When it comes to Freevee, our list of best crime, mystery and thriller shows for 2023 includes classic favorites such as Murder She Wrote as well as new releases like Troppo.
We like the fact that Amazon Freevee has a nice coverage of classic crime and mystery shows and our picks reflect that. We also cover Amazon’s Prime Video shows and you can check out 45 Best Crime Drama And Thriller Shows On Amazon Prime: 2022 Edition as well as our full Amazon coverage here.
Mystery Tribune’s Watching Lists provide a comprehensive coverage of the most notable crime, mystery and thriller shows across major streaming services.
The Rockford Files
Jim Rockford is an ex-con and private detective. He was falsely convicted of a crime he didn’t commit, but that doesn’t stop him from using his ex-con buddies to help him solve crimes. Nothing comes easy for Rockford, but he works hard and usually gets shot at or beat up at least once per episode.
Bosch: Legacy
One of our favorite shows on Freevee: Harry Bosch embarks on the next chapter of his career and finds himself working with onetime enemy, Honey Chandler.
Murder, She Wrote
Season 1: Mystery writer and amateur detective Jessica Fletcher – a down-to-earth, middle-aged widow – ferrets out the criminals in idyllic Cabot Cove, Maine, which apparently is the murder capital of the United States for the show’s 12-season run. Though while travelling, she uncovers a fair number of killers as well.
Troppo
An eccentric private investigator with a criminal past recruits a disgraced ex-cop to help solve the disappearance of a Korean tech pioneer in the wilds of Far North Queensland.
Unforgettable
Carrie Wells, a former police detective, has a rare ability to remember virtually everything she experiences including detailed visual recall. She returns to police work and uses her ability to solve crimes.
Banacek
An insurance investigator tries to find an armoured car carrying gold bullion.
Perry Mason
Defense attorney Perry Mason defends dozens of falsely accused people over the course of this long-running courtroom drama, and he manages to clear each and every one of them, usually by drawing out the real criminal on the witness stand. He is capably assisted by investigator Paul Drake and secretary Della Street, and is a continual thorn in the side of District Attorney Hamilton Burger.
Hunter
One of the most under the radar shows on Freevee: Sergeant Rick Hunter and his colleague Dee Dee McCall embark on a tough fight against the underworld with cunning, wit, and bullets.
Magnum P.I.
Magnum, P.I. is an American crime drama television series starring Tom Selleck as Thomas Magnum, a private investigator (P.I.) living on Oahu, Hawaii.
Person of Interest
Former CIA agent Reese (Jim Caviezel) — now presumed dead — and billionaire software genius Finch (Michael Emerson) join forces as a vigilante crime-fighting team. Using Finch’s program, which employs pattern recognition to determine individuals who will soon be involved in violent crimes, they combine Reese’s covert-operations training and Finch’s money and cyberskills to stop crimes before they happen. Former Army Intelligence Support Activity operative Sameen Shaw joins the pair in their quest.
Leverage
Former insurance investigator Nate Ford and his band of cohorts act as modern-day Robin Hoods, pulling elaborate scams targeted against the greedy and the corrupt. Nate was inspired to begin his con business when his former employer refused to pay for treatment that could have saved his son’s life.
Alias
Another classic and a Freevee favorite: A young woman learns she has a familial history of undercover work and agrees to become an international spy for a supposed secret branch of the CIA. The secrecy complicates her social and love lives, but it’s nothing compared to what happens when she finds out her employer has no ties to the CIA.
Dragnet
Just the facts, ma’am. Every week, Sgt. Joe Friday follows the clues, interviews witnesses and spews a lot of crime jargon as he tries to catch one perp or another. For the majority of the show’s 1950s run, he was partnered with Officer Smith, but when the show was brought back in 1967, he had Officer Gannon as a partner.
The Saint
Simon Templar is the Saint. He robs from the criminally rich and gives to the poor and deserving — while keeping a nice percentage for himself. His strict moral code makes him target those who got their wealth through nefarious means – corrupt politicians, warmongers and the like. His criminal activities put him at odds with the law, but his wit, charm and intelligence tends to keeps him one step ahead of the police.
