8 Greatest Mystery Shows With Fewer Than 40 Episodes
Chris is a UK-based film and TV writer, editor and occasional filmmaker. For more than a decade, he has written news, reviews and features covering movies, television and pop culture. He has also made short films and worked in video production, giving him experience on both sides of the screen. Chris runs the We Love Movies More Than You TikTok channel and has a particular interest in overlooked and short-lived TV shows.
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A mystery series can take many forms, leading audiences on a thrilling murder investigation, a lighthearted romp, or even an expansive sci-fi saga. Whether it's a miniseries or a returning show, telling a satisfying story is a careful balancing act between giving the audience some answers and leaving enough questions to keep them watching.
Above all, a good mystery series should always leave the viewer wanting just one more episode, so another piece of the puzzle can fit into place, or be thrown a curveball with a sudden plot twist. All the shows on this list fall into that category, and with fewer than 40 episodes apiece, they’re not a big-time commitment, but they're jam-packed with memorable characters and no shortage of intrigue.
'The Stranger' (2020)
Based on the book by Harlan Coben, The Stranger helped kick-start Netflix's growing library of adaptations based on his bestsellers. Dedicated family man Adam Price (Richard Armitage) has his happy life pulled apart when a stranger (Hannah John-Kamen) tells him a devastating secret. Initially not believing what he's just heard, Adam confronts his wife (Dervla Kirwan) only to be told it's true, but there's far more to this than he realizes. With his wife now missing and Adam's search bringing other secrets to light, The Stranger shows how quickly one conversation can overturn your whole life.
Over eight episodes, Adam's quest for the truth draws him into a dangerous world of deception, and he meets others who have also had an encounter with the mysterious stranger. It may rely on one too many plot twists, but it's so addictively watchable that, with each new discovery Adam makes, it's easy to get swept up in the paranoid mystery that’s unfolding. Also starring Siobhan Finneran, Jennifer Saunders, Paul Kaye, and Anthony Head, The Stranger is a miniseries that Coben has expressed interest in revisiting, and it's definitely one of his best.
'The Sinner' (2017–2021)
The identity of a killer is the reveal most mysteries surrounding a murder build toward, but The Sinner squarely focuses on the motive. The first season starts with Cora (Jessica Biel), who brutally murders an apparent stranger in full view of horrified onlookers while on a beach trip with her family. In steps jaded yet compassionate Detective Harry Ambrose (Bill Pullman), who is determined to uncover what led her to kill.
Each season gives Harry a fresh case and new characters to investigate, with Matt Bomer, Carrie Coon, and Frances Fisher joining the cast. The "who" is usually known, but discovering the layers behind their motives begins to change what we understand about the crime. Harry’s fractured past fuels his obsessive need to understand what pushes someone to their breaking point. Bill Pullman has rarely been better than he is here, delivering a sensitive yet haunted performance. Across The Sinner's four seasons and 32 episodes, Harry Ambrose is the true puzzle to solve.
'Sharp Objects' (2018)
Amy Adams stars as troubled journalist Camille Preaker, forced to confront her past when she returns to her hometown to investigate the murder of a young girl and the disappearance of a second. As Camille delves back into the small town she left behind, her search for answers causes her to re-examine the tragedies of her childhood under her controlling mother, Adora (Patricia Clarkson).
Based on Gillian Flynn's bestselling book, Sharp Objects is a perfect fit for the miniseries format, with its slow-burn storytelling giving the characters and the mystery time to deepen. As new discoveries pull Camille’s skewed view of the past into focus, she begins to question her understanding of those childhood events that continue to shape the person she has become. With just eight episodes, Sharp Objects is an absorbing mystery and one of those rare shows where every episode is a masterpiece.
'Jonathan Creek' (1997–2016)
Alan Davies stars as the titular part-time sleuth who puts his skills designing elaborate illusions for a pompous stage magician to use, solving seemingly impossible crimes alongside tenacious investigative reporter Maddy Magellan (Caroline Quentin). Locked-room murders are solved, ghost stories are debunked, and if Jonathan and Maddy could only stop bickering, they might see that it’s not just catching killers where they excel as a duo.
