The 6 Best Thriller Shows Released Since 2010

Image via Apple TV Published Nov 7, 2026, 5:45 PM EST Michael Block is a 14 time GLAM Award nominated writer, producer, and host of the podcast Block Talk. Throughout his time in the entertainment industry, he has worked on and off Broadway as a stage manager, written several produced plays, critiqued hundreds of theatrical performances, drag and cabaret shows, and has produced events randing from drag competitoons to variety concerts! On Block Talk, he interviews nightlife personalities, covers the wide world of entertainment through features, ranking episodes, and recaps ALL of Drag Race, as well as Dragula and Survivor. He has interviewed hundreds of RuGirls that span the globe at DragCon NYC, DragCon LA, and DragCon UK. In his free time, he makes one-of-a-kind jewelry and gift baskets with his mom. He is a proud member of the LGBTQ+ community. Sign in to your Collider account Based on the types of television shows still being produced, the thriller remains near the top. Encompassing a large spectrum of subgenres, the thriller provides audiences the chance to get their heart pumping from the safety of their own home. With network television and streaming platforms taking bigger and bolder risks, the thriller has been getting better and better. Since 2010, we’ve seen a rise in high-quality thrillers, and these six titles are proof. From a masterpiece anthology series based on a ‘90s classic to a crime thriller lifted from an iconic novel series, these six shows got adrenaline rushing as people kept talking. While a plethora of other incredible thrillers have come out over the last decade and a half, they don’t hold a candle to these. 6 'Only Murders in the Building' (2021-Present) Image via Hulu Who says comedies can’t be thrilling? In the mystery comedy hit Only Murders in the Building, three eccentric neighbors, Charles-Haden Savage (Steve Martin), Oliver Putnam (Martin Short), and Mabel Mora (Selena Gomez), live in their upscale New York City apartment building, the Arconia, and share an intense obsession with true crime podcasts. When a suspicious, gruesome death occurs inside their building, the trio teams up to investigate the truth using their knowledge of the genre, recording their own podcast to document the case. As they untangle a web of secrets and mounting clues, they quickly realize a ruthless killer might be living right among them. A cozy murder mystery series created by Martin and John Hoffman, Only Murders in the Building redefined the modern murder-mystery genre. Instead of a grim, linear police procedural, the series pokes fun at and analyzes society's obsession with true-crime podcasts while still delivering layered, twist-filled whodunits. A genuine masterclass in performance, the legendary comedy duo elevate their costar to create a unique, multi-generational dynamic that grounds high-stakes apartment-building murders in genuine warmth and character-driven humor. The show has become a destination for some of Hollywood’s biggest names to join in the fun, including Meryl Streep, Paul Rudd, Tina Fey, Tea Leoni, Renée Zellweger, and many more. For the next season, they’ll be welcoming some of Britain’s best, including Olivia Colman, David Tennant, Nicola Coughlan, Jodie Whittaker, and Martin Freeman, among others. A brilliant escapist thriller, Only Murders in the Building is entertainment at its finest. 5 'Ozark' (2017-2022) Image via Netflix The Breaking Bad blueprint has been attempted to be replicated often since its final season. Very few shows found success. Ozark was one. Created by Bill Dubuque and Mark Williams, the four-season series follows Marty Byrde (Jason Bateman), a financial planner who is forced to move his family from Chicago to the Missouri Ozarks after a money-laundering scheme for a Mexican drug cartel goes dangerously wrong. To keep his family alive, Marty must wash $500 million in five years, dragging his ambitious wife Wendy and their children deeper into a dark world of local criminals, corporate corruption, and ruthless drug lords. As the family adapts to their new criminal reality, they evolve from desperate survivors into a formidable and calculating political powerhouse. Ozark became one of the defining crime thrillers of the 21st century due to its relentless tension, strong acting, and unique atmosphere. Like Breaking Bad, Ozark strips away filler episodes and continually ramps up the stakes for Marty and Wendy Byrde (Laura Linney), as they navigate Mexican drug cartels, the FBI, and local criminals. Ozark uses the grim, blue-tinted, and menacing lakefront setting of the Missouri Ozarks to amplify its suffocating dread. The writing regularly defies traditional crime-genre tropes, refusing to give characters easy moral redemptions or predictable fates. The series boasted some sensational performances, perhaps none better than Julia Garner as Ruth Langmore. The range and depth she gave the morally troubled young woman became the heartbeat of the series. While some fans felt the series stumbled toward the end, Ozark remains one of Netflix’s greatest products. ​​​​​​​ Collider Exclusive · Villain Personality Quiz Which Criminal Mastermind Would Be Your Nemesis? Lecter · Joker · Moriarty · Chigurh Four of the finest criminal minds ever put on screen. One of them would look at you and see something worth their time. Eight questions decide which one comes for you, why they picked you, and what they would want when they arrived. 