Best Crime TV Shows, Ranked

Crime sagas, procedurals and true-crime-adjacent drama, ranked by combined critic and audience scores.

The 25 highest-rated crime series right now

1
The Rookie (2018)
SeriScore 136729.9Audience 8.5/10 Hulu
Starting over isn't easy, especially for small-town guy John Nolan who, after a life-altering incident, is pursuing his dream of being an LAPD officer. As the force's oldest rookie, he's met with skepticism from some higher-ups who see him as just a walking midlife crisis.
2
The Mentalist (2008)
SeriScore 120399.7Audience 8.4/10 Hulu
Patrick Jane, a former celebrity psychic medium, uses his razor sharp skills of observation and expertise at "reading" people to solve serious crimes with the California Bureau of Investigation.
3
Criminal Minds (2005)
SeriScore 95591.1Audience 8.3/10 Prime Video
An elite team of FBI profilers analyze the country's most twisted criminal minds, anticipating their next moves before they strike again. The Behavioral Analysis Unit's most experienced agent is David Rossi, a founding member of the BAU who returns to help the team solve new cases.
4
Breaking Bad (2008)
SeriScore 63690.5Audience 9.0/10 Netflix
Walter White, a New Mexico chemistry teacher, is diagnosed with Stage III cancer and given a prognosis of only two years left to live. He becomes filled with a sense of fearlessness and an unrelenting desire to secure his family's financial future at any cost as he enters the dangerous world of drugs and crime.
5
Lucifer (2016)
SeriScore 49727.3Audience 8.4/10 Netflix
Bored and unhappy as the Lord of Hell, Lucifer Morningstar abandoned his throne and retired to Los Angeles, where he has teamed up with LAPD detective Chloe Decker to take down criminals. But the longer he's away from the underworld, the greater the threat that the worst of humanity could escape.
6
Dexter (2006)
SeriScore 48539.1Audience 8.2/10 Paramount+
Dexter Morgan, a blood spatter pattern analyst for the Miami Metro Police also leads a secret life as a serial killer, hunting down criminals who have slipped through the cracks of justice.
7
Tulsa King (2022)
SeriScore 48218.4Audience 8.3/10 Paramount+
New York mafia capo Dwight "The General" Manfredi is released from prison after 25 years and exiled by his boss to set up shop in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Realizing that his mob family may not have his best interests in mind, Dwight slowly builds a crew.
8
High Potential (2024)
SeriScore 46200.7Audience 8.2/10 Hulu
Morgan is a single mom with an exceptional mind, whose unconventional knack for solving crimes leads to an unusual and unstoppable partnership with a by-the-book seasoned detective.
9
MobLand (2025)
SeriScore 38938.4Audience 8.4/10 Paramount+
Two mob families clash in a war that threatens to topple empires and lives.
10
Spider-Noir (2026)
SeriScore 38698.3Audience 8.4/10 Prime Video
Ben Reilly, an aging and down on his luck private investigator in 1930s New York, is forced to grapple with his past life as the city's one and only superhero.
11
The Sopranos (1999)
SeriScore 36970.4Audience 8.7/10 HBO Max
The story of New Jersey-based Italian-American mobster Tony Soprano and the difficulties he faces as he tries to balance the conflicting requirements of his home life and the criminal organization he heads. Those difficulties are often highlighted through his ongoing professional relationship with psychiatrist Jennifer Melfi. The show features Tony's family members and Mafia associates in prominent roles and story arcs, most notably his wife Carmela and his cousin and protégé Christopher Moltisanti.
12
The Penguin (2024)
SeriScore 36233.3Audience 8.3/10 HBO Max
With the city in peril following the seawall's collapse, Oswald "Oz" Cobb seeks to fill the power vacuum left by the death of Carmine Falcone and finally give his mother Francis the life he's always promised. But first, Oz must confront his enemies and his own demoralizing reputation as "the Penguin."
13
The X-Files (1993)
SeriScore 32803.2Audience 8.4/10 Hulu
The exploits of FBI Special Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully who investigate X-Files: marginalized, unsolved cases involving paranormal phenomena. Mulder believes in the existence of aliens and the paranormal while Scully, a skeptic, is assigned to make scientific analyses of Mulder's discoveries that debunk Mulder's work and thus return him to mainstream cases.
14
Peaky Blinders (2013)
SeriScore 32767.9Audience 8.5/10 Netflix
