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What is it about crime TV shows that are so addictive? Maybe it’s the whodunnit element that keeps us hooked, often not revealing the baddie until the show’s final moments. Maybe it’s the fact that most of us are stand-up citizens, meaning that it’s fun to have a glimpse into a criminal underbelly we don’t usually get to see. Or maybe they’re oddly comforting; reminding us that there’s a whole world out there in which people commit and solve crimes while we shout at our TV screens from the sidelines.
It can be hard to pick a crime show because there are literally so many, and some of them are more elevated than others (although Harlan Coben would argue that being entertained is more important than scathing political commentary or social-realism). To that end, we’ve gathered the creme de la creme and ranked the best of them, from high-calibre limited HBO series like Mare of Easttown to old favourites like Sherlock. Here are the 15 best crime TV shows to unleash your inner detective, and where to watch them.
15. Criminal Record
If you haven’t yet caved in and signed up for an Apple TV+ subscription then let this be your sign. Criminal Record is one of the latest glossy, high-calibre series from the streamer, starring Peter Capaldi and Cush Jumbo as two detectives and adversaries who just can’t seem to get along. But it’s also just so much more than that. Set in the backstreets, cafes, tenement blocks and offices of East London, there’s a stylish viscerality to Criminal Record that makes this show particularly appealing. Unlike a lot of classic cop shows, it’s also unafraid to interrogate the racism and sexism that show up in British institutions in macro and micro levels – an excellent watch if you love crime shows but aren’t so keen on flagrant copaganda. You can watch Criminal Record on Apple TV+.
14. The Fall
It's been over 10 years since the BBC debuted The Fall, but it's still up there as one of the greatest, most gripping modern crime shows to date. With Jamie Dornan as an incredibly creepy and sadistic serial killer, and Gillian Anderson as the brilliantly sharp-minded superintendent tasked with his capture, The Fall is a thrilling game of cat-and-mouse that manages to last a whole three seasons without ever sagging or longing things out. I must warn you though: you won't want to hang around in your house alone after watching this one. You can watch The Fall on Netflix.
13. Luther
It's hard to imagine it now, but when Luther – Neil Cross’ ultra-dark thriller series with Idris Elba and Ruth Wilson at the helm – premiered on the BBC in 2010, the UK’s golden age of crime dramas – Line of Duty, Happy Valley, Bodyguard – hadn't yet begun. If anything, it was Luther that ushered in everything that followed, cementing the UK's appetite for gritty, twisted tales with morally ambiguous characters. Elba is standout as the macho, occasionally lawless DCI John, but it's Wilson as the psychopath Alice that makes Luther especially engaging. Fortunately, if you haven't yet seen it, this Emmy-nominated show has five entire seasons to get stuck into. You can watch Luther on BBC iPlayer.
12. The Responder
The BBC’s The Responder, now on its second season, is excellent in a way that creeps up on you. What initially resembles a sort of regular crime show about a copper called Chris Carson (Martin Freeman) who works night shifts in Liverpool, soon becomes something much darker, smarter and more profound. This is a show that is less about crime itself, and more about poverty, depravity, depression, exhaustion and all the gritty, difficult, knotty parts of being human when you weren't dealt the most shining of hands. “It’s not identifiable as ‘a police show’,” writer Tony Schumacher told GQ earlier this year. “It’s identifiable as a show about people in crisis.” You can watch The Responder on BBC iPlayer.
11. Line of Duty
Police shows can fall into the trap of putting a gloss on law enforcement – think offices full of chrome and neon lights, futuristic touchscreens and the idea that all cops are in the game because of altruism. Jed Mercurio's Line of Duty does none of that, planting us in the grim reality of the Met's anti-corruption unit as they take down bent coppers one by one. Each series dives into a new murky underbelly of the force and the power-hungry players hiding in its midst, all the while an overarching villain, H, a high-ranking officer tied up in organised crime, threads through the entire show. It's police procedural at its best. You can watch Line of Duty on BBC iPlayer.
10. Mindhunter
The best series Netflix ever cancelled. David Fincher's foray into the small screen followed the inception of the FBI's behavioural analysis unit, the guys that figure out why serials do what they do and how to work out who they are. The series is seeped in grimy 70s earthiness, all dark rooms and scratchy recording tapes and ominous mundanity. You know, just Fincher stuff. The series follows the detectives and psychologists who dared get in the minds of the sickest criminals in the states, so there are cameos from the likes of Charles Manson, Ed Kemper and David Berkowitz. It will always be a great shame it didn't go on for longer, but at least the two seasons that exist are about as gripping as you can get. You can watch Mindhunter on Netflix.
9. Broadchurch
Broadchurch goes down in history as one of those great, ‘you just had to be there’ watercooler moments of television. David Tennant and Olivia Colman team up as detectives in a small coastal town, the type where everyone knows each other and there's zero crime. That is until a local boy is found dead at the bottom of a cliff. It's a truly gripping whodunnit, where every possibility is somehow more tragic than the last, and portrays grief – both collective and personal – with precision. Naturally, Colman and Tennant are supernovas and the only reason you'll want the series to end is just to find out who the hell did it. You can watch Broadchurch on Disney+.
