6 HBO Mystery Shows Where Every Episode Is a Masterpiece
Christine is a freelance writer for Collider with two decades of experience covering all types of TV shows and movies spanning every genre. With a particular affinity for dramas, true crime, sitcoms, and thrillers, if it's a top TV show, Christine has likely watched it and is eager to share her thoughts. When she's not furiously writing away, you can find her enjoying the next binge obsession with a glass of wine in front of the TV.
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It's funny to remember that once upon a time, HBO was not known for television shows. But once The Sopranos and Sex and the City arrived, suddenly, the premium cable channel was being taken seriously as a purveyor of quality television. And the momentum has continued, as HBO delivers on its promise of introducing some of the hottest shows of the last few decades.
When it comes to the mystery genre, HBO has a pretty good foothold with some compelling series and miniseries that draw you into the plot. All but two of the masterpiece shows highlighted will be continuing with new seasons, one after a long hiatus and that was originally only supposed to be a miniseries.
'Big Little Lies' (2017–Present)
Leaning into the soapier side, Big Little Lies is set in a wealthy Monterey, California town where several families are honing their careers and raising their kids. When single mom Jane (Shailene Woodley) moves in with her young son, she's initially looked upon with skepticism. But soon, all the ladies welcome here and come together to work through a shared traumatic experience.
Like a modern day Desperate Housewives, Big Little Lies is a psychological dark comedy drama with an incredible cast, including names like Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, Alexander Skarsgård, and Adam Scott. Initially meant to be a miniseries, the perfect from start to finish 2010s mystery show returned for a second season in 2019. And though the story could have ended there, fans want more. The show will be coming back, though there's no confirmed timeline as yet.
'The Undoing' (2020)
There has been a trend in the last decade seeing big-time movie actors shifting to the small screen. The medium is delivering content that is as good as, if not better, than movies in writing, acting, storytelling, and visuals. Such was the case with The Undoing, which stars Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant as a wealthy married couple whose lives are turned upside down when there's a murder and Jonathan (Grant) is considered a suspect. Someone's lying but trying to figure out the truth will take you in different directions in every episode. Seeing Grace (Kidman) grapple with the potential truth, desperate to uncover what really happened and hoping her instincts aren't right, is heartbreaking and emotional.
A mystery psychological thriller rooted in secrets and lies, the story keeps you guessing through the six episodes. It's a quick and easy binge with a story that will completely throw you. Kidman portraying the grounded Grace, Grant the perceived villain, and the late Donald Sutherland as Grace's voice of reason father Franklin, is perfection. You'll be at the edge of your seat by the end.
'The White Lotus' (2021–Present)
Prepping for its fourth season in the new locale of France, The White Lotus is one of the most beautifully shot series of this generation. Each compartmentalized season delivers a unique mystery, only a few strings connecting them. The main one is that each story takes place at a White Lotus resort somewhere in the world. The lavishness of each resort is juxtaposed by the strange characters who visit. They have money, sometimes fame, and reputations to uphold. But they all have secrets, dark sides, and are, in some ways, running from something (or someone), maybe even themselves.
The story in the HBO mystery show with no bad seasons begins with a murder, but you don't know who is dead nor who killed them. From there, you meet employees, guests, and friends, all of whom seem sketchy and/or troubled in one way or another. The list of actors is incredible, ranging from Steve Zahn to Jennifer Coolidge, Connie Britton, Murray Bartlett, Michael Imperioli, Theo James, Aubrey Plaza, Walton Goggins, Sam Rockwell, Parker Posey, and that just scratches the surface. The delight is in the constant guessing about what led to this tragic event, because realistically, every single person is either twisted enough to have done it or awful enough to suggest someone would want to kill them. With episodes released weekly, it's one of the most anticipated shows whenever a new season drops. Considering the names already confirmed for Season 4, like Sandra Bernhard, Laura Dern, Max Greenfield, Ben Kingsley, and Rosie Perez (again, that's just a small sample of the actor list), The White Lotus will continue to secure its masterpiece status and prove Mike White to be a television genius.
Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes Which Game of Thrones House Do You Belong To? Stark · Lannister · Targaryen · Tyrell
Your drink, your weapon, your seat at the table, what you do to somebody who wrongs you. Eight quick calls and we will tell you whose banner you should actually be standing under. Four houses are still in this: the cold one, the rich one, the one with the dragons, and the one that has never needed a sword to get its way.
🐺Stark(Game of Thrones)
🦁Lannister(Game of Thrones)
🐉Targaryen(House of the Dragon)
🌹Tyrell(Game of Thrones)
01
What is your go-to at the feast? Everybody has one, and everybody's says something.
02
Pick a weapon off the wall. You get one. Choose quickly.
03
Where do you end up sitting? The seating plan is the politics.
04
What do people get wrong about you? Reputation arrives about a week before you do.
05
One free evening in King's Landing. Where do you go? Nobody plots every single night.
06
Somebody wrongs you. What happens next? This is the real personality test in Westeros.
07
Your people are in trouble. What is your first move? No time to think about this one.
08
Be honest. What do you actually want? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides your house.
The Banner Is Raised Your House Is…
Four houses, four completely different theories about how you survive a world like this one. Here is where your banner belongs, what the name would cost you, and what it would buy.
House Stark
You belong in the North, where the weather does most of the arguing and nobody is impressed by a title. The Starks are the only great house on this list who genuinely believe that being right matters more than winning, which is exactly why the show spent eight years punishing them for it.
