10 Addictive Crime Shows That Are Impossible To Stop Watching

Image via HBO Published Aug 21, 2026, 7:22 AM EDT Liam Gaughan is a film and TV writer at Collider. He has been writing film reviews and news coverage for ten years. Between relentlessly adding new titles to his watchlist and attending as many screenings as he can, Liam is always watching new movies and television shows. In addition to reviewing, writing, and commentating on both new and old releases, Liam has interviewed talent such as Mark Wahlberg, Jesse Plemons, Sam Mendes, Billy Eichner, Dylan O'Brien, Luke Wilson, and B.J. Novak. Liam aims to get his spec scripts produced and currently writes short films and stage plays. He lives in Allentown, PA. Sign in to your Collider account Crime might be the most important genre on television, and it's by far the most lucrative. While classic television was born out of procedural mysteries, gangster shows, and legal thrillers, it evolved to be the most prominent genre on which streaming, network, and premium programming is based. Although crime is often associated with American iconography involving the mob and its criminal underworld, there’s been a tremendous amount of success for international shows in recent years because they reach a global audience. Consistency is the key to a show being fit for a binge-watch, as a series that retains a consistent level of quality throughout its entire run is more likely to be addictive. There are no set parameters on what constitutes an addictive “crime show,” but the story must be compelling, and the characters must be worthy of receiving prolonged attention. These are such series that make it difficult to press pause. 10 'The Sopranos' (1999–2007) Image via HBO The Sopranos is remembered as being the greatest television show of all-time for a reason, and it’s hard to deny how fundamentally it changed what was possible on the small screen. Given that David Chase has frequently referenced the impact that classic films had on the show, it would be fair to say that The Sopranos did for television what The Godfather did for cinema, as they both used anti-hero gangster stories to transform familial epics into a searing commentary about the “American dream.” Television has never seen a character like Tony Soprano since, and the late great James Gandolfini’s performance is the best in the history of the medium. While it’s hard for any show that is so beloved to stand up after all the hype, The Sopranos is a must-watch for anyone who considers themselves to be a television fan. 9 'Mr. Robot' (2015–2019) Image via USA Network Mr. Robot is among the most unique and ambitious crime shows of the 21st century because it simply doesn’t feel like television. Creator Sam Esmail wrote the entire series and directed a majority of the episodes, and drew from iconic filmmakers to shape an idiosyncratic, stylized version of reality that looked at an alternate version of American history that started in 2015. Mr. Robot is a postmodern masterpiece because it explores the loss of individualism within a digital landscape, and offers an authentic, respectful exploration of mental health in a way that doesn’t feel condescending. Rami Malek has gone on to become one of the best actors working today, but the role of Elliot Alderson on Mr. Robot is what he will always be best known for because of how fundamentally he understood the essence of such a unique character. 8 'Mindhunter' (2017–2019) Image via ©Netflix / courtesy Everett Collection Mindhunter is unsurprisingly another crime classic from David Fincher, a director responsible for many of the best films of the last 30 years. While Fincher is responsible for crystallizing much of what the modern serial killer genre looks like, he used Mindhunter to dive into the real history of how the FBI’s investigation into criminal behavior helped to coin the term during the ‘70s, in which paranoia about killers like Ed Gein and Charles Manson was at an all-time high. Mindhunter dares to unpack the complex personalities of killers by focusing on a protagonist in Jonathan Groff’s Agent Holden Ford, who is undeniably sociopathic and shares some qualities with the criminals that he hunts down. Despite being cancelled after its brilliant second season aired, Mindhunter is a cut above every other serial killer show, and one of the best things that Fincher has ever been involved with. 7 'Hannibal' (2013–2015) Image via NBC Hannibal had a very difficult task on its hands because the novels of Thomas Harris were already beloved, and had previously been adapted into the cult hit Manhunter, the Best Picture winner The Silence of the Lambs, and several other financially successful films. Rather than retreading the same territory, creator Bryan Fuller developed a prequel that explored how FBI Agents Will Graham (Hugh Dancy) and Jack Crawford (Laurence Fishburne) developed a partnership with Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen) before he was revealed to be a serial killer. Hannibal is one of the bravest and most experimental shows to ever air on a network, and it concludes with a finale so perfect that it beautifully caps off the tragic love story at the show’s center. It’s stylized, shocking, and surprisingly humorous at times, making for three seasons that fly by instantly. 6 'Ozark' (2017–2022) Image via Netflix In Netflix's acclaimed crime series, Ozark, financial adviser Marty Byrde (Jason Bateman) becomes entangled with a dangerous Mexican drug cartel. To get out of a sticky situation, he relocates his family from Chicago to Missouri's Lake of the Ozarks and begins laundering money. His wife, Wendy (Laura Linney), gradually becomes just as deeply involved in the criminal operation. Eventually, their attempts to stay alive bring them into conflict with local criminals. Ozark is nearly impossible to stop watching because every solution creates an even worse problem. The Byrdes are constantly forced to make morally uglier choices just to survive another day. Alliances shift, betrayals arrive without warning, and even seemingly minor deals can spiral into deadly consequences. It's a thrilling and bleak crime series that gets darker every episode. Collider Exclusive · Action Hero Quiz Which Action Hero Would BeYour Perfect Partner? Rambo · James Bond · Indiana Jones · John McClane · Ethan Hunt Five legends. Five completely different ways of getting out alive — with style, with muscle, with charm, with luck, or with a plan so intricate it probably shouldn't work. Ten questions will reveal which action hero was built to have your back. 