This article presents an analysis of the use of archival material in the Narcos productions of Netflix and Escobar. The pattern of evil of Caracol Television. Both series have made adaptations of stories of violence generated by the phenomenon of drug trafficking and the figure of Pablo Escobar Gaviria in Colombia during the 80s. These series use archival material as support for the narration, which makes it difficult to differentiate between real history and fictional history, generating confusion in the viewer, surpassing ethics and truth in the narrative. For this reason, the treatment of real events and the use of archival material as support to tell the story are studied. For the development of this study, a total of 20 chapters and 1473 scenes were analyzed, of which 285 scenes were identified in which the presence and use of archival material associated with 12 acts of violence that marked the history of Colombia are characterized. © 2023 Universidad Complutense de Madrid. All rights reserved.