Law & Order: LA
This entry in the venerable Dick Wolf-produced `Law & Order’ franchise mixes things up by taking the show’s tried-and-true formula out of New York and moving it to Los Angeles. Corey Stoll, Rachel Ticotin, Alana De La Garza, Alfred Molina and Terrence Howard star in the crime drama.
Midsomer Murders
Based on the crime-novel series by author Caroline Graham, `Midsomer Murders’ follows the efforts of Detective Chief Inspector John Barnaby to solve crimes that occur in the wealthy, isolated English county of Midsomer, a picturesque and peaceful place on the outside but one filled with amoral and snobbish eccentrics with all kinds of vices. Chief Inspector Barnaby is the younger cousin of DCI Tom Barnaby who retired in 2011. His right-hand man is Detective Sergeant Jamie Winter, who is young, keen and smart as a whip. ‘Midsummer Murders’ is the UK’s longest-running contemporary detective drama, having aired on ITV since 1997.
White Collar
The third time turns out to be the charm for criminal Neal Caffrey. He has been eluding FBI agent Peter Burke for years, a run that finally comes to an end with his capture. But after the resourceful prisoner escapes from a maximum-security facility, then is nabbed once again by Burke, Caffrey suggests a different end-game: In return for freedom, he’ll help the Feds catch long-sought criminals. Though skeptical, Burke soon realizes that Caffrey’s instincts and insight are a rare commodity. Caffrey’s trusted friend and co-conspirator with ties to the criminal underworld, Mozzie, also becomes a useful source for Burke and the FBI.
Bones
Dr Temperance Brennan, a forensic anthropologist who works at the Jeffersonian Institution and also writes books, has an impressive ability to read clues from victims’ bones. Consequently, law enforcement calls her to assist with investigations when remains are so badly decomposed, burned or destroyed that standard identification methods are useless. Brennan often finds herself teamed with Special Agent Seeley Booth, a former Army sniper, who mistrusts science and scientists when it comes to solving crimes but who has developed respect for Brennan, both professionally and personally.
The Bridge
When a woman is found murdered in the middle of Oresund Bridge on the border between Sweden and Denmark, Swedish detective Saga Noren and Martin Rohde from the Copenhagen police department are called to the scene. And what they find is shocking: It’s not one murder, but two, as the bodies have been brutally cut off at the waist and joined together, the torso of a high-profile Swedish politician and the lower body of a Danish prostitute. The detectives realize they are dealing with a ruthless killer who has been planning his crimes for many years, and the Swedish and Danish police must work together to bring a madman to justice.
Alex Rider
Alex Rider is an ordinary teenager who is recruited by a subdivision of MI6 as a teenage spy to infiltrate places that others are unable to. He uses skills he didn’t know he had to become an extraordinary spy.
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 behavior causes a growing concern amongst the police force.
Lost
The survivors of Oceanic Flight 815 were 1,000 miles off course when they crashed on a lush, mysterious island. Each person possesses a shocking secret, but they’ve got nothing on the island itself, which harbors a monstrous security system, a series of underground bunkers and a group of violent survivalists hidden in the shadows.
Law & Order: UK
In a rare switch for programming usually adapted from one side of the Atlantic to the other, the U.K. is the recipient this time around. Dick Wolf’s long-running U.S. police procedural drama gets a British tweak, as the action shifts from New York to London. Despite the change of scenery, the show’s fundamental setup remains comfortably the same: the police investigate a crime in the first half, and the prosecutors go after the offenders in the second half. The only major differences are the accents and white wigs.
The Librarians
Cued by TNT’s popular `The Librarian’ trilogy, this series introduces new members of an ancient group protecting mystical artefacts. Hidden below the Metropolitan Public Library, the secret society’s longtime leader is Flynn Carsen, whose job has become very complicated.
