# The 50 Greatest Detective TV Series of All Time

> Rumpled lieutenants, consulting geniuses, small-town sergeants and Nordic loners, drawn from six decades of television on both sides of the Atlantic. Pick the sleuth whose cases you would rewatch first.

*By YPB Team · Published October 24, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/the-50-greatest-detective-tv-series-of-all-time*

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## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **Sherlock** — score 1000/1000
   Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman reboot Conan Doyle's detective in modern London (2010-2017).
2. **Columbo** — score 764/1000
   Peter Falk's rumpled LAPD lieutenant outwits wealthy murderers in the inverted-mystery classic (1971-2003).
3. **Psych** — score 689/1000
   James Roday's hyper-observant fake psychic cons the Santa Barbara police into hiring him (2006-2014).
4. **Death in Paradise** — score 632/1000
   A fish-out-of-water British detective solves murders on a Caribbean island in the BBC's cosy hit (2011-).
5. **Vera** — score 632/1000
   Brenda Blethyn's shambolic DCI Vera Stanhope solves Northumberland murders (2011-2025).
6. **Cracker** — score 619/1000
   Robbie Coltrane's brilliant, dissolute criminal psychologist Fitz helps Manchester police (1993-2006).
7. **Jonathan Creek** — score 600/1000
   Alan Davies's magic-trick designer solves seemingly impossible locked-room mysteries (1997-2016).
8. **Line of Duty** — score 600/1000
   Jed Mercurio's anti-corruption unit AC-12 interrogates bent coppers in the BBC's most-watched drama of the century (2012-2021).
9. **The Mentalist** — score 600/1000
   Simon Baker's former fake psychic Patrick Jane consults for the CBI while hunting Red John (2008-2015).
10. **Life on Mars** — score 564/1000
   John Simm's modern detective wakes up in 1973 Manchester alongside Philip Glenister's Gene Hunt (2006-2007).
11. **Magnum, P.I.** — score 563/1000
   Tom Selleck's Hawaiian private investigator, Ferrari and moustache defined 1980s TV (1980-1988).
12. **Ironside** — score 479/1000
   Raymond Burr's wheelchair-using San Francisco consultant solved crimes for eight seasons (1967-1975).
13. **Midsomer Murders** — score 479/1000
   Picturesque English villages with astonishing body counts in the long-running ITV whodunit (1997-).
14. **Prime Suspect** — score 479/1000
   Helen Mirren's DCI Jane Tennison fights sexism and killers in the landmark British procedural (1991-2006).
15. **Veronica Mars** — score 479/1000
   Kristen Bell's teenage private eye solves high-school and small-town crimes in the cult neo-noir (2004-2019).
16. **The Bridge (Bron/Broen)** — score 428/1000
   Sofia Helin's Saga Norén and a Danish partner probe cross-border killings in the Swedish-Danish hit (2011-2018).
17. **Twin Peaks** — score 428/1000
   Kyle MacLachlan's FBI agent Dale Cooper investigates Laura Palmer's murder in David Lynch's surreal landmark (1990-1991).
18. **Agatha Christie's Poirot** — score 428/1000
   David Suchet played Hercule Poirot for 25 years, adapting every Christie Poirot story (1989-2013).
19. **Endeavour** — score 428/1000
   Shaun Evans plays a young Morse in the acclaimed 1960s-set prequel (2012-2023).
20. **Kojak** — score 428/1000
   Telly Savalas's lollipop-sucking NYPD lieutenant became a 1970s icon (1973-1978).
21. **Hawaii Five-O** — score 428/1000
   Jack Lord's Steve McGarrett and 'Book 'em, Danno' ran twelve seasons in the original island procedural (1968-1980).
22. **The Fall** — score 371/1000
   Gillian Anderson's DSI Stella Gibson hunts Jamie Dornan's Belfast serial killer (2013-2016).
23. **Moonlighting** — score 371/1000
   Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd's bickering private eyes turned the detective show into screwball comedy (1985-1989).
24. **Mare of Easttown** — score 371/1000
