The best detective series all answer the same question in different ways: what kind of mind does it take to see what everyone else misses? Sherlock (2010) is the modern benchmark, a Holmes for the smartphone age, but the sleuths who followed him, from Louisiana philosophers to a Victorian lord of crime, prove there is no single way to solve a mystery. Here are five detective stories that reward close attention.
Sherlock: The Consulting Detective, Updated
Created by Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat from Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories, Sherlock ran for four series of three feature-length episodes, twelve in total, on BBC One, and holds an 8.5 on TMDB. The modern-day setting is not a gimmick: texts, GPS and the internet become part of Holmes’s method, and the show’s real engine is the partnership between a brilliant, difficult man and the friend who keeps him human. It streams on BritBox, Hulu, Philo, AMC+ and PBS in the US, and its best episodes remain the gold standard for how clever a mystery can be without cheating.
True Detective: A Mystery That Is Really About Its Detectives
True Detective (2014) is the moodiest entry here. Created by Nic Pizzolatto for HBO, it has run for four seasons and 30 episodes and holds an 8.3 on TMDB. Its celebrated first season pairs Matthew McConaughey’s Rust Cohle, a philosopher-detective haunted by what he has seen, with Woody Harrelson’s Martin Hart, the partner whose ordinary life is quietly cracking. The case matters, but the show’s real mystery is how two men can look at the same evil and come away with different souls. Later seasons change casts and settings, but the anthology format keeps the central question fresh.
Luther: The Detective Who Is Almost the Criminal
Luther (2010) gives us a detective who solves cases by thinking like the people he hunts. Created by Neil Cross for BBC One, it ran for five seasons and 20 episodes and holds a 7.8 on TMDB. Idris Elba’s John Luther is brilliant, obsessive and barely holding his own life together, and his strange, magnetic relationship with Ruth Wilson’s Alice Morgan, a murderer he cannot quite bring himself to arrest, is one of television’s great moral knots. It streams on Hulu, BritBox, Acorn TV, AMC+ and Philo in the US, and its London rain has never looked more threatening.
The Mentalist: The Fake Psychic Who Sees Everything
The Mentalist (2008) is the most purely pleasurable show on this list. Created by Bruno Heller for CBS, it ran for seven seasons and 151 episodes and holds an 8.4 on TMDB. Simon Baker’s Patrick Jane is a former fake psychic turned police consultant who solves crimes by reading people, with Robin Tunney’s Teresa Lisbon as his anchor and Tim Kang’s Kimball Cho as the team’s dry conscience. Underneath the case-of-the-week charm runs the long hunt for the serial killer Red John, which gives the lightness a dark undertow. It streams on Hulu in the US.
Moriarty the Patriot: The Villain Gets His Own Series
Moriarty the Patriot (2020) flips the whole genre on its head. The anime ran for one season of 24 episodes on TOKYO MX, holds an 8.3 on TMDB, and follows Soma Saito’s William James Moriarty, a young lord who uses his genius to punish the corrupt aristocracy of Victorian London, with Makoto Furukawa voicing a young Sherlock Holmes on the other side of the board. Its first season premiered on October 11, 2020, and it streams on Crunchyroll in the US. Watching the world’s greatest criminal mastermind cast as the hero is a delicious twist, and it makes you rethink every Holmes story you have ever loved.
For the full cast, seasons and where to watch, see our complete Sherlock title page.
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