Is The Law of Beasts Based on a True Story? The Real Case Behind the Netflix Series
The Polish Netflix drama uses a real murder case and a real law. Here is what happened in 1988 and in 2014, and which parts of the series are presented as drama.
Yes, in part. The Law of Beasts is a drama, not a documentary, but the crime, the convicted man and the law at its center are all real. Netflix says the four-part Polish series is inspired by the events that led Poland to pass what became known as the Beast Law, and it uses the real name of the man in the case, Mariusz Trynkiewicz.
All four episodes arrive on Netflix on November 18, 2026. Kasper Bajon directed the series and wrote it with Anna Kasińska. Agnieszka Grochowska and Agnieszka Żulewska play the two leads, and Michał Pawlik plays Trynkiewicz.
What is real and what is drama
- Real: the murders of four boys in Poland in 1988, and the conviction of Mariusz Trynkiewicz for them.
- Also real: his release date in 2014, after 25 years in prison, and the alarm it caused.
- The law: real too. It was passed in response and lets courts keep certain offenders in a closed center after their sentence has ended.
- Presented as drama: the two women the series follows, investigator Anna Bersz and psychiatrist Agnieszka Grabska. Netflix has not said they are real people.
The real case behind the series
In 1988, four boys were murdered in Piotrków Trybunalski, a city in central Poland. Trynkiewicz was sentenced to death for the killings. He was never executed. Under an amnesty in 1989 the sentence became 25 years in prison, and the Polish outlet ESKA notes that the criminal code of the time had no life sentence to replace it with.
That arithmetic is what the whole story turns on. Twenty-five years later, in 2014, he was due to walk out of prison, and the risk that he could harm someone again was still considered real.
What the Beast Law is
“Beast Law” is a nickname, and the series takes its Polish title, Prawo bestii, from it. Polish media also call the act Lex Trynkiewicz, after the man whose release prompted it. Its formal title covers proceedings against people with mental disorders who pose a threat to the life, health or sexual freedom of others. According to the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, it entered into force in January 2014. The foundation says the push for it came mainly from the approaching release of prisoners whose death sentences from communist-era Poland had been commuted to 25 years.
Under the law, a person who has served a full prison sentence can be sent to a closed facility, the National Center for the Prevention of Dissocial Behavior in Gostynin, if a personality disorder makes serious new crimes against life or sexual freedom likely.
Why the law is still argued over
The Helsinki Foundation warned from the start that the law could work as a second punishment for the same crime, applied after the fact. Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal reviewed it in November 2016. Courts were still applying the law in 2025.
The center has also grown far beyond what was planned. In January 2025 the news site OKO.press quoted an expert from the office of Poland’s human rights commissioner, who said lawmakers had expected a dozen or so people at most. By 2020 there were 99, and by the time she spoke there were 112.
What happened to Mariusz Trynkiewicz
He did not stay in Gostynin. According to OKO.press, he spent several years in the center and was then sent back to prison on a new sentence for possessing child sexual abuse images. He died in prison, and Poland’s Prison Service announced his death on January 13, 2025. He was 62.
How the series tells it
Netflix’s description splits the story across two years. In 1988, Major Anna Bersz leads the murder investigation while her friend, psychiatrist Agnieszka Grabska, has to judge whether the suspect is sane. A decision they make under pressure ends their friendship. In 2014, with the release date close, Anna is a public official and Agnieszka a leading psychiatrist, and the case pulls them back together.
Bajon has described it as a story about people who serve the state and face choices with no good answer, when the law, a sense of justice and public safety cannot all be satisfied at once. How closely the series follows the court record is something only the episodes can show.
Also read: Is Less of a Stranger based on a true story?
