12 Best TV Shows Like True Detective To Watch Next

For the record, there's nothing quite like HBO's "True Detective" was in its initial conception, especially if we're talking about the show's terrific debut season and its phenomenal finale. For creator Nic Pizzolatto and director Cary Joji Fukunaga, the stars aligned perfectly back then, allowing the pair to make and capture something truly exquisite and outstanding. But as we saw in the following years, as the anthology series went on, the show's quality gradually faded, and the defining elements that made it a TV phenomenon in the 2010s diminished.

That said, "True Detective's" core formula (opposing characters working together, investigations of eerie homicides) and central themes (murder, mystery, existential crisis, and personal trauma) have been evoked successfully — though in different ways — in other series, even if those shows weren't directly influenced by Pizzolatto's work or aimed to evoke a different atmosphere. With this list, we take a look at some of the best alternatives out there that hardcore "True Detective" fans should seek out and watch.

In the American remake of the Danish original "Forbrydelsen," the unlikely homicide detective duo of Sarah Linden (Mireille Enos) and Stephen Holder (Joel Kinnaman) investigates the gruesome murder of 17-year-old Rosie Larsen (Katie Findlay) in Seattle, Washington. (The series shifts to other locations in Seasons 3 and 4.) While doing so, the two protagonists develop an almost palpable bond and chemistry with each other that's easily the main draw of the show, just like Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson's was in "True Detective." That aspect alone gives it an intriguing core relationship, one that's often more captivating than the actual murder investigation.

Channeling a neo-noir vibe with a pulsating atmosphere that's constantly awash with rain, as if the city needs a purging, "The Killing" confidently delves into themes like child murder, corruption, addiction, and family secrets. Thanks to its excellent writing, compelling performances, and the two fascinating, deeply human protagonists, the series pulls you in immediately and demands your undivided attention. It's no surprise the show was a 6-time nominee for Primetime Emmys and numerous other awards during its three-year run.

A cinematic paradise for true crime and David Fincher aficionados, Netflix's "Mindhunter" is a stylish and somber adaptation of FBI agent John E. Douglas's non-fiction bestseller about how his Behavioral Science Unit developed criminal profiling in the late '70s and early '80s. The series follows FBI agents Holden Ford (Jonathan Groff) and Bill Tench (Holt McCallany) as they travel the country to give seminars about serial offenders while also taking the time to visit prisons and interview some of the most infamous murderers in modern history, such as Edmund Kemper or Charles Manson. They also help with ongoing murder investigations throughout the two seasons.

Though it's an entirely different story and concept, "Mindhunter" does share a few similarities with "True Detective," particularly in Season 1. Holden and Tench have opposing personalities and different values and beliefs, which is exactly why they come off as so interesting and well-matched on screen. They highlight one another the same way Cohle and Hart do in Pizzolatto's series, and the chemistry between them is sublime. Combined with the chilling portrayals of serial killers, gripping scripts, and Fincher's iconic directing style, "Mindhunter" is not only a safe bet for "True Detective" fans but practically a mandatory watch. You have to see it, period — even if there is one storyline that continues to bother fans to this day.

You may be scratching your head, thinking, "What the hell is Vince Gilligan's 'Breaking Bad' doing on this list?" After all, there are no mysterious murder cases or serial killers in it. The series is about making and distributing drugs, involving Mexican cartels, a small-time drug dealer/addict, and a middle-aged teacher and family man with a cancer diagnosis. Still, the constantly shifting and evolving relationship between the main protagonists, Walter White (Bryan Cranston) and Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), validates our decision to give Gilligan's masterpiece a spot here.

"Breaking Bad" offers a character-driven narrative, heavily leaning on a pair of leads who battle with each other as much as they do with themselves. Their partnership significantly affects their personal lives, families, successes, and failures, and determines the people they eventually become throughout the five seasons (though Walter does have one line that he never crossed, no matter how much he changed). It's not a coincidence that the show has become a cultural milestone in television, winning countless awards, and you'd be doing a disservice to yourself if you didn't watch it at least once. It's as remarkable and thrilling as everyone says it is.

Marti Noxon's HBO miniseries was a big deal in 2018. Adapted from Gillian Flynn's debut novel of the same name, "Sharp Objects" follows Camille Preaker (Amy Adams), a burnout investigative reporter who returns to her hometown, Wind Gap, Missouri, to look into and cover the recent murder of two teen girls. She's also a raging alcoholic with haunting childhood wounds that flare up the second she walks down the streets of her past.

