12 best crime shows and detective series in 2024

John 'Ludwig' Taylor (David Mitchell) and Russell Carter (Dipo Ola) in the BBC's Ludwig

(Image credit: BBC/ Big Talk Studios)

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Fool Me Once
The Perfect Couple
Until I Kill You
Slow Horses
Ludwig
Presumed Innocent
Baby Reindeer
The Responder, series two
Prisoner
After the Flood
The Way
Criminal Record

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

last updated 27 December 2024

Harlan Coben fans are set for a New Year's Day treat when the latest televised adaptation of the crime novelist's work hits Netflix. "Slow Horses" actor Rosalind Eleazar stars in "Missing You", described by Coben as his "most emotional series" yet. If you can't wait until 1 January, here are 12 top crime dramas from 2024 to binge.

Fool Me Once

Coben's "Fool Me Once" topped the Netflix chart for several weeks at the start of 2024 and became one of the streaming platform's most-watched shows of all time. Michelle Keegan stars as a widow who thinks she sees her late husband in footage from their young daughter's nanny cam. The series has "wild moments that made no sense to the overall story", said Hayley Soen on The Tab, and an ending "so unpredictable my mind felt like it exploded a little", but it "kept us all on the edge of our seats".
Netflix

Nicole Kidman stars in this "glossy spin on the rich-people-are-awful sub-genre of murder-mystery", in which a body is discovered in Nantucket Harbour hours before a lavish wedding, said Empire. "The Perfect Couple" combines "melodramatic twists, turns and character revelations with a remarkably deep bench of on-screen talent", including Dakota Fanning and "The White Lotus" star Meghann Fahy. The actors "elevate" the "sometimes cheesy dialogue and use of tired genre structures" and the show "delivers its mystery in a really slick way, quickly introducing you to characters that feel true and lived-in".
Netflix

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This "extraordinary portrait" of Delia Balmer is rare, fearless and "values viewers' intelligence", said Lucy Mangan in 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 Erik Kain in 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", wrote Nick Hilton in The Independent, and across-the-board stand-out performances "make this one of the best series on TV".
Apple TV+

In this "very gentle" BBC six-parter about a puzzle creator with the pseudonym of Ludwig, David Mitchell is "as brilliantly awkward as ever", said The Guardian. He plays John, who reluctantly poses as his twin brother to find out why he has disappeared, at the request of his semi-estranged sister-in-law, Lucy (Anna Maxwell Martin). Of course, "John would no more fool James' colleagues than a stuffed rabbit would", but "Mitchell being the master of social agony", the deception "plays out as excruciatingly as you could wish". Although stressed by modern life – "Buildings, offices, computers! Everyone talking at once: moving around with no structure, no purpose!" he exclaims with Mitchell's "trademark baffled fury" – he nevertheless manages to solve murders that his twin's team are working on "thanks to his talent for puzzles and a rigorously logical mind".
BBC iPlayer

Scott Turow's 1987 legal thriller was adapted for the big screen in 1990, starring Harrison Ford as prosecutor Rusty Sabich, accused of murdering his colleague. This year, it came to Apple TV+ as an eight-part series with Jake Gyllenhaal in the leading role. Written by David E. Kelley, known for "Ally McBeal" and "Big Little Lies", the "story provides the perfect blend of mystery wrapped with legal intrigue that showcases his talents well", said Max Covill at RogerEbert.com. Sabich's "intense desire to prove his innocence" drives the show, but viewers are left in the dark. "It only works because of Gyllenhaal's intense, caterwauling performance – in one instance, he can be the smartest guy in the room, completely unhinged in the next." His wife Barbara, played by Ruth Negga, "is given a lot of agency in this adaptation", allowing the actress to show off her "innate talents". It might not be a "compelling mystery" the whole way through, but it "makes up for it in spades with a fantastic ensemble and a captivating feud between two egotistical lawyers".
Apple TV+

"Baby Reindeer" has become a phenomenon since its Netflix debut, and is now one of the streaming platform's most watched shows ever. The series focuses on bartender and aspiring comedian Donny Dunn (Richard Gadd) who inadvertently becomes the subject of stalking and obsession by Martha Scott (Jessica Gunning) after he offers her a free cup of tea out of sympathy. The series is "darker and more disturbing" than suggested by its "trailers and marketing", said Erik Kain at Forbes. At its core, it tackles difficult issues including sexual abuse, victimhood and mental health, and its claim to be a true story has caused real-life dramas outside the series. Be warned, said Kain, "it's not an easy watch".
Netflix

The first series of "The Responder" gave us "five of the most riveting and harrowing hours of television there have been for many years", said Lucy Mangan at The Guardian, and the second series "feels earned by the quality of what went before and also unforced". The series focuses on Chris Carson (Martin Freeman), a frontline urgent-response police officer who is "clearly just trying to keep his head above water" after "years in the force left him struggling with his mental health", said Wales Online. The second series picks up with Carson "heavily traumatised" by the events of series one, said writer, and former police officer, Tony Schumacher, and he's "looking to do it differently this time".
BBC iPlayer

In this six-part series from the Danish production company that created "The Killing" and "The Bridge", Sofie Gråbol ("The Killing") stars as a prison officer struggling to keep control. It is "superbly shot" with "sensational performances throughout", said The Telegraph, and the only thing that might stop you from binge-watching "will be the fact that it is utterly unrelenting – but then you don't head to chokey for oranges and sunshine".
BBC iPlayer

"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

Making his directorial debut, Michael Sheen also stars in this three-part drama, set in "his beloved hometown of Port Talbot", said the Mirror. The "dystopian drama" is the tale of a Welsh family forced to flee their small town for the English coast following civil unrest, originally broadcast "just weeks after real-life demonstrations" after Tata Steel announced its closure. Adding to the narrative is "skilfully used" archive footage. The first episode is "different and fresh", said Mangan in The Guardian, with a "slightly dreamlike (or nightmarish) off-kilter quality" that "surely makes you sit up and take notice".
BBC iPlayer

In his 40-year acting career, Peter Capaldi had "never played a cop – until now", said Katie Rosseinsky in 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+

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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.