The best thriller TV series to watch on Netflix

There are plenty of great thriller movies to watch on Netflix. But if you prefer your stories to be more procedural, there are just as many fantastic TV series to choose from on the service.

We’ve put together our conspiracy message boards, crunched the numbers and followed the money to bring you our list of the top suspects for the best thriller TV shows to watch on Netflix. From modern classics such as those by David Fincher Mindhunter And you to blood-curdling murder mysteries such as Cleared and more, Netflix has a selection of thriller TV just waiting to become your next obsession. Added our latest update Bodies as our editor’s choice.

These are the best thriller series you can watch on Netflix right now.


Editor’s Choice: Bodies

Image: Netflix

Solving a murder is difficult enough, but how do you tackle a perpetrator whose crime literally transcends space and time?

Bodies is a wonderfully cerebral whodunit with an excellent ensemble cast whose stories flow effortlessly together as the series builds and the mystery deepens. Created by Paul Tomalin (Torch wood) and based on Si Spencer’s 2014 comic, this sci-fi crime thriller follows four detectives living in different time periods of London as they investigate a strange murder. What’s so strange about it? Well, the victim’s body appears – and reappears – in the exact same location in every time period. What’s even stranger is that the victim was last seen alive in 2053, despite both being seen dead that year. And as early as 1890.

A compelling drama that feels like a mashup between Class of ’09, Darkand Alex Garland’s Developers, Bodies is one of Netflix’s most compelling releases this year and definitely deserves to be added to your watchlist. —Toussaint Egan


Mindhunter

Albert Jones, Holt McCallany and Jonathan Groff lean against the hood of a car as they are illuminated by police sirens in episode five of Mindhunter season 2.

Image: Netflix

David Fincher’s exacting vision is applied to the television format in one of the best shows Netflix has ever produced. Over two seasons, FBI agents Holden Ford (Jonathan Groff) and Bill Tench (the great Holt McCallany) interview serial killers in the burgeoning field of criminal psychology.

In a nice twist on conventional character tropes, it’s the young officer who is often cold and emotionally removed, and the older one who worries about the consequences of their actions. Their chemistry, as well Mindhunter‘s in-depth study of our culture surrounding serial killers and the approach to stopping them makes the show excellent, and it never veers into the exploitation of its peers in the genre.

How demanding is Fincher’s vision? Just take a look at this stunning VFX reel of the show, which literally changed the way I view modern cinema. —Piet Volk

Babylon Berlin

A raucous party set in 1929 Berlin, as seen in Babylon Berlin.

Image: X Filme Creative Pool

Bad things are coming to 1929 Berlin. We know this of course – from the perspective of history, the Weimar Republic era was marked by economic uncertainty and the beginnings of the Nazi Party. But the 1920s in the world of Babylon Berlin exists just before that horror, when the degeneration of all that economic downturn could as easily give way to roaring ’20s clubs as endless darkness.

That tension is captured Babylon Berlin by two protagonists: Gereon Rath (a soft and strong Volker Bruch), a deputy inspector on a secret mission to take down a racketeering gang, and Charlotte Ritter (Liv Lisa Fries, all vinegar and chutzpah), the new police officer who moonlights as a sex worker. Together they offer two very different vantage points on the final days of the Weimar Republic, exposing the rot of what was to come while simultaneously finding hope in what could have been.

Babylon BerlinThe trick of the company is not to get ahead of itself. The show may be one of the slower boils on this list; the suspense of the mystery, such as they are, comes from meticulous pacing. Answers are not easy, and the politics of an entire country do not change overnight. Babylon Berlin is a web of history and conspiracy, and by taking these elements equally seriously and methodically, you get a twisty, hard-boiled detective story for the ages. —Zosha Millman

Ganglands

Samuel Jouy fires a submachine gun next to an open truck door in Ganglands.

Image: Netflix

French action cinema is experiencing something of a renaissance and one of its leading figures is director Julien Leclercq. He made the very good Olga Kurylenko thriller Sentinelleled by Jean-Claude Van Damme The bouncerand my favorite film of his, the exciting crime thriller Braqueurs (also known as The crew).

Six years later, Leclercq took his talents to television with the Netflix series Ganglands (also known as Braqueurs). It shares the same name, protagonist (the excellent Sami Bouajila), and general atmosphere, but is not technically a sequel or remake. In Ganglandsa group of experienced armed robbers are drawn into a gang war: they are so good at crimes that everyone wants to hire them, even the people they rob.

