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Inventing Anna is a bona fide hit for Netflix. The streaming platform claimed that viewers clocked 511,890,000 million hours watching the nine-episode docudrama in the first 28 days since it debuted Feb. 11, ranking Anna fourth all-time among Netflix series. (Bridgerton’s first season is tops, btw).
People cannot get enough of Julia Garner’s portrayal of Anna Sorokin, a Russian-born woman who pretended to be a German heiress living in SoHo named Anna Delvey and scammed would-be friends, banks and investors out of $275,000, before getting caught and convicted on grand larceny charges, among other things.
Once you’ve binged through Anna, then what’s next?
Turns out true-crime is the hottest trend in streaming TV these days. So we don’t even need to get into documentary films and docuseries about real-life criminals (there’s far too many of them to count, to be honest), and since few fictional con artists can match the charm or the dramatic stakes of Better Call Saul, we can stick to this list of actual grifters and scammers, real cons re-enacted with all of the flair provided by our favorite actors and actresses.
Here are seven shows to watch after you finish Inventing Anna.
'The Dropout'
Hulu
Based on the podcast of the same name, The Dropout stars Amanda Seyfried as Elizabeth Holmes, a convicted fraudster who lied about the capabilities of her health-tech company, Theranos, to achieve breakthroughs in blood testing. The eight-episode limited series premiered March 3 on Hulu, with the finale premiering April 7.
'WeCrashed'
Apple TV+
WeCrashed premiered today with the first three of its planned eight episodes on Apple TV+. It’s also based on a podcast, “WeCrashed: The Rise and Fall of WeWork,” by Wondery. Jared Leto stars as Adam Neumann, WeWork’s founder, with Anne Hathaway as his wife, Rebekah. America Ferrera also stars in this look at how this company, founded in 2010 on the basis of monetizing shared working spaces, faced a crisis when its initial public offering of stock in 2019 failed. Turned out the books were slightly cooked.
'The Thing About Pam'
NBC
The Thing About Pam premiered March 8 on NBC, with the six-episode weekly miniseries concluding April 12. Episodes stream next-day on Peacock and Hulu. Renée Zellweger delivers a transformative performance as Pam Hupp, whose husband was initially convicted in the 2011 murder of Betsy Faria, then later exonerated. But Faria’s killing, and the subsequent investigation, led to even more crimes and scheming. Pam might’ve had something to do with it all. Dateline NBC previously covered the case. The cast here includes Josh Duhamel, Judy Greer, Gideon Adlon and Katy Mixon.
'Dirty John'
The success of Dirty John really helped jumpstart this trend for turning true crime into high drama. Based on the podcast of the same name, it initially premiered on Bravo in 2018, with Eric Bana starring as the titular John who conned Connie Britton’s Debra Newell, who was just looking for luck in love on dating websites after only four failed marriages. As a bonus? Garner co-starred here as Debra’s sister. The second season, Dirty John: The Betty Broderick Story, starred Christian Slater with Amanda Peet playing Betty Broderick, and had its initial airing on USA.
'The Act'
Hulu
Joey King and Patricia Arquette both took home Emmys for their turns in The Act, based on the true story of Gypsy Rose Blanchard, and the murder of her mother, Dee Dee Blanchard, who had forced her adult daughter to pretend to be a child suffering from leukemia, asthma and other disabilities.
'Unbelievable'
Netflix
Unbelievable won a Peabody Award for depicting the true story of a teenager accused of lying about her rape, amid a series of rape cases through Washington and Colorado from 2008-2011. Kaitlyn Dever starred alongside Toni Collette and Merritt Weaver for the 2019 Netflix series, which was based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning article and follow-up book about “An Unbelievable Story of Rape.”
'Pam & Tommy'
Hulu
Though Pam & Tommy on the surface doesn’t seem to have a lot in common with some of the high tech scams on this list, the story of the first widespread celebrity sex tape delves deeply into the dawn of the internet, as well as the vast changes the Pamela Anderson (Lily James) and Tommy Lee (Sebastian Stan) video brought to celebrity culture.
