The Menendez brothers have since made a comeback Ryan Murphy's Monsters: The Story of Lyle and Erik Menendez launched at the top of Netflix.
But the infamous case of Lyle and Erik Menendez — convicted of killing their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, in 1989 in their Beverly Hills mansion — has received a number of true crime television treatments over the years.
The further we get from the brothers' mistrial and retrial in 1994, and their prison sentences in 1996, the more public opinion changes as the Menendez brothers, who are still in prison serving life sentences, have stated that the their father, José Menendez, sexually and physically abused them, while their mother looked the other way. Now, their 2023 habeas corpus petition is under review by the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office, as new evidence could lead to a reevaluation of their sentences.
Victims or villains?
Viewers can judge whether justice was done or whether it was done unfairly after binging Netflix Monsters series and these other interpretations of the Menendez brothers and their story.
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The Menendez brothers
Image credit: Ronald L. Soble/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images
In the wake of Netflix's great success with Monstersthe streamer announced The documentary Menendez would arrive on the streamer shortly thereafter and feature the first interviews with Erik and Lyle Menendez together in decades. Released on October 7, the two-hour documentary hears the words of the brothers as they look back on the trial that shocked the nation through extensive telephone interviews. The Campfire Studios project, directed by Argentine filmmaker Alejandro Hartmann, aimed to offer “new insights and a new perspective on a case that people only think they know about,” according to Netflix.
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Menendez + Menudo: Betrayed boys
Image credit: MIKE NELSON/AFP/Getty Images
The three-part Peacock docuseries touches on the Menendez brothers' original murder case, but ties directly into their allegations of family abuse with a new accusation against their father, José Menendez. The 2023 series, which premiered a month before Erik and Lyle filed their habeas petition, focused on former Menudo boy band member Roy Rosselló. The group was signed to the label by José, then president of RCA Records. In the docuseries, Rosselló talks about the alleged sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of the band's manager, Edgardo Diaz, and then about another incident of sexual abuse involving José when Rosselló was 14 years old. The docuseries implies that Díaz offered Rosselló to Menendez as a means to seal the deal.
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Menendez Brothers: Victims or Villains
Fox Nation's four-part docuseries premiered in March 2024 featuring testimony from incarcerated Lyle Menendez, prosecutor Pamela Bozanich and the brothers' attorney, Mark Geragos. There are also appearances by TV host and comedian Rosie O'Donnell, who interviewed Lyle from prison in 2023, and former Saturday night live cast member Darrell Hammond, who campaigned for the couple's release.
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Menendez Brothers: Misjudged?
Image credit: MIKE NELSON/Getty
This 2022 true crime film directed by Andrea De Brito returns to a common theme of the treatment the Menendez brothers received during their murder trials: did they kill for money or because of chronic abuse? This offering from Max features archival footage of the brothers interwoven with re-enactments performed by Eric Phelps as Erik Menendez.
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Suburban Nightmare: The Menendez Brothers
This 2022 Tubi document opens with Lyle Menendez's 1989 emergency call stating that someone had brutally killed his parents. But the focus eventually shifts to the father José Menendez who is harsh and eventually sexually abuses his children. Here the Menendez brothers' self-defense motivations for the murders are explored, complete with re-enactments of José haunting his children in their bedrooms and the brutal murders of their parents in their Beverly Hills home.
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Law and Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders
Image credit: Courtesy of Justin Lubin/NBC
Although not a documentary, this eight-episode NBC miniseries starred Edie Falco as Leslie Abramson, who became a star defending Erik Menendez at his trial by asking not what the young men had done to their mother and father but why. The ripped-from-the-headlines dramatization of 2017 details the daily courtroom battles and the media circus that developed around the trial. NBC at the time promised to reveal the “shocking truth of what really happened when the cameras stopped rolling.”
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The Menendez Murders: Erik Tells All
A&E Networks' 2017 true crime documentary focused uniquely on Erik Menendez, in his own words. Using telephone interviews, for the first time in years, he recounted his childhood abuse as his family's dirty secret to explain how it drove him and his brother to kill their parents. As cultural touchstones, there are also interviews with CNN's Larry King and star Associated Press trial reporter Linda Deutsch.
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Truth and Lies: The Menendez Brothers – American Sons, American Murderers
Image credit: Courtesy of Photofest
The 2017 ABC documentary focused on the Menendez brothers as the Beverly Hills revelers who killed their parents and promised to reveal “hidden clues to the Menendez family's descent into hell.” To get there, the documentary shows footage, photos and testimonies from people close to the Menendez family, as well as investigators, lawyers and jurors involved in the infamous case.
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Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother: The True Story of the Menendez Murders
Image credit: Ted Soqui/Sygma/Getty Images
In 1994, Fox aired its own take on the crime and trial of the Menendez brothers. The true crime television film starred James Farentino as José Menendez, Jill Clayburgh as Kitty Menendez, Billy Warlock as Lyle and David Beron as Erik. As with the CBS film (below), Fox's move drew criticism for occurring after the mistrial of the Menendez brothers, and well before their retrial in 1996.
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Menendez: A murder in Beverly Hills
The 1994 CBS TV movie, in addition to being one of the first investigations into the Menendez brothers and the murder of their parents, was also among the first TV movies based on an infamous case that included a mistrial that year. Larry Elikann directed the four-hour movie marathon, with Lyle played by Damian Chapa and Eric by Travis Fine. Edward James Olmos played the role of José Menendez, while Beverly D'Angelo played his wife Kitty.