20 Undersung Crime Shows to Binge-Watch

Watch it on: Netflix

babylon berlin

One of those series perpetually feted as the best show people aren’t watching, Babylon Berlin is, variously, a Weimar-era neo-noir romp, the most expensive non-English-language series ever, and a vivacious, stylized re-creation of an unparalleled cultural moment. The Netflix titles warn briefly of “sex, nudity, substances, language, smoking,” and that’s just the beginning: There’s also a train full of missing Soviet treasure, a morphine-addicted detective who teams up with an archivist who moonlights as a sex worker, and an illicit pornography ring that’s blackmailing the mayor. The show is macabre, surreal, freighted with historical tension, and totally addictive. The demise of this seamy, glamorous, liberated world is inevitable, but watching it slowly implode is part of the fun.

Watch it on: Netflix

endeavour

You don’t have to have seen Inspector Morse, one of the most beloved and long-running detective dramas in British TV history, to appreciate Endeavour, a series that jumps back in time to the 1960s to portray the cerebral, opera-loving detective at the beginning of his career. Like Morse, Endeavour is set in Oxford, whose dreaming spires and bucolic surroundings belie its status as a hot spot for murder. There’s something Sherlockian about the young Endeavour Morse (played by Shaun Evans), whose bookish background and ability to discern clues no one else notices make him generally unpopular among his fellow constables. And the precision with which the show recreates ’60s England, including the buses on city streets and the fug of cigarette smoke in virtually every scene, makes it a visual treat too.

Watch it on: Amazon

peaky blinders

Steven Knight’s exuberant gangster epic, set in Birmingham, England, just after World War I, is always abundantly clear that the criminals, here, are the heroes, while the police are the malevolent killjoys coming to break up the fun. Cillian Murphy is intoxicatingly watchable as the brilliant, devious, oddly sympathetic crime boss Tommy Shelby, who evolves over the course of the show from a street-level crook to a member of the British Parliament as his empire expands. Peaky’s anachronistic soundtrack of Nick Cave, the White Stripes, and P. J. Harvey amps up its swagger, while the supporting cast and guest players (Helen McCrory, Sam Neill, Adrien Brody, Tom Hardy) add even more prestige to a rollicking, violent good time.

Watch it on: Netflix

globe-hopping intrigue

giri / haji

This BBC import arrived on Netflix in January, and doesn’t seem to have found the acclaim or the audience it deserves. After a Japanese businessman is found murdered in his London flat (those skylines again), the Tokyo detective Kenzo Mori (played by Takehiro Hira) is sent to the U.K. to investigate a case that threatens the fragile peace between Japan’s Yakuza families, and to establish how his missing brother might be involved. In London, Kenzo gathers some allies: Sarah Weitzman (Kelly Macdonald), a British detective with secrets of her own, and Rodney Yamaguchi (Will Sharpe), a feckless sex worker with violent enemies and enormous charm. Created by Joe Barton, the series is strikingly cinematic (flashbacks incorporate wide-screen, black-and-white, and even animated elements), and darkly funny. Macdonald is a preeminent actor, and Sharpe is a vibrant discovery. But Hira is most watchable, conveying Kenzo’s weariness and intelligence in equal measure, as well as his impulse to cross ethical lines to protect his family.