Overkill: The Aileen Wuornos Story (1992)
Jean Smart’s decades-long career has spanned from Designing Women to her current Emmy-winning role on Hacks, and that resume also includes playing Wuornos in a made-for-TV movie that arrived just a year after the real-life killer’s arrest. Smart later recalled that a producer chose her for the role because he wanted this version of Wuornos to be "sympathetic.” One review at the time praised Smart’s “exquisitely drawn portrayal” of the character, and noted that Wuornos’s relationship with Moore (played by Park Overall), depicted as a “close friendship” instead of romantic, was the emotional core of the story.
The most well-known adaptation of Wuornos’s story has to be this 2003 Patty Jenkins-directed film. Theron underwent a massive transformation to play the serial killer, gaining 30 pounds, shaving her eyebrows and donning prosthetic teeth to look more like her. The film dramatizes her crimes, driven in part by wanting to provide for her lover, Selby Wall (Christina Ricci, playing a fictional character based on Moore). “We never tried to justify why she did very horrendous things, we wanted to stay true to that,” Theron told CBS News. “But also maybe lift the rug a little bit and show her actual situation.” She won a Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of Wuornos, which Roger Ebert praised as “one of the great performances in the history of the cinema” in naming Monster one of the best films of the 2000s.
Dear Dawn: Aileen Wuornos in Her Own Words (2011)
If you want to hear directly from Wuornos, pick up this autobiography drawn from her 10-year death row correspondence with childhood friend Dawn Botkins. Dear Dawn contains Wuornos’s reflections on the murders, legal battles and media coverage of her case, while also delving into her fears, obsessions and documenting her deteriorating mental state as her execution approached. The book, described as showing the killer’s “uncensored voice,” was authorized by Wuornos before her death and edited under the guidance of Botkins.
Requiem for a Female Serial Killer (2020)
Writer, activist and psychologist Phyllis Chesler was a prominent figure in the second-wave feminist movement whose 1972 book, Women and Madness, was one of the first to probe women’s psychology and how they’re treated in the mental health system. She turns that lens to Wuornos specifically in this 2020 book, which the synopsis teases will challenge “everything you thought about prostitutes, serial killers, and how our justice system fails women.” A Ms. Magazine review describes it as “a combination of mystery-crime novel plus perceptive and compassionate feminist analysis of harsh (nay, horrific) realities of Wuornos’s life.”
Mind of a Monster: “Aileen Wuornos” (2023)
This six-episode podcast, hosted by criminal psychologist Dr. Michelle Ward, dives into the mind and motivations of Wuornos, whom the synopsis describes as “a woman fueled by rage after decades of abuse at the hands of men.” Ward speaks to detectives and witnesses in her deep dive into the case, starting with her traumatic childhood in Michigan and continuing through her murders, arrest and conviction. She also weaves in Wuornos’s perspective through letters she sent from prison to her best friend.
Killer Minds: “Serial Killer: Aileen Wuornos” (2025)
Another podcast that sought to explore the Wuornos case was Killer Minds, which dedicated a two-part series to her life and crimes. Part 1 recaps her early life, discussing how that abandonment and trauma set her on a path toward murder. Part 2 follows her trajectory from captured killer to death row inmate, including her obsession with her legacy in her final days. The podcast is hosted by Vanessa Richardson and Dr. Tristin Engels, a clinical and forensic psychologist, who blend true crime storytelling with psychoanalysis to try and uncover what drives people to kill.
Aileen: Queen of the Serial Killers (2025)
Director Emily Turner’s documentary unpacks Wuornos’s story through interviews, archival material and never-before-seen death row interviews, aiming to delve into who she was and why she committed those seven murders. “It’s so much easier to write off someone who's done such heinous acts as a coldblooded murderer [rather than] a deeply damaged human,” the director told Tudum. “Actually, she was made, and that's chilling.” The film casts its lens on the circumstances that shaped Wuornos’s life, including her traumatic upbringing and transient life, as well as probing questions around her motivations and the media’s portrayal of her.
