Our list of 52 Best Crime Drama And Thriller Shows On (Amazon) Prime Video combines our analysis of new, exciting and absorbing shows with feedback and comments of our readers on what shows they’ve loved the most.
For 2024 spring season and beyond, if you are having difficulty working your way through Amazon Prime shows and want to be entertained in a big way, here is your go-to guide. Hopefully our list will make the life easier for you.
Note: For the list of best crime drama, mystery, and thriller shows on Amazon Prime for the years 2022 and 2021, please visit here and here. Our Amazon Prime list for 2020 is also available here. In case you want to also check out other best shows on services such as Acorn TV, Hulu or Netflix, you can check out our watching lists.
52. Zorro
Diego de la Vega returns to California to avenge his father’s murder. After assuming the title of Zorro, he initiates his struggle against Nah-Lin, a Native American who he believes has stolen his inheritance.
Diego will confront the Governor, the malevolent leader of the Chinese community and a secret society, placing the common good above all. In doing so, he will sacrifice his love for Lola.
51. GEN V
From the world of The Boys comes Gen V, a thrilling new series set at America’s only college for superheroes. These gifted students put their moral boundaries to the test, competing for the university’s top ranking, and a chance to join The Seven, Vought International’s elite superhero team. When the school’s dark secrets come to light, they must decide what kind of heroes they want to become.
50. Three Pines
Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec and his team investigate a series of perplexing murders in the mysterious Eastern Townships village of Three Pines, uncovering the buried secrets of its eccentric residents and in the process forcing Gamache to confront buried secrets of his own.
49. Deadloch
Two vastly different female detectives are thrown together to solve the murder of a local man in the sleepy seaside hamlet of Deadloch.
48. Totems
Another Amazon Prime Video Original: In 1965, during the Cold War, a French rocket scientist faces a very difficult spy mission and becomes enamored with a Soviet woman who secretly works for the KGB.
47. The Wheel Of Time
The lives of five young villagers change forever when a strange and powerful woman arrives, claiming one of them is the child of an ancient prophecy with the power to tip the balance between Light and Dark forever.
They must choose whether to trust this stranger – and each other – with the fate of the world before the Dark One breaks out of His prison, and the Last Battle begins.
46. Sebastian Fitzek’s Therapy
Josy, the 13-year-old daughter of the well-known psychiatrist Viktor Larenz, disappears under unexplained circumstances. Two years later, a mysterious woman turns up, forcing him to deal with the disappearance.
45. Prime Suspect: Tennison
This is the much-anticipated prequel to award-winning global hit Prime Suspect. Rewind to 1970s London to portray the early career of the formidable DCI Jane Tennison (Stefanie Martini), the role that established Dame Helen Mirren as a household name.
44. Citadel
What if you lost your memory? What if a spy didn’t know they were a spy? Years ago, the top agents of Citadel, Mason Kane (Richard Madden) and Nadia Sinh (Priyanka Chopra Jonas), had their minds wiped. But, they’re called back to action as sinister forces emerge from the past. With the help of spymaster Bernard Orlick (Stanley Tucci), these former lovers must remember the past to save the future.
43. Reacher
This is an Amazon Prime Video Original: When retired Military Police Officer Jack Reacher is arrested for a murder he did not commit, he finds himself in the middle of a deadly conspiracy full of dirty cops, shady businessmen and scheming politicians.
With nothing but his wits, he must figure out what is happening in Margrave, Georgia. The first season of Reacher is based on the international bestseller, The Killing Floor by Lee Child.
*****
42. Harlan Coben’s Shelter
This is an Amazon Prime Original: Based on the bestselling series by Harlan Coben, Shelter follows the story of Mickey Bolitar after the death of his father leads him to start a new life in suburban New Jersey. When another new student disappears, Mickey finds himself tangled in a web of secrets. With the help of two new friends, Spoon and Ema, they reveal a dark underground that may hold the answers to decades of disappearances.
The Wilds
A bonus title: Teenage girls from radically different backgrounds find themselves stranded on a remote island, unaware they’ve just become the subjects of an elaborate social experiment.
41. I Know What You Did Last Summer
In a town full of secrets, a group of teenagers are stalked by a mysterious killer a year after a fatal accident on their graduation night.
40. Hunters
Nazi hunters discover hundreds of high-ranking Nazi officials in 1977 New York City, conspiring to create a Fourth Reich in the U.S.; the Hunters set out to bring the Nazis to justice and thwart their new genocidal plans.
39. Agatha Christie’s The Pale Horse
Based on the Agatha Christie novel of the same name, it follows the story of Mark Easterbrook whose name appears on a list found inside the shoe of a dead woman. He begins an investigation into how and why his name came to appear on the list which leads him to The Pale Horse, the home of three rumored witches.
