The Best Shows About Serial Killers

Image via HBO

Starring: Sandra Oh, Jodie Comer, Fiona Shaw, Kim Bodnia

You could easily argue that the protagonist in BBC’s Killing Eve isn’t technically a serial killer—she’s actually a trained assassin. However, she is described as a psychopath, and her body count is too high for her to be considered your run of the mill criminal. Villanelle (Comer) is an unstoppable killer who always hits her mark; Eve (Oh) is a menial security officer for British Intelligence, who becomes obsessed with trying to catch her new nemesis. Though the cat-and-mouse relationship between detective and criminal is a popular one in crime shows, the intensity of Villanelle’s kills and Eve’s drive to not only stop her, but also her borderline obsessive desire to learn everything about her, delivers the suspense we’re all looking for in a good murder-driven series. Oh’s performance landed her the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Television Series.

Starring: Amy Adams, Patricia Clarkson, Eliza Scanlen, Chris Messina

Amy Adams didn’t have to go that hard, but she did, and how can we ever repay her? Leading a cast of seriously dramatic heavy hitters, Adams portrays the protagonist in the HBO adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s debut novel Sharp Objects. Camille Preaker (Adams) is a journalist who is on assignment in her podunk hometown, covering the abduction of two missing girls, one of whom has already been found dead. Between trying to avoid her troubled past and flirting with Richard Willis (Messina), the smoldering new-in-town detective, Camille finds herself in the middle of a murder investigation involving a truly sick killer. Though Camille’s personal life is a prevalent plot structure, the multiple murders shaking up her Cotillion-esque small town are the driving mysteries that made this instant-hit series one of the most tense watches of 2018.

Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Woody Harrelson, Michelle Monaghan

The A-list pairing of Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson, and the combination of sole writer Nic Pizzolatto and sole director Cary Fukunaga set the stage for what would become a high-water mark in prestige TV, especially in the anthology genre. The Louisiana-set show wavers between present day (2012) and 1995, when homicide detectives Rust Cohle (McConaughey) and Marty Hart (Harrelson) investigate the murder of prostitute Dora Lange. Her dead body is posed in a field with deer antlers—a motif Hannibal also used. More serial murders have occurred, leading Cohle and Hart to set their differences aside and detect if the murders are connected (they are). True Detective is more than a serial killer show, though. It gives us Cohle-isms (“time is a flat circle”), the cosmic world of Carcosa and The Yellow King mythology, Lone Star beer aluminum men, creepy Blair Witch-like bird contraptions, the icky killer’s relationship with his sister, and the “battle between light and dark.” The first season set the standard so high that True Detective’s second run was deemed a failure. Here’s hoping season 3 can redeem itself.

Stars: Vera Farmiga, Freddie Highmore, Nestor Carbonell

The way Norman Bates (Highmore) says the word “mother” is creepy as hell, because we know the story of Psycho and we know it’ll eventually end with him cuddling his mom’s putrefied corpse. Norma (Farmiga) and Norman are close. Very close. Like, sleep-in-the-same bed close. Like, cover-up-my-son’s-murders close. Although the Bates Motel’s origin story of showing how a teenage Norman became the mother-loving serial murderer from Psycho, the series takes place in modern day, in the fictional town of White Pine Bay, Oregon. As the show progresses, it’s clear Norman believes his “mother” killed his teacher and his friend’s mother, among other people. Norma realizes the extent of her son’s issues and admits him to a tony asylum, but that doesn’t last long. Norman comes home and finds out his mother has fallen in love and married his nemesis, Sheriff Romero (Carbonell). It’s downhill from here, and the season 4 finale is both disturbing and sad—we feel sorry for Norman. Highmore—who now is on the show The Good Doctor and is hopefully not murdering his patients—plays Norman with a wicked gleam in his eye. Just don’t ask him about his mother.