Though the case is a pillar of the plot, it kind of takes a back seat to the gripping character study of Camille as she descends into her own personal hell. Welcomed back by her toxic mother (played by a vicious Patricia Clarkson) and the townsfolk, Camille's traumatic upbringing is instantly brought back into focus by this bleak and hopeless little place. With every episode directed by Jean-Marc Vallee, "Sharp Objects" is permeated with a nihilistic and grim atmosphere (a very "True Detective-esque" feature) that harbors troubling secrets and breathtaking twists that are conversation starters, at the least. That is if you're strong enough to bear watching child abuse, manipulation, and a controlling and diabolical parent bordering on insanity. It is not an easy watch, but it's rewarding nevertheless.

Speaking of small towns and close-knit communities, another prestigious HBO program fits the bill for our "True Detective"-adjacent list perfectly. Created and written by Brad Ingelsby, "Mare of Easttown" stars Kate Winslet as Mare Sheehan, a former basketball player/local hero and detective in a fictional Philadelphia suburb where the brutal murder of a teenage mom stirs up the peace and quiet of this sleepy, ice-cold place. Paired with an outsider rookie cop (Evan Peters), Mare gets the thankless task — and with it a ton of expectation — to catch the killer and solve the murder just a year after she failed to do the same in a separate missing person case. On top of that, her personal life is sort of a disaster, partly due to her harsh nature and raw personality that makes it difficult for anyone to be around her.

"Mare of Easttown" offers well-written characters, sharp dialogue, and brilliant performances filled with potent emotions that create an enthralling atmosphere and narrative, and the conclusion to its murder case will leave you speechless. Thus, it comes as no surprise the miniseries won four Primetime Emmys out of eight nominations, along with several other awards.

One of the most disturbing television shows of 2022, creator Dennis Lehane's "Black Bird" shows what happens when a gangster meets a serial killer in prison. Based on James Keene and Hillel Levin's 2010 non-fiction true crime novel, the plot follows Jimmy Keene (Taron Egerton), a savvy mobster who receives a 10-year sentence in jail but cuts a deal with the FBI instead. Then he's sent to a facility for the criminally insane in Springfield, where his task is to "befriend" suspected serial killer Larry Hall (Paul Walter Hauser) and make him confess to the alleged murders of more than a dozen innocent women.

"Black Bird" essentially dissects the mind of a serial killer, going into the depths of darkness and evil where not a lot of movies and TV shows dare to descend to such a degree. The lead performances by Egerton and Hauser are staggering autopsies of the human psyche — criminal and wicked — portraying the vastly different poles of humanity. Similarly to "Mindhunter" and "True Detective," "Black Bird" is hauntingly disturbing and uncompromisingly desolate at times, giving us another example of why man is the cruelest animal. As a bonus, it also features one of the last (and best) roles of the late Ray Liotta as Keene's conflicted yet caring father.

Created by Richard Price and Steven Zaillian, HBO's 2016 miniseries "The Night Of" revolves around a naive Pakistani-American guy named Naz Khan (Riz Ahmed), who's charged with the murder of Andrea Cornish (Sofia Black-D'Elia), a young and respectable white woman. Based on Season 1 of the 2008 British original "Criminal Justice," the miniseries depicts the classic crime trope of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Right from the get-go, we know Naz is innocent, but every unfortunate circumstance, eyewitness, and confession seems to contradict him. His only chance at proving his innocence is a battered, weary, and disillusioned defense attorney (played by a never-better John Turturro) who is unusually dedicated to saving the young boy from imprisonment and a world of hurt.

In essence, "The Night Of" portrays the inherent faults of the American justice system and how it can completely destroy the lives of innocent individuals. Through audacious and sharp depictions of race, class, and religion — and how all those play a key factor in determining whether a person of color is guilty in the eye of the law — the miniseries delivers a grim and sobering truth as well as a riveting murder case with spot-on writing and a roster of first-class performances.

Drawing comparisons to the latest season of "True Detective" due to its Native American roots, Graham Roland's "Dark Winds" is replete with intrigue, mystery, and tradition. By taking place in the 1970s on an Indian reservation at Four Corners, the story establishes a distinct quality and atmosphere for the show right from the beginning. Topped with a rich, outstanding, and mostly Native American cast, something we still don't see enough of in television, it's a production that's certainly a delicacy these days.

In "Dark Winds," we follow three Navajo cops, Joe Leaphorn (Zahn McClarnon), Jim Chee (Kiowa Gordon), and Bernadette Manuelito (Jessica Matten), who investigate several recent tribal murders that might be connected. Each of the detectives has some kind of link to the victims that triggers personal demons from the past that they'd rather keep buried deep in their minds. If you were really into the surreal aspects of "True Detective: Night Country," "Dark Winds" might serve as a good replacement until the HBO drama's next season arrives.

