50 of the Best Murder Mystery Shows That Will Leave You Wanting More
The Peacock adaptation of Liz Moore’s 2020 bestseller is just as gripping as the book. Amanda Seyfried is at her best playing Mickey, a single mother and police officer working in Kensington, a low-income neighborhood in her hometown of Philadelphia. Mickey’s sister Kacey (Ashleigh Cummings) struggles with addiction and has disappeared. As Mickey searches for her, she’s also working to get the rest of the police force to focus on finding a serial killer who is targeting women much like Kacey. The cases become intertwined and shocking revelations about Mickey and Kacey’s youth turn up the tension, making the show totally engrossing.
Uzo Aduba is absolutely delightful as Cordelia Cupp, a quirky detective with some Hercule Poirot-like qualities who is called in to investigate a murder at the White House. A.B. Wynter (played by Giancarlo Esposito, who took on the role after his friend Andre Braugher died), the White House Chief Usher, has died in the middle of a presidential state dinner for the Australian prime minister (Julian McMahon). The staffers who worked for Wynter are desperately trying to hide the crime scene from the VIPs at the dinner and guest performer Kylie Minogue in ways that become increasingly wild. In addition to Aduba and Esposito, the all-star cast includes Susan Kelechi Watson, Jane Curtin, Ken Marino, and Randall Park.
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Lesley Manville is stunning in this adaptation of Anthony Horowitz’s 2016 book. She plays Susan, the editor of a wildly popular series of mystery novels. Its author dies shortly after turning in a new manuscript that is missing the last chapter. Susan must search for the pages in order to complete the book, but as she unravels their disappearance she begins to believe that the author’s death might actually have been a murder.
From 1987 to 2000, Inspector Morse was a beloved staple of TV starring a cranky but charismatic detective working in the city of Oxford. Endeavour, which was titled after Morse’s unusual first name, is a prequel that introduces us to Morse as he’s just starting his career. He’s caught between two classes. He attended Oxford and his old classmates are aghast at him pursuing a career they don’t consider dignified. But when he’s at the police station, he’s seen as a snob. Endeavour is darker than Inspector Morse. The younger, ‘60s-era Morse (Shaun Evans) is tortured, frustrated, and haunted by the cases he couldn’t solve. He’s uniquely motivated by beauty, whether that’s classical music, operas, or poetry, which makes for a gorgeous show, along with the stunning setting and chic period costumes. The murders Endeavour solves are dark, but his story is what really makes the show worth watching.
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Faithful to the YA bestseller that inspired it, We Were Liars is a perfect teen drama with a picturesque setting reminiscent of Nantucket or Martha’s Vineyard. The wealthy Sinclair family spends every summer on Beechwood Island in a compound with homes for each branch of the family. Cadence (Emily Alyn Lind), the oldest grandchild, has long been in love with Gat (Shubham Maheshwari), who joins the Sinclairs during visits with his uncle. Together with her cousins Mirren (Esther McGregor) and Johnny (Joseph Zada), Cadence and Gat make up a tight foursome called the Liars that reunites each year. As the summer 17 (as the group puts it) begins, Cadence battles amnesia while struggling to put together the pieces of a life-changing event that happened a year earlier.
At the start of Rose Byrne’s career in the U.S., she played one of her most gripping roles as Ellen Parsons, a young attorney and protégé to Glenn Close’s Patty Hewes, a steely law partner who takes on high-stakes and often dangerous cases. As the first season unfolds in multiple timelines, we see how a class action suit against a vicious billionaire CEO played by Ted Danson leads to Ellen being arrested for murder six months later. Each season features a different case and while all are riveting, the way that Ellen and Patty’s fascinating mentee/mentor relationship plays out is the best part of the show.
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This one you need to see to believe. Now in its 14th season, Midsomer is a mainstay on British television. Set in a tiny village in the English countryside, it features a pair of detectives—in the most recent seasons Detective Chief Inspector Barnaby (Neil Dudgeon) and his junior partner, currently Detective Sergeant Winter (Nick Hendrix)—who investigate highly dramatic and sometimes humorous murders. Victims have been taken down by an extremely large wheel of cheese, suffocation by way of being wrapped like a mummy, and drowned in a bowl of eggs. If you can embrace the macabre silliness, it’s surprisingly pleasant and calming.
