The 30 Best Crime Drama Series Of All Time, Ranked

Published Oct 2, 2026, 1:00 PM EDT

Ben Sherlock is a Tomatometer-approved film and TV critic who runs the massively underrated YouTube channel I Got Touched at the Cinema. Before working at Screen Rant, Ben wrote for Game Rant, Taste of Cinema, Comic Book Resources, and BabbleTop. He's also an indie filmmaker, a standup comedian, and an alumnus of the School of Rock.

Ever since television was invented, its airwaves have been flooded with great crime dramas. From old-school cop shows like Dragnet and Columbo to thrilling anthologies like, well, Thriller, a gripping crime drama has never been too hard to find on TV.

As the years have gone on, TV crime dramas have just gotten better and better. The Wire and The Shield have revolutionized the police procedural with a dose of corruption and realism, and Breaking Bad and The Sopranos have proven that a morally gray antihero can be just as compelling as a more traditional hero.

30 Sons Of Anarchy

Sons of Anarchy took the basic structure and archetypes of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet and put them on the back of a Harley. The show combined Sopranos-style family crime business with Easy Rider-style biker drama for a gritty, action-packed ride.

29 CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

©CBS / courtesy MovieStillsDB

CSI is pretty much the gold standard when it comes to the case-of-the-week procedural format. It was so good, they got Quentin Tarantino to direct their season 5 finale. CSI is the show that launched a thousand spinoffs.

28 Ozark

While it started off as Netflix’s answer to Breaking Bad, Ozark soon became its own thing. It’s an even darker, bleaker, colder show than Breaking Bad, with very different character dynamics.

Ozark’s ending was pretty underwhelming. But, as a whole, the series was worth the ride, even if the destination turned out to be a disappointment.

Ozark

27 Columbo

Columbo is a case-of-the-week cop show that famously showed us the crime in the opening scene. It was less about who done it and more about how Columbo would figure it out. Peter Falk is iconic in the title role, and the writers always found fresh ways to twist the formula.

Columbo

26 Law & Order: Special Victims Unit

There are a bunch of different offshoots of Law & Order, and the flagship show remains a classic. But Special Victims Unit is still the crowning achievement of the franchise. The combination of that eclectic ensemble (Ice-T!) and lurid subject matter makes SVU utterly compelling television.

25 Peaky Blinders

Cillian Murphy was a recognizable character actor before he was cast in Peaky Blinders. But the role of Tommy Shelby made him a global superstar.

Peaky Blinders faltered a little when Tommy became an M.P. and the show started relying on dream sequences to further the plot. But, on the whole, it’s a riveting gangster saga with fierce performances and gorgeous historical production design.

24 Homicide: Life On The Street

Before David Simon created The Wire, his own nonfiction book inspired the seminal police drama Homicide: Life on the Street. Andre Braugher, best known as Captain Holt, was the breakout of the ensemble.

Homicide was essentially The Wire before The Wire. All the things that The Wire has been praised for — the complex characterizations, the intense realism, the authentic portrayal of police procedures — originated on Homicide.

23 Justified

Based on Elmore Leonard’s short story “Fire in the Hole,” Justified started off as a traditional case-of-the-week procedural about a marshal hunting down fugitives. But it found its feet when it evolved into a serialized drama.

Timothy Olyphant modernized the TV cowboy with his turn as Raylan Givens. He oozes action-hero charisma, but also brings plenty of dramatic depth.

Justified

8/10

22 Narcos

Narcos adapted the saga of Pablo Escobar with the appropriate energy. The series aped the style of Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas, with rapid cuts, montage editing, and voiceover narration.

We see the larger-than-life story of the Medellín cartel through the eyes of the plucky lawmen sent to Colombia to thwart it. Narcos is a thrilling true-crime chronicle.

Narcos

21 Big Little Lies

HBO’s adaptation of Liane Moriarty’s Big Little Lies ended up being so successful that it was brought back for a second season. Moriarty herself came in to figure out what the sequel story would be, and Big Little Lies got even better in season 2.

Meryl Streep joined an already-stacked cast alongside Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman and Laura Dern, and instantly stole the show. Big Little Lies is an intoxicating mix of mystery thriller and female-friendship drama.