🎖️Rambo 🍸James Bond 🏺Indiana Jones 🔧John McClane 🎭Ethan Hunt FIND YOUR PARTNER → 01 You're dropped into a dangerous situation with no warning. What do you need most from a partner? The first few seconds tell you everything about who belongs beside you. ASomeone who already has three contingency plans running and is calmly working through all of them. BSomeone who reads the terrain instinctively and knows exactly how to use it against the enemy. CSomeone who keeps their nerve and their sense of humour when everything is falling apart. DSomeone who knows the history of wherever we are and what we're walking into. ESomeone with the right contact, the right cover identity, and the right exit already arranged. NEXT QUESTION → 02 You have to get somewhere dangerous, fast. How do you travel? How you get there is half the mission. AOn foot through terrain no one else would attempt — I move where vehicles can't follow. BOn a motorcycle, a cargo plane, or anything else that gets me there before I think too hard about it. CIn something that belongs to someone else — borrowed, stolen, or improvised under fire. DFirst class, with a cover identity and a gadget that does something I won't explain until it's needed. EBy whatever means are available — I've driven, flown, and once arrived by camel. The destination matters, not the method. NEXT QUESTION → 03 You're pinned down and outnumbered. What does your ideal partner do? This is when you find out what someone is really made of. ADisappears into the environment, flanks them silently, and ends it before I've reloaded. BCracks a one-liner, grabs a fire extinguisher or a chair, and improvises something that somehow works. CProduces a gadget specifically designed for this exact scenario and uses it with infuriating precision. DPulls out a whip, a pistol, and an archaeological insight that somehow gets us out alive. ENeutralises the threat with maximum efficiency and minimum words — they were already three moves ahead. NEXT QUESTION → 04 The mission is paused. You have one evening to decompress. What does your partner suggest? Who someone is when the pressure drops is who they actually are. AA bar with terrible lighting, cold beer, and absolutely no questions about feelings. BThe finest restaurant in the city, a bottle of something expensive, and a conversation that is equal parts brilliant and exhausting. CA local dig site, a museum after hours, or a long story about why that particular artefact matters to human civilisation. DPizza. Bad TV. Falling asleep halfway through a movie neither of you were watching anyway. EA debrief that turns into three hours of contingency planning that somehow becomes the most fun you've had all week. NEXT QUESTION → 05 How do you prefer your partner to communicate mid-mission? Good communication is the difference between partners and a liability. APrecise and minimal — tell me what I need to know and nothing else. Every word has a cost. BDeadpan and dry — keeping it light keeps me sharp, even when everything is on fire. CEnthusiastic and slightly chaotic — but always with useful information buried somewhere in the noise. DCalm and controlled through an earpiece, with a plan that covers every variable I haven't thought of yet. EBarely at all — silence is a language and they speak it fluently. NEXT QUESTION → 06 Your enemy is powerful, well-resourced, and has the upper hand. How should your partner approach them? The approach to the enemy defines the partnership. AInfiltrate their inner circle, learn everything, and dismantle them from inside out before they know we're there. BStudy the historical pattern — every villain of this type has a weakness written somewhere in the past. CGet them talking. The more they monologue, the more time I have to figure out how to beat them. DGo through them. Directly. With as much force as the terrain allows. EFind the one thing they haven't accounted for — there's always one thing — and make sure we're holding it. NEXT QUESTION → 07 Things go badly wrong and you're captured. What do you trust your partner to do? Who someone is when you need them most is the only thing that matters. ACome in alone, quietly, and get me out before anyone knows they were there. BHave already been working on the extraction since the moment I disappeared — the plan is already running. CCome in loud, come in fast, and worry about the collateral damage later — I'd do the same for them. DUse every resource, every contact, and bend every rule until I'm out — they don't leave people behind. ECharm their way in somehow, bluff through the hard part, and still manage to look good doing it. NEXT QUESTION → 08 What does your ideal partner bring to the table that you couldn't replace? A great partner fills the gap you didn't know you had. ATechnology that shouldn't exist yet and the training to use it under any conditions. BSurvival instinct so refined it borders on supernatural — and the scars to prove it's been tested. CKnowledge of history, language, and culture that makes them invaluable in places where force is useless. DThe ability to walk into any room in the world and immediately become the most trusted person in it. EStubbornness that refuses to accept a situation is hopeless — and the improvisational skill to back it up. NEXT QUESTION → 09 Every partnership has a cost. Which of these can you live with? No one comes without baggage. The question is whether you can carry it together. AA partner who never fully switches off — always watching exits, always calculating threats, even at dinner. BA partner who gets the job done brilliantly but has the emotional availability of a locked filing cabinet. CA partner who makes everything ten times more complicated than it needs to be — but who always comes through. DA partner who gets personally attached to every relic, ruin, and artefact we encounter, which slows everything down. EA partner who was not built for this and knows it — but shows up anyway, every time, without being asked. NEXT QUESTION → 10 It's the final moment. Everything is on the line. What do you need from your partner right now? The last question is the most honest one. AOne line. Absolutely