12 Best Shows Like Criminal Minds

Far from the days of "Dragnet" and "Adam-12," police procedurals are no longer just weekly cases cracked by committed cops. Now, they're sprawling franchises, with shows like "Law and Order" running for decades and providing fertile ground for multiple spin-offs. One of the best over the past 25 years has been "Criminal Minds," a show about a team of dedicated investigators and criminal profilers in the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit who are tasked with taking down the nation's most vicious criminals.

While "Criminal Minds" has seen several spin-offs, the original remains the best. Airing for the first time in 2005, it closed its doors in 2020 before being relaunched just two years later as a streaming series on Paramount+, "Criminal Minds: Evolution." That's a whopping 18 seasons worth of stories, with a rotating cast of stars that has included Mandy Patinkin, Joe Mantegna, Paget Brewster, Jeanne Tripplehorn, and Aisha Tyler, among others.

Attacking the most perplexing cases the FBI has ever encountered, the team uses its knowledge of human psychology to get inside the minds of criminals. With unrivaled expertise, the men and women of the BAU are some of the bureau's brightest minds, with special skills that allow them to defy the odds. If you love "Criminal Minds" and are looking for something similar as a late-night chaser, check out these other outstanding dramas.

"Criminal Minds" took the police procedural idea and expanded it to focus it on a large team of investigators, but in 2010, "Rizzoli and Isles" brought the genre back to its two-partner roots — with a twist. The series, set in Boston, centered on a dynamic duo, but unlike some of the most iconic police partners in TV history, the show's two heroes aren't both cops, but close friends and expert investigators whose unique skills work in tandem.

With an unmatched commitment to solving tough cases, Detective Jane Rizzoli (Angie Harmon) teams up with her best friend, medical examiner Maura Isles (Sasha Alexander). Together they solve crimes with a combination of street smarts and hard work, not to mention a healthy dose of good humor and sass. Focusing as much on the family that surrounds them — including a broader cast of friends, relatives, and colleagues played by the likes of Lorraine Bracco, Bruce McGill, and Jordan Bridges — the series was a precursor to the likes of "Blue Bloods."

Playing up the character dynamics and humor more than most shows of its type, "Rizzoli and Isles" is something between a cop drama and a sitcom. If you want something like "Criminal Minds" but with a lighter side, this might fit the bill.

Crime scene investigation shows became all the rage in the late 1990s, with more standard cop shows like "Law and Order" giving way to stories about larger teams of investigators covering every angle of a crime. One of the hottest was "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," which likely had a big influence on "Criminal Minds" the following decade. "CSI" became a franchise all its own as well, with several spin-offs, including "CSI: NY."

Launched a year before "Criminal Minds," "CSI: NY" brought the action to the city that never sleeps, providing fertile ground for nine seasons of stories. Alongside "Apollo 13" star Gary Sinise in the lead was a strong ensemble cast that included Melina Kanakaredes, Carmine Giovinazzo, Vanessa Ferlito, Hill Harper, and Eddie Cahill. Like its predecessors, "CSI" and "CSI: Miami," the series revolved around the hard-working men and women in the city's crime lab, who analyze every clue of the Big Apple's most heinous crimes. Among them are experts in various fields, from forensics to computer science, all of whom are the best and brightest in their areas of expertise.

Arguably the best "CSI" spin-off, "CSI: NY" saw its heroes battle the toughest cases the city had to offer. For nearly a decade they took on mass murderers, white supremacist groups, terrorist cells, and drug kingpins. It pulls back on the laughs and goes for the jugular, so if it's the hard-boiled cases you want, this one's for you.

What would "Criminal Minds" be like if the team recruited a criminal genius to lead their squad? Well, you might end up with something like "The Blacklist," one of the best prime-time crime dramas of the last decade. The series stars James Spader as Red Reddington, a career crook who the FBI finally catches up with and is ready to throw behind bars forever when he makes a tantalizing offer: He'll help investigators track down and capture the worst criminals in the world in exchange for total immunity for his past crimes.

With the help of a little black book that names all of his villainous colleagues and the details of their worst offenses, Reddington agrees to help hunt them down, but on one curious condition: He insists that he be partnered with criminal profiler Elizabeth Keen (Megan Boone). His unique fascination with Keen quickly becomes a focus of the series, just as important as their missions to track down a variety of diabolical killers and criminal masterminds.

Turning up the dial on the suspense, "The Blacklist" is more psychological thriller than crime drama, but with a clever, wry edge. Critically acclaimed, the series' weekly adventures were some of TV's best and the chemistry between its stars electric, with Spader taking home three Emmy Awards for his performance. Sadly, like "Criminal Minds," the series also included a baffling character send-off that enraged fans.

Dylan McDermott is no stranger to cop shows, having previously led the short-lived police dramas "Dark Blue" and "Stalker." Well, he finally found one with staying power when he joined the cast of "FBI: Most Wanted" in 2022, taking over from outgoing star Julian McMahon. The series, a spin-off of the Dick Wolf-created drama "FBI," focuses on the agents who are assigned to track down the country's most dangerous fugitives out of their office in New York.

