Four Netflix shows to watch if you loved ‘Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story’
Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan are officially back with the long-awaited fourth instalment of their hit Netflix anthology series, Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story, and true-crime junkies are already on it.
The latest instalment chronicles and dramatises Lizzie Borden’s story, the infamous murder suspect, who was tried and acquitted of the 1892 axe murders of her father and stepmother, marking the first instalment to spotlight an alleged female perpetrator.
The Lizzie Borden Story tracks the titular repressed daughter of the New England family, who, alongside her rebellious maid, spiralled into a dark and dangerous world of fantasy and revenge while attempting to escape a house built on abuse and humiliation.
While the eight-episode instalment is hauntingly explosive, here are four more Netflix shows to watch after Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story if you want your next watchlist to explore similar themes.
Four Netflix shows to stream after Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story
Monster: The Ed Gein Story (Max Winkler and Ian Brennan, 2025)
The most direct follow-ups to Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story obviously mean a trip down the lanes of Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan’s other true-crime subjects, including the notoriously unsettling The Ed Gein Story.
The third season of the Monster series dramatises the life and crimes of the titular 1950s murderer and grave robber, examining his macabre legacy through the discovery of his gory house of horrors. Monster: The Ed Gein Story explores the potential origins of his criminal psychology, stemming from his deep-seated isolation and undiagnosed schizophrenia that were primarily shaped by the intensely destructive relationship he shared with his conservative, domineering mother, Augusta.
In addition to backtracking the notorious killer, the series inculcates meta-commentary to highlight how his horrific crimes became the blueprint for modern horror, serving as real-life inspiration behind movies like Psycho and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Stories (Carl Franklin and Michael Uppendahl, 2024)
Although the real-life cases are separated by nearly a century, Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story and Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Stories share dark parallels that have cemented the subjects as permanent fixtures in American crime history.
Both cases focus on gruesome killings of parental figures inside the family home, with the Bordens bludgeoned by an axe, and Jose and Kitty Menendez shot at point-blank range.
Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan’s second season of the biographical crime drama anthology series, The Lyle and Erik Menendez Stories, specifically looks back on the 1989 parricides of Jose and his wife, Kitty, who were murdered by their own sons in Beverly Hills. The nine-episode series details the horrifying crime from a fictionalised lens and explores multiple perspectives.
Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story (Carl Franklin, Janet Mock, Paris Barclay, Jennifer Lynch, and Mandie Fletcher, 2022)
Similar to how The Lizzie Borden Story highlights a case that evolved into a massive cultural spectacle, Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story spotlights a serial killer whose crimes transcended news reporting to become enduring pop culture folklore.
The debut instalment of Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan’s anthology series follows the life, crimes, and eventual arrest of the infamous serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. At the same time, like its Monster successors, The Jeffrey Dahmer Story sheds light on the systemic failures that allowed him to operate without fear of consequences for over a decade.
The narrative moves backwards to explore Dahmer’s youth, marked by his parents’ bitter divorce, his extreme social reclusion, and his morbid fascination with dissecting dead animals early in his life, and also reminds readers of his sensationalised trial and the aftermath.
The Lizzie Borden Chronicles (Howard Deutch, Stephen Kay, Russell Mulcahy and Constantine Makris, 2015)
While not exactly a Netflix original, The Lizzie Borden Chronicles is currently available on the platform in several regions. Set in 1893, Fall River, Massachusetts, the fictionalised historical television series opens four months after her high-profile trial, which basically escalated into a media circus.
The series primarily imagines Lizzie Borden following the controversial acquittal for the 1892 murders of her father and stepmother. Although The Lizzie Borden Chronicles has a clear tonal shift, it’s just that the series takes the same history and turns it into a campy, bloody thriller.
And since Monster infamously focuses heavily on the pressure cooker of the family household, the double homicide, and the sensationalised trial, Chronicles poses an absurd question instead of sticking strictly to historical facts, making it a lightweight watch.