These Are the Best Murder Mysteries and Crime Dramas to Watch on Netflix, HBO Max, Amazon, and More

Selena Gomez, Only Murders in the Building — Selena Gomez, *Only Murders in the Building*
Craig Blankenhorn/Hulu

There's nothing quite like getting sucked into a show that's all about unraveling a murder mystery. Watching a good old crime drama can really make you, the viewer, believe you could go out there and crack a case, and while we're not endorsing that, we do endorse watching these shows. Murder mysteries and crime dramas come in many different flavors, so whether you want to feel compassion or laugh at someone else's misfortune, there's something out there for you.

In our list of the best murder mysteries and crime dramas to watch right now, you'll find a variety of series from multiple countries. There are some excellent but dark dramas that pose serious questions, as well as some comedies that include wacky hijinks on the road to solving a case. There's something for everybody, so check out the list below.

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Looking for more recommendations of what to watch next? We have a ton of them! And if you're looking for more hand-picked recommendations based on shows you love, we have those too.

The White Lotus

Like so many murder mysteries, The White Lotus opens with a dead body, but that's not exactly what the show is about. Well, that's not all it's about. The dramedy is a classic upstairs-downstairs story, set at an idyllic resort in Hawaii, following the lives of the guests and the staff for one fateful week. It's just so addictive, with its sharp, incisive writing and its cast of eccentric characters, like Jennifer Coolidge's emotionally fragile Tanya and Murray Bartlett's high-strung hotel manager Armond. But even when you take a minute to laugh at the misadventures of the extraordinarily wealthy, The White Lotus pushes forward with a creeping sense of impending doom, since you can't help but wonder who, exactly, is going to end up dead at the end. It's the kind of show that lets you have as much fun trying to unravel the central murder as you do thinking about what all the images in the hotel wallpaper mean. -Allison Picurro

Only Murders in the Building

Only Murders in the Building is at the center of a strange and wonderful Venn Diagram. It's got sleuthing, Steve Martin and Martin Short, Selena Gomez, jokes about podcasts, fake Broadway musical flops, and Sting. The comedy-crime-farce hybrid follows a trio of neighbors — an egotistical actor with one TV hit (Martin), a washed-up Broadway director (Short), and an enigmatic artist (Gomez) — who come together to investigate a murder in their building. The series isn't as ha-ha funny as fans of Martin and Short might expect, but it's immediately charming. It's a cozy, old-school mystery about three lonely people with secrets that gets both sadder and sillier as it goes. -Kelly Connolly 

Mare of Easttown

On the surface, Mare of Easttown seems like any other crime show about a grizzled cop solving a case. The series follows the titular Mare (Kate Winslet, giving one of the best performances of her career), a Pennsylvania detective, as she investigates the killing of a local teen girl while simultaneously coping with her own deeply set trauma. But despite how many dark murder dramas are out there, Mare is special: It is an enthralling mystery; it is a character study of damaged people; it is, occasionally, a mother-daughter sitcom. Mare is a showcase for an outstanding group of actors — not just Winslet, but also Evan Peters as Mare's partner, Jean Smart as her mother, and Julianne Nicholson as her best friend, all doing their best Delco accent work. It's an example of how to effectively world-build, how to make a TV small town feel like a real small town. It's the show that gave us Jean Smart playing Fruit Ninja on an iPad. There were a few weeks when Mare was the only thing I and everyone I knew could talk about — maybe the closest thing to a quote-unquote watercooler show we've had in a while. It is such an expertly crafted series that even when it kind of misses, you barely care; this just became another detail to unpack. Long after the finale, I'm still thinking about the show's last shot. -Allison Picurro 

The Flight Attendant

Not all great murder mysteries have to be frigid, stoic dramas from Scandinavia. Some make murder... fun! HBO Max's Emmy-nominated original series The Flight Attendant is a zippy comedy-drama bursting with infectious energy, spinning a yarn about a flight attendant named Cassie (Kaley Cuoco) who has a crazy evening with a charming passenger (Michiel Huisman), but wakes up next to his murdered body in the morning with no idea what happened. What follows is a globe-trotting thriller as Cassie pursues the killers while trying to clear her own name. 

