The best British crime dramas

Stephen Graham in the 'nightmarish' Adolescence

(Image credit: Alamy / Album)

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Sherwood
The Jetty
Adolescence
This City Is Ours
Get Millie Black
Out There
Virdee
Until I Kill You
Slow Horses
After the Flood
Criminal Record

By Irenie Forshaw, The Week UK, Adrienne Wyper, The Week UK

last updated 2 May 2025

British crime dramas have the "uncanny capacity to send our pulses racing", said Stylist. These "nail-biting" shows mix "foolhardy" coppers with slippery witnesses and, of course, a collection of "spectacularly evil" villains. Here are some of our top picks to add to your watch list for 2025.

Sherwood

James Graham's "searing" crime drama about a Nottinghamshire mining village reeling from two shock killings was widely hailed as a "modern classic" in 2022, said Rachael Sigee in The i Paper. It didn't need to return for a second instalment but Graham makes a "compelling case for its existence" with his "masterful" plotting of several new narrative strands. Picking up two decades after the events of the first season, the drama focuses on the murder of a young man, whose slaying triggers a gang turf war.
BBC iPlayer

This "electric" series stars Jenna Coleman as a Lancashire detective investigating an arson in her local town, said Vicky Jessop in London's The Standard. She soon finds the fire is connected to a missing person cold case from 17 years earlier, which leads her into a "sordid underworld of dark secrets". Delivering "death, danger and menace in spades", it's a "wonderfully claustrophobic" series that will keep you hooked right until the end.
BBC iPlayer

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This four-part mini series, created by Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham, is a "chilling examination of murder and toxic masculinity", said Variety. The action follows a family whose lives unravel when 13-year-old Jamie (Owen Cooper) is accused of murdering a girl at his school. The "dark and brilliantly written" British crime drama explores the rise of the "manosphere" and its disturbing impact on young people's lives. "Gutting, raw and stunningly acted", "Adolescence" is a "nightmarish" tale that's a gripping, and important, watch.
Netflix

Scouse accents and "authentic dialogue" are among the many "pleasures" of this excellent British crime drama about the "murky world of Liverpudlian drug dealers", said NME. As patriarch Ronnie Phelan (Sean Bean) considers retirement, his right-hand man Michael Kavanagh (James Nelson-Joyce) must decide whether to take the reins of the patriarch's successful cocaine-smuggling business. But when a shipment of drugs disappears, "no one is safe". "This City Is Ours" is a "dense, propulsive drama" and a "cheering" reminder that Britain still knows "how to make decent TV".
BBC iPlayer

Booker-prize-winning novelist Marlon James' first television drama is an "impressive piece of work", said Carol Midgley in The Times. The action follows Millie-Jean Black (Tamara Lawrance), a Scotland Yard detective who leaves the Met and returns to Jamaica to work in the missing persons department. Much like a novel, each episode is narrated by a different character, adding to the show's "freshness and originality", and there's more story packed into the "first 300 seconds" than some series manage in an entire episode.
Channel 4

Martin Clunes is "perfectly cast" in ITV's "very watchable" crime drama "Out There", said The Telegraph. He plays Nathan, a Welsh farmer whose vulnerable son Johnny is drawn into a county-lines drug-running operation.The first episode is "slow and steady", introducing us to various characters, including Eiry Thomas as a "determined local bobby", and Gerran Howell and Carly-Sophia Davies, who play the siblings responsible for "getting Johnny involved in this mess". But over the course of the series it "ramps up to great effect, turning into a thriller".
ITV

This "glossy" new BBC detective drama is set and filmed entirely in Bradford, said Radio Times. The action follows detective Virdee (Staz Nair) as he hunts down a killer who is targeting the city's Asian community, while struggling with his chaotic personal life. Crafted in a "meticulous manner", viewers are given an insight into each of Virdee's family members' inner worlds; it isn't easy to pack "all of that richness" into just six episodes, but the series' writer A.A. Dhand "pulls it off in spectacular style". There's "no wasted dialogue" or scenes crammed with too much information. Instead, "Virdee" delivers all the "action and twists you'd expect in a high-budget blockbuster".
BBC iPlayer

This "extraordinary portrait" of Delia Balmer is rare, fearless and "values viewers' intelligence", said The Guardian. The "relentlessly confrontational" drama is based on the true story of Balmer's experience surviving repeated physical and sexual assaults by her boyfriend, convicted serial killer, John Sweeney. Anna Maxwell Martin delivers "the best performance of her career" as the free-spirited, socially awkward Delia. Shaun Evans as Sweeney is equally compelling, giving an "altogether terrifying" portrayal of the killer. In some ways, "Until I Kill You" is a classic domestic violence drama, but the "magnificent treatment of a damnable, unending subject" ultimately illuminates the heartbreaking experience from a fresh angle.
ITVX

The British spy thriller is "such a breath of fresh air in a TV landscape dotted with low-effort nonsense", said Forbes. Based on Mick Herron's "Slough House" series, the "masterful" drama follows a team of dysfunctional MI5 agents, led by the iconic Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman). A thriller at heart, "Slow Horses" can also be "so funny, so suspenseful and so emotionally poignant all at once". The fourth season begins with David Cartwright (Jonathan Pryce), former MI5 heavyweight, succumbing increasingly to dementia, while Lamb is dealing with a London bomb. The show is "swaggering and well-defined", said The Independent, and across-the-board stand-out performances "make this one of the best series on TV".
Apple TV+

"The publicity made this one sound like a standard police procedural, with added water," said The Guardian, but it soon "gets really good". In the aftermath of a river bursting its banks, a murder mystery unfolds "sparked by the discovery of a man's body in a lift in an underground car park". At first presumed trapped by floodwater, the post mortem revealed that he died at least three days before that. Out to investigate is Jo (Sophie Rundle), a heavily pregnant police officer who "races against the clock to solve the murder case before her baby arrives", said Radio Times. "You'll want to stick around to find out how this messy business concludes."
ITVX

In his 40-year acting career, Peter Capaldi had "never played a cop – until now", said The Independent. His turn in "Criminal Record", a drama based on two warring detectives, "feels worth the wait", and is "elevated by an equally impressive performance from Cush Jumbo that matches his intensity exactly". In a "cosier police procedural, this pairing might have ended up as an 'odd couple' detective duo". But this eight-part thriller, which explores institutional racism, sexism and malpractice in the Metropolitan Police, is "definitely not that show: it's much nastier and, therefore, much more realistic".
Apple TV+

Adrienne Wyper has been a freelance sub-editor and writer for The Week's website and magazine since 2015. As a travel and lifestyle journalist, she has also written and edited for other titles including BBC Countryfile, British Travel Journal, Coast, Country Living, Country Walking, Good Housekeeping, The Independent, The Lady and Woman’s Own.