Unforgotten has a fascinating premise. Detectives Sunny (Sanjeev Bhaskar) and Cassie (Nicola Walker), and then later Jessie (Sinéad Keenan), work in the historic crimes unit—they’re called in when a body is found long enough after a person’s disappearance for the case to have been closed. Each season follows four seemingly unconnected characters (not all of them suspects) as they go about their lives in separate plot lines as the detectives investigate. With each episode, we learn more about the characters and gradually what part they played in the tragedy. With sprawling cases, the show very beautifully explores the way that time impacts the ripple effects of violence on survivors, family, and communities.
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A very handsome reverend in a small British village finds himself regularly solving crimes with a grumpy police detective in this pleasant show that still has an edge. The ‘50s-set series has had three (all very good looking) leads–for four seasons Sidney Chambers (James Norton) was the local vicar, then he handed the baton to Will Davenport (Tom Brittney), before Alphy Kotteram (Rishi Nair) took the job—all of whom have worked with the easily annoyed Geordie Keating (Robson Green) to investigate crimes that arise in the town. Grantchester is softer and more sentimental than many murder-focused British series but hits serious notes, particularly in its discussions of faith and gay men in the church.
Jessica Biel and Elizabeth Banks are a wonderful pair playing estranged sisters with very different lives. Wealthy and successful, Chloe (Biel) has an enviable life in New York City, while Nicky (Banks) struggles. They’re only brought together when Chloe returns after a night out in the Hamptons to find her husband Adam (Corey Stoll) dead. When Chloe is suspected of having killed Adam, the crisis illuminates what drove the sisters apart—Adam is Nicky’s ex-husband. Banks and Biel have a great dynamic that makes The Better Sister’s plot feel legitimately puzzling.
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Jake Gyllenhaal takes the lead in AppleTV+’s gripping legal thriller, Presumed Innocent, which is based on Scott Turow’s 1987 novel of the same name. He portrays Rusty Sabich, a Chicago prosecutor who’s accused of the gruesome murder of his colleague, Carolyn Polhemus (Renate Reinsve). When it’s revealed that Rusty and Carolyn were having an illicit affair, the husband and father of two becomes the prime suspect in her killing—and as his career and family life begin to unravel, he’s determined to prove his innocence to the world and his wife, Barbara (Ruth Negga).
How to Get Away with Murder is a Shondaland series at its finest. The ABC show sucks you in from its first episode, when criminal defense attorney and law professor Annalise Keating (Viola Davis) chooses a group of five ambitious (and often overzealous) students—Wes (Alfred Enoch), Michaela (Aja Naomi King), Asher (Matt McGorry), Laurel (Karla Souza), and Connor (Jack Falahee)—to intern at her firm. As they begin to work alongside Annalise’s employees, fixer Frank (Charlie Weber) and ultra-serious Bonnie (Liza Weil), the group soon finds themselves applying what they’ve learned in class to a series of real-life murders. Over the course of six lethal seasons, there are more twists and turns—and romantic entanglements—than you’ll be able to count.
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A deliciously soapy yet deadly romp, The Perfect Couple has everything you could want in a murder mystery. Based on an Elin Hiderbrand novel, the Netflix miniseries takes place in Nantucket, where middle-class zookeeper Amelia Sacks (Eve Hewson) is about to marry into the extravagantly wealthy family of Benji Winbury (Billy Howle). But when a dead body is discovered on the Winbury property on the morning of the wedding, the nuptials are put on hold—and everyone is a suspect, including Benji’s novelist mother, Greer (Nicole Kidman) and his father, Tag (Liev Schreiber). It’s a classic whodunit with an ensemble cast that includes Meghann Fahy, Dakota Fanning, and Isabelle Adjani.
In Castle, the NYPD taps mystery novelist Richard Castle (Nathan Fillion) to help solve the case of a copycat killer who’s been recreating murders from his books. Although Castle and his handler, Detective Kate Beckett (Stana Katic), initially clash, she becomes the writer’s muse for his latest crime series; it doesn’t take long for her to realize that, despite his formal training, Castle is actually an asset when it comes to catching the bad guys, too. As expected with any ABC drama, the pair’s relationship only gets more complicated as they investigate New York’s most disturbing homicides—as well as the unsolved murder of Beckett’s mother—over the course of eight seasons.