The Bridge

The Nordic noir series known as Broen/Bron, aka The Bridge, kicks off with the discovery of a dead body — or rather, two halves of two different bodies — in the center of a bridge that links Sweden and Denmark. If that sounds familiar, it's because there have been a lot of remakes over the years, including an FX production, also known as The Bridge, that moved the action to the U.S. and Mexico. The original series is better (sorry to America) and finds members of the Danish and Swedish police having to work together to investigate the crime. Like The Killing, it's one of the Danish shows that have shaped TV around the world. 

Twin Peaks

David Lynch and Mark Frost's surreal masterpiece Twin Peaks, which premiered on ABC in 1990 and returned for a third season on Showtime in 2017, centers on the investigation into the death of small-town homecoming queen Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee), whose murder exposes a powerful darkness in the community. The show's blend of supernatural horror, melodrama, and absurdity changed television, pushing the bounds of what a mystery show — or any show — could do. Twin Peaks often feels like a nightmare and a dream at once. It taps into the fear that sinister forces hide under the surface of any town, and that true evil doesn't make sense. -Kelly Connolly 

The Outsider

HBO's adaptation of The Outsider, based on Stephen King's chilling murder mystery of the same name, is worth checking out. Emmy winner Ben Mendelsohn stars as a detective investigating the gruesome murder of a young boy, and although all the evidence points to an upstanding family man (Jason Bateman), there's more evidence that places him miles and miles away at the time of the murder. Over time it becomes clear there's something supernatural going on, and as the show morphs from a traditional murder mystery into a paranormal investigation, you won't be able to look away, even if you want to. 

Lupin

Omar Sy stars in Lupin as Assane Diop, a man who is essentially a French Bruce Wayne if Batman was more of a cat burglar than dark knight. Inspired by the classic French character Arsène Lupin, known as the "gentleman burglar," Diop starts the series off trying to steal a valuable necklace from the Louvre with a grand heist as part of a revenge plot against the wealthy family responsible for the death of father several years prior. Sy is a charming dude, and the heists and trickery are fun, complicated acts, performed under the guise of being the good guy. It may not be the greatest show Netflix ever put out, but it is a very entertaining distraction that's easy to get through. -Tim Surette 

Frankie Drake Mysteries

Set in 1920s Toronto, Frankie Drake Mysteries follows the city's only female private eyes, the eponymous Frankie Drake (Lauren Lee Smith) and her partner Trudy (Chantel Riley), as they solve cases the police won't take on as well as cases their clients can't take to the authorities. And while the on-screen narrative deals with aspects of social change, the show itself is doubling down on it in the real world; of the 31 episodes aired in the States thus far, 18 were directed by women, while 20 were written or co-written by women. If you've already binge-watched Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries (also on this list), make Frankie Drake Mysteries your next stop.

Top of the Lake

Jane Campion's acclaimed 2013 crime drama Top of the Lake (a second season, Top of the Lake: China Girl, aired in 2017) is not only an engrossing mystery driven, in part, by an excellent performance from Elisabeth Moss, it's also one of the most beautiful TV series we've seen in a long time. Set in and filmed around New Zealand, the six-part series also makes excellent use of its landscape as it follows Moss' Robin Griffin, a detective now living in Sydney and specializing in child protection, who returns to her hometown in New Zealand after her mother falls ill. While there, she begins investigating the disappearance of a pregnant 12-year-old girl in a remote lake town, a case that opens up old wounds and leads to a mesmerizing and thoughtful story about surviving in a world dominated by misogyny. 

Trapped

The Icelandic murder mystery series Trapped also stands out for the way it uses its location to its increase the tension that normally accompanies a good crime drama. In Season 1, Andri (Olafur Darri Olafsson), a detective whose job has taken its toll on his family, investigates a case involving a headless corpse that has turned up in the local port. An avalanche soon increases the dramatic stakes and leaves the remote town and its citizens vulnerable and isolated while the police attempt to solve the case before the snow melts and they can escape. Season 2 involves a far-right nationalist group, a power plant's expansion, and a family with so many secrets the twists and turns never seem to stop coming. There are a lot of excellent dramas to come out of the Nordic region, but Trapped is definitely one of the best. 

