Television series

Luther

Luther is less a whodunit than a portrait of a man at war with himself. Idris Elba's DCI hunts London's most inventive killers while flirting with becoming one himself, aided by Ruth Wilson's magnetic sociopath Alice Morgan. It's operatic, moody, occasionally implausible, and utterly compelling — for anyone who likes their detectives brilliant, broken, and one bad decision from disaster.

TVMaze rating8.4

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True Detective2014

Season one gives you the same brooding, half-mad detective energy, swapping London fog for Louisiana swamp. McConaughey's Rust Cohle is Luther's philosophical cousin — haunted, brilliant, allergic to rules.

But Later seasons vary wildly in quality, and the nihilism is thicker here than Luther's romanticism.

True Detective poster

The Fall2013

Gillian Anderson's icy detective stalks a serial killer through Belfast with the same slow-burn dread and moral murkiness. It shares Luther's fascination with the hunter becoming intimate with the hunted.

But Deliberately paced and unflinching about violence against women — it lingers where Luther cuts away.

The Fall poster

Happy Valley2014

Sarah Lancashire's Yorkshire sergeant carries the same exhausted, morally weighted authority as Luther, fighting personal demons while chasing genuinely frightening criminals.

But Grittier and more grounded — less stylised nightmare-London, more real northern town with real consequences.

Happy Valley poster

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Long Good Friday1980

Same East London moral terrain, the same idea that violence and self-destruction are two names for the same thing — Luther's spiritual grandfather.

Bob Hoskins plays a London crime boss whose empire is unravelling in one brutal, paranoid day — a masterclass in violence as character study, decades before Luther walked the same docklands.

But No detective, no case — you're on the other side of the law entirely, and the ending offers zero comfort.

The Long Good Friday poster
More like this (8)

Line of Duty2012

If you loved watching institutions bend around Luther's rule-breaking, this is the show obsessed with exactly that — corrupt cops, interrogation-room chess, and endless procedural tension.

But More talk than chase; the pleasure is in dialogue and deception rather than Luther's physical menace.

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Hannibal2013

Takes Luther's operatic, almost gothic visual sensibility and cranks it further — this is a crime show that looks like a nightmare painting and never apologises for it.

But Far more surreal and stylised; the plausibility Luther still gestures at is completely abandoned here.

Hannibal poster

Broadchurch2013

A gentler entry point if Luther's darkness ever got too much — same British small-screen intensity, focused on grief and community rather than sociopathy.

But No Alice Morgan-style chaos agent; it's a quieter, sadder show about ordinary people, not extraordinary monsters.

Broadchurch poster

Prime Suspect1991

Helen Mirren's Jane Tennison is the original brilliant, self-destructive detective fighting a system that doesn't want her to win. Luther owes it a real debt.

But Nineties pacing and production values feel dated next to Luther's glossy nightmare aesthetic.

Prime Suspect poster

Wallander2008no page yet

Kenneth Branagh plays a detective as melancholy and porous to horror as Luther, wandering through beautifully shot Swedish bleakness.

But Much slower and more introspective — closer to literary noir than Luther's propulsive set pieces.

MINDHUNTER2017

For the criminal-psychology obsessive in you — this digs into what actually made serial killers tick, with the same fascination with the abyss Luther keeps staring into.

But Cerebral and procedural rather than thriller-paced; it's interviews and theory, not chases and confrontations.

MINDHUNTER poster

Engrenages2005no page yet

Structurally it's Luther's ethical tightrope stretched across an entire justice system rather than one man — same rot, wider lens.

French police drama following cops, lawyers and judges who are all compromised, all exhausted, and all doing something that only loosely resembles justice — grubbier and less romantic than Luther, but cut from the same cloth.

But Subtitled, sprawling, and deliberately unglamorous — nobody here has Luther's coat or his charisma.

Watchmen2019

Trades the murder-of-the-week structure for costumes and continuity, but it's the same argument about vigilante justice dressed in a wildly different genre.

A masked-vigilante thriller that asks the exact question Luther keeps circling — what happens when someone decides they're above the law because they're better at justice than the law is?

But It's a superhero show with alternate history and masked cops — a genre leap that will put off anyone wanting straight crime drama.

Watchmen poster

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Recommended by

Bosch, Line of Duty, Between the Lines, Sherlock, Elementary, The Fall, Life on Mars, Prime Suspect, Ashes to Ashes, Cracker, Criminal Minds, Marcella