Television series

Mare of Easttown

Name: Mare of Easttown
Genre: Drama, Crime, Mystery
Released: 2021
Cast: Julianne Nicholson, Jean Smart, Angourie Rice, Kate Winslet, John Douglas Thompson

A grief-soaked murder mystery wearing a detective show's clothes. Kate Winslet's Mare investigates a young mother's death while her own family disintegrates around her — addiction, suicide, custody battles, a whole town that knows too much about everyone. It's slow, cold, and Pennsylvania-grey, more interested in exhaustion and shame than twists. For anyone who wants their crime drama to hurt as much as it intrigues.

TVMaze rating

8.0

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Happy Valley2014

Sarah Lancashire's police sergeant is Mare's British cousin — exhausted, furious, carrying family wreckage while chasing a case that keeps circling back to her own doorstep.

But The Yorkshire accents and slang can be thick going for non-UK viewers, and it's every bit as bleak.

Broadchurch2013

A child's death rips apart a small coastal town, and the detectives investigating it are as fractured as everyone else. Same slow-burn dread, same sense that guilt spreads like damp.

But Season two loses its nerve; watch season one and consider stopping there.

Sharp Objects2018

Amy Adams returns to her rotten hometown to cover a murder and gets swallowed by her own family's cruelty. Same swampy small-town claustrophobia, even more interior and hallucinatory.

But It's punishing and oblique — more mood poem than procedural, and the ending demands patience.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Mildred Pierce1945

Same actress, same wound. Kate Winslet remade this role in 2011's Mildred Pierce, and the 1945 original shows where the archetype she's playing in Mare — the martyred, furious mother — actually comes from.

A classic noir melodrama about a mother whose sacrifices for her ungrateful daughter curdle into something darker, wrapped around a murder investigation. It's the great-grandmother of every hurt-woman crime story since.

But Black-and-white, stagey, and dated in its gender politics — a genuine period piece, not a modern remake.

True Detective2014

Season one's Louisiana bayou murder case is a masterclass in using a crime to X-ray two broken men and a rotten place. The atmosphere alone is worth the trip.

But Nihilistic and talky, with a swagger Mare deliberately avoids — some find it self-important.

Top of the Lake2013

Elisabeth Moss investigates a girl's disappearance in a New Zealand lake town riddled with old secrets and worse men — Jane Campion's answer to this exact genre, and just as merciless.

But Slower and stranger than Mare, with a fable-like quality that won't suit anyone wanting straight procedure.

The Night Of2016

A