The Top 5 Crime TV Shows
There’s nothing that TV audiences love quite like a good crime show — which is why so many of them stay on the air for decades.
Law & Order showrunner Dick Wolf knows this better than anyone else. Wolf’s iconic cops-and-lawyers procedural debuted in 1990 and is now entering its 23rd season. The show has also spawned a franchise made up of seven different spinoffs over the years, two of which — Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Law & Order: Organized Crime — are launching new seasons of their own, all set to debut January 18 on NBC.
Just how popular are these shows among crime TV fans? There’s no better way to answer that than by looking at our authoritative list of The Best Crime TV Shows (2.3K votes), which features two of the current Law & Order spinoffs in its Top 5 series. Aside from running down these Top 5 shows, we’ll also be looking at the different fans each popular crime series attracts, whether they’re classics of the genre like Murder, She Wrote or more contemporary titles like Mindhunter.
New Seasons of Law & Order, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and Law & Order: Organized Crime premiere January 18.
#1: Criminal Minds
Photo: Paramount
CBS has become a true powerhouse when it comes to police procedurals, but even in a programming schedule packed with crime TV, Criminal Minds stands out. One of the few non-acronym prime-time titles from CBS (think FBI, NCIS, CSI, and SWAT, to start), Criminal Minds has been a ratings hit throughout its 17-year run. That’s evidenced not just by its #1 position on this list, but by the fact that the show’s continuation, Criminal Minds: Evolution, has successfully brought the show across the streaming/linear divide.
What other shows do Criminal Minds fans love to watch? Well, the Law & Order franchise, of course — though they’re more likely to love Special Victims Unit (SVU) than the original show. They’re also drawn to fellow CBS crime staples NCIS, CSI, NUMB3RS, and Cold Case. But outside the procedural genre, those who love Criminal Minds are also 3X more likely to love classic sitcoms Friends, M*A*S*H, and The Golden Girls.
#2: Law & Order
Photo: NBC
The “Dun Dun” that started it all, Law & Order isn’t just one of the longest-running shows still on the air — it’s also the #2 crime show of all time, according to our readers. Originally starring George Dzundza, Chris Noth, and SVU mainstay Dann Florek, the series quickly became a rite of passage for New York actors, featuring future A-listers like Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jennifer Garner, Claire Danes, and Idris Elba before they hit it big. Though SVU is arguably better known today, the original Law & Order established the procedural rhythm that structures not just its spinoffs, but the dozens of crime TV descendents that have followed it across the decades.
Fans of this show are, unsurprisingly, 9X more likely to love spinoffs SVU and Law & Order: Criminal Intent. They’re also 3X more likely to love NYPD Blue, another gritty ’90s cop drama that balanced weekly new criminal investigation stories with season-long character arcs. But even though the Dick Wolf series Chicago Med and Chicago P.D. come from the same showrunner, they are only 2X more likely to be beloved by Law & Order fans.
#3: Columbo
Photo: NBC
Just one more thing! Just kidding, there are two more series to cover after this — but wouldn’t it be fun if this were #5?
Columbo flipped the mystery show on its head when it premiered in 1968, with each episode showing the crime go down at the very beginning. The drama that unfolds, then, doesn’t entail figuring out who did it, but the steps that the disheveled yet deceptively cunning Lieutenant Columbo takes to solve the mystery and unravel the bad guy’s alibi. Starring Peter Falk, new episodes of Columbo would come out sporadically up until 2003, satisfying the public’s craving for one of the most popular characters in TV history.
Columbo is a pretty old show, so it makes sense that its fans tend to love other series that came out a long time ago. The shows they’re most likely to love (8X more than the average reader) are The Rockford Files and the original Perry Mason, but they’re also 6X more likely to love Kojak, Hawaii Five-O, and Murder, She Wrote. Their favorite comedies are similarly aged. Those favorites include The Odd Couple, Sanford and Son, I Dream of Jeannie, and The Beverly Hillbillies.
#4: Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Photo: NBC
SVU rivals the popularity of its predecessor, even though the crimes that its ripped-from-the-headlines storylines cover are often much darker. Why is Special Victims Unit such a hit? For one thing, its longtime leads Detectives Benson and Stabler are beloved by fans and casual viewers alike. That’s why Mariska Hargitay’s Olivia Benson is the longest-running dramatic character in TV history.
Fans of SVU have the most modern tastes of any fan base we’ve covered yet. They’re 3X more likely to love fellow Dick Wolf creation FBI and Hulu’s dystopia drama The Handmaid’s Tale, as well as 2X more likely to love ABC medical procedural The Good Doctor and Fox’s 9-1-1. But they’re also drawn to shows that, like SVU, debuted in the 1990s, including The X-Files, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and ER.
#5: Dexter
Photo: Showtime
The only one of these Top 5 series to come from a cable network as opposed to a broadcast network, Dexter was one of the first shows to fuse crime TV with prestige TV. The titular hero is a serial killer who puts his illegal impulses to lawful use by helping the police investigate other serial murderers — though he’s a little less keen on simply arresting his suspects than his fellow investigators. This Showtime show got a follow-up in the form of Dexter: New Blood after its series finale ended up disappointing more than a few fans.
While Law & Order fans love shows about cops and detectives, Dexter fans tend to like shows about killers. They’re 5X more likely to love Psycho update Bates Motel, as well as the beloved but short-lived Silence of the Lambs prequel Hannibal. These fans also tend to prefer prestige cable classics, as they’re 3X more likely to love The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, and True Detective. Finally, these fans are clearly subscribers to Showtime, being 5X more likely to love Shameless, 4X more likely to love Nurse Jackie, and 2X more likely to love The Affair.