The near 20-year run might suggest an episode count in the triple figures, but David Renwick's beloved series consists of just 32 episodes. Like many cozy mysteries, Jonathan Creek's longevity comes from its warm tone and lighthearted approach to crime. Later seasons would see Jonathan team up with new investigative (and personal) partners played by Julia Sawalha, Sheridan Smith, and Sarah Alexander. While the mysteries remain as fiendish as ever, the early years are without a doubt the strongest, with their mix of macabre puzzles and quintessentially dry British humor.
Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes Which Iconic Fandom Should You Join? Harry Potter · Lord of the Rings · Star Wars · Star Trek
Eight honest questions about how you actually are: what you put on when you need cheering up, how deep you go into the things you love, what you argue about, what you keep on your shelf. Answer them and we will tell you where you belong. Four of the biggest fandoms on earth are taking new members, and they could not be more different from one another.
⚡Harry Potter(Wizarding World)
💍Lord of the Rings(Middle-earth)
⚔️Star Wars(A Galaxy Far Away)
🖖Star Trek(The Final Frontier)
01
What do you put on when you need cheering up? Nobody is brave about this one.
02
How deep do you go into something you love? There is no shallow end here, only different deep ends.
03
What do you and your friends actually argue about? Every fandom has one argument it has been having for years.
04
How do you feel about a room full of strangers? Every one of these comes with a very big room.
05
Where would you rather spend a week? Pick on instinct rather than on budget.
06
What do you believe about people, mostly? All four of these stories have an answer, and they disagree.
07
What is actually on your shelf? Look over at it before you answer.
08
What do you actually want from a story? Eight questions in, this is the one that picks your fandom.
Membership Confirmed Your Fandom Is…
Four of the largest communities on the planet, and four completely different reasons to belong to one. Here is yours, what it would give you, and the argument you would be having within a week.
Harry Potter
You belong to the fandom that is really about comfort. Hogwarts works on people because it is a place rather than a plot, and the pull is not the wizard war so much as the corridors, the food, the weather and the sense that somebody is expecting you.
- You are drawn to belonging, which is why this fandom sorted itself into houses within about five minutes and has never stopped.
- This is the most social of the four, and the one most likely to know which type every single person in your life would be.
- The books are built to be reread rather than analysed, and rereading is exactly what you do with things you love.
- The new HBO series is bringing the whole thing back one book at a time, which means the arguments are about to start all over again.
Lord of the Rings
You belong to the deepest fandom on this list, the one where somebody has always read further than you and is quietly delighted to say so. Middle-earth rewards patience more than any other world in popular culture.
- You like the sense that the story you are reading is only the visible part of something enormous, which is precisely how Tolkien built it.
- This fandom takes adaptation seriously to a degree that other fandoms find slightly alarming, and it has good reasons for that.
- Your favourite thing about the books is probably the bit that is not action at all, which is the walking, the songs and the long goodbyes.
- Nobody here thinks heroism belongs to the powerful, and the whole story exists to make that argument.
Star Wars
You belong to the loudest and largest tent of the four, the one where three generations are all watching the same thing and none of them agree about any of it. That disagreement is not a flaw in this fandom, it is the main activity.
- You want something you can share with absolutely everybody, from a six year old to a grandparent, and this is the only one on the list that really does that.
- Nobody argues like Star Wars fans argue, and the argument has been running since roughly 1980 with no sign of resolution.
- The pull here is sensory before it is narrative, since it is the sound design, the score and the look of a used and dented galaxy.
- You would be first in the queue, in costume, with strong opinions and a genuinely good time.
Star Trek
You belong to the thinking fandom, the one that turns up for the argument rather than the explosion. Trek has always been a series of ethical problems in space, and the people who love it love being asked what they would have done.
- You are an optimist in a way that is currently unfashionable, and this is the only major franchise still willing to say the future might be better.
- The best episodes are the ones where nobody fires anything, which is a sentence that makes perfect sense to this fandom and to nobody else.
- Starfleet Academy brought the franchise back to a classroom in 2026, which is appropriate, because Trek has always been a bit of a seminar.
- You would want the conversation afterwards more than the episode itself, and here you will always find somebody willing to have it.
