If there’s one thing Britain does well, other than complaining, it’s making great crime shows. Now, we’re not going to get into any arguments about this, other countries also create fantastic crime shows that we regularly feature here on the site. But today we’re going to look at some superb programmes – sometimes based on the books we love – from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. And they’re all shows you can watch free in the UK on the BBC iPlayer, both on your device or on a smart TV.
These are our picks, hand selected by the Crime Fiction Lover team, and we know you’ll love them. The list includes 12, but it’s not exhaustive, and if you’ve got a favourite that we haven’t mentioned, by all means tell us what it is and why you like it in the comments below.
Or, if you’ve missed any of these, it’s time to catch up. They’re all eminently binge-able! Let the mysteries begin…
Line of Duty
AC-12. The anti-corruption unit impervious to corruption. Yet across the six highly binge-able series of this excellent procedural crime drama, the baddies constantly try to frame them – to make it appear that they are corrupt. How close this show is to real policing, who knows, but every minute is gripping, with acting powered by Vicky McClure as Kate Fleming, Martin Compson as Steve Arnott and Adrian Dunbar as Ted Hastings, who heads the unit. The crux of it is that regular coppers don’t trust the anti-corruption unit, and organised crime is able to play on that mistrust to foil their missions. The series began in 2012 with an investigation into a DI whose conviction rate seems too good to be true, and concluded in 2021 with a final series that gets to the heart of Line of Duty’s overarching storyline. Who is the mysterious H, embedded in the police? And are they controlled by organised crime or perhaps even one of its leaders? If you haven’t watched Line of Duty, you must.
Watch Line of Duty on the iPlayer
Happy Valley
From the moment we meet police sergeant Catherine Cawood (Sarah Lancashire), it’s clear that this isn’t a copper who plays by the rules. She’s also not a woman to be crossed, and violent offender Tommy Lee Royce (James Norton) is top of her hit list. Catherine blames Tommy for her daughter’s death and is raising Ryan (Rhys Connah), the child of Tommy and her daughter. Sounds complex but really isn’t as the family drama coincides with crime solving in the sometimes harsh setting of Hebden Bridge, in Yorkshire. In the first series, Tommy is released from prison and gets involved with a kidnapping as Catherine fights to have him sent back to prison. Season two involves a suspected serial killer operating in the area and Tommy’s attempts to connect with Ryan from jail. And in the explosive third series, Tommy escapes from prison and all hell breaks loose as he and Catherine have a final reckoning. Really deep characters, powerful acting and a fabulous northern setting. Unmissable.
Watch Happy Valley on the iPlayer
Luther
Written by Neil Cross, the New Zealand-based British author whose psychological crime fiction has inspired plenty of contemporary authors, Luther documents a cat-and-mouse game between an evil genius in Alice Morgan (Ruth Wilson) and DCI John Luther (Idris Elba). It begins with the murder of Morgan’s parents, and with Luther’s personal life falling apart it’s trying to solve the case that keeps him together. But Morgan will get closer to Luther than anyone should feel comfortable with, all the while evading capture. There are huge twists and betrayals across the five series, which garnered nine million viewers at times. The acting is impactful, the plotting incisive and the viewing gripping. It’s no surprise both actors have gone on to bigger things, and there was a Luther film in 2023, now on Netflix. Who is the narcissist? Is it the mouse, or is it the cat?
Watch Luther on the iPlayer
Killing Eve
Sometimes it’s a matter of style over substance, but boy what style! This spy thriller has something for everyone – explosive action, black humour, strong female leads, a deadly conspiracy and even catwalk fashion. Villanelle (Jodie Comer) is a deadly Russian assassin working for a mysterious cabal called The Twelve. Eve Polastri (Sandra Oh) is a seasoned MI5 agent working off the books for MI6 and Villanelle is fascinated with her. Does she want to kill Eve or be her best friend? Or both? So begins a game of cat and mouse between the two. That is at the heart of all four series, in which it’s a toss up whether Konstantin Vasiliev, Villanelle’s handler, and Carolyn Martens, Eve’s MI6 boss, are trying to rein them in or let loose the havoc they bring. Based on the Villanelle novels by Luke Jennings, the writing by Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Comer’s bravura performance light up the screen. Brutally violent at times, it’s also brutally funny, full of surprises and has a great sound track too.