Starring: Michael C. Hall, Jennifer Carpenter, John Lithgow

Based on the novel Darkly Dreaming Dexter, the show’s POV is from serial killer Dexter Morgan (Hall), who narrates each episode. He works as a blood spatter specialist at the Miami Metro Police Department, so he has access to insider information. He operates with a code: the targets must be other serial killers, like the Trinity Killer (Emmy winner Lithgow). Around the beginning of season 5, Dexter lost its mojo and becomes predictable slop. Unlike most shows on this list, Dexter takes place in a sunny locale, and it focuses on how a seemingly ordinary guy struggles with his aberrations; we emphasize with him. Plus, the show is darkly humorous, and it preceded the era of anti-heroes like Walter White and Don Draper.

Starring: Jonathan Groff, Holt McCallany, Anna Torv, Hannah Gross

An adaptation of the non-fiction book Mindhunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit, Mindhunter is a David Fincher/Netflix collab dramatizing the real-life interviews with serial killers that helped develop the psychological criminal profiling used today to identify and capture murderers. FBI Special Agent Holden Ford (Jonathan Groff) is paired up with the head of the Behavioral Science Unit, Special Agent Bill Tench (McCallany), after showing interest in the psyche of serial killers and violent offenders. Their experiences solving small town cases, consulting with a psychology professor, and interviewing big-time serial killers like Edmund Kemper (portrayed so hauntingly well by newcomer Cameron Britton that he landed an Emmy nomination), all culminate to tell the story of how criminal profiling as we know it today started as a low-brow theory. This retelling of the real work done by former FBI Agents John E. Douglas and Robert K. Ressler is a treat for drama lovers and true-crime junkies alike, combining the drama of Hollywood with real dialogue from interviews with some of the most infamous murderers in history.

Starring: Sarah Paulson, Zachary Quinto, Jessica Lange

In typical gruesome Ryan Murphy fashion, the second series of the anthology gets even wackier than the first season. It’s 1964 and Lana (Paulson) is institutionalized at puzzle factory Briarcliff Manor. A serial killer named Bloody Face is also there, but it turns out he’s not who people think he is.  He rapes Lana and she delivers a psychopathic child. Nothing is taboo on this show—rape, sexual abuse, self-immolation, Nazism, religion, Jessica Lange as a nun, and even aliens figure prominently into the narrative. Flash forward to present day and Lana’s now a famous journalist. Her grown-up illegitimate son (Dylan McDermott) wants a reunion with his mother, which will probably not end in a warm and fuzzy hug. By throwing the kitchen sink at the genre, Murphy covers an array of controversial topics while recasting actors from first season’s Murder House in even nastier roles.  

Starring: Daniel Brühl, Luke Evans, Dakota Fanning, Brian Geraghty

Based on the novel of the same name, The Alienist takes place in the mid-1890s before serial killers were even a blip on the crime radar. The limited series follows the story of an extemporary team of investigators who are tasked with finding the person behind a string of gruesome murders. Working as a psychologist, or an alienist as they were referred to before people started believing in science, Dr. Laszlo Kreizler (Bruhl) is enlisted by his college buddy and newly appointed Commissioner of the NYPD Theodore Roosevelt (Geraghty) to solve the killings of young male sex workers in secret. Though the show was meant to be limited to one season, TNT ordered a second season based on the author's follow-up novel The Angel of Darkness (particularly good news for day one Dakota Fanning stans).

Starring: Sarah Lancashire, Siobhan Finneran, Shirley Henderson

Lives are anything but happy on this BBC family drama, which is set in the rural Calder Valley in West Yorkshire, England. Even the infectious theme song, Jake Bugg’s “Trouble Town,” foretells the perils ahead. Created and written by Sally Wainwright, the first series introduces the “effortless overwhelming charisma” of Sergeant Catherine Cawood (Lancashire). Years prior to the beginning of the show, a criminal named Tommy Lee Royce raped and impregnated her daughter, Becky. After having her son, Becky killed herself, and Catherine went a little mad. The second series opens with the murder of Royce’s mother, and Cawood’s co-workers suspect her of doing the deed as an act of revenge. As the investigators suss out the evidence, it’s revealed the murder is the work of a killer targeting prostitutes. One of the best things about the show is how it’s anchored in realism: country folk constantly drinking tea, coping with drug addiction and grief, and the tough yet sympathetic Catherine absorbing other people’s misery while metabolizing her own. Besides Lancashire, the cast also includes Downton Abbey’s Mrs. O’Brien (Finneran) and Mr. Molesley (Kevin Doyle, as a bad guy), and Harry Potter’s Neville Longbottom (Matthew Lewis) and Moaning Myrtle (Henderson), playing a delusional follower of Royce.