dry. Delivered like the world isn't ending. Then we move. BNothing said at all — just a look that means we both already know what has to happen. CA plan I don't fully understand that somehow accounts for everything, delivered in thirty seconds flat. DA piece of historical context that reframes the entire situation and tells us exactly what to do next. ESomeone who steps forward instead of back — because that's who they've always been. REVEAL MY PARTNER → Your Partner Has Been Assigned Your Perfect Partner Is…Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse. RamboYour partner doesn't talk much, doesn't need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you've finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You'll never need to ask if he has your back. You'll just know. James BondYour partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it'll take you a moment to remember what's actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You'll never be bored. You'll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing. Indiana JonesYour partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar's eye and a brawler's instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn't matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you'll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them. John McClaneYour partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren't so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay. Ethan HuntYour partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you've finished reading the briefing, and the plan he's settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn't exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway. ↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ 5 'Barry' (2018–2023) Image via HBO Barry is unlike any other HBO show in history because it starts as a quirky dark comedy before steadily getting darker and more depressing, only to end up as one of the most bizarre, avant-garde works of experimental filmmaking ever seen on the small screen. Bill Hader subverted expectations of what an anti-hero story would look like because he starred as a psychopathic, self-destructive character who fumbles any attempt to become a better person, suggesting that redemption is not possible for those who can’t give up their inherent nature. Barry builds to breathtaking moments of suspense and surprise that only work because of the clear vision that Hader had for the series, and it ends in a sardonic, subversive way that scales back to examine the destructive role that Hollywood has played within the manipulation of criminal activity. 4 'Better Call Saul' (2015–2022) Image via AMC Better Call Saul is the single greatest spinoff show of all time because it is more than just a prequel and dives deeper into the life and fall of Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk) before he became the shady lawyer known as “Saul Goodman.” Better Call Saul works because Jimmy is clearly misguided from the very beginning, but only makes his situation worse by doubling down on his own selfishness and dragging others into his corrupt activities. Better Call Saul is a slow burn that is effective because of the excellent writing that sets up the most devastating moments, such as the standoff between Jimmy and his brother Chuck (Michael McKean) in the Season 3 episode “Chicanery.” It also ends with the masterpiece episode “Saul Gone,” a near-perfect finale that ranks among the greatest things that Vince Gilligan has ever written. 3 'Breaking Bad' (2008–2013) Image via Lewis Jacobs / © AMC / courtesy Everett Collection Breaking Bad is another masterpiece of a series that has reasonably been claimed as the greatest of all-time, and it's hard to imagine another show that took audiences on such a significant journey while it was on the air. Walter White (Bryan Cranston) is such a sympathetic character at the beginning of the series that to see him slowly transform into the sadistic, ruthless drug kingpin “Heisenberg” makes for a riveting watch. Breaking Bad makes for a well-rounded show because it has an impressive ensemble of characters, each of whom goes on a serious arc that pays off by the time that it wraps up. While Cranston’s performance is inarguably the most important on Breaking Bad, Aaron Paul was also critical to the success of the series because the character of Jesse Pinkman is what gave it a sense of heart. 2 'The Wire' (2002–2008) Image via HBO The Wire is the most authentic and important crime series of them all because it was created by David Simon, a former journalist who had spent over a decade working on the crime beat in Baltimore, who used his own experiences to inspire a labyrinthine epic that examined the failings within all levels of America’s infrastructure. The Wire was a smart series that heightened in its complexity as it continued, expanding its aperture to look at the power of drug dealers, the importance of city trade routes, the influence of local elections, the impact upon school-aged children, and the way that all of these events were perceived and depicted by the press, which has its own biases. It’s a blueprint for many of the existential issues that still face the country today, and The Wire is worth watching just for the information that it provides. 1 '24' (2001–2014) Image via Jaimie Trueblood / TM and Copyright © 20th Century Fox Film Corp. All rights reserved, Courtesy: Everett Collection 24 was a groundbreaking leap forward in television storytelling because of its “real-time” structure, which ensured that each season featured 24 episodes that represented an hour of time, and each took up the scope of a single day in the life of counter-terrorism agent Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland). 24 was an adventure that faced Jack off with various threats that could dismantle and undercut the United States government, but it also questioned both the means and values of the nation as it utilized duplicitous means to defend itself. 24 was a product of its time that represented the sentiments of the nation, as the show was significantly impacted by the aftermath of 9/11 and the toll it took on patriotism. At the same time, it’s also a great spy series worthy of classic characters like James Bond or Jason Bourne. 24 Release Date 2001 - 2010-00-00 Showrunner Robert Cochran