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No one—and we mean, no one—is more hellbent on solving a murder than British teen Pip Fitz-Amobi (Emma Myers). Based on Holly Jackson’s similarly-titled novel, A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder is an enjoyable binge-watch that will have you, much like Pip, demanding some well-deserved answers as she attempts to solve the disappearance of popular student Andie Bell (India Lillie Davies) from five years prior. Although Andie’s boyfriend at the time, the late Sal Singh (Rahul Pattni), was accused of the crime, Pip is convinced he was innocent; so, like any good detective, our high-school heroine decides to investigate the case for her final-year EPQ project—and with the help of Sal’s brother, Ravi (Zain Iqbal), she uncovers shocking secrets about the town’s residents along the way.
With a lengthy title that’s an obvious play on films like The Woman in the House and The Woman in the Window, Netflix’s dark comedy is a full-on parody of a murder mystery. That said, there is a potential homicide at its center, and it’s one that the grieving Anna (Kristen Bell) is determined to solve. It all begins when Anna—who mixes alcohol and pills to cope with a tragic loss—believes that she witnesses a murder across the street. The only problem? She’s known to have an overactive imagination, and the police have already written her off as being crazy. Against the odds, and despite a crippling fear of rain that prevents her from leaving the house, she’s desperate to get to the truth about the killing. Which, of course, may or may not have occurred.
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If you’re in the mood for something in the sci-fi realm, Bodies is a solid place to start. Fair warning that you’ll need to put the phone down to watch the Netflix series, otherwise you’re going to be…well, lost. See, the story takes place within four totally separate timelines—1890, 1941, 2023, and 2053—but in each one, a Metropolitan Police detective is investigating the sudden appearance of a dead, naked corpse in the one London location. But in addition to the mysterious identity of the shot-dead man, another burning question remains: Why does his body continue to reappear in the exact same spot on Longharvest Lane? The four lead detectives (played by Amaka Okafor, Jacob Fortune-Lloyd, Kyle Soller, and Shira Haas) are tasked with solving this history-altering case; Britain’s future, for some reason, depends on it.
A twisty, satisfying slow-burn that explores the racist social structures of 1966 Baltimore, Lady in the Lake begins with the Thanksgiving Day disappearance of a young Jewish girl named Tessie Durst. The city is on high alert, but no one is more determined to find Tessie and solve the case than bored housewife Maddie Morgenstern Schwartz (Natalie Portman). Maddie doesn’t stop there, either. She puts her journalistic prowess to the test, investigating another local murder despite resistance from her all-white paper: that of Cleo Johnson (Moses Ingram), a Black mother, model and nightclub bookkeeper whose body was discovered in the fountain of, you guessed it, a lake.
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Bad Sisters begins with a dead man in a casket, so you pretty much know that the AppleTV+ show is going to deliver the drama from the jump. The Dublin-set dark comedy follows the five Garvey siblings—Eva (Sharon Horgan), Ursula (Eva Birthistle), Bibi (Sarah Greene), Becka (Eve Hewson), and Grace (Anne-Marie Duff)—after the unexpected death of Grace’s abusive husband, John Paul (Claes Bang). A life insurance investigation ensues, and as the series shifts between past and present timelines, it quickly becomes clear that each of Grace’s sisters had a motive to kill her controlling brother-in-law. But which one did it?
Ah, a good old-fashioned police procedural with a twist. The CBS dramedy Elsbeth follows eccentric attorney Elsbeth Tascioni (Carrie Preston), who fans of The Good Wife and The Good Fight will remember for her brilliantly unconventional sleuthing skills. In this spinoff, the titular oddball character packs up her loudly clashing wardrobe and leaves Chicago behind for New York City, where she works alongside the NYPD to track down criminal masterminds. With a mystery-of-the-week format, each episode begins with a new murder. You can’t help but be impressed as Elsbeth uncovers motives, narrows down suspects, and ultimately, catches vicious killers—all while wearing ridiculously over-the-top outfits.
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