Boston Strangler

The real subjects of this true-crime film are neither the killer nor the police, but two reporters. Loretta McLaughlin worked for the Record American and was the first journalist to connect the women murdered in Boston in the early 1960s. The desk keeps trying to hold her on the women's pages; she insists on the murders. She works with her colleague Jean Cole, and the two of them run into the open sexism of the era from both the police and their own paper. The film's best decision is refusing to put the suspect at the centre. Despite Albert DeSalvo's confession the case never fully closed, and the film does not tidy that away. Matt Ruskin wrote and directed. Keira Knightley plays McLaughlin and Carrie Coon plays Cole, with Chris Cooper as an editor and Alessandro Nivola as a detective. It went straight to streaming on 17 March 2023. Who it is for: viewers who would rather watch newspaper procedure than a serial killer story. Who it is not for: anyone expecting suspense. It is cold, grey and deliberately slow, and the common critical verdict was that it is never as gripping as it should be.