'The Afterparty' (2022–2023)
Christopher Miller's The Afterparty only lasted two seasons and 18 episodes, but the Apple TV series is one of the streamer's most underrated. A high school reunion ends in murder with everybody there a potential suspect. Detective Danner's (Tiffany Haddish) arrival doesn't make the situation clearer, as everyone she interviews has a conflicting account of what happened. Each perspective is presented in a different cinematic style, so this murder mystery comedy has something for everybody.
The second season shifts to a murder at a wedding and brings a mostly fresh cast, including Zach Woods, John Cho, Paul Walter Hauser, and Jack Whitehall to join the returning Haddish, Sam Richardson, and Zoe Chao. The different styles are much more than a visual gimmick to play with musicals, noir, romcom, or animation; each one is purposefully chosen and highlights how each person sees themselves and other guests. While it is a shame we didn't get the third run that was teased in the finale, both seasons wrap up their respective mysteries. Yet there was a lot more life in The Afterparty.
'Poker Face' (2023–2025)
Natasha Lyonne stars as Charlie Cale, blessed with the gift of knowing when people are lying, but cursed in her choices of employers, as she finds herself on the run from her shady casino boss (Ron Perlman). Charlie puts her skills to use solving murders one stop at a time. Also along for the ride is an array of guest stars including Adrien Brody, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Cynthia Erivo, Giancarlo Esposito, and Katie Holmes.
Created by Rian Johnson, Poker Face takes a page from classic TV detective Columbo's book by revealing the killer right at the top of most episodes. The story then jumps back to when Charlie arrived in town, then follows her efforts to uncover what happened and unmask the killer. Lyonne shines as Charlie, full of easy charm and razor-sharp intelligence. Two seasons and 22 episodes wasn't enough time to spend in this world. However, it might not be the end, as Johnson proposed his plan for a reboot that would see Peter Dinklage take on the role, which sounds just wild enough to work.
'Sherlock' (2010–2017)
As a returning series, Sherlock had an incredibly short run of 13 feature-length episodes, but Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss' slick update is very much a case of quality over quantity. Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman step into the iconic roles of the famed consulting detective and Dr. John Watson, and their enduring chemistry remains the heart of the show.
For all the ingenious deductions, baffling crimes to solve and playful reworking of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's best-loved stories, the series never loses sight of the many mysteries of Sherlock himself. At a crime scene, his hyper-intelligence gives him the ability to see what others don't, but he struggles to understand his own emotions. Moffat and Gatiss make it look easy to take literary characters entrenched in the era they were created in and bring them confidently into the present day without compromising what made them work in the first place. While it remains to be seen if Holmes and Watson will ride again, what we did get was one of the best British detective shows of the 21st century.
'Dark' (2017–2020)
Netflix's first German-language series may appear like a routine drama about two missing children, but Dark uses that familiar jumping-off point to create the most ambitious original TV show in years. Following his father's death, grief-riddled teenager Jonas (Louis Hofmann) finds himself at the center of a time-travel mystery that will change everything he understands about the world and his place within it.
There may only be three seasons and 26 episodes, but Dark is a rewardingly complicated series that does invite a rewatch to fully take in its interconnected timelines, alternative universes, and extensive family histories. As the series unfolds, the revelations change how viewers perceive previous relationships and key moments we've already seen. Series creators Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese made an uncompromising, profoundly moving sci-fi mystery that's possibly the most original TV show of the last decade.
Dark
- Release Date
- 2017 - 2020-00-00
- Network
- Netflix
- Showrunner
- Jantje Friese
- Directors
- Baran bo Odar
-
Louis Hofmann
Jonas Kahnwald
-
Lisa Vicari
Martha Nielsen
A family saga with a supernatural twist, set in a German town where the disappearance of two young children exposes the relationships among four families.
- Writers
- Marc O. Seng, Martin Behnke, Ronny Schalk
- Main Genre
- Crime
- Seasons
- 3
- Producers
- Max Wiedemann, Quirin Berg, Baran bo Odar, Jantje Friese, Lars Gmehling, Kelly Luegenbiehl, Justyna Müsch, Erik Barmack
- Creator(s)
- Baran bo Odar, Jantje Friese
- Story By
- Jantje Friese
- Streaming Service(s)
- Netflix
- Executive Producer(s)
- Baran bo Odar, Jantje Friese, Max Wiedemann, Quirin Berg, Kelly Luegenbiehl, Justyna Müsch, Erik Barmack
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