FX's miniseries "Under the Banner of Heaven" feels like a long-overdue portrayal of a sensitive yet vital subject matter, offering a painstaking examination of religious fanaticism and LDS fundamentalism. Adapted by Dustin Lance Black from Jon Krakauer's non-fiction book about the Lafferty Brothers, the show follows detective Jeb Pyre (Andrew Garfield) and Bill Taba (Gil Birmingham) as they investigate the vicious murder of a Latter-day Saint mother (played by Daisy-Edgar Jones) and her infant in the 1980s.

The spin on the typical true crime formula here is that Garfield's Pyre is a devoted Mormon himself, and as he slowly digs deeper into the case — through confessions from members of the Lafferty family — his faith is tested in ways he'd never thought would be possible. Conflicted and appalled by the Lafferty Brothers' outrageous actions, manipulations, and sometimes insanely selfish worship of God, Pyre's internal struggle is a true spectacle here. His discussions with Taba about faith, sin, and family are sincere, thought-provoking, and much needed. Mostly to make sense of the extremes the Lafferty Brothers went to, arbitrarily justifying every horrendous thing they've done in the name of God as something unequivocally necessary.

Black's show is often provocative and anger-inducing because of its delicate topics and fanatical characters, but it's so accurately written and portrayed by a phenomenal cast — providing nuanced observations of its themes — that it's nevertheless a cathartic experience. If you fell hard for Cohle's contemplations about existence, religion, and humanity in Season 1 of "True Detective," you shouldn't miss this one.

Created by Antonio Campos, MAX's "The Staircase" is one of the most baffling murder stories based on an actual true crime documentary. The miniseries is an overarching epic about how an unfortunate incident followed by a spiraling legal battle can slowly rot and consume an entire family from the inside.

The show's plot follows Michael Peterson (Colin Firth), a crime novelist, who's accused of murdering his second wife Kathleen (Toni Collette) after finding her in a pool of blood at the bottom of the stairs in their home in Durham, North Carolina. Though Peterson calls 911 immediately upon discovering the body, the suspicious circumstances of the accident instantly turn him into a possible suspect, and he's indicted and charged with his spouse's murder. After hiring a defense attorney, Peterson's life spirals out of control as his secrets (such as the gay porn found on his computer) are exposed, providing ammunition for the prosecution. He also faces family members who begin to believe he may not be as innocent as they previously thought.

Anchored by a fantastic lead performance by Firth, "The Staircase" constantly keeps you in limbo about what and who to believe, never giving definite or obvious answers. Although the 8-episode show tells you what happened in real life by the end, it's up to you to determine what the actual truth might be beyond the information presented in the case.

Though Netflix's 2019 "Unbelievable" doesn't involve murder (or murderers) per se, it tells the harrowing and complex story of 18-year-old sex victim Marie Adler (Kaitlyn Dever), who claimed that she was raped. She then changed her stance to claim that she wasn't, for which she was charged with a felony. To find out what really happened, we follow two female detectives, Grace Rasmussen (Toni Collette) and Karen Duvall (Merritt Wever), who take an interest in Adler's peculiar case. The deeper they dig into it, the more they start to realize they might be dealing with a serial rapist who was able to deceive the authorities for many years without getting caught.

Based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning 2015 article and the non-fiction book "A False Report: A True Story of Rape in America," "Unbelievable" tackles the elaborate and complicated themes of sexual assault and victim-blaming in the US through a sympathetic yet laser-focused lens. The partnership of Collette and Wever's detectives isn't exactly the female version of Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson's in "True Detective," but their dynamic, forged by a common goal of justice, is similarly captivating and comprehending. It's no wonder the miniseries was highly praised by both critics and audiences on its way to being nominated for multiple awards in 2019. If you're a true crime and "True Detective" fan, you should definitely give it a watch.

Adapting another tragic real-life murder, Hulu's "Under the Bridge" tells the story of 14-year-old Reena Virk (Vritika Gupta), who was beaten to death by a group of teenagers in 1997 in Saanich, British Columbia, Canada. The series, based on Rebecca Godfrey's true crime bestseller of the same name, operates on two separate timelines. We follow Reena before her death, and also Rebecca Godfrey (Riley Keough), a novelist and non-fiction writer, alongside the police as they try to find out who the actual killer is and what exactly went down on that sad night.

Though the show's central concept is totally different from any season of "True Detective," its atmosphere and certain characters evoke a similar vibe. Through Godfrey's point of view, we get to know a woman who's still grieving a brother she lost when she was young, unable to move on from her past mistakes. It doesn't help that she's also trying to rekindle the love with her ex, who's now a cop and involved in the investigation of Reena. In addition to murder, "Under the Bridge" addresses delicate topics such as bullying, peer pressure, underage drug abuse, and suicide, all of which factor into Reena's tragic death. It's an eerie and depressing series with a flicker of hope, but that's precisely the vibe that "True Detective" captured so well throughout its run.