The 40 most popular mystery TV shows, ranked. Click any show for ratings, reviews, trailers, and where to watch.


The Mentalist
2008 · US
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.


Monk
2002 · US
Adrian Monk was once a rising star with the San Francisco Police Department, legendary for using unconventional means to solve the department's most baffling cases. But after the tragic (and still unsolved) murder of his wife Trudy, he developed an extreme case of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Now working as a private consultant, Monk continues to investigate cases in the most unconventional ways.


You
2018 · US
A dangerously charming, obsessive man goes to extreme measures to insert himself into the lives of women who fascinate him.


Columbo
1971 · US
Columbo is a friendly, verbose, disheveled-looking police detective who is consistently underestimated by his suspects. Despite his unprepossessing appearance and apparent absentmindedness, he shrewdly solves all of his cases and secures all evidence needed for indictment. His formidable eye for detail and meticulously dedicated approach often become clear to the killer only late in the storyline.


Sherlock
2010 · UK
A modern update finds the famous sleuth and his doctor partner solving crime in 21st century London.


Supernatural
2005 · US
When they were boys, Sam and Dean Winchester lost their mother to a mysterious and demonic supernatural force. Subsequently, their father raised them to be soldiers. He taught them about the paranormal evil that lives in the dark corners and on the back roads of America ... and he taught them how to kill it. Now, the Winchester brothers crisscross the country in their '67 Chevy Impala, battling every kind of supernatural threat they encounter along the way.


Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
1999 · US
In the criminal justice system, sexually-based offenses are considered especially heinous. In New York City, the dedicated detectives who investigate these vicious felonies are members of an elite squad known as the Special Victims Unit. These are their stories.


True Detective
2014 · US
An American anthology police detective series utilizing multiple timelines in which investigations seem to unearth personal and professional secrets of those involved, both within or outside the law.


Criminal Minds
2005 · US
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.


Doctor-X: Surgeon Michiko Daimon
2012 · JP
Daimon Michiko is a 37-year-old freelance surgeon who is part of a questionable “doctor placement service” that has her wander from hospital to hospital. The harsh environment at the hospitals led many doctors to retire from their positions, forcing hospitals to make use of said program to fill the empty spots at least temporary. However, Michiko doesn’t look like a doctor at all with her flashy clothes and eccentric attitude. In the first episode she raises objections to a certain operation which is planned to be done by the head of a hospital who hasn’t performed an operation for a very long time. This causes Michiko to incur odium at the hospital, however, everyone becomes frozen when Michiko points out the outdated skills of the director. She also holds a scrupulous compliance when it comes to her working hours, never does any unnecessary chores that don’t require a medical license, and couldn’t care less about the power struggles within the hospitals. Nobody knows how she acquired such a top-level skill that allows her to claim exorbitant sums as reward, but her private life is an even greater mystery to everyone around her. Tanaka plays a rookie surgeon, Uchida an anesthetist, Kishibe the head of the placement service, and Ito the head of the surgical department of this institution.


The Order
2019 · US
Out to avenge his mother's death, a college student pledges a secret order and lands in a war between werewolves and practitioners of dark magic.


Lucha Underground
2014 · US
Lucha Underground introduces U.S. audiences to the high-flying, explosive moves of lucha libre. An ancient combat tradition, watch as good and evil wage war in a gritty battleground called “The Temple.”


Garth Marenghi's Darkplace
2004 · UK
When the Hellmouth opens beneath Darkplace Hospital in downtown Romford, kiddy doctor, Vietnam veteran and ex-warlock Dr. Rick Dagless M.D. is the only man who can close it. Joined by best buddy Dr. Lucien Sanchez, fiery hospital boss Thornton Reed, and woman Liz Asher, Dagless must fight the forces of Darkness while dealing with the burden of day-to-day admin. From the chilling pen of best-selling horror writer Garth Marenghi comes this lost masterpiece of televisual terror. Dare you enter Garth's Darkplace?


Medium
2005 · US
Allison Dubois works in the District Attorney’s office using her natural intuition about people and her ability to communicate with the dead to help to solve crimes. Her dreams often give her clues to the whereabouts of missing people.


C.I.D.
1998 · IN
A team of dedicated men and women in the Crime Investigation Department will risk everything to solve Mumbai's toughest, most complicated crimes.


Luther
2010 · UK
A dark psychological crime drama starring Idris Elba as Luther, a man struggling with his own terrible demons, who might be as dangerous as the depraved murderers he hunts.


CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
2000 · US
A Las Vegas team of forensic investigators are trained to solve criminal cases by scouring the crime scene, collecting irrefutable evidence and finding the missing pieces that solve the mystery.


Person of Interest
2011 · US
John Reese, former CIA paramilitary operative, is presumed dead and teams up with reclusive billionaire Finch to prevent violent crimes in New York City by initiating their own type of justice. With the special training that Reese has had in Covert Operations and Finch's genius software inventing mind, the two are a perfect match for the job that they have to complete. With the help of surveillance equipment, they work "outside the law" and get the right criminal behind bars.


