The Best Menendez Brothers Documentaries To Watch After Netflix’s Monsters

This article contains discussions of sexual assault.

Ryan Murphy’s latest entry in his “Monsters” anthology series, “The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” — a series which began in 2022 with Evan Peters as infamous serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer — focuses on Erik and Lyle Menendez (Cooper Koch and Nicholas Alexander Chavez), two brothers accused and subsequently convicted of killing their parents José and Kitty Menendez (Javier Bardem and Chloë Sevigny) in the late 1980s. Unsurprisingly, it’s already courting controversy the way Murphy portrays the siblings and their family dynamic. 

This happened with the “Monster” season focusing on Dahmer as well, with relatives of the real-life killer’s victims saying the series “retraumatized” them and more or less glamorized Dahmer himself, so it’s not entirely surprising that Murphy’s often sensational approach to real stories is making waves again. Adapting a true crime story is absolutely a tricky thing to do, but still, audiences who watched “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” might want to look into the real story and watch a more grounded version of this truly astounding tale.

Luckily, there are a handful of documentaries that feature interviews with people close to the Menendez family — and even one that features Erik himself –  that pair perfectly with “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.” Here are three you should check out, but be aware that they’re pretty disturbing.

“Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed,” a three-part docuseries that released on Peacock in 2023, adds extremely disturbing new information to the Menendez case which links directly to the boy band Menudo (the Puerto Rican boy band that formed in 1977). In the real-life case, both Menendez brothers claimed that their parents sexually and physically abused them, which would explain why they killed José and Kitty, and in this docuseries, another victim alleges that José was a predator.

Roy Rosselló, who was a part of the boy band Menudo from 1983 to 1986, claims in the documentary that he was sexually assaulted by both José and the group’s manager Edgardo Díaz, even alleging that there was some sort of deal between Díaz and the Menendez patriarch that allowed both of them to abuse him. Rosselló further claims that José assaulted him in the Menendez family home, which, if true, would lend credence to the abuse allegations that Erik and Lyle have always presented to defend their actions.

There’s no question that “Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed” adds a new and horrifying layer to this entire story, and it also presents damning information regarding Díaz. As Chris Vognar wrote in his review for Rolling Stone, “‘Menendez + Menudo’ works best as a damning brief against Díaz and a culture of complicity.” The docuseries is available on Peacock.

Originally broadcast on ABC, “Truth and Lies: The Menendez Brothers” features a whole host of interviews with people close to the real Menendez family, including neighbors and friends, and it also uses home videos and photos to try and uncover the full story. Additionally, the documentary gives audiences the chance to hear from the brothers themselves, and as yet another warning about content, both brothers say that they were repeatedly sexually abused by their parents — and Lyle also says that he absed Erik in turn.

Alongside the brothers, childhood friends of Lyle and Erik share upsetting memories — including Erik’s childhood friend Craig Cignarelli, who says that Erik once penned a screenplay about a boy murdering his parents to collect insurance money — and Kitty Menendez’s brother Brian Anderson, who strenuously denies some of the boys’ claims about sexual abuse. “Truth and Lies: The Menendez Brothers” does admittedly feature several conflicting accounts about what really happened, but the fact that it speaks to people who knew the Menendez family does offer some insight, and it’s available to watch on AppleTV+.

In 2017, A&E released a docuseries titled “The Menendez Murders: Erik Tells All,” which took a very different and specific approach to the Menendez case: It put Erik center stage, giving him a chance to tell his own story and explain why he and his brother killed their parents. The younger of the two brothers, who was just 18 when he committed the crime, goes into serious and horrifying detail about the abuse he says he suffered at the hands of his parents, particularly his father José, and says that his mother was experiencing a mental decline that allowed José to abuse both of his sons under her nose.

“The Menendez Murders: Erik Tells All” also speaks to family friends, relatives, and law enforcement officers, but it’s interesting to give Erik the main point of view in this documentary and hear from the young killer in his own words. (Again, Erik doesn’t mince words about the specifics of his abuse, so if you’re sensitive to the topic, this particular doc is a very, very rough watch.) “The Menendez Murders: Erik Tells All” is available to watch on Amazon Prime, and it spans five episodes in total.

If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN’s National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).