8. Mare of Easttown
HBO’s Mare of Easttown is, like Big Little Lies, one of those limited series’ that you’ll find really hard to let go of afterwards (what do you mean there's not another season?!). In the show's seven hour-long episodes, Kate Winslet plays a joyless but very funny small-town Delaware detective who’s constantly sucking on a little vape, while American Horror Story’s Evan Peter shows up as a plucky upstart who’s been tasked with helping her solve a local murder case. Crime shows don't always manage to stick the landing (all that intrigue and for what?) but Mare of Easttown is a masterclass in writing a high-calibre whodunnit that is entirely unpredictable, with twists that you actually won't see coming. Watch out for red herrings. You can watch Mare of Easttown on Amazon.
7. Fargo
Generally, if you're planning on adapting a critically loved cult favourite film from 20 years ago on the small screen, it's probably going to be a bit of a dead fish. Considering the pressure of having to make good on the Coen Brothers' classic, Fargo manages to be a standout piece of television that's still going strong into its fifth anthology series. The film only loosely connects to the TV show in terms of actual plot, but its DNA is all over it – so to speak – from its wacky rurality to its black comedy stylings. Each series revolves around some murders, but it's the cast of characters in its orbit that is the most interesting element. The Coens gave the series their stamp of approval early on, and so do we. You can watch Fargo on Amazon.
6. True Detective
Like solving cases, the success rate of True Detective's various anthology seasons is hit and miss. However, when the show is good, it is great, and it starts so strong with where it all began in season one. IRL best friends Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey play embittered detectives flashing forwards and backwards in time to a queasy set of ritualistic murders. Its grim, Southern Gothic backdrop drips in eeriness as you can't help but get lost in the viewpoint of cops who can't help but see the worst in humanity. The seasons since have similarly followed suit with police duos, and the fourth season, starring Jodie Foster, is due to premiere later this year. You can watch True Detective on Amazon.
5. Veronica Mars
Everyone remembers their teenage years. School, crushes, playing pretend in adulthood and… solving crimes? Veronica Mars stars Kristen Bell as a precocious amateur PI, and before you say this sounds like the cheesy set-up of a Disney Channel original movie, it somehow pulls off being a truly great and gritty noir homage. The overarching mystery of the show's standout first season is who murdered Veronica's best friend. While she tries to uncover the secrets covered up by the rich and powerful in her SoCal moneyed zip code, each episode also gives us a ‘mystery of the week’ style case to solve. Honestly, Veronica Mars is so much better than it ever needed or was expected to be, and also offers a great side game of ‘spot that now mega-famous person cameo’. You can watch Veronica Mars on Amazon.
4. Sherlock
Sherlock is a sublime detective show, plain and simple. The series takes omnipresent literary figures and cases and plants them in the modern day, all the while pulling the wool over our eyes in stories we all thought we reluctantly knew inside from forced English lesson required reading. Cumberbatch and Freeman make a great pair, and along the way, the villains they encounter round out their universe into something exciting and fresh, despite it all being born from century-old text. You can watch Sherlock on BBC iPlayer.
3. Only Murders in the Building
Only Murders in the Building takes on a meta-narrative from the start: A show about culture's obsession with true crime – and all the tropes attached to it – that is also the basis of a really great whodunnit itself. The series follows the residents of a glamorous, old-timey New York building, including three unlikely people brought together by their obsession with true crime and their desire to solve a mysterious murder in the building. It's funny, sweet and somehow the epitome of autumn viewing. It's also a great mystery, and with each season (because there is a murder every season, somehow), the big reveal is never what you expect. You can watch Only Murders in the Building on Disney+.
2. The Sopranos
What can be said about The Sopranos – the show in a decade-plus-long sparring match with The Wire to be considered the best TV show of all time – that hasn't already been said? The show revolves around Tony Soprano, an Italian-American mobster balancing his organised crime empire with family life. It sounds like the setup of a sitcom, and The Sopranos is very funny in places, it is also often poignant and devastating. The show lands us knee-deep in the world of New Jersey's mob, with all of the backstabbing, double-crossing and dirt naps that are involved. You can watch The Sopranos on Amazon.
1. The Wire
Set in Baltimore, each season of The Wire revolves around a different part of the city and how it relates to law enforcement; everything from the drug trade to the government to port politics. Policing is one of TV's most pervasive narratives, but The Wire, even 20 years on, still feels like it offers something fresh. It's a remarkable feat, something equally entertaining and educational – a 360-degree look at the US justice system. It was the show that made household names of Idris Elba and Dominic West and you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone, even those obsessed with being contrarian, who thinks its hype isn't warranted. You can watch The Wire on Amazon.