McDermott plays Supervisory Special Agent Remy Scott, alongside a team of hardened investigators. Not limited to the Big Apple, the team tracks the worst criminals that the FBI has on its radar from coast to coast, whether it be a mass murderer, a psychotic serial killer, or a power-mad gang leader with blood on his hands.

The most-watched new series upon its debut, "FBI: Most Wanted" had a different flavor than its parent series, with a greater intensity and a heightened sense of urgency. Because it's part of a shared universe, there have also been several crossovers, including with the spin-off that followed it, "FBI: International." Like "Law and Order" on steroids, it's the perfect companion to "Criminal Minds" — although unfortunately it was canceled in March 2025 after six seasons.

The most recent entry on this list, and one with an unusual character dynamic, is "Alert: Missing Persons Unit," which kicked off in 2023 and focused its attention on a special division of the police department. Rather than tracking down criminals, though, the agents of the MPU are on the hunt for — you guessed it — missing persons, whether it's a child abducted while in their parent's care, kidnapping victims who may have just hours to live, or mysterious cases where seemingly ordinary people just vanish into thin air.

Former "Hawaii Five-O" star Scott Caan — whose own injuries once had to be worked into that series — leads "Missing Persons" as Detective Jason Grant. The show's unusual dynamic comes from the fact that Grant's partner is his ex-wife, Captain Nikki Batista (Dania Ramirez). On top of working together to solve missing persons cases, Grant and Batista have another investigation to solve: The disappearance of their own son. Motivated by this tragedy, the pair leads the MPU with a sense of empathy and understanding that few other officers ever could, and their personal saga creates a unique sense of tension week after week on top of the episodic mysteries.

Now in its third season, "Alert: Missing Persons Unit" may be a more run-of-the-mill procedural on paper. In action, though, its unique cases provide a new angle for the genre while the ongoing drama between Grant and Batista keeps things lively.

The subgenre of detective shows led by a dedicated do-gooder who uses a borderline supernatural ability to solve crimes is a robust one. From "Psych" to "The Dead Zone," it can be serious or have a comedic edge, but it's "The Mentalist" that strikes closer to "Criminal Minds" than most. Its central protagonist, one Patrick Jane (Simon Baker, who has faced his own real-life legal issues), is a one-time psychic medium whose past is shrouded in some amount of mystery.

Set on the West Coast, "The Mentalist" sees Jane assisting the police, much in the same manner as literary detective Sherlock Holmes, as an independent consultant to the California Bureau of Investigations. Though his psychic abilities may or may not be genuine, Jane is a master of observation and possesses an uncanny intuition, which — combined with his expertise in human behavior and psychology — gives him an edge over the more traditional investigators he works with. However, over the course of his investigations he finds a solid partnership with Teresa Lisbon (Robin Tunney), the senior agent of the bureau's Serious Crimes Unit.

Thanks to the charisma of Simon Baker, the character of Patrick Jane would fit well alongside the crew on "Criminal Minds." His cases are more classic whodunits, as the series is in some ways a throwback to murder mystery shows of old, giving it a special flavor that few can match.

If you like the subgenre of uncanny investigators, then "Lie To Me" might be another good choice. The series only ran for three seasons but, led by British star Tim Roth, it might be one of the most underappreciated entries on this list. A cross between "House" and "Criminal Minds," "Lie To Me" follows Dr. Cal Lightman (Roth), who runs a private consulting firm that aids law enforcement on their toughest cases through a unique form of profiling.

Lightman is a certified genius in behavioral analysis and human psychology. A kind of human lie detector with expert knowledge of body language and subtlety, he always seems to know exactly what button to press to get to the truth. A former agent of the British intelligence agency MI6, Lightman is joined by colleagues Gillian Foster (Kelli Williams), Ria Torres (Monica Raymund), and FBI liaison Ben Reynolds (Mekhi Phifer).

With a team of profilers and behavioral analysts, "Lie to Me" has a lot in common with "Criminal Minds." The eccentricities may be a bit different — Dr. Lightman" is an ornery but charming leading man — and the stories are a little more focused on the mystery. But each case will still have you on the edge of your seat wondering how they'll nab the bad guy.

The flagship of one of TV's longest-running franchises, "NCIS" is a spin-off of the '90s legal drama "JAG" and has been on the air uninterrupted since 2003. For the first 18 seasons (and a little bit of the 19th), the series was fronted by '80s comedy star Mark Harmon. He starred as Jethro Gibbs, a former U.S. Marine sniper turned FBI Special Agent and commander of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service's Major Case Response Team. 

During his time, Gibbs led a trusted team of experts investigating the worst crimes that occur in connection to the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. The team has included Senior Field Agent Anthony DiNozzo (Michael Weatherly), Special Agent Caitlin Todd (Sascha Alexander), and of course breakout star Pauley Perrette as quirky forensics specialist Abby Scuito.