- Your loyalty runs to people rather than to crowns, and you would rather lose a war honestly than win one by doing something you would have to hide.
- The Stark tragedy is a simple one, since a family raised to keep its word ended up surrounded by people who treat a promise as an opening bid.
- You are the one who thinks about the winter while everybody else is still enjoying the summer, and the realm never thanks anybody for that.
- What saves the Starks in the end is not swords. It is the fact that the children grew up and became four completely different kinds of dangerous.
House Lannister
You belong to the house that worked out early on that gold moves faster than armies. Casterly Rock runs on leverage, reputation and the certainty that everybody at the table owes you something, and you are perfectly comfortable with all three.
- You play a longer game than the people around you, and you would rather own the outcome quietly than be seen winning in public.
- Family is the thing you would burn the realm for, which is both the best and the very worst quality this house has.
- Tyrion, Jaime and Cersei are three of the most compelling characters on television precisely because they were raised with everything except the ability to be simple about it.
- You are not the villain of your own story. You are simply the one who read the rules properly and decided to use them.
House Targaryen
You belong to the house that conquered a continent and never quite got over it. Targaryens do not ask for a seat at the table, because in their version of events the table was theirs to begin with, and that certainty is either magnificent or catastrophic depending on the week.
- You feel things at full volume, and nobody who has ever met a Targaryen has described one as measured.
- House of the Dragon made the family far more interesting than the original show could, because here the enemy is not some other house. It is the rest of the bloodline.
- Season 3 landed on HBO in June 2026 and pushed the civil war into the part everybody who read the book has been dreading for years.
- Your great strength and your great problem are the same thing, which is that you genuinely believe the story was always going to end with you.
House Tyrell
You belong to Highgarden, where nobody raises their voice and everybody gets exactly what they came for. The Tyrells feed the realm, charm the realm and quietly steer the realm, and they have never once needed to win a battle to get their way.
- You understand that being liked is a weapon, and you are genuinely better at it than the people who spend their lives trying to be feared.
- Olenna is the most quietly ruthless character in the entire series, and she does all of it from a chair with a bowl of fruit in front of her.
- Your house wins by being useful, since a kingdom that cannot eat without you will forgive you almost anything.
- The risk of being a Tyrell is simple enough. Charm works beautifully on everybody except the one person who has stopped caring what anyone thinks.
'Mare of Easttown' (2021)
Another example of big-time movie actors exploring small screen projects, Kate Winslet absolutely kills it in Mare of Easttown as a detective sergeant in a small Pennsylvania town investigating the murder of a young girl and the disappearance of another. There's a lot more to her character and her history in the town, however, and Winslet wonderfully tackles the nuances of the situation and complex character.
As one of the best seven-episode HBO series, Mare of Easttown strips away the glamour of other detective mystery shows to demonstrate the darker, rawer emotions. Mare (Winslet) isn't made up to look fabulous for TV, because the character isn't focused on her appearance or how she carries herself. She looks and feels like a real detective you're watching do her work who is mentally and physically exhausted, not an actor on a TV show. And that creates a sense of authenticity. Interestingly, many critics dub this role one of the best of Winslet's career, a tall order given her massive resume and Academy Award. The show takes the typical murder mystery and turns it into a more human story that dives into the people involved from all sides, and the toll such a demanding and mentally exhausting job takes on even the strongest person.
'True Detective' (2014–Present)
A fun game to play with other fans of True Detective is deciding which one was your favorite season. I'm partial to Seasons 1 and 3, but many feel Season 4 with Jodie Foster and Kali Reis is the best. Apart from a weak second season, True Detective is a true television masterpiece. Yes, it's good enough to forget that Season 2 was the weakest of the bunch.
The unique stories all involve detectives investigating a mysterious case, some cold cases from the past. In Season 1, for example, two detectives are revisiting the 17-year-old unsolved case that changed the direction of their lives. In Season 3, a former detective suffering from dementia and memory loss is trying to recall the details of a case that continues to haunt him, but that he's also starting to forget. The complex timelines and the interweaving narratives, make you think and theorize. Beautifully shot and acted by everyone from Woody Harrelson to Matthew McConaughey, Mahershala Ali, and Stephen Dorff, True Detective continues with a fifth season set to star Nicolas Cage and Antonio Banderas. It's certain to keep the momentum going and retain the status as one of the greatest detective series of all time.
'The Outsider' (2020)
Enjoy a wonderful mix of mystery and supernatural in The Outsider, with a story that begins like a dark procedural and morphs into something completely different. At the center is Terry Maitland (Jason Bateman), a small-town husband and father accused of a heinous murder. He is adamant about his innocence and others who know him can't reconcile that he's done this, no matter how definitive the proof seems. The situation, it seems, might be more nuanced than you think, with different forces at play that are literally not of this world.
Dealing in mythology and the supernatural, The Outsider blends these beautifully with crime drama. Ben Mendelsohn and Cynthia Erivo are magnetic in their performances, the latter in a role that arguably put her on the map as such a massive talent. Hailing from the mind of Stephen King (the show is based on his 2018 novel), it's no surprise that fans are still hoping The Outsider might change its miniseries status and come back to continue the story. The genuine masterpiece ending of this HBO miniseries is presented in a way that could either be a conclusion or unlock a whole new and exciting storyline.
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