38. All Around You
Li Xintong is emotionally close to her sister Carmen. When Carmen was in Japan, she fell prey to a love scam and so was depressed, she took her life, leaving Xintong devastated.
Years later, Xintong joined a special web PR company Shadow, which helps their client deal with online problems. The company is set up by Huo Junhao, a smart, resourceful and mysterious guy.
37. The A. B. C. Murders: A Hercule Poirot Mystery
John Malkovich stars as an older but wiser Hercule Poirot as he investigates the source of a series of sinister letters written by a mysterious criminal in the early 1930s in England.
Although he is no longer revered, when murders begin occurring in relation to the letters, Poirot takes the case into his own hands and deploys his detective skills in order to find the killer before they strike again. Malkovich stars alongside Rupert Grint and Andrew Buchan in this three-part crime-drama series.
36. ZeroZeroZero
ZeroZeroZero series follows the journey of a cocaine shipment, from the moment a powerful cartel of Italian criminals decides to buy it until the cargo is delivered and paid for, passing through its packaging in Mexico and shipment across the Atlantic Ocean.
35. Hanna
Hanna is an extraordinary girl who has been raised in the forest, evading the relentless pursuit of an off-the-book CIA agent. This series — part high-concept thriller, part coming-of-age drama — follows the girl on her journey as she tries to unearth the truth behind who she is. “Hanna” is based on the 2011 film of the same name that starred Oscar-nominated actress Saoirse Ronan in the title role.
34. The Devil’s Hour
This is an (Amazon) Prime Video Original: Peter Capaldi and Jessica Raine star in this gripping six-part psychological thriller. Lucy wakes every night at exactly 3:33am. Nothing in her life has made sense for a long time. But the answers are out there, somewhere, at the end of a trail of brutal murders.
33. Hargrave
In the midst of serious doubts about his career and life, Detective Matthew Hargrave is contacted by a mysterious woman about her missing husband.
Initially reluctant to take the case, Hargrave is compelled to investigate, triggering a series of life altering events that peel back the layers of his reality.
32. Patriot
The turbulent and complicated life of an intelligence officer, John Tavner, whose latest assignment is to prevent Iran from going nuclear. The assignment requires him to forgo all safety nets and assume a perilous non-official cover.
31. Endeavour
“Endeavour” follows the newly forged relationship — both working and personal — between young DC Endeavour Morse and his senior partner, DI Fred Thursday.
Returning actors include Shaun Evans as Endeavour and Roger Allam as Thursday, while Sean Rigby takes on the role of a young PC Strange — the character who appeared in the original “Morse” series, played by James Grout. Abigail Thaw, the daughter of the first Inspector Morse, John Thaw, makes further guest appearances as Dorothea Frazil.
30. Guilty Minds
Another Amazon Prime Original: Guilty Minds is a legal drama involving a morally upright family on one side and a renowned top law firm that welcomes any and all cases on the other.
29. Hunted
Award-winning writer and producer Frank Spotnitz (“The X-Files”) is behind this eight-part suspense thriller with an international espionage story line. Melissa George stars as Sam Hunter, an operative for an elite private intelligence firm who survives an attempt on her life that may have been orchestrated by members of her own team. She goes into hiding to regroup and recover from her injuries, returning to the firm unannounced a year later.
Her co-workers, needless to say, are surprised to see her, especially her colleague — and secret lover — Aidan Marsh, and her bosses, Rupert Keel and Deacon Crane, who are suspicious of Hunter’s motives. But Keel and Crane need their best agent for important assignments. Hunter, meanwhile, isn’t sure who she can trust, but she’s positive someone wants her dead.
28. Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan
Author Tom Clancy introduced the character of Jack Ryan in a series of books before Ryan headed to the big screen in several films. Now the former U.S. Marine is featured in an episodic series for the first time, with John Krasinski portraying Ryan in this Amazon original thriller that centers on Ryan as an up-and-coming CIA analyst.
He is thrust into a dangerous field assignment for the first time and uncovers a pattern in terrorist communication. That launches him into the middle of a dangerous gambit with a new breed of terrorism that threatens destruction on a global scale.
27. Unforgotten
This crime-drama stars Nicola Walker and Sanjeev Bhaskar as the lead characters DCI Cassie Stuart and DS Sunil “Sunny” Khan. The detectives are on a mission to uncover the mystery behind an unsolved murder that occurred 39 years ago. Beneath the ground of a demolished house, the bones of the victim are found.
With this evidence, the modern police team open a case to unearth the history that has remained buried for decades. Four main suspects emerge, and as their dark past is unraveled, the truth behind the events of the crime are finally revealed.