Starring: Friederike Becht, August Diehl, Natalia Belitski

If you’re into gritty, dark German horror shows, then Netflix’s Perfume is exactly what you need. Based off the German novel Das Parfum, this six part mini-series is a modern murder mystery with a somewhat fantastical twist. The story begins with the discovery of a woman’s body that’s been meticulously mutilated to remover her hair and scent glands. Nadja Simon (Becht) is the investigators assigned to the case, hell bent on getting to the bottom of the creepy scent-creation club that the victim was laced up in years prior. With a few more bodies and a seemingly special serial killer on the loose, the whimsical notion of murder for the sake of perfume gives this serious international drama its subtly chilling undertones.

Starring: Anna Friel, Laura Carmichael, Nicholas Pinnock

From the working-class town of West Yorkshire to the affluent lives of London, Anna Friel toplines as the titular chunky-jacket-wearing Marcella (pronounced Mar-chell-a), who may or may not be complicit in one of the murders she’s investigating. After being a housewife for some time, she gets called back to the force when a dormant serial killer transitions from his cooling off period to being hot again. The killer’s MO is suffocating his victims—both male and female—via taping a plastic bag over their heads. Akin to most of these shows, Marcella’s insular life is unraveling. She discovers her husband is having an affair with a woman who ends up dead—and Marcella may have had something to do with it. But her stress-fueled blackouts during fits of rage make it frustrating for her to remember details. It’s also aggravating to viewers, because the device generates confusing plot holes. Marcella goes to show even rich people in London are unhappy—and psychopathic.  

Starring: Mireille Enos, Joel Kinnaman, Peter Sarsgaard

In The Killing’s first season, it asks the loaded question: “Who killed Rosie Larson?” The Twin Peaks knock-off caused the ire of audiences when it refused to reveal the killer of teenager Rosie until halfway through the second season. Homicide detective Sarah Linden (Enos) is so focused on her job, she sometimes neglects her son (and forgets to shower, eat, and change her clothes), causing turmoil in her home life. Her detective partner Stephen Holder (Kinnaman) adds some much-needed levity to the rain-soaked Pacific Northwest. When Linden returns for the third season, she discovers a serial killer murdering runaway girls. At one point she comes across 17 decomposing bodies in a pond, and shit gets really dark. The Killing had its moments—especially Enos’ performance—but it should have ended after season three, much like the Danish show Veena Sud based it on, Forbrydelsen.

Starring: Mads Mikkelsen, Hugh Dancy, Laurence Fishburne

It’s hard to believe a show this graphic—yet philosophical—aired on network TV. The season two finale alone should be named Buckets of Blood, or what happens when bon vivant/harpsichord player/equal opportunity cannibal the Hannibal (Mikkelsen) slices the throats of four people. But, at the “heart” of the symbolic murders and deftly prepared culinary dishes (that’s not really pork loin) is an unrequited love story between Dr. Lecter and on-the-spectrum FBI consultant Will Graham (Dancy). They understand each other, and Hannibal is concurrently protective and cruel toward him (there’s no passion without cruelty, I guess). Watching Hannibal prepare a couple of his victims’ limbs and serve it to them while they’re still alive will probably turn you vegetarian. Or the reverse effect will occur—it’ll give you the taste for human meat.

