Apple TV Found The Next Mindhunter In A Must-Watch 6-Hour Crime Thriller

Published Sep 15, 2026, 12:04 PM EDT

Faith Roswell is a Senior Writer on Screen Rant's Classic TV team. Since earning her degree in Creative Writing over a decade ago, Faith has written articles on film and TV from a variety of different angles. Faith now combines her knowledge of psychology with her love of monster movies to give more insight into what makes the best ones. 

You may have read her Screen Rant lists and features covering horror, sci-fi, and fantasy, or read her Amazon Top 10 book, "Movie Monsters of the Deep."

Faith has had an extensive career as a writer, appearing on BBC live radio, researching true crime for Rotten Mango podcast, and writing for publications including Mental Floss, Atlas Obscura, and The Daily Jaws before beginning here at Screen Rant. 

Mindhunter occupies a unique place in the crime genre, and while many TV shows have tried to be the next Mindhunter, none have come close until Apple TV's unexpected success, which has, at times, even surpassed the original show. Crime can be a surprisingly versatile genre, with the best crime thriller TV shows of all time ranging from gritty dramas like The Wire to the art-horror adaptation Hannibal. Even so, Mindhunter was an entirely different experience as it broke virtually all the rules of storytelling, hiding much of the violence from viewers and showing the characters making mistakes.

Mindhunter's slow-burn tension, outstanding acting performances, and David Fincher's dark cinematic aesthetic have been emulated many times since, but straight copies rarely work. On the other hand, while Apple TV's crime thriller Black Bird has a lot in common with the iconic series, it is very much its own project, building on Mindhunter's success while bringing something new to the crime genre. Black Bird has been described as "a thrilling true crime masterpiece" and a must-watch for Mindhunter fans, with the two shows beginning from remarkably similar places.

Black Bird Is The Next Best Thing To Mindhunter

Both Mindhunter and Black Bird are based on autobiographical novels by former FBI operatives. Mindhunter dramatized John Douglas' book of the same name, which followed the birth of criminal psychology, and Black Bird adapted James Keene's In with the Devil: a Fallen Hero, a Serial Killer, and a Dangerous Bargain for Redemption. Both center on interviews and conversations with some of the most prolific serial killers in the USA, and capture the inherent tension in these scenarios, through the eyes of relatively young characters learning as they go, and with a lot at stake.

With such a similar-sounding theme, it would be easy to assume that Black Bird is based on Mindhunter, but it is actually inspired by another almost-unbelievable true story. When Keene received a prison sentence for a marijuana-related charge, the FBI offered him the chance to turn his life around by transferring to a maximum security prison and befriending suspected serial killer Larry Hall in order to get more information out of him. The acting is a masterclass in suspense, and it is easy to see how Black Bird can fill the void Mindhunter left behind.

How Black Bird compares to Mindhunter
Title	Year	Seasons	Rotten Tomatoes critics' rating	Rotten Tomatoes audience rating
Mindhunter	2017	2	97%	95%
Black Bird	2022	1	98%	95%

The show is not only the best miniseries on Apple TV, but it has also attracted high praise from critics, with Roger Ebert's report offering the observation that "this show is worth your time even if you don’t usually buy into the [true crime] genre" and Rotten Tomatoes critics giving its best endorsement yet through calculations, with the show beating Mindhunter by one point. The fact that Black Bird is just six hours long makes it the perfect one-day binge for people who miss Mindhunter.

Why Mindhunter Will Still Never Be Beaten

Mindhunter's best episodes prove that there is more to the show than just its subject matter and suspense. True crime is a popular genre, but Mindhunter introduced a cinematic approach that made the series feel like a film noir, complete with dingy backstreets and a femme fatale. Most crime dramas are either "whodunnits," or follow an expert detective picking up clues, but Mindhunter breaks even this cliché by giving the viewer more knowledge than the main characters, as many of the details they are learning in the show are now common knowledge for true crime fans.

This unique approach has kept viewers hooked as the series offered something entirely new. We are so used to seeing detectives work in crime shows of all kinds, from Law and Order to The Wire, that it is easy to forget that these techniques had to be discovered through trial and error. Mindhunter focused on the development of these techniques, with an aesthetic that remains distinctive even today. Shows like this are few and far between, and while Mindhunter will never be beaten, Black Bird is more than worthy as a spiritual successor.