# The Confession Tapes (2017)

> A Netflix true crime docuseries re-examining murder convictions whose confessions may have been coerced or false.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/64206

## Facts

- Seasons: 2
- Episodes: 11
- Episode runtime: 42 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: documentary
- Created by: Kelly Loudenberg
- Network: Netflix
- Cast: Elena Kagan
- TMDB rating: 7.5/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7349602/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: measured
- Intensity: moderate
- Complexity: accessible
- Violence: mild
- Tone: sober, investigative, unsettling, methodical

## What critics say

Audiences rate the series positively, valuing its serious examination of coerced and false confessions in murder cases.

## Synopsis

The Confession Tapes (2017-2019) is an American true crime documentary series created by Kelly Loudenberg for Netflix. Across two seasons and eleven episodes of roughly forty-two minutes each, the show revisits people convicted of murder who insist their confessions were coerced, involuntary or entirely false. Each episode works like an investigation: interrogation recordings, case files and archival footage are laid side by side so viewers can judge whether a signed or spoken admission could have been manufactured by pressure, exhaustion or deception. The engine of every episode is the question of whether the justice system got the right person, and the stakes are concrete: a prison sentence, a grieving family, a conviction that may never be undone. The tone is sober and methodical rather than sensational, with a steady undercurrent of doubt and unease. Archive material gives the cases texture, and the pacing stays deliberate as evidence accumulates. Viewers who appreciate The Thin Blue Line, Making a Murderer and The Jinx will find the same investigative patience and moral scrutiny of American criminal procedure here, delivered as a compact limited run for adults interested in how confessions are obtained and believed.

## Shows like The Confession Tapes

- [Catching Killers (2021)](https://ember.film/tv/113148)
- [Till Murder Do Us Part: Soering vs. Haysom (2023)](https://ember.film/tv/154706)
- [Shadow of Truth (2016)](https://ember.film/tv/58405)
- [Interrogation (2020)](https://ember.film/tv/81425)
- [The Confession Killer (2019)](https://ember.film/tv/81020)
- [Worst Ex Ever (2024)](https://ember.film/tv/173660)
- [The 43 (2019)](https://ember.film/tv/77052)
- [Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes (2019)](https://ember.film/tv/72908)
- [Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey (2024)](https://ember.film/tv/181591)
- [This Is the Zodiac Speaking (2024)](https://ember.film/tv/179262)

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