Stars: Kevin Bacon, James Purefoy, Natalie Zea

Eschewing the whodunit trope, the audience knows from the first episode whom the serial killer is. He’s an Edgar Allan Poe-loving literature professor named Joe Carroll (Purefoy), and he takes Poe’s works seriously enough to murder 14 college women by stabbing them in the eyes. Kevin Williamson of Scream and Dawson’s Creek fame created the show, which embodies themes more toward the former than the latter. The pilot introduces hard-drinking detective Ryan Hardy (Bacon) who caught Carroll in the act eleven years earlier, resulting in Carroll puncturing Hardy’s heart and him needing a pacemaker. Hardy also had an affair with Joe’s wife, so it’s personal. Carroll escapes prison because he created a fanatical cult of followers using the prison internet. Carroll mentions how there are 300 active serial killers in the US, which is a frightening statistic if it’s true (but it might only be 25 active killers. Still!). Sticking to mainly one serial killer throughout its run, The Following allows itself to explore the nuances of one man’s twisted army and the effect it has on Hardy’s personal life. Who’s following who?

Starring: Diane Kruger, Demián Bichir, Matthew Lillard

Before Hans Rosenfeldt created Marcella, he invented the Swedish-Danish crime procedural The Bridge, or Broen/Bron. The American adaption features El Paso, Texas detective Sonya Cross (Diane Kruger) investigating a severed body on the border of U.S. and Juárez, Mexico, at the Bridge of the Americas. The corpse turns out to be comprised of two different bodies, which leads the investigators to discover the killer has racked up around 22 other dead bodies. Sonya must work with Mexico detective Marco Ruiz (Demián Bichir) to track down a rash of killings on both sides of the border. What’s compelling about The Bridge is how it uses a serial killer platform to comment on issues like immigration and drug trafficking, in a horrific way.

Starring: Gillian Anderson, Jamie Dornan, Archie Panjabi

Before Jamie Dornan beguiled audiences in Fifty Shades of Whatever, he played the fetching and charming serial killer named Paul Spector. He’s a family man but has a dark side in stalking professional women in Belfast. He strangles them and then stages their limp corpses by cleansing them and painting their nails. While watching the show you might think, “Is it weird I’m attracted to a serial killer?” No, you’re not the only one. Because of this and Hannibal, Gillian Anderson must be drawn to psychosexual material.  She portrays detective Stella Gibson—finally, Anderson’s British accent is revealed—who develops a strange relationship with Spector, once she figures out who he is. She’s a sex-positive feminist who isn’t shy about whom she wants to shag. The Fall gets inside both Spector’s and Gibson’s minds, so viewers see the story unfurl from two disparate perspectives.

Starring: Lance Henriksen, Megan Gallagher, Terry O’Quinn

Long before TV caught the murder bug there was Lance Henriksen starring as an ex-FBI agent named Frank Black who could see what the killer saw. “It’s my gift. It’s my curse,” he spouts. In between working on The X-Files, creator Chris Carter managed Millennium, even integrating the series finale into the 1999 X-Files episode “Millennium.” Black gets entangled in the Millennium Group, a sinister organization that wants to bring on the apocalypse by 2000. Meanwhile, Black tracks down cult serial killers, sex offenders, killers who murdered FBI agents, and a murdering nurse. Most episodes feature a different murder from a different person—but with a biblical or cosmic twist. Unlike other serial killer shows, each season contained a full order of 22 or 23 episodes, so a lot of ground needed to be covered every week. But Millennium demonstrated leanness wasn’t the only protocol to tell stories in these programs.

Starring: Idris Elba, Ruth Wilson, Rose Leslie

Kudos to Luther for being the only serial killer show on this list—and maybe ever?—to feature a POC in the lead role. And what a lead Idris Elba is. Detective chief inspector John Luther’s marriage is crumbling, and part of that stems from his obsession with catching serial killer Henry Madsen. Despite his co-workers describing him as “nitroglycerin,” Luther continues to work on cases, including one in which he meets his foil, the psychopath Alice Morgan (The Affair’s Ruth Wilson). Through four fast-paced and gripping series, Luther hunts down several different serial killers, including a taxi driver who has a fetish for women’s handbags; murdering twins; and a hipster art student, aka Mr. Punch, who wears a Jigsaw-like mask. However, like on too many of these shows, the victims are disposable—we know nothing about them. Aesthetically, the show looks different than the others, as it’s framed in low angles—which Mr. Robot apparently cribbed. Sometimes Luther has to go to extreme lengths to get his man, like dousing himself in gasoline. No wonder nothing is ever “tickety-boo” in his world.