Leclercq and writer Hamid Hlioua have created a muscular little thriller, anchored by strong leads and the director’s tension-filled style, building action and conflict. The second season was recently released on Netflix and both seasons are well worth watching. —Piet Volk

Cleared

A black-haired anime character (Satoru Fujinuma) with glasses stares at scraps of paper in Erased.

Image: A-1 Images/Aniplex of America

This 2016 science fiction mystery thriller miniseries centers on Satoru Fujinuma, a 29-year-old delivery boy who is inexplicably sent back in time and awakens in his 11-year-old body. Determined to save the lives of his mother and his elementary school classmate, who died and disappeared respectively under mysterious circumstances, Satoru must combine his knowledge of the future with his ability to change the past to apprehend the perpetrator and return to the past to bring. justice.

Cleared is a compulsively watchable thriller anime, filled with enough twists and turns to keep audiences guessing until the series’ thrilling conclusion. —Toussaint Egan

you

Penn Badgley as Joe Goldberg who pulls a knife from a dead man's chest in season four of You.

Image: Netflix

No one does it as well as Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley). Man is in a class of his own when it comes to stalking women and obsessing over them. This is the double-edged sword of looking you and following Joe in his unethical exploits: he is downright the villain of his own story.

Happy, you is very aware of this, taking the original premise of the first season – boy meets girl, boy stalks girl, boy dangerously manipulates her entire life – and keeps turning it around, testing Joe, making him run for cover his ass as he gets deeper and deeper into it. Each you season is a flavor in itself, changing countries and ladies and letting Joe make the worst case for himself.

you is not a show for the faint of heart, but it is also not a thriller that rests easily on the underlying darkness. Joe might be an absolute piece of shit (even Badgley thinks soand would I really like it when you do that too), but the show manages to keep him interesting while turning the screws on him. Each of the four seasons challenges him in new ways, and it makes for an exciting and surprisingly good time. Of you There’s only one thing you can always expect: Joe going to extreme and violent lengths to prove he’s not the bad guy. Also a plexiglass safe. —HM

The Night Cop

Gabriel Basso holds up his FBI badge in The Night Agent

Photo: Dan Power/Netflix

Sometimes you want a ‘light brain’ thriller – something that isn’t too deep and that could be perfect for a bucket of popcorn or to watch in the background while you fold some laundry. The Night Cop is Netflix’s typical plot-heavy popcorn thriller, elevated to solid fare thanks to the surprising chemistry between its two leads.

Adjusted by The shield creator Shawn Ryan from the novel, The Night Cop Gabriel Basso plays an FBI agent relegated to watching a phone that never rings in the basement of the White House. When the phone rings one night, he and the person on the other end of the line (Luciane Buchanan) are drawn into a vast conspiracy that threatens to unravel everything he knows. —PV

Sample

Kenzo Tenma stares solemnly at his hands in Monster.

Image: Madhouse/Viz Media

If you are a fan of the 1960s crime drama series The refugee, you’ll probably love the 2004 anime adaptation of Naoki Urasawa’s psychological thriller manga. After all, the series was inspired by it! It is set in Germany before and after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Sample revolves around the story of Kenzo Tenma, a Japanese brain surgeon living in Düsseldorf. After Kenzo is implicated in the murder of his superiors, he must go on the run to clear his name by tracking down the real perpetrator: a young man he once treated.

With 74 episodes, Sample is a labyrinthine drama filled with a rich cast of characters and enough gripping twists and revelations to fill a Matryoshka doll. -AT

She-wolf

omar sy in lupine

Image: Netflix

The thrill of the heist: there’s simply nothing like it. Ask Assane Diop (Omar Sy). He has been working as a conman and thief for years, drawing his inspiration (and nickname) from an obsession with the literary gentleman thief Arsène Lupin. His tensions are hard-won, but they are also smooth and precise. For Assane, the art of the heist – even with a priceless diamond necklace worn by Marie Antoinette – is a given.

What is less obvious is revenge. She-wolfThe first season of the film follows his quest to get revenge on the wealthy family that wronged his father, and the show is full of twists and turns as his mission begins to bleed from his gentleman-thief persona back into his real life.

The French series was a breakout hit when it premiered on Netflix, thanks in large part to Sy’s performance. He’s magnetic because he makes a scam look easy, with the kind of natural charm that makes you believe he can talk his way into any safe or vault in France (and that’s all before we get into his thieving skills and connections). In a heist, the ending is usually confident. Sy’s performance ensures that She-wolf has the same confidence and makes every step of the journey its own sensation. —HM