Like "Criminal Minds," much of the appeal of "NCIS" is its compelling cast of characters, from the hardened vet Gibbs on down. The cases are fairly straightforward, but with a military twist, while the breezy, fast-paced episodes are punctuated by a sly sense of humor. With 22 seasons and counting, "NCIS" is clearly loved by millions, but it's even proved successful enough to get its own spin-offs, the most recent of which is "NCIS: Origins," which pulls back the curtain on Gibbs' complicated backstory as a young agent.

A fair bit darker than "Criminal Minds," the Netflix original series "Mindhunter" hails from director David Fincher, whose films like "Fight Club," "Seven," and "Zodiac" have become all-time classics. Here he presents a series that focuses on the subject of serial killers, but does so in an unconventional way.

Based on a book by former FBI agent John E. Douglas, "Mindhunter" centers on two fictional FBI agents in the late 1970s who form a new unit within the bureau that analyzes the behavior of the worst killers in American history. Holden Ford (Jonathan Groff) is a young and eager agent, while Bill Tench (Holt McCallany) is the more cautious veteran. They're joined by agent Wendy Carr (Anna Torv), who believes her work in human psychology could be the key to catching killers.

The characters are fictional but are heavily based on real people, including Ann Burgess, whose work was indeed the foundation of the FBI's very real behavioral science unit. In the series, the trio set out to interview convicted serial killers like Edmund Kemper (Cameron Britton) and Charles Manson (Damion Harriman). Absolutely gripping from start to finish, with performances that may have you literally biting your nails, "Mindhunter" is some of the best television of the last decade and puts a spotlight on the origins of the work pursued by the investigators in "Criminal Minds."

After playing the vampire investigator Angel in both "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and his own self-titled spin-off, actor David Boreanz moved over to a less-than-supernatural police procedural, "Bones." Here he plays FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth, who must reluctantly work with an outside expert, Dr. Temperance Brennan (Emily Deschanel), a forensic anthropologist employed by a research complex known as the Jeffersonian Institute. 

Nicknamed "Bones" due to her expertise in studying human skeletons, Brennan is a special mind with a genius-level IQ and a dedication to match. Booth, a former Army sniper, is assigned to be her partner, and their relationship is at the heart of the show's appeal. The pair also butt heads over their instincts, as Brennan favors a cold, analytical approach to investigations whereas Booth is more prone to trust his gut over the facts. 

Clearly inspired by the relationship between Mulder and Scully on "The X-Files," the dynamic between Brennan and Booth also creates a sexual tension that eventually leads to romance. Like "Criminal Minds," but with a personal touch, "Bones" explores the world of criminal profiling while examining how two diametrically opposed viewpoints can sometimes work well together. It's a fantastic series overall, even if there's one storyline that fans found completely ridiculous.

Not every great show like "Criminal Minds" hails from the U.S. Moving across the pond to England, we have a classic cop drama that Brits know well, "Wire in the Blood," based on a series of crime novels by author Val McDermid. Much like "Criminal Minds," the British police drama follows the adventures of an expert criminal profiler and his team who use their knowledge of human psychology to help track the nation's worst offenders. 

A highly trained expert who has studied the most violent repeat offenders, Dr. Tony Hill (Robson Green) works with the Major Incident Team of the Bradfield Criminal Investigation Department. Far from the gung-ho investigator you might be used to, Hill is an awkward, socially inept genius whose brilliance doesn't always make him the most popular person. But his instincts are never wrong, and the dysfunctional detective uses his innate abilities to crack the most grisly murder cases.

Darker in tone than "Criminal Minds," but just as thrilling, Hill had enough success on the job to earn six seasons on the air. Of course, as a British original, that means only 24 episodes, making "Wire in the Blood" the perfect week-long binge watch.

Procedural shows like "Criminal Minds" are known for going beyond the cases and exploring the personal lives of their lead investigators. But few shows put the family dynamic as front and center as "Prodigal Son." Airing on Fox beginning in 2019, the show stars Michael Sheen as Martin Whitly, a serial killer who has been held in a secure psychiatric institute for decades as punishment for his crimes. He's released after 25 years and returns home, where he's reunited with his son, FBI agent Malcolm Bright (Tom Payne), who spent his childhood being raised by NYPD officer Gil Arroyo (Lou Diamond Phillips) — the same man who caught his father years earlier.

After Bright is drummed out of the FBI, Arroyo hires him to become a consultant for the NYPD. While Bright is disturbed by his connection to a notorious killer, fearing that he could end up like his father, he also has an unusual ability to see inside the mind of a killer, giving him a special insight he uses to catch the city's worst criminals. In a "Silence of the Lambs"-like twist, Bright is aided by his father in his efforts to investigate various bloody murders and other horrific crimes.

The show's excellent cast also includes Catherine Zeta-Jones, Aurora Perrineau, and Dermot Mulroney. Though it only lasted two brief seasons, it's a thrilling weekly procedural, a unique mix of "Criminal Minds" and "Hannibal."