Watch Killing Eve on iPlayer
Peaky Blinders
The words ‘period crime drama’ often translate to ‘cosy old-fashioned mystery’, in the UK especially. But that firmly is not the case with Peaky Blinders. Set in Birmingham in the 1920s, it’s full of brutal gangland criminality and plenty of bloody retribution. Loosely based on a real-life gang of young men, the firm becomes a major player in everything from horse racing to international black marketeering to Ireland’s sectarian strife. Tommy (Cillian Murphy) and his Aunt Polly (Helen McCrory) head up the Shelby clan, who come from the Irish traveller community. Their nemesis, to begin with, is the copper Chester Campbell (Sam Neill). Over six seasons, airing between 2013 and 2022, Tommy’s empire grows while the show itself is driven by top performances from both main cast and cameo actors. It’s the over-the-top scripts, blistering action and authentic period setting that have etched Peaky Blinders into the British consciousness. When you see a stag do on the weekend, for example, there’s always a good chance they’ll be in flat caps and mangling the Brummie accent. Or have a Peaky Blinders haircut at the barbers. A movie that continues Tommy’s story is due later in 2025, and a new TV series will pick up the gang’s development after World War II next year.
Watch Peaky Blinders on iPlayer
Shetland
The beloved Shetland novels by Ann Cleeves provide the inspiration behind the stories and characters set on the rocky archipelago that stretches north into the dark, cold Atlantic. Douglas Henshall as DI Jimmy Perez leads a squad of detectives as they police local communities and families with more deep, dark secrets than you might expect. The setting is spectacularly presented, with plenty of racing along single track lanes observed by sheep, to hidden coves and forgotten bothies. The first series, released in 2013, begins with the shooting of an old woman, a family feud on the islands, and you’ll witness ancient Shetland rituals too. Things grow darker and cases get more involved from there, with Perez driving the show, alongside Mark Bonnar as Duncan Hunter and Alison O’Donnell as Tosh. After series seven, Perez departs and we meet DI Ruth Calder (Ashley Jensen), a Shetlander who returns from the mainland as an experienced detective and gives the show fresh impetus. Tosh and Calder make a strong pairing now. Bring on season 10!
Watch Shetland on iPlayer
The Fall
To Northern Ireland now for the serial killer thriller that revealed the talent of actor Jamie Dornan. He plays the sly and elusive rapist and murderer Paul Spector, who is pursued across three series by Gillian Anderson as DS Stella Gibson. Stella arrives from the Met to review the ongoing investigation into the murders of young professional women in Belfast, and faces a touch of sexism in the force along with a fair amount of politics. But that’s nothing compared to the misogyny and sadism of our killer, who has his eye on Gibson and her team. This is proper contemporary noir with a psychological edge and a chilling sense of menace. It makes the most of a city still haunted by the Troubles. There are some big twists as Spector seems to writhe out of Gibson’s grasp every time she corners him. If you like a chilling procedural, this is as creepy as it gets.
Watch The Fall on iPlayer
Hinterland
This melancholy, poetic Welsh series Y Gwyll makes the most of that strange sense of claustrophobia you can feel in the nooks and crannies of beautifully bleak West Wales. It’s set in Aberystwyth and the surrounding Ceredigion countryside. Distant and troubled, DCI Tom Mathias (Richard Harrington) is new at the nick in Aberystwyth and will dive straight into cases that do nothing to improve his mood, with DI Mared Rhys (Mali Harries) at his side. They tackle some seriously noir-ish crime over three series, delving back as far as WWII and involving an abandoned children’s home. A stylish and well written series from creators Ed Talfan and Ed Thomas, this is quintessential Celtic crime fiction. The programme was made in both Welsh and English and has been compared to the best Scandinavian crime shows – perhaps for the remoteness of the setting, landscapes and weather (rain, mist, more rain) – however it does feel uniquely Welsh, with plenty of texture. The cinematography and attention to detail are outstanding.
