American Nightmare: The Kidnapping Police Called a Hoax

Vallejo, California, March 2015. A young woman is reported missing. Her boyfriend says masked intruders broke into their home and took her in the night. Then she turns up alive, and police make a stunning call: the whole thing, they say, was a hoax.

Netflix's American Nightmare is a docuseries that follows the case of Denise Huskins and Aaron Quinn. It lays out how an extraordinary claim collided with a skeptical police department. The series draws on interviews, case records and the couple's own accounts. It shows how fast a public narrative can harden, and how hard it is to undo once it has.

The questions it raises are uncomfortable. What happens when investigators decide a story is false before the evidence is in? What does it cost the people at the center of it? The series follows the fallout as the case takes turns that few viewers will see coming. We won't spoil them here. Check current reporting before you watch if you want to know how the legal side was ultimately resolved.

This is a story about disbelief, and about what it does to the people who are not believed. It is also a gripping, tightly told watch. Clear your evening and find where to stream American Nightmare. It is on Netflix, and JustWatch will show you the current streamer.