To help, the Library recruits Eve, a counterterrorism agent responsible for organizational security; Jacob, who has encyclopedic knowledge of art, architecture and history; Cassandra, who links auditory/sensory hallucinations to memory; and Ezekiel, a skilled thief and master technician. Overseeing them is Jenkins, the reclusive caretaker of the Library’s sleepy little outpost in Oregon. Noah Wyle executive produces and recurs as Flynn, the role he played in the movie series.
Lewis
In this spinoff of `Inspector Morse,’ Inspector Robbie Lewis and his partner, DS James Hathaway, investigate more murder mysteries against the glorious backdrop of Oxford.
The First 48
Detectives in major cities in the United States race against the clock in the wake of homicides, knowing that if they don’t find a lead within the first 48 hours, their chances of solving a case are cut in half. The programme shows how detectives use forensic evidence and witness interviews to help identify suspects.
Sanctuary
Enigmatic Dr. Helen Magnus and her team — forensic psychiatrist Dr. Will Zimmerman, tech genius Henry and Helen’s daughter, Ashley — study the eerie beings most humans dismiss as the imaginary stuff of nightmares, but who secretly are living and moving about in the modern world in this sci-fi series that is filmed with extensive use of green screens and “virtual sets.”
Code Black
Based on the award-winning documentary of the same name, this medical drama follows the staff members in the nation’s busiest emergency room as they cope with a staggering influx of patients, which can outweigh their limited resources, resulting in a condition known as code black. Residency Director Dr. Leanne Rorish — who is known for her success with high-risk procedures in the trauma area — leads residents Malaya and Angus, among others. Senior nurse Jesse Sallander manages the residents and serves as Leanne’s confidant, with doctors Rollie Guthrie, Will Campbell and Heather Pinkney rounding out the group. Together, the doctors and nurses race to save lives in an overwhelmed system.
On Death Row
When and how a person will die is unknown until it actually happens. Unless that person is on death row, where inmates are told the precise day, hour and minute of their deaths. This series documents the story of crime and the death penalty as filmmaker Werner Herzog interviews American inmates as they await their deaths. In the beginning of the programme, Herzog states that he does not believe any person should be executed and his goal with `Death Row’ is to understand what it is like to face the death penalty, not excuse the inmates for their crimes.
Dominion
This post-apocalyptic drama takes place in the year 25 A.E., when an army of lower angels has waged war against mankind. Coming out of the 25-year-long battle are newly fortified cities that protect humans who survived the war. The largest of the cities — Vega, formerly Las Vegas — sees two houses vying for control, as political upheaval and a shift in power are on the horizon.
Alex, a soldier helping protect Vega’s aristocracy, is watched over by archangel Michael, the only angel to turn against his kind and side with humans during the Extermination War. Alex has a secret relationship with Claire, daughter of the Lord of the City, who wants her to marry someone else to help move the city past the caste system.
The Prague Mysteries
An experienced Austro-Hungarian criminologist is assigned to investigate a series of murders around Prague and its surrounding suburbs.
Case Histories
Set amidst the iconic landscapes of modern Edinburgh, `Case Histories’ brings to life Kate Atkinson’s novels and the complexity of its hero, Jackson Brodie, played by Jason Isaacs. A former soldier and policeman, Brodie now comes to the rescue of the bereaved, the lost and the dysfunctional as a private detective, even as he struggles with his own past and present-day personal problems. He presents a tough-guy persona that hides a soft, deeply empathetic heart, and it’s that dichotomy that forms the backbone of and enriches each story.
The Dresden Files
Harry Dresden is a private detective who operates out of a storefront in Chicago. Not your average P.I., Harry is a practicing wizard who solves cases using otherworldly magic. Keeping tabs on Harry is Morgan, a warden from the governing body that supervises wizards. Police Lt. Connie Murphy can’t figure out why Dresden is so successful. At home, our hero is pestered by a wizard ghost named Bob, who wants to escape the confines of Dresden’s apartment.