Watch Hinterland on iPlayer
Ludwig
The doppelgänger twist never gets old. Here David Mitchell plays newspaper puzzle setter John Taylor, whose identical twin brother James is a detective in Cambridge CID. James has gone missing, so his wife Lucy (Anna Maxwell Martin) asks John to pose as his brother at work to try and find him. It could be something to do with a big case he was working on. Hey presto, John’s puzzle expertise enables him to solve a series of murders, but cracking the case of what happened to his brother is trickier and becomes the overarching storyline for series one, and presumably series two. With a main character who is reclusive and possibly neurodivergent, Ludwig is executed with a light tone and is full of humour – perfect for comedian Mitchell, while Maxwell Martin aces the family drama element of the programme. Crime Fiction Lover readers chose Ludwig as our Crime Show of the Year in 2024 and they’re not wrong.
Watch Ludwig on iPlayer
Strike
Adapted from the Cormoran Strike novels by Robert Galbraith (aka JK Rowling), this BBC crime drama delivers deliciously curious cases across six seasons. Strike (Tom Burke) is a war vet and an amputee, who is now a private detective in London’s West End but with roots out in Cornwall. Robin Ellacott (Holly Grainger) comes to work with him as an assistant and as the series progresses becomes a fully fledged detective, working her own cases. It all starts with a model falling to her death in Mayfair – or was she pushed? Strike and Robin will search for a missing author, try to figure out why someone has sent them a severed leg… Well, that’s plenty to be getting on with. The characters, their issues and challenges, and the… how shall we put it?… the subtly growing closeness between them, gives the show plenty of depth. The city of London is portrayed in all its sometimes faded glory. The show is called CB Strike in the US.
Watch Strike on iPlayer
Rebus
There have been two stabs at making TV series based on Ian Rankin’s excellent Rebus novels. This third one is by far the finest. John Rebus is an Edinburgh cop in the edge. He’s almost killed his nemesis Big Ger Cafferty, which hangs over him across the episodes. But a bigger problem is that there’s a killer loose in Edinburgh, who seems to be targeting a drug gang. Perhaps there’s a new player in the city’s underworld, and perhaps they’ve chosen the wrong tribe to tangle with – the firm from Belfast none-too-happy with developments. A little like Luther, Rebus is struggling to accept the new man in his ex-wife’s life and relations with his brother are less than brotherly. Speaking of kin, the actor who plays Rebus, Richard Rankin, is not related to author Ian Rankin, but on the evidence of the first series he does seem to have Rebus in his blood. Tartan noir at its finest, from page to screen.
Watch Rebus on iPlayer
Magpie (and Moonflower) Murders
Even if you don’t love cosy crime fiction or the tropes of Golden Age mysteries, you’ll probably love every minute of this clever reinvention of that corner of the genre. Based on Anthony Horowitz’s novels, these metafictional mysteries star Lesley Manville as book editor Susan Ryland and Tim McMullan as the fictional detective in the books she edits, Atticus Pünd. The storytelling in Magpie Murders fizzes with wit and style, and in the first series Susan is proofing a story set in the 1950s in which a woman falls down the stairs in a grand old house and dies, while in her world the author Alan Conway falls from the parapet of a grand old house… and dies. The parallels are too great and just as she realises this, Atticus Pünd begins appearing to her proffering advice. It sounds kooky but it’s brilliant. As Susan investigates, she begins to realise that Conway left clues in the manuscript that suggest his own demise may not have been suicide but murder. Pünd and Susan are detectives in different metaphysical worlds, yet they commune as only fiction can accommodate. The second series is called Moonflower Murders and a third, based on Marble Hall Murders, is in production.
Watch Magpie Murders on iPlayer
Which is your favourite? Or maybe your favourite isn’t on our list. If that’s the case, tell us what it is and why it’s a great British crime show in the comments below.