A gangster family epic set in 1919 Birmingham, England and centered on a gang who sew razor blades in the peaks of their caps, and their fierce boss Tommy Shelby, who means to move up in the world.
15
Fargo (2014)
SeriScore 32174.9Audience 8.3/10 Hulu
A close-knit anthology series dealing with stories involving malice, violence and murder based in and around Minnesota.
16
Chicago P.D. (2014)
SeriScore 31904.6Audience 8.4/10 Peacock
A riveting police drama about the men and women of the Chicago Police Department's District 21 who put it all on the line to serve and protect their community. District 21 is made up of two distinctly different groups: the uniformed cops who patrol the beat and go head-to-head with the city's street crimes and the Intelligence Unit that combats the city's major offenses - organized crime, drug trafficking, high profile murders and beyond.
17
Only Murders in the Building (2021)
SeriScore 29274.7Audience 8.4/10 Hulu
Three strangers share an obsession with true crime and suddenly find themselves wrapped up in one.
18
Better Call Saul (2015)
SeriScore 28469.6Audience 8.7/10 Netflix
Six years before Saul Goodman meets Walter White. We meet him when the man who will become Saul Goodman is known as Jimmy McGill, a small-time lawyer searching for his destiny, and, more immediately, hustling to make ends meet. Working alongside, and, often, against Jimmy, is “fixer” Mike Ehrmantraut. The series tracks Jimmy’s transformation into Saul Goodman, the man who puts “criminal” in “criminal lawyer".
19
Sons of Anarchy (2008)
SeriScore 21341.4Audience 8.4/10 Hulu
The Sons of Anarchy (SOA) are an outlaw motorcycle club with many charters in the United States and overseas. The show focused on the original and founding charter, Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club, Redwood Original, often referred to by the acronym SAMCRO, Sam Crow, or simply Redwood Charter. The charter operates both legal and illegal businesses in the small town of Charming, California. They combine gun-running and a garage, and involvement in porn film industry. Clay, the charter president, likes it old school and violent; while Jax, his stepson and the club's VP, has thoughts about changing the way things are done. Their conflict has effects on both the club and their personal relationship, especially when Jax goes on a personal quest to cleanse the SAMCRO name and image.
20
Hannibal (2013)
SeriScore 21032.7Audience 8.3/10 Netflix
Both a gift and a curse, Graham has the extraordinary ability to think like his prey—he sees what they see, feels what they feel. But while Graham is pursuing an especially troubling, cannibalistic murderer, Special Agent Jack Crawford teams him with a highly respected psychiatrist – a man with a taste for the criminal minded – Dr. Hannibal Lecter.
21
Snowfall (2017)
SeriScore 18252.1Audience 8.4/10 Hulu
Los Angeles. 1983. A storm is coming and its name is crack. Set against the infancy of the crack cocaine epidemic and its ultimate radical impact on the culture as we know it, the story follows numerous characters on a violent collision course.
22
Dexter: Resurrection (2025)
SeriScore 17667.5Audience 8.5/10 [object Object]
Dexter Morgan awakens from a coma to find Harrison gone without a trace. Realizing the weight of what he put his son through, Dexter sets out for New York City, determined to find him and make things right. But closure won't come easy. When Miami Metro's Angel Batista arrives with questions, Dexter realizes his past is catching up to him fast. As father and son navigate their own darkness in the city that never sleeps, they soon find themselves deeper than they ever imagined - and that the only way out is together.
23
Sherlock (2010)
SeriScore 16109.2Audience 8.5/10 Netflix
A modern update finds the famous sleuth and his doctor partner solving crime in 21st century London.
24
Riverdale (2017)
SeriScore 14249.1Audience 8.4/10 Netflix
Set in the present, the series offers a bold, subversive take on Archie, Betty, Veronica and their friends, exploring the surreality of small-town life, the darkness and weirdness bubbling beneath Riverdale’s wholesome facade.
25
The Wire (2002)
SeriScore 12130.9Audience 8.6/10 HBO Max
Told from the points of view of both the Baltimore homicide and narcotics detectives and their targets, the series captures a universe in which the national war on drugs has become a permanent, self-sustaining bureaucracy, and distinctions between good and evil are routinely obliterated.