General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

The Ripper

The Ripper is a four-part true crime documentary series released on Netflix on December 16, 2020, directed by Jesse Vile and Ellena Wood, which re-examines the Yorkshire Ripper murders committed by Peter Sutcliffe in northern England between 1975 and 1980¹^•². The series chronicles the largest police manhunt in British police history, in which 13 women were killed while investigators failed for more than five years to catch the killer³. Rather than centering Sutcliffe himself, the documentary places the crimes in the context of late-1970s England: de-industrialization, poverty, and what its makers describe as masculinity and misogyny that contributed to the Ripper evading capture for so long³.

Key fact	Detail
Format	Four-part documentary limited series, Netflix, TV-MA (15 in the UK)¹^•⁴
Release	December 16, 2020; all four episodes released the same day²
Directors	Jesse Vile and Ellena Wood; produced by RAW⁵^•²
Subject	The Yorkshire Ripper murders: 13 women killed by Peter Sutcliffe from 1975 to 1980³
Episode runtimes	51, 48, 49, and 47 minutes⁴
Critical scores	83% Tomatometer (12 reviews) and 71% Popcornmeter on Rotten Tomatoes; Metascore 62 on Metacritic¹^•⁶
Featured voices	Journalist Alan Whitehouse, Superintendent Keith Hellawell, Bruce Jones, Jeremy Thompson, Christa Ackroyd, and Joan Smith⁷

Spoilers

Content and structure

The series follows the case chronologically from the first murder in 1975 to Sutcliffe's arrest in January 1981. Its four episodes are titled "Once Upon a Time in Yorkshire", "Between Now and Dawn", "Reclaim the Night", and "Out of the Shadows"⁴. The first episode establishes that the brutal murders of sex workers in economically depressed areas of the UK initially drew little public interest, until a teenager, Jayne McDonald, was also killed⁴^•⁸. Later episodes cover the police release of phone calls and handwriting samples from a suspect, the women's protests against law enforcement's failure to catch the killer, and the arrest that set off a media frenzy and accusations of a botched investigation⁴.

The documentary combines new interviews with detectives, victims' families, and reporters who covered the case at the time, alongside archival photographs, video, and animated maps marking the victims' locations⁹. Netflix's synopsis states that the show looks again at the murders against the backdrop of 1970s England, an era of sweeping upheaval, de-industrialization, poverty, masculinity, and misogyny, factors it claims helped the Ripper avoid being caught.³

The investigation's failures. A recurring thread is the conduct of the West Yorkshire Police inquiry. The series documents that officers interviewed Sutcliffe nine times before he was eventually convicted⁹. The third episode takes its name from the Reclaim the Night protests of 1977, sparked by the case, in which women treated the murders and the police's failure to prevent them as symptoms of the same system of male violence¹⁰.

Reception

Critical response was generally favorable but divided on the series' purpose. On Rotten Tomatoes it holds an 83% Tomatometer from 12 reviews and a 71% Popcornmeter from more than 50 audience ratings¹; Metacritic assigned a Metascore of 62, with three positive and two mixed reviews and none negative⁶.

Several reviewers singled out the decision to focus on the investigation rather than the killer. Steve Murray of ArtsATL wrote that what is smart and sensitive about the series is that its focus is not on Sutcliffe¹, and Joel Keller of Decider noted that the series examines the underlying factors that slowed the investigation instead of talking about the killer himself⁶. Nick Schager of The Daily Beast praised the archival material for creating a sense of life in West Yorkshire in the second half of the 1970s, when economic hardship brought rising unemployment and infrastructural breakdowns⁶.

Other critics were harsher. Ed Power of The Daily Telegraph gave it 2 out of 5, writing that beyond pandering to a ghoulish fascination with Sutcliffe there was little reason for it to exist, and that Michael Bilton's book and the earlier documentary The Yorkshire Ripper Files had covered the ground better⁶. The Review Geek, giving 7.5 out of 10, criticized the editing for frequent jumps back in time, particularly in the first episode⁹.

Criticism over the victims

The series drew public criticism within days of release for comments made about Sutcliffe's victims who were sex workers. In the first episode, Yorkshire Post journalist Alan Whitehouse described the four sex workers Sutcliffe had killed as "chip paper murders", and said that the murder of 16-year-old Jayne McDonald, a girl from "a very ordinary family", was the moment West Yorkshire Police were pulled up short, having until then been dealing with "a certain kind of woman following a certain kind of lifestyle"⁸. Viewers objected on social media that all of Sutcliffe's victims were innocent regardless of their occupation⁸. Earlier that week, families of the victims had accused the documentary of glorifying Sutcliffe⁸.

A scholarly reading in Blind Field Journal argued that the series presents the hoax letters and tape that misled the investigation as a trick that tormented the police, casting the force as fooled victims, a trope the author identified as common to true crime productions¹⁰.

Context of the case and timing

The documentary arrived weeks after Peter Sutcliffe's death in November 2020, at age 74, after he tested positive for coronavirus⁸. The name "Yorkshire Ripper" alludes to Jack the Ripper, because the killings shared commonalities with the 19th-century Whitechapel murders, though the series is not about Jack the Ripper¹¹.

The case has since been treated in other screen works. ITV commissioned the drama The Long Shadow, written by George Kay and based on Michael Bilton's book Wicked Beyond Belief: The Hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper, which focuses on the lives of Sutcliffe's victims and the toll the investigation took on the detectives; its creator said the title was changed from the working title The Yorkshire Ripper because that terminology was disrespectful¹²^•¹³. ITV also commissioned the documentary Yorkshire Ripper: The Secret Murders (2022), which investigates unsolved murders and attacks for which Sutcliffe remained a prime suspect after his death¹⁴.

Production

The series was produced by the British production company RAW and filmed extensively across West Yorkshire, including aerial drone cinematography in and around Leeds and Bradford, with a two-person crew flying more than 12 hours of day and night sequences on a DJI Inspire 2 with an X7 camera²^•¹⁵.

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › Unscripted, reality, and web-native series › Documentary, docudrama, and lifestyle series › True crime and investigative docuseries › Premiered 2006 to 2022

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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