🍷Lecter 🃏Joker ♟️Moriarty 🪙Chigurh MEET YOUR NEMESIS → 01 What would a criminal mastermind notice about you first? Great villains choose their opponents carefully. Something about you got their attention. AMy manners, and everything I am careful not to say. BThat I still believe people are basically decent. CThat I am clever, and quietly enjoy proving it. DThat I handle things myself, and always have. NEXT QUESTION → 02 How do they make first contact? The introduction tells you everything about what is coming next. AA polite letter. Beautiful handwriting. Quietly wrong. BSomething on fire, with a message left beside it. CA puzzle, left where only I would look. DNo contact. Just the aftermath, and a coin. NEXT QUESTION → 03 What do you actually believe about right and wrong? Every nemesis is really an argument about the thing you believe most. AThere are lines. Mine are private and absolute. BRules are the only thing keeping us from being animals. CMorality is a system, and systems can be solved. DThings happen. Most of it was never up to me. NEXT QUESTION → 04 What finally gets under your skin? Everybody has a pressure point. Finding yours is the whole plan. ABeing seen clearly by somebody I cannot read. BWatching good people do something ugly. CLosing to someone who was simply better prepared. DHaving no move left that changes anything. NEXT QUESTION → 05 They have made their move. How do you fight back? This is the part of the film where the audience finds out who you are. ACarefully, and never where they expect to be touched. BLoudly. I would rather lose than play their game. CWith a better plan. I can out-think this. DDirectly, once, with whatever is closest to hand. NEXT QUESTION → 06 What would they use against you? A good villain never brings a weapon you have not already handed them. AMy privacy. I have kept far too much to myself. BMy conscience. I will not cross the line they want. CMy ego. I cannot resist a worthy opponent. DMy certainty that I can handle it alone. NEXT QUESTION → 07 What do they actually want from you? The money is never the point. Something else always is. ATo understand me better than anyone ever has. BTo prove I am no better than they are. CTo finally be beaten by someone worth the trouble. DNothing at all. I stepped into the wrong path. NEXT QUESTION → 08 How does it end between the two of you? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides who comes for you. AA conversation I will be replaying for years. BA choice forced on me that has no clean answer. COne final move, and the better mind wins. DA coin in the air, and nothing I can say. REVEAL MY NEMESIS → The Case File Is Complete Your Nemesis Is…Four criminal masterminds. One of them was always going to be yours. Here is who comes for you, why they picked you out of everyone available, and what they want from the encounter. Hannibal LecterYour nemesis does not want to beat you. He wants to know you completely, and he is patient enough to wait for it. The frightening part is how good the conversation is. Lecter is the most dangerous kind of opponent: the one who finds you interesting. He never raises his voice, because he has never needed to. You keep a great deal to yourself and you are careful about what you show. That reserve is exactly the door he would knock on. The films understood something other thrillers missed. The horror is not the violence. It is being perfectly understood by the wrong person. He would be unfailingly polite about all of it. That is the worst part. The JokerYour nemesis is not after money, territory or revenge. He is after a demonstration, and you are the person he has chosen to prove his point on. The Joker only picks opponents who believe in something. Your decency is not a defence against him. It is the entire reason he showed up. He has no plan you can predict and nothing you can take away, which removes every tool you would normally reach for. His whole argument is that you are one bad day away from being him, and you would spend the rest of your life proving him wrong. He would call it a magic trick. You would call it the worst night of your