Unbelievable

Few recent crime dramas have been harder to shake than Unbelievable. Based on the real events detailed in the Pulitzer Prize-winning 2015 article "An Unbelievable Story of Rape," the devastating miniseries follows Marie Adler (Kaitlyn Dever), a teenage girl accused of lying about being raped. As she struggles with an uncaring system, she finds hope in the two detectives (Toni Collette and Merritt Wever) who take her trauma seriously. It's a tough story told with grace and empathy that's made unforgettable by the three performers at its center. -Kelly Connolly 

Happy Valley

As cheery as the title of this BBC One series sounds, Happy Valley is actually very dark and contains some very difficult subject matter. The series centers on a female detective named Catherine Cawood (Sarah Lancashire), whose world is turned upside down after the man who sexually assaulted her daughter — which led to the girl birthing an unwanted child and deciding to end her life — is freed from prison. In the process of tracking the assailant down, Cawood accidentally stumbles into a completely unrelated, but ongoing crime. - Amanda Bell 

Bosch

An adaptation of Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch novels, Amazon's Bosch follows the gritty life of Los Angeles homicide detective and private investigator Harry Bosch (Titus Welliver). Although the show rarely receives a lot of fanfare, it's quite popular, and for good reason: It has been lauded for its realistic portrayal of police work, as well as its faithful interpretation of Connelly's best-selling books. Plus, it has a sweet jazz soundtrack. 

Sherlock

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's signature characters come alive in Sherlock, a bromantic series about its eponymous detective, the "high functioning sociopath" Sherlock Holmes (Benedict Cumberbatch), and his war veteran sidekick, Dr. John Watson (Martin Freeman). The four-season series was a fan-frenzied affair during its run on the BBC and PBS thanks to its sublime stars, behind-the-scenes talent, and production quality, all of which led to some serious awards for everyone involved. - Amanda Bell 

*Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears*
Acorn TV

Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries

The three-season Australian series Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries whisks you back to the 1920s and all the glitz and glamour the decade had to offer. Essie Davis stars as the Honourable Miss Phryne Fisher, who has a knack for solving intricate and inventive murders (a spider in a shoe!), much to the displeasure of the local police, especially Detective Inspector Jack Robinson (Nathan Page). However, the two eventually form a working relationship, and later even a friendship oozing with sexual tension. A feature film, Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears, arrived on Acorn TV in 2020. 

Veronica Mars

For a gripping noir detective story with bonus teen drama, watch Veronica Mars. The UPN-turned-CW series stars Kristen Bell as a high schooler, and eventual college student, who moonlights as a private eye, taking on cases for her classmates and her detective father (Enrico Colantoni) while also unraveling season-long mysteries. The one that looms largest is the murder of her best friend, Lilly Kane (Amanda Seyfried). If you're looking for an intricate crime drama that demands your attention, Veronica Mars is the perfect marathon — at least for the first two seasons. The frustrating Hulu revival is best ignored, and even the third season lost some magic, but the early years of Veronica Mars are unmissable: a smart, dark exploration of trauma and privilege in a town where the haves and the have-nots are at each other's throats. -Kelly Connolly 

Endeavour

An engrossing prequel to the beloved British series Inspector Morse, Endeavour stars Shaun Evans as the young Endeavour Morse as he solves murders in 1960s Oxford. Most seasons (there have been seven so far) feature four episodes, that clock in at approximately an hour and a half each, so the show is not exactly a quick binge. But who watches murder mysteries with the intention of plowing through them as quickly as possible? As the series progresses, there are storylines that carry over, much like any other procedural might, so be sure to pay attention. 

Broadchurch

Set in a sleepy little seaside town, Broadchurch's first season follows two detectives — Alec Hardy (David Tennant) and Ellie Miller (Olivia Colman) — on the hunt for the killer of an 11-year-old boy, and, sadly, the suspects list slowly inches into deeply uncomfortable...

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