20 Dark TV Shows About Serial Killers, Investigations, and Mysterious Murders: From Mindhunter to Nordic Noir

For fans of criminal psychology, tense suspense, and intricate detective puzzles, we’ve rounded up 20 standout shows. The list includes genre-defining classics, chilling true crime documentaries, and underrated European thrillers.

Cult dramas and the birth of profiling

1. True Detective

HBO’s flagship anthology, where each season tells a standalone story. The first season remains the gold standard: the swampy Louisiana atmosphere, occult killings, and the detective duo played by Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson.

2. Twin Peaks

David Lynch’s masterpiece that changed television forever. FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper’s investigation into the death of high school student Laura Palmer quickly spirals from a classic detective story into a surreal nightmare filled with mysticism and otherworldly forces.

3. Dexter

The story of Dexter Morgan, a blood spatter analyst for Miami PD who by night becomes a cold-blooded serial killer, dispatching criminals who escaped justice according to the strict code of his adoptive father.

4. Mindhunter

David Fincher’s psychological thriller, available on Netflix. Set in the late 1970s, FBI agents begin interviewing incarcerated serial killers (including Ed Kemper and Charles Manson), laying the groundwork for criminal profiling and behavioral analysis.

5. Hannibal

An exquisite thriller about the clash between gifted profiler Will Graham and brilliant psychiatrist Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen), whose dark nature is known to the viewer from the very first minutes.

6. Luther

A British neo-noir starring Idris Elba as a brilliant but emotionally unstable London detective who untangles cases involving sophisticated psychopaths while walking a fine line with the law.

7. Bosch

A realistic procedural based on Michael Connelly’s bestsellers. LAPD homicide veteran Harry Bosch methodically unravels murders while confronting systemic corruption and the ghosts of his own past.

Psychological miniseries and adaptations

8. Black Bird

A tense miniseries from Apple TV based on true events. A convicted athlete is offered a deal: go to a maximum-security prison for the criminally insane to gain the trust of suspected serial killer Larry Hall and extract the locations of his victims’ graves before his appeal.

9. Bates Motel

A modern prequel to Alfred Hitchcock’s classic Psycho, dissecting the toxic relationship between teenager Norman Bates and his mother Norma (Vera Farmiga) and his gradual descent into madness.

10. Sharp Objects

An adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s novel starring Amy Adams. A reporter with severe psychological trauma returns to her small hometown to investigate the murders of schoolgirls, confronting disturbing family secrets.

11. Strike

A British adaptation of J.K. Rowling’s detective novel series (written under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith) about private investigator Cormoran Strike and his partner Robin, who investigate intricate crimes on the foggy streets of London.

12. Dark Winds

An atmospheric retro-noir from AMC, set in the 1970s on a Navajo reservation. Tribal police officers investigate a double murder that intertwines with spiritual traditions and conspiracies.

Chilling true crime and real criminals

13. Monster / Monsters

Ryan Murphy’s anthology for Netflix, reconstructing the most notorious legal cases in the US, from Jeffrey Dahmer’s horrific crimes to the Menendez brothers’ family massacre.

14. Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes

A four-part documentary series from Netflix, based on hundreds of hours of unique archival audio recordings featuring the confessions of America’s most charming and brutal serial killer from death row.

15. I’ll Be Gone in the Dark

A documentary series from HBO and Warner Bros. Discovery, dedicated to writer Michelle McNamara. The film chronicles her obsession with catching the elusive Golden State Killer, who terrorized California for decades.

Mysticism, Nordic chill, and European secrets

16. The Outsider

An HBO adaptation of Stephen King’s novel. The brutal murder of a boy points to an impeccable baseball coach, who nevertheless has an airtight alibi. The detective quickly ventures beyond the material world.

17. Pretty Little Liars

A teen detective thriller about four schoolgirls who are terrorized by an anonymous figure known as “A” after their friend’s death. If you’re looking for a more adult show about serial killers, an excellent alternative is The Fall, about the duel between investigator Stella Gibson and a serial strangler.

18. Those Who Kill (Den som dræber)

The original Danish thriller from 2011. Investigator Katrine Ries Jensen and psychiatrist Thomas Schaeffer track down sophisticated Scandinavian serial killers, delving deep into the psychology of deviant behavior.

19. Dublin Murders

A dark Irish series based on Tana French’s books, available on STARZ. Investigating a girl’s death in the woods forces a detective to confront childhood trauma: twenty years earlier, his friends vanished without a trace in the same forest.

20. The Gone

An Irish-New Zealand procedural: Dublin detective Theo Richter arrives in the remote town of Mount Affinity to search for a missing young couple, where he and local police uncover a chain of unsolved murders from years past.

What to watch first

• For a psychological duel with a serial killer: Mindhunter, Hannibal, Black Bird, Dexter;
• For a dense detective atmosphere: True Detective, Sharp Objects, Dublin Murders, The Outsider;
• For diving into authentic true crime: Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes, Monster, I’ll Be Gone in the Dark.