Let’s face it: Unknown Number might just be one of the most memorable Netflix documentaries of all time. When Lauryn and her boyfriend Oliver started getting texts from anonymous numbers that quickly became explicitly threatening, they’d never expected the culprit to be Lauryn’s mom, Kendra. My jaw is still on the floor after the perfectly executed twist two-thirds of the way through the new movie.
Frankly, I’ve been looking for the same documentary-binging high ever since. I didn’t expect to get it so soon, but out of everything new on Netflix in September 2025, another new movie released today (September 8) just might do the trick. In fact, I was already seated purely after reading the synopsis.
Behold: Stolen: Heist of the Century. If you think we’re getting the same whodunnit in the form of Unknown Number’s reveal, you’d be mistaken – if anything, Netflix is now subverting the surprise of its mystery by not only withholding who did it, but how the heist was even pulled off in the first place.
Stolen: Heist of the Century is our next big Netflix documentary movie after Unknown Number
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Let’s set the scene: it’s 2003 in Antwerp, Belgium. The target is the Antwerp World Diamond Centre, housing in the city’s so-called Diamond District with tons of well… you get the idea. Between February 15-16, 2003 a gang of thieves stole loose diamonds, gold, silver and other types of jewelry valued at more than $100 million, with the heist still considered one of “the greatest of the century” to this day.
In true Mission: Impossible style, here’s what our robbers had to get through. The vault that stored the precious gemstones and metals was located two floors below the main floor of the building, protected by multiple security mechanisms. These included a lock with 100 million possible combinations, infrared heat detectors, a seismic sensor, Doppler radar, and a magnetic field. The building itself had a private security force, with the district already heavily guarded and monitored.
Piece of cake, right? Well, although arrests were made in connection with the case, the stolen diamonds themselves have still never been recovered to this day. As Stolen: Heist of the Century explains, head gang honcho Leonardo Notarbartolo was arrested the Friday following the heist, because nearby garbage had connected him to the scene thanks to DNA found on a salami sandwich.
I’m not going to tell you exactly how our gang pulled off the heist – that’s literally the whole fun in watching the documentary – but what the team manages to do is nothing short of mind-blowing. It’s equally incredible that such a genius team could be so equally idiotic by leaving behind incriminating evidence.
Even so, Stolen: Heist of the Century is easily up there as one of the best Netflix documentaries for me, and I’ve seen just about everything in its back catalog.
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