The true-crime genre has been growing in popularity over the last few years, with the genre going truly mainstream. And now, Netflix has proved how popular it is, with the platform’s latest true-crime drama topping the popularity charts in over 50 countries.
According to stats aggregate Flixpatrol, Netflix’s The Tinder Swindler is the most popular show on Netflix in America, France, Germany, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom, among many other countries. In fact, of all the countries FlixPatrol tracks, The Tinder Swindler is in the top five most popular Netflix shows in most countries. And it is in the top ten for most of the others, which is a stunning achievement by any metric.
The Tinder Swindler is a true-crime documentary directed by Felicity Morris. She is most known for her work on the 2019 documentary Don’t F**k with Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer, another true-crime documentary that grabbed the public’s imagination.
The Tinder Swindler focuses on the real-life case of Simon Leviev, a serial fraudster who is estimated to have scammed over ten million dollars from women he met on the popular dating app Tinder. Under a litany of aliases, Leviev would claim he worked for the famous diamond company LLD Diamond. Leviev would also say that he was the son of billionaire Israeli diamond oligarch Lev Leviev. Then, after winning the women’s trust, he would ask them for money, often saying that he needed the cash to escape the dangers of the diamond business.
The documentary features harrowing accounts from several of Leviev’s victims. This includes Cecilie Fjellhøy, Pernilla Sjöholm, and Ayleen Charlotte, who explain how the manipulator drew them in and took their money.
Interestingly, this isn’t the first conman-focused documentary the streaming giant has released this year, as The Puppet Master: Hunting the Ultimate Conman debuted on Jan. 18th. However, the instant success of The Tinder Swindler shows that true crime is a massively popular genre that won’t be going anywhere anytime soon.
It also cements Netflix’s reputation as a producer of excellent documentaries. Both The Tinder Swindler and Tiger King show that the platform has a talent for finding real-life stories that fascinate the public. So no doubt we’ll see the platform create more documentaries in the future.