life. MoriartyYour nemesis respects you, which sounds flattering until you work out what it means. He chose you because nobody else was worth his time. Moriarty is the original criminal mastermind, the template every later one borrows from: a mind the equal of the hero's, pointed the wrong way. You enjoy being the cleverest person in the room. He is counting on exactly that, and he has already built the room. This is the rare nemesis who would be genuinely disappointed if you lost badly. He needs the game to be worth playing. It ends the way these things always end. Two people, one problem, and only one way down. Anton ChigurhYour nemesis has no personal interest in you whatsoever, and that is precisely what makes him unsurvivable. You are not a rival. You are a stop on the way. Chigurh does not negotiate, gloat or explain. He arrives, he asks one question, and the answer was decided long before you opened your mouth. You trust yourself to handle things. He is the one problem in the world that has no interest in how capable you are. No Country for Old Men rewrote the screen villain by removing the thing audiences quietly rely on: the sense that talking might work. Call it. He will wait. ↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ 4 'The Americans' (2013-2018) Image via FX Perhaps the very best spy thriller ever made, The Americans subverted traditional spy tropes. Created by Joe Weisberg, the series The Americans follows Philip and Elizabeth Jennings (Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell), two deep-cover Soviet KGB officers posing as a typical American married couple in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. While raising their unsuspecting children and managing the psychological complexities of their arranged relationship, they carry out high-stakes espionage right under the nose of their neighbor, an FBI counterintelligence agent. The Americans anchors high-stakes international espionage in the grueling, realistic intimacy of marriage, creating an agonizing, slow-burning tension that is deeply psychological. Running for six sensational seasons, The Americans features one of the most meticulously written, flawless final seasons and series finales in television history. At its core, the show uses the extreme parameters of being KGB sleeper agents—lying, identity theft, seduction, and assassination—as a mirror for the complexities of a long-term relationship. Starting with an arranged marriage, it slowly morphs into genuine affection and love. The real suspense comes not just from whether they get caught by their FBI-agent neighbor, Stan Beeman (Noah Emmerich), but from whether their relationship can survive shifting ideological weight, mutual betrayals, and the profound psychological toll of their double lives. The Americans treats violence with grounding, bleak realism. Actions have permanent consequences; disposing of a body is a messy, bone-breaking chore, and close-quarters combat is exhausting and brutal. The show never lets the audience forget the immense physical and emotional cost of the characters' choices. The series pulls off the narrative magic trick of making Western audiences deeply empathize with Soviet operatives whose literal directive is to destabilize the United States. It’s all thanks to the sensational performances at top billing.​​​​​​​ 3 'Fargo' (2014-2024) Image via FX One of the greatest films of the ‘90s is Fargo. Two decades later, it served as the basis for a brilliant anthology series, using the same DNA. Created by Noah Hawley, the five-season series set in the frozen Midwest features a different self-contained story that follows a different cast of ordinary citizens, ruthless criminals, and law enforcement officers as seemingly minor choices spiral into chaotic violence. With its unique blend of pulse-pounding suspense, dark humor, and philosophical depth, Fargo became a thematic masterpiece where the niceties of the North were the perfect juxtaposition for an examination of the nature of evil, systemic greed, luck, and the slippery definition of "a true story". Fargo masterfully walks a tightrope between grim, white-knuckle neo-noir violence and absurd Midwestern dark comedy. The mundane politeness of small-town life sharply contrasts with chaotic, high-stakes criminality. Rather than serving up cheap thrills, Hawley uses the Coen brothers' tonal legacy to dig into the core themes: the chaotic intersection of ordinary life and brutal crime. The show consistently contrasts absolute, often personified malice against ordinary, kind-hearted Midwestern law enforcement officers trying to maintain a baseline of human decency. Morality tales are deeply steeped in black comedy and cosmic irony, highlighting how random coincidence or sheer human stupidity can dictate life-or-death consequences. By