SO GOOD, IT’S ILLEGAL

This month, our law-abiding columnist Sali Hughes shares her pick of criminally good TV and movies

When I was 11, my father (never conventional in his parenting style) bought me a book on serial killers. Wildly age-inappropriate and potentially nightmare-inducing though it was, I devoured it in days. The book sparked a lifelong obsession with crime and an insatiable but innocent curiosity for what makes perpetrators tick.

There’s never been a better time for crime enthusiasts – the overall UK crime rate is decreasing, but the stories told in film and on TV are at their peak. This truly is the golden age of crime content, and there’s heaps to stream on NOW TV.

If you watch no other crime documentary, make it The Jinx: The Life And Deaths Of Robert Durst, the extraordinary tale of a wealthy property magnate. In this elegant six-part series (over 10 years in the making), award-winning filmmaker Andrew Jarecki asks how plausible a coincidence it is that Durst’s wife, neighbour and friend all go missing… Uniquely, the filmmakers had full access to the ordinarily reclusive Durst, whose testimony concludes with one of the most jaw-dropping on-screen monologues in history.

It’s not only true crime that enthrals me – I also love a well-crafted story with a side of dodgy dealings.

Code 404, streaming now, is set in a future reality where DIS John Major and Roy Carver (Daniel Mays and Stephen Graham respectively) have to claw back an undercover sting from disaster after it goes horribly wrong.

I’ve also been enjoying Brassic – a non-stop, calamitous romp through Lancashire with protagonist Vinnie and his band of rural working-class criminal misfits. Season two, streaming from 7th May, picks up a few months after the season one finale, with the gang going on even bolder missions and bigger misadventures. Who said crime can’t be funny?

When it comes to bad behaviour on the big screen, any new Quentin Tarantino movie is a must-see for me. Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, streaming on NOW TV from 1st May, is loosely based on the events surrounding the 1969 murder of actress Sharon Tate and four others at Tate’s home in Los Angeles – and it’s well worth your time. With an exceptional ensemble cast, including Margot Robbie, Leonardo Dicaprio and Brad Pitt [left], who won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor earlier this year for his role in the film, it’s funny, fascinating and nerve-shredding stuff. I didn’t even mind that it clocks in at over two and a half hours long – I clearly can’t get enough of onscreen crime.