26. Jo
Jo St-Clair is a veteran detective in Paris’ elite Criminal Brigade, tackling the city’s most challenging murder cases.
Brilliant and brutal, St-Clair must outwit pathological killers to solve the most shocking murders, all while juggling a personal life just as challenging and as dangerous as the cases he solves.
25. The Expanse
Hundreds of years in the future, things are different than what we are used to after humans have colonized the solar system and Mars has become an independent military power. Rising tensions between Earth and Mars have put them on the brink of war.
Against this backdrop, a hardened detective and a rogue ship’s captain come together to investigate the case of a missing young woman. The investigation leads them on a race across the solar system that could expose the greatest conspiracy in human history.
24. Wilderness
Deliciously twisted thriller starring Jenna Coleman. Liv and Will seem to have it all. A rock-solid marriage. A glamorous new life in New York. Until Liv learns about the affair. Enter the American road trip she’s fantasied about. For Will, it’s a chance to make amends, for Liv it’s a very different prospect – a landscape where accidents happen all the time. The perfect place to get revenge.
23. River
`River’ is written and co-executive produced by Emmy winner Abi Morgan. The crime drama stars Stellan Skarsgard as detective John River, a genius whose unstable mind leaves him haunted by the ghosts of murder victims. Forever crossing between the worlds of the living and the dead, the officer strives to solve cases of those that occupy his troubled psyche. One death River struggles with is that of his colleague, but as he chases down a suspect, his own irrational behaviour causes a growing concern amongst the police force.
22. Detective McLean
Allison McLean is a tough and experienced detective, mother and wife in Seattle. When she and her partner must arrest her brother for aggravated assault, her world drastically changes as he’s convicted and sent to prison, leaving his two teenagers on the brink of foster care. Ultimately, she takes them into her home, ending up with four teenagers to raise as well as her job solving crimes.
21. Carnival Row
In this Amazon Original action thriller, a growing population of mythological immigrant creatures struggles to coexist with humans after the creatures’ exotic homelands are invaded by the empires of man.
The creatures are forbidden to live, love or fly with freedom, but hope lives in darkness. Human detective Rycroft “Philo” Philostrate and a refugee faerie, Vignette Stonemoss, rekindle a dangerous affair despite being in an increasingly intolerant society. Vignette has a secret that endangers Philo’s world during his most important case yet — a string of gruesome murders threatening the uneasy peace of the Row.
20. Deep Water
Detectives Tori Lustigman (Yael Stone) and Nick Manning (Noah Taylor) are assigned a brutal murder case in Bondi. They begin to uncover mounting evidence to suggest the killing is connected to a spate of unexplained deaths, “suicides”, and disappearances of gay men throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
Haunted by the disappearance of her teenage brother, Tori is fascinated by the case and soon becomes fixated on it. When more ritualistic murders occur that have the same bizarre signature, Tori and Nick put their relationships, their careers and lives on the line to reveal the truth.
19. Detective De Luca
Set in Bologna, Italy, during Benito Mussolini’s dictatorship, this four-part crime series follows an investigator who has an affinity for women and an uncompromising character that helps him solve cases.
18. A Private Affair
1940s, Galicia. Marina Quiroga, a bold upper class girl with the soul of a detective, decides with the help of Héctor, her loyal butler, to trap the killer who has been terrorizing her city.
17. The Feed
In near-future London, a man invents a brain implant that allows people to instantly share thoughts and emotions. However, when the technology falls into the wrong hands, users start to become murderous and the inventor’s family are driven apart.
16. Cold Squad
Sgt. Ali McCormick and her Vancouver Police colleagues in the department’s Homicide Division investigate new leads into previously unsolved cases as part of the titular Cold Squad. The Canadian show, which ran for seven seasons, saw numerous cast changes throughout its run.
15. The Field of Blood
Paddy Meehan is a newspaper reporter that gets personally involved in a murder investigation in the hopes of advancing her career.
14. The Border
The Border is a fast paced, hard driving dramatic series set in a paranoid post 9/11 world concerned with one topic: The Border.
The elite Immigration and Customs Security Squad (ICS) takes on the toughest security cases ranging from terrorist infiltrations and cross border police actions, to trafficking in everything from enriched uranium to abducted children.
13. The Widow
Georgia Wells believes that her husband, Will, died in a plane crash in the Congo three years ago. Since the accident, she has lived as a recluse in the Welsh countryside, away from civilization and the comforts of 21st century life. But her life changes when she sees Will in the background during a televised news report about the Congo.
