10 Crime Shows That Are the Perfect Weekend Binge

Image via HBO Published Aug 14, 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 Choosing what show to commit to watching as a binge can be an overwhelming task when considering the sheer amount of content that is available. There are now enough streaming services that subscribing to them all would be more expensive than a traditional cable bill, and each of them tends to churn out new content on a regular basis. Finding something worthwhile to watch is even more difficult when services like Netflix regularly use licensed content, and prioritize it over promoting their originals. There’s no guarantee that shows that start off strong will remain consistent until the end of their run, especially when it comes to multi-season crime epics. Thankfully, there are a number of shorter crime shows that are a better choice to watch over just one weekend, in which the story is complete and without need of any further continuations. 10 'Mare of Easttown' (2021) Image via HBO Mare of Easttown is a brilliant crime miniseries from Brad Inglesby, a talented television creator with an eye for human experience in the midst of complex mysteries. Mare of Easttown explores a murder investigation in a small town that shatters the community apart, but it offers more than just a miserable examination of grief because of the empathy that the series has for every character that was in any way involved with the crime or the victim. Mare of Easttown builds in suspense to a breathtaking finale, and features Kate Winslet in a performance that is arguably just as good as any of her film work. Although it is a complete work that stands on its own, Mare of Easttown is set within the same shared universe as Task, another HBO crime show from Inglesby. 9 'Too Old to Die Young' (2019) Image via Prime Video Too Old to Die Young is a bizarre, stylized neo-noir thriller from Nicolas Winding Refn, the controversial filmmaker behind Drive and Only God Forgives. Refn has often spoken about the inspiration that ‘70s crime thrillers, classic Westerns, Eastern martial arts films, and experimental cinema had on his work, and Too Old to Die Young pools all of those influences into a pulpy yet frequently profound epic exploring the seedy, enigmatic underworld of Los Angeles. Too Old to Die Young is among the rare streaming shows that could be described as being “cinematic,” as Refn even screened select episodes from the series at the Cannes Film Festival. It’s a thought-provoking show with a lot of deep ideas, but it’s also so entertaining on a visceral level that it is impossible to look away from the dazzling beauty, violence, and spiritual undertones. 8 'The Outsider' (2018) Image via HBO The Outsider is one of the most underrated Stephen King adaptations of all time, as it was based on a more recent work by the legendary author that is just as good as some of his foundational novels. Although The Outsider begins as a grounded crime thriller about the investigation into a murder, it transforms into a supernatural thriller about an ancient source of evil that has the power to take over different bodies. Ben Mendelsohn has rarely been better than he is in The Outsider, as he shows true vulnerability with his performance as a broken-hearted father who must nonetheless help another family in a time of crisis as he pursues an increasingly challenging investigation. Rarely has a show managed to combine family drama, supernatural intrigue, and criminal procedures into a complete package that is this satisfying and so complete. 7 'The Staircase' (2022) Image via HBO The Staircase is a unique HBO project because it is an adaptation of a popular documentary series of the same name that had been left with several unanswered questions regarding the guilt of its subject. The puzzling case of a respected professor (Colin Firth) accused of murder took on many different stages, as his family slowly began to develop differing ideas on what the truth might have been; the show is clever because it presents alternative motivations, explanations, and realities, offering the viewer a complete understanding of why the story has baffled investigators and true crime aficionados alike. The Staircase is more formally ambitious than nearly anything else on television, and combines aspects of the docudrama form in order to blur the line between fact and fiction even more. It also has an amazing cast, including one of Firth’s best roles. 6 'Trust' (2018) Image via FX Trust was a fascinating series because it was the second of two projects about the kidnapping of John Paul Getty III following the Ridley Scott film All the Money in the World, which debuted in theaters in late 2017, earning the late Christoper Plummer an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as the tycoon. However, Danny Boyle’s FX series Trust offered a more interesting adaptation of the same events, showing how the senior John Paul Getty (Donald Sutherland) refused to pay for the release of his kidnapped grandson (Harris Dickinson), despite the pleading of the boy’s mother (Hilary Swank) and the assistance of his secret agent (Brendan Fraser). Trust is wildly underrated, surprisingly entertaining, and benefits from adapting a bizarre true story in which the facts are more unbelievable than anything that Boyle could have come up with. 