Television series

Broadchurch

Name: Broadchurch
Genre: Drama, Crime, Mystery
Released: 2013
Cast: David Tennant, Olivia Colman, Andrew Buchan, Jodie Whittaker, Arthur Darvill

Broadchurch turns a single killing into a slow-motion X-ray of a seaside town, more interested in what the investigation costs everyone left standing than in who actually did it. It's patient, humane British procedural, built on Colman and Tennant's mismatched detective chemistry and a community's grief laid painfully bare. For anyone who wants a whodunit with a conscience.

TVMaze rating

4.2

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love slow-burn investigations that treat a small town's grief and suspicion as the real mystery, and you care more about how people crack under pressure than about clever clue-solving.

Skip it if you want a brisk, puzzle-first plot, because this one moves deliberately and lingers on sorrow, gossip and press scrutiny for long stretches.

What it asks of you: Each hour is unhurried and heavy in tone, and across three series it rewards steady attention rather than channel-flicking; the mood stays bleak and rarely lightens.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Happy Valley2014

Sarah Lancashire is extraordinary as a Yorkshire police sergeant carrying private grief while chasing a case that keeps circling back to her own family. Same small-town intimacy and moral weight as Broadchurch, with even sharper teeth.

But Bleaker and more violent than Broadchurch, with less room for hope by the end.

Mare of Easttown2021

Kate Winslet plays a small-town Pennsylvania detective investigating a murder while her own family unravels around her — the American cousin to Broadchurch's grief-soaked whodunit, right down to the community closing ranks against outsiders.

But The accents and rhythms are pure Delco; some found the dialect distracting rather than immersive.

Unforgotten2015

A cold case unearths old wounds across an ensemble of ordinary people, each hiding something, each rendered with the same patient compassion Broadchurch gave its suspects. Nicola Walker anchors it beautifully.

But Slower and more procedural, with less of the emotional gut-punch Broadchurch delivers early on.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Broadchurch

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Le Corbeau1943

Same engine as Broadchurch decades early: an anonymous poisoner turns a close community against itself, and the real horror is watching neighbours become suspects.

A 1943 French film about anonymous poison-pen letters tearing a small town apart — the same slow unraveling of trust Broadchurch built a series around, done in ninety merciless minutes.

But Black-and-white, subtitled, and made under Nazi occupation — a very different watching experience than a Sunday-night ITV drama.

The Fall2013

Gillian Anderson's detective hunts a serial killer in Belfast in a series that swaps Broadchurch's whodunit structure for a more unsettling cat-and-mouse, showing you the killer from the start.

But Colder and more clinical, with a killer's perspective that some viewers find distasteful to spend time in.

Top of the Lake2013

Jane Campion's New Zealand mystery has the same isolated, insular community and the same sense that everyone's secrets are tangled up in the crime. Elisabeth Moss is magnetic.

But More surreal and unsettling in tone, with a plot that deliberately resists tidy resolution by the end.

The Missing2014

A child's disappearance splinters a family across years and countries, echoing Broadchurch's interest in how grief warps time and truth. James Nesbitt is devastating as the father who can't let go.

But The timeline jumps can be disorienting, and the ambiguity lingers uncomfortably well past the finale.

Line of Duty2012

Swaps the seaside town for police corruption, but keeps the same appetite for procedural detail and slow-burn dread, with interrogation scenes that rival anything in Broadchurch for tension.

But It's about internal police politics rather than community grief, which scratches a different itch entirely.

Marcella2016

A grittier, more fractured London-set procedural with a detective whose own mental state becomes as much a mystery as the case. Good if you want Broadchurch's DNA with sharper edges.

But Twistier and pulpier than Broadchurch, occasionally straining credibility in ways the original never did.

Cracker1993

The 1990s granddaddy of British psychological crime drama, built around a brilliant, self-destructive criminal psychologist. Slower and theatrical, and proof that Broadchurch's lineage goes back decades.

But Dated in style and pacing now, with a far more theatrical approach to character work.

The Keepers2017

Where Broadchurch is fiction, this is the real thing: a town, a church, and a decades-buried crime whose cover-up damaged an entire community's trust exactly like the show's plot does.

A true-crime documentary about a nun's unsolved 1969 murder and the Catholic church's decades-long cover-up. Real institutional rot instead of fictional intrigue, and just as gripping.

But It's nonfiction, so there's no tidy resolution here — some threads stay maddeningly, permanently open.

Fargo2014

Uses the identical structure — an outsider cop dropped into a tight-knit small town's murder — but plays it as pitch-black comedy, proving the Broadchurch engine works even when you're laughing.

The same small-town-murder machinery as Broadchurch, rebuilt as absurdist black comedy full of doom, snow, and very polite Minnesotans doing terrible things to each other.

But Tonally it's miles from Broadchurch's sincerity — deadpan and violent rather than earnest and grief-stricken.