Netflix has unveiled the first photo from The Murder of JonBenét Ramsey, giving audiences their initial look at Melissa McCarthy and Clive Owen as Patsy and John Bennett Ramsey. The limited series, produced by 101 Studios, will drop all episodes on Netflix on Dec. 10.
The project has had a winding road to the screen. It was originally greenlit in 2024 at Paramount+, with production wrapping in early 2025 under the title Unspeakable: The Murder of JonBenet Ramsey. At the time, the plan was for it to launch an anthology series exploring unsolved crimes, similar in structure to Netflix's Monster franchise. But after Skydance's takeover of Paramount, the series was quietly shelved. 101 Studios later departed Paramount for NBCUniversal earlier this year, following Taylor Sheridan, and the Ramsey project ultimately found a new home at Netflix this summer.
The series revisits the killing of 6-year-old beauty pageant winner JonBenét Ramsey, who was found strangled in the basement of her family's Boulder, Colorado, home on Dec. 26, 1996 — a case that remains unsolved three decades later. According to its official logline, the series "centers on one of the most infamous unsolved murder cases in American history, and the devastating personal and public reckoning that followed the death of JonBenet Ramsey on Christmas night in 1996."
This marks the latest screen exploration of the case following Netflix's documentary Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey, directed by Joe Berlinger, which debuted at No. 1 on the streamer within 24 hours of its November 2024 release and suggested the Boulder Police Department bore responsibility for the case going unsolved.
The cast also includes Emily Mitchell as JonBenét Ramsey and Angus Caldwell as her brother, Burke Ramsey, alongside Garrett Hedlund, Alison Pill, Shea Whigham, Owen Teague, Clifton Collins Jr., Jaime Ray Newman, Rory Cochrane and Chris Bauer. Rounding out the ensemble are Will Patton, Jeremy Bobb, John Billingsley, Josh Stamberg, Margo Martindale and Tzi Ma.
Richard LaGravenese, known for Behind the Candelabra, Freedom Writers and A Family Affair, serves as showrunner. Anne Sewitsky, who directed Presumed Innocent, is directing and executive producing. Harrison Query and Tommy Wallach co-wrote the series and also serve as executive producers, alongside David C. Glasser, Ron Burkle, Bob Yari and David Hutkin for 101 Studios, as well as McCarthy and Sewitsky.
Photo: Mingle MediaTV, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