That revelation shocks Georgia, and she becomes determined to prove that Will is still alive. She travels to Kinshasa, Congo’s capital, for the first time since the crash and reunites with Will’s business partner Judith and a local journalist whose wife also perished in the crash. Unaware of the danger she faces, Georgia sets out across Congo in an attempt to find Will. Kate Beckinsale stars as Georgia in her first starring role on a TV series.
12. The Confession
When Patricia Hall vanishes from the small Yorkshire town of Pudsey, her husband Keith becomes a suspect, caught in a storm of rumour and suspicion. Only after a year, when Keith Hall falls in love with a beautiful stranger, does the terrible truth about his wife’s disappearance seem to emerge in a shocking series of twists and revelations.
11. Arthur & George
When Conan Doyle’s wife passes, his world is filled with grief and mourning. Distracted by the news of the Great Wyrley Rippings, Conan Doyle decides he wants to meet the solicitor, George Edalji, who stands accused of mutilating animals and sending death threats. Having served seven years in Pentonville Prison, George is released only to find that his career has been ruined beyond repair – that is, until he meets Conan Doyle.
10. Them
Amazon Prime Original: THEM is an anthology series that explores terror in America. The first season, set in 1950’s, centers around a Black family who move from North Carolina to an all-white Los Angeles neighborhood.
Their idyllic home becomes ground zero where malevolent forces, next door and otherworldly, threaten to taunt, ravage and destroy them. Subtitles available now. Dubbing available everywhere on 7/23.
9. The Broker’s Man
The Broker’s Man is a BBC British television drama series centred on the work of Jimmy Griffin, an ex-detective who applies his skills as a fraud investigator for an insurance company.
8. The Consultant
After an unspeakable tragedy at CompWare, a games studio based in downtown Los Angeles, a mysterious consultant, Regus Patoff, blows into town and takes charge.
7. Tell Me Your Secrets
Tell Me Your Secrets is a complex thriller revolving around three characters, each with troubling pasts clouding their intersecting motives:
Emma (Lily Rabe) is a young woman who once loved a dangerous killer, John (Hamish Linklater) is a former serial predator desperate for redemption, and a grieving mother Mary (Amy Brenneman) who is obsessed with finding her missing daughter.
6. Sneaky Pete
Giovanni Ribisi plays the role of Marius, a con man who tries to leave his old life behind by assuming the identity of his cell mate, Pete. While Pete’s family doesn’t have reason to suspect that he is not their long-lost loved one, they are a colorful group with their own secrets and lies that could make life as dangerous as the world Marius was hoping to escape.
Marius must find a way to keep his lies from backfiring as he deals with unexpected situations that come his way. Executive producers include Graham Yost and Bryan Cranston.
5. Fortitude
Fortitude is a town in the Arctic that is unlike any other place on Earth. Surrounded by the picturesque polar landscape and filled with residents who form a tight-knit community, the town has never been the site of a violent crime.
That changes, though, when a research scientist is killed, which leads to an investigation that prompts police officers begin to suspect and mistrust one another. Members of the community also struggle to understand the terror that has been unleashed among them. While all this is going on, above-average temperatures result in record ice melt, which reveals secrets that have long been hidden underneath Fortitude’s frozen landscape.
4. Goliath
This is perhaps one of the best crime shows Amazon has created so far! Once a powerful lawyer, Billy McBride is now a washed up ambulance chaser, who spends more time in bars than the courtroom.
When Billy reluctantly agrees to pursue a wrongful death lawsuit against the massive law firm he helped create, a vast and deadly conspiracy comes to light. Billy and his team end up in a life-or-death trial against the ultimate foe, which could end up helping Billy find redemption and exact revenge on the firm. The Amazon original series is created by David E. Kelley and Jonathan Shapiro.
3. The Boarding School: Las Cumbres
Amazon Prime Exclusive: After a failed escape attempt, Manuel disappears in the woods at the hands of a mysterious man in a crow mask. Despite being subjected to strict discipline, Paul, Amaia and his other friends never stop looking for him.
Their adventures lead to discovering that the old cult that inhabited the woods, the Crow’s Nest, is still committing crimes and Las Cumbres is more than just a school.
2. Bosch
This is one of our favorite shows: Bosch is an American police procedural web television series, starring Titus Welliver as Los Angeles Police detective Harry Bosch. The show was developed for Amazon by Eric Overmyer, and the first season takes its inspiration from the Michael Connelly novels City of Bones, Echo Park, and The Concrete Blonde.
It was one of two drama pilots that Amazon streamed online in early 2014 (together with The After), and viewers offered their opinions on it before the studio decided whether to place a series order. Season 5 was released on April 18, 2019, and season 6 was confirmed by executive producer Michael Connelly.
1. Varg Veum
Trond Espen Seim stars as Norwegian private investigator Varg Veum, based on the bestselling novels by Gunnar Staalesen.