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 'The Night Of' (2018) Image via HBO The Night Of is a brilliant and timely HBO legal drama about a Muslim man (Riz Ahmed) who is falsely accused of murdering a white woman, leading to his arrest in New York City. The show explores the damaging effects that the prison system has on a man’s experience, especially if he is accused of such a high-profile crime, while also examining the fight waged by his lawyer (John Turturro) in order to argue the case and ensure that the jury did not bring their own biases into play when looking at the facts. The Night Of was brilliantly directed by Steven Zaillian, a genius showrunner who is also an Academy Award-winning screenwriter, and his focus on the faults within the current American justice system has proven to be even more truthful and relevant in the years since the series was released. 4 'Dopesick' (2021) Image via Hulu Dopesick is one of the most important crime shows of the decade because it dramatizes the opioid crisis and examines the role Purdue Pharma played in the aggressive promotion of OxyContin. Rather than presenting itself as a straightforward documentary account, Dopesick combines fictional and composite characters with dramatizations of real people and events, including Richard Sackler (Michael Stuhlbarg), to explore how corporate decisions, medical practices, and addiction became intertwined. Dopesick is important to consider because it redefines what “crime” can look like; while the word is often associated with burglary and murder, it can also mean the willful bending of the law to line the pockets of those who benefit from the suffering of people with addiction around the world. The series focuses on alleged misconduct, regulatory failures, and corporate practices that caused enormous harm while operating through institutions that were supposed to protect patients. Image via Hulu Under the Banner of Heaven is a riveting true crime series that explores a complex case of religious persecution with the story of a Mormon police investigator (Andrew Garfield) who is called in to look at a series of killings related to a radical sect of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, which involved polygamy and underage weddings. It’s a tough series to watch because it examines the perspective of a man of faith who is asked to question his beliefs upon realizing what his religion can be transformed into when misappropriated by those with sinister, radical motivations. Garfield gives one of the most emotional, mature, and profound performances of his entire career, but Under the Banner of Heaven is filled with great acting, including a standout role for Rory Culkin as yet another highly disturbed, dangerous character. 2 'Black Rabbit' (2025) Image via Netflix Black Rabbit is a completely brutal crime series about two brothers caught in over their heads when their family business gets in debt to the wrong characters, leading to a desperate chase to recover the cash. It’s hardly the first New York-based crime drama about a troubled family situation, but Black Rabbit is a standout series because of the excellent pair of performances from Jude Law and Jason Bateman, who, against all odds, can feasibly be accepted as brothers. Black Rabbit feels like the sort of close-knit, intimate crime thriller that John Cassavettes could have made in the ‘70s, and it’s interesting to see the two stars cast against type; Law plays the charismatic businessman who is wrestling with his darker impulses, whereas Bateman is the family black sheep who had never bought into his brother’s ambition and idealism. 1 'Escape at Dannemora' (2018) Image via Showtime Escape at Dannemora offered definitive proof that Ben Stiller was a great director, as it was after making several successful comedy films that he moved into directing epic television shows. While Stiller would eventually become best known for his work as a co-creator and visionary behind Severance, Escape at Dannemora is a riveting true crime thriller about two criminals (Benicio del Toro and Paul Dano) who escaped from one of the world’s most high-security prisons with the assistance of a worker (Patricia Arquette) whom they were both having an affair with. Escape at Dannemora is an intense prison break thriller that explores the emptiness felt by each of the characters and how the desire to pull off such a daring mission gives meaning to their life. The series follows the characters as they work through troubling personal issues and suppress their darkest anxieties.