(Credit: Netflix)

Netflix has never been shy about bringing a wild true-crime story. If anything, the platform makes sure that every now and then it brings one to keep the viewers updated and alert. So here we are, with Beauty and the Bester that might be one of the most jaw-dropping ones by Netflix yet.

This true crime show is a three-part docuseries that dropped on September 12th and is already climbing Netflix’s global charts. Now it is trending at number nine on the Netflix Top 10 list, proving that audiences can’t resist a tale this outrageous.

So what makes it so gripping? It starts with Thabo Bester, who is a convicted murderer and serial rapist in South Africa. He is better known as the “Facebook rapist” for luring victims online. In 2012, Bester was sentenced to life in prison. A decade later, in May 2022, officials announced he had died in a prison fire. But here is the twist: the body wasn’t his. DNA later confirmed it belonged to Katlego Bereng Mpholo, an innocent man. Bester was very much alive and had staged his death and vanished.

You might think that the show ended here after a long, dragged-out search by the police and no clue of Bester. But what’s a good Netflix docuseries without a jaw-dropping twist?

Enter Dr Nandipha Magudumana, a glamorous and well-known South African celebrity doctor. She wasn’t just a bystander in Bester’s story; it turns out she was his partner. The two lived under false identities after his escape, their relationship playing out like a crime thriller no screenwriter could dream up. When they were finally tracked down and arrested in Tanzania in April 2023, the story had already become one of the biggest scandals South Africa had ever seen.

That’s the raw material Netflix has shaped into the cleverly titled Beauty and the Bester. Directed by Anthony Molyneaux, the three episodes combine eyewitness testimony with dramatised recreations. But the most unnerving part is that these events actually happened.

The series hasn’t landed without drama of its own. Just days before the release, both Bester and Magudumana tried to block Netflix from streaming it, filing a last-minute legal bid that argued defamation and privacy. A South African court rejected the application, and the docuseries premiered as planned, adding yet another surreal layer to a case already stranger than fiction.

Part of the fascination is how Beauty and the Bester turns a true-crime case into a story about love, manipulation, and ambition gone horribly wrong. Magudumana isn’t painted as a passive partner. It’s worth admiring how the docuseries leans into the Bonnie-and-Clyde parallels, asking how a successful doctor became entangled in one of the boldest prison escapes in recent history.

Whether you’re here for the wild escape plot, the toxic love story, or just to see why the whole world is talking about Thabo Bester again, Beauty and the Bester delivers on the promise of true crime.

All three episodes are streaming now on Netflix. Just maybe don’t watch it alone at night.