8 New Mystery, Thriller, True Crime Adaptations to Watch in September 2025

The Audible Original true crime audiobook Midnight Son follows James Dommek Jr., who needed to understand how actor Teddy Kyle Smith was accused of shooting two strangers while a fugitive, after his mom’s death, in Alaska.

The audiobook has been adapted into a true crime documentary, Blood & Myth, on Hulu. It follows James Dommek Jr. as he recounts the case, reads through files of evidence and photographs, and interviews Teddy Kyle Smith, his family, law enforcement, members of the community, and more. This for me falls into the interesting memoir/true crime blend where James Dommek Jr. tries to make sense of how a man he’d once watched on TV—who he had a lot in common with as an Iñupiaq man—could be accused of attempted murder, while also diving into his experience growing up in an isolated Native community and trying to make sense of Teddy claiming he’d seen long-feared beings, Iñukuns.

Watch the trailer: Blood & Myth | Official Trailer | Hulu

If you don’t read true crime, I have some book recs: If the Alaska setting interested you, pick up series starter City Under One Roof by Iris Yamashita. And if you want to read a mystery book by an Indigenous author, check out Where They Last Saw Her by Marcie R. Rendon and Blood Sisters by Vanessa Lillie.

The popular Apple TV+ series Slow Horses is adapted from Mick Herron’s Slough House series, which centers on a group of spies who have been kicked out of MI5 for various reasons (all deserved) and are basically babysat by Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman). The show is hilarious, properly paced as a thriller, has great actors (Kristin Scott Thomas!), and is tons of fun.

The six-episode fifth season will be based on the fifth book in the series, London Rules, and adds Nick Mohammed from Ted Lasso! You can start streaming it on September 24th on Apple TV+.

Bonus book rec: If what you love is the team aspect of very different personalities solving mysteries, I recommend the Charlie Mack Motown Mystery PI series by Cheryl A. Head, which starts with Bury Me When I’m Dead. (If you’re interested in why I enjoy this series, read Stop Leaving Money on the Table: Adapt These Mystery Books).

Michelle Frances’ slow-burn domestic thriller pits a young woman in want of a wealthy husband against said young man’s mother, who has made her son her whole world.

Amazon Prime has adapted the novel into a six-episode limited series that is now streaming. Fans of The Princess Bride and House of Cards will be thrilled to see the mom is played by Robin Wright!

Watch the trailer: The Girlfriend – Official Trailer | Prime Video

Rather than adapting Vineland by Thomas Pynchon, Paul Thomas Anderson said in an Esquire interview that “Vineland was always going to be too hard to adapt, so I stole the parts that spoke to me and just started running like a thief.” So I guess this was “inspired” by a book.

Anyhoo, the film One Battle After Another will be in theaters September 26th and follows ex-revolutionaries who are forced to come back together in this action-packed crime thriller. It has a blockbuster cast: Regina Hall, Chase Infiniti, Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro, Teyana Taylor, Wood Harris, and Alana Haim.

Watch the trailer: One Battle After Another | Official Trailer 2

Evan Hunter’s 1959 King’s Ransom (pen name Ed McBain) was loosely adapted into Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 High and Low, a police procedural Japanese film. The original follows the executive of a shoe company in the middle of tense negotiations about the future of the company when he receives a notice that his son has been kidnapped and he must pay a ransom. Except the wrong child is kidnapped…

Now Spike Lee has remade Kurosawa’s film, Highest 2 Lowest, which you can stream on Apple TV+. It stars Denzel Washington, and moves from the shoe industry to the music industry, and sets the kidnapping plot in NY!

Watch the trailer: Highest 2 Lowest | Official Trailer HD | A24

Are you ready for some WTF? Because that’s the premise of Watler Mosley’s suspense novel, The Man in My Basement. The setup: Charles Blakey is struggling financially when a complete stranger, Anniston Bennett, appears to be offering him money to rent his basement. What could go wrong? Cut to Bennett, a white man, having demands and imprisoning himself in a cage…

You can see the film adaptation for a limited time in theaters starting September 12th, and then catch it streaming on Hulu on September 26th. Blakeley and Bennett are played by Corey Hawkins and Willem Dafoe, and Nadia Latif directed!

Watch the trailer: The Man in My Basement | Teaser | Hulu

Jorge Ibargüengoitia’s novel is a black comedy satire about sisters who are brothel owners and serial killers, which is inspired by the crimes committed by the González sisters in 1950/60s Mexico.

Luis Estrada directs the limited series adaptation of the same name at Netflix, premiering September 10th, which follows the Baladro sisters in Mexico in the ‘60s as they build a brothel empire while being vicious killers.

Watch the trailer: Las Muertas | Avance oficial | Netflix

Bonus book rec: For true crime set in Mexico focused on femicide, pick up the Pulitzer Prize winner Liliana’s Invincible Summer: A Sister’s Search for Justice by Cristina Rivera Garza, which was one of my Best Books of 2023.