby Reindeer made for such compelling viewing, and there are plenty more shows out there you might not even know were based on true events.
Here are just a handful of them…
1. The Watcher
The true story of The Watcher might actually be even more terrifying than what’s depicted in the TV show.
In the 2022 miniseries, which starred Bobby Cannavale, Naomi Watts and Jennifer Coolidge, a family move into a beautiful home in the New York suburbs, only for them to start receiving disturbing letters from someone who’s apparently watching their house.
The saga was first detailed in a 2018 feature in The Cut, which ended up forming the basis of the show. And in fact some of the most unsettling details of the TV adaptation all are totally true-to-life, including that the real person signed off their letters with “The Watcher”.
The Watcher is available to watch on Netflix.
2. This Is Going To Hurt
Much like Richard Gadd’s approach in Baby Reindeer (which began life as a one-man play before being turned into a TV show), Adam Kay turned to his own real life experiences to write his best-selling memoir, This is Going To Hurt: Secret Diaries Of A Junior Doctor.
As the name suggests, the book centres around Adam and his former colleagues’ experiences as junior doctors working on a busy obstetrics and gynaecology ward in an NHS hospital, and was adapted for a seven-episode TV series starring Bafta winner Ben Whishaw and One Day’s Ambika Mod in 2022.
The whole show was very much true to author Adam’s own accounts in the overworked and understaffed NHS, all while juggling his own personal life at the same time.
This Is Going To Hurt is available to watch on BBC iPlayer.
3. Inventing Anna
Inventing Anna is one of those stories that’s so wild, Hollywood simply had to jump on it.
The 2022 miniseries starring Julia Garner tells the scandalous true story of con-artist Anna Sorokin, who posed as a wealthy German heiress and managed to work her way into New York’s exclusive social scene.
She not only scammed rich socialites, but even conned banks and hotels. Anna served 18 months in prison before being taken back into custody by immigration forces and, as of late 2023, she was under house arrest. Her story was told in Rachel DeLoache Williams’ autobiographical book My Friend Anna: The True Story Of The Fake Heiress Who Conned Me And Half Of New York City.
Inventing Anna is available to watch on Netflix.
4. Narcos
While you’re probably already familiar with the story of notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar, he’s not the only real person in crime drama Narcos.
The two DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) officers who took down the drug kingpin – Steve Murphy (Boyd Holbrook) and Javier Pena (Pedro Pascal) are also depicted in the show, and were even brought in as consultants for the first two seasons.
When they were approached about bringing the story to Hollywood, their only stipulation was the show did not “in any way glorify Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel”, as they told The Hollywood Reporter. Like any stylised crime show, though, there are of course creative liberties.
Narcos is available to watch on Netflix.
5. Mindhunter
True crime has always attracted a somewhat morbid curiosity from viewers, precisely because the genre is rooted in truth.
Mindhunter, starring Jonathan Groff and Holt McCallany, goes a step further by retracing the advancement of the criminal profiling back in the 1970s that allowed FBI agents to get into the minds of murders.
The series revolves around the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit and a new research project, which sees agents interview imprisoned serial killers to understand their psychology better.
It’s not only inspired by John E. Douglas and Mark Olshaker’s non-fiction book, Mindhunter: Inside The FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit, but it also references real murders and crimes that shocked the nation like cult leader Charles Manson, serial killer David Berkowitz (known as Son of Sam) and rapist and murderer Montie Rissell.
Mindhunter is available to watch on Netflix.
6. Dopesick
The opioid addiction crisis in the US has sparked numerous depictions in popular media, but Dopesick is one of the most famous.
While the characters in the show are fictionalised, the wider context is very much true. The show stars the likes of Michael Keaton, Peter Sarsgaard, Will Poulter and Rosario Dawson, and details the real Purdue Pharma’s misbranded marketing of the painkiller OxyContin, which led to the opioid crisis in America.
The series is based on Beth Macy’s book Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors And The Drug Company That Addicted America, although creator Danny Strong told NPR that there are also “composite” characters inspired by accounts of the real people affected.
Dopesick is available to watch on BBC iPlayer or Disney+.
7. Orange Is The New Black
Yes, really.
The groundbreaking and hugely popular Netflix show about a women’s prison is based on the memoir of Piper Kerman, who was sentenced to prison for aiding her ex-girlfriend’s drug-smuggling operation.
While Orange Is The New Black eventually departs from her true version of events and breaks off into its own plotlines, the real Piper once told NPR: “When you watch the show, you will see moments of my life leap off the screen.”
Orange Is The New Black is available to watch on Netflix.