resetting the cast, setting, and decade each season, ranging from 1950s Kansas City to 2019 Minnesota, the show avoids the narrative fatigue that traps long-running serialized crime dramas. That means a top-tier revolving door of stars had fun in the freezing, including Billy Bob Thornton, Martin Freeman, Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons, Carrie Coon, Ewan McGregor, Chris Rock, Jessie Buckley, Juno Temple, and Jon Hamm, among others. The show had five fabulous seasons, but die-hard fans would die for more! ​​​​​​​ 2 'Slow Horses' (2022-Present) Image via Apple TV Though it is the antithesis of polished spycraft like James Bond, Slow Horses is an espionage thriller at its finest. Based on Mick Herron’s novel series, the Will Smith-created series is a darkly comedic thriller that follows a group of disgraced British intelligence agents banished to a dumping-ground department called Slough House after career-ending mistakes. Under the leadership of their brilliant but notoriously abrasive and unkempt boss, Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman), they are expected to endure dull paperwork but repeatedly find themselves entangled in dangerous conspiracies that threaten national security. Despite their "loser" status, the team must use their flawed skills to outmaneuver the mainstream MI5 operatives and save the day. Slow Horses subverts the exhausting, hyper-slick tropes of modern espionage in favor of working-class competency, pitch-black humor, and flawless pacing. Slow Horses has perfected a formula that keeps it operating at the absolute peak of the television landscape. Unlike the untouchable spy thrillers of the era, Slow Horses platforms exiled duds and burnouts. Yet, the show avoids making them bumbling caricatures. They are deeply broken people dealing with real-world issues like addiction, divorce, and professional trauma, but when backed into a corner, their underlying spy training kicks in. Led by Oldman, Slow Horses is a tried-and-true ensemble series where each character has their own distinct identity. You love them for their flaws. Slow Horses masterfully balances pulse-pounding, high-stakes danger with laugh-out-loud workplace dark comedy. It treats the violence, institutional rot, and geopolitical threats with severe gravity, but lets the mundane reality of administrative purgatory provide a grounded, human contrast. Slow Horses operates with old-school efficiency. Perhaps the most genius decision the series has made is keeping each season at a tightly plotted six episodes. There are zero filler episodes, zero unnecessary flashbacks, and no narrative treading water. Each season, with one exception, adapts a single, self-contained book from Herron’s series, establishing a clear beginning, middle, and explosive end. 1 'Mare of Easttown' (2021) Image via HBO If there’s one crime thriller we wished wasn’t a one-and-done limited series wonder, it’s Mare of Easttown. Created by Brad Ingelsby, the gritty drama follows world-weary detective Mare Sheehan (Kate Winslet) as she investigates the brutal murder of a local teenage mother in a small, close-knit Pennsylvania town. As the investigation uncovers dark, long-hidden community secrets, she simultaneously struggles to keep her own personal life from shattering under the weight of divorce, custody battles, and the unresolved trauma of her son's suicide. A powerful story that moves beyond typical police procedural, Mare of Easttown subverts the traditional "whodunit" tropes by prioritizing devastating character realism over sensationalized twists. The series functions as a richly authentic study of grief, generational trauma, and community decay. Unlike slick, stylized Hollywood thrillers, Mare of Easttown grounds its mystery in the harsh realities of the modern American Rust Belt, dealing heavily with the fallout of the opioid epidemic, poverty, and systemic despair. The series drops audiences into the lived-in DelCo part of Pennsylvania, ripe with pitch-perfect accents and localized texture. The show treats its setting with immense respect and gritty accuracy. It captures the claustrophobia of a small town where everyone is interconnected, everyone shares the same history, and every suspect is someone's cousin, childhood friend, or ex-lover. Winslet is at her finest, shedding her movie-star aesthetic to play a flawed, vape-smoking, unglamorous, exhausted, grieving mother and grandmother who happens to be a detective. Joined by a top-tier ensemble, every character feels like real people you'd meet in a struggling Pennsylvania town. A smartly plotted and tightly presented masterpiece, Mare of Easttown is a devastating, emotionally logical thriller. Mare of Easttown Release Date 2021 - 2021-00-00 Network HBO Cast Kate Winslet Marianne 'Mare' Sheehan