   Kate Winslet's small-town Pennsylvania detective anchors the Emmy-winning 2021 limited series.
25. **Bosch** — score 371/1000
   Titus Welliver plays Michael Connelly's LAPD detective Harry Bosch across seven seasons (2014-2021).
26. **Happy Valley** — score 371/1000
   Sarah Lancashire's Sergeant Catherine Cawood faces down a kidnapper in Sally Wainwright's acclaimed Yorkshire drama (2014-2023).
27. **NYPD Blue** — score 371/1000
   Dennis Franz's Andy Sipowicz anchors Steven Bochco's gritty, boundary-pushing precinct drama (1993-2005).
28. **Cagney & Lacey** — score 306/1000
   The first US police drama led by two women, winning multiple Emmys (1982-1988).
29. **Monk** — score 306/1000
   Tony Shalhoub's obsessive-compulsive former detective solves San Francisco crimes in the Emmy-winning dramedy (2002-2009).
30. **Poker Face** — score 306/1000
   Natasha Lyonne's human lie detector solves a case a week in Rian Johnson's Columbo-style throwback (2023-).
31. **Inspector Morse** — score 306/1000
   John Thaw's opera-loving Oxford detective became a British TV institution (1987-2000).
32. **Luther** — score 306/1000
   Idris Elba's volatile DCI John Luther hunts London's most disturbing killers (2010-2019).
33. **Dragnet** — score 306/1000
   Jack Webb's Sergeant Joe Friday set the template for the police procedural (1951-1959, 1967-1970).
34. **Castle** — score 306/1000
   Nathan Fillion's mystery novelist shadows Stana Katic's NYPD detective in the long-running procedural (2009-2016).
35. **Taggart** — score 306/1000
   The gritty Glasgow procedural became Britain's longest-running police drama (1983-2010).
36. **Miami Vice** — score 306/1000
   Crockett and Tubbs's pastel-suited vice detectives set the style of the 1980s (1984-1989).
37. **Unforgotten** — score 306/1000
   Nicola Walker and Sanjeev Bhaskar reopen decades-old cold cases in ITV's humane procedural (2015-).
38. **Lewis** — score 231/1000
   Kevin Whately's Inspector Lewis steps out of Morse's shadow with Laurence Fox's Hathaway (2006-2015).
39. **Broadchurch** — score 231/1000
   David Tennant and Olivia Colman investigate a boy's death in a Dorset seaside town (2013-2017).
40. **Shetland** — score 231/1000
   Douglas Henshall's DI Jimmy Pérez investigates murders across the windswept Scottish islands (2013-).
41. **Agatha Christie's Marple** — score 231/1000
   Geraldine McEwan and Julia McKenzie play the village sleuth in ITV's glossy Christie adaptations (2004-2013).
42. **Inspector Montalbano** — score 231/1000
   Luca Zingaretti's Sicilian commissario from Andrea Camilleri's novels became Italy's defining detective export (1999-2021).
43. **True Detective** — score 231/1000
   HBO's anthology crime series launched with Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson's Louisiana investigation (2014-).
44. **The Rockford Files** — score 231/1000
   James Garner's ex-con private eye works out of a Malibu trailer in the beloved 1970s series (1974-1980).
45. **Wallander** — score 231/1000
   Kenneth Branagh's brooding Swedish inspector Kurt Wallander headlines the BBC adaptation of Henning Mankell (2008-2016).
46. **A Touch of Frost** — score 143/1000
   David Jason's irascible DI Jack Frost ran for 18 years on ITV (1992-2010).
47. **The Killing (Forbrydelsen)** — score 143/1000
   Sofie Gråbøl's Sarah Lund and her jumper made the Danish original a global Nordic-noir phenomenon (2007-2012).
48. **Foyle's War** — score 143/1000
   Michael Kitchen's quietly principled detective solves wartime crimes on England's south coast (2002-2015).
49. **Elementary** — score 0/1000
   Jonny Lee Miller's recovering-addict Sherlock Holmes partners with Lucy Liu's Joan Watson in New York (2012-2019).
50. **Murder, She Wrote** — score 0/1000
   Angela Lansbury's mystery writer Jessica Fletcher solved a murder a week for twelve seasons (1984-1996).

Tags: tv shows, crime, all time, mystery, detectives