Slow Horses
2022 · UK
Follow a dysfunctional team of MI5 agents—and their obnoxious boss, the notorious Jackson Lamb—as they navigate the espionage world's smoke and mirrors to defend England from sinister forces.


FROM
2022 · US
Unravel the mystery of a nightmarish town in middle America that traps all those who enter. As the unwilling residents fight to keep a sense of normalcy and search for a way out, they must also survive the threats of the surrounding forest – including the terrifying creatures that come out when the sun goes down.


IT: Welcome to Derry
2025 · US
In 1962, amid a spate of unexplained disappearances of local children, a group of misfit friends begin to suspect a long-buried ancient evil lurking. As the kids set out to determine what's really going on, a rising unease prompts several townspeople to work together to restore peace – all while a U.S. military operation seeks to exploit Derry for its own objectives.


American Horror Story
2011 · US
An anthology horror drama series centering on different characters and locations, including a house with a murderous past, an asylum, a witch coven, a freak show, a hotel, a farmhouse in Roanoke, a cult, the apocalypse and a summer camp.


Dead-End Job
2026 · KR
Drowning in debt, a young man takes lucrative part-time jobs from a mysterious agency — only to find his hustle for more money turning nightmarish.


Lupin
2021 · FR
Inspired by the adventures of Arsène Lupin, gentleman thief Assane Diop sets out to avenge his father for an injustice inflicted by a wealthy family.


Dexter
2006 · US
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.


Desperate Housewives
2004 · US
Looking down on her friends and family isn't a way of life for Mary Alice Young... it's a way of death. One day, in her perfect house, in the loveliest of suburbs, Mary Alice ended it all. Now she's taking us into the lives of her family, friends and neighbors, commenting from her elevated P.O.V.


The Blacklist
2013 · US
Raymond "Red" Reddington, one of the FBI's most wanted fugitives, surrenders in person at FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C. He claims that he and the FBI have the same interests: bringing down dangerous criminals and terrorists. In the last two decades, he's made a list of criminals and terrorists that matter the most but the FBI cannot find because it does not know they exist. Reddington calls this "The Blacklist". Reddington will co-operate, but insists that he will speak only to Elizabeth Keen, a rookie FBI profiler.


Midsomer Murders
1997 · UK
The peacefulness of the Midsomer community is shattered by violent crimes, suspects are placed under suspicion, and it is up to a veteran DCI and his young sergeant to calmly and diligently eliminate the innocent and ruthlessly pursue the guilty.


Dexter: Resurrection
2025 · US
Set 10 weeks after Dexter: New Blood, Dexter Morgan chases a missing Harrison to New York City, where Captain Angel Batista is hot on their trail from way down in Miami.


Perry Mason
1957 · US
The cases of master criminal defense attorney Perry Mason and his staff who handled the most difficult of cases in the aid of the innocent.


The X-Files
1993 · US
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.


Detective Conan
1996 · JP
The son of a world famous mystery writer, Jimmy Kudo, has achieved his own notoriety by assisting the local police as a student detective. He has always been able to solve the most difficult of criminal cases using his wits and power of reason.


CSI: Miami
2002 · US
The show follows Crime Scene Investigators working for the Miami-Dade Police Department as they use physical evidence, similar to their Las Vegas counterparts, to solve grisly murders. The series mixes deduction, gritty subject matter, and character-driven drama in the same vein as the original series in the CSI franchise, except that the Miami CSIs are cops first, scientists second.


Lost
2004 · US
Stripped of everything, the survivors of a horrific plane crash must work together to stay alive. But the island holds many secrets.


NCIS: Los Angeles
2009 · US
The exploits of the Los Angeles–based Office of Special Projects (OSP), an elite division of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service that specializes in undercover assignments.


Star Trek: The Next Generation
1987 · US
Follow the intergalactic adventures of Capt. Jean-Luc Picard and his loyal crew aboard the all-new USS Enterprise NCC-1701D, as they explore new worlds.


Nocturne
2026 · US
When a victim of notorious serial killer Jurek Walter unexpectedly turns up alive, detective Jonah Lynn races against time to find the one person still missing, while his protégé Saga Bauer goes undercover to get answers from the killer himself.


Stranger Things
2016 · US
When a young boy vanishes, a small town uncovers a mystery involving secret experiments, terrifying supernatural forces, and one strange little girl.


Crystal Lake
2026 · US
Single mother Pam Voorhees has been unable to shake her grief after her young, sickly son Jason tragically drowned in the town lake almost a year before. When two strangers arrive at Pam's door digging into her past, a disturbing chain of events is set into motion, leaving the townspeople of Crystal Lake wondering: just who is Pam Voorhees?


Who's the Murderer
2016 · CN
The cast is introduced to the settings and suspects of a murder case for the new episode. The cast then chooses their role in the episode, as a particular suspect or the detective.
Mystery series stretch a central question across a season, which lets them develop suspects and setting far past what a film allows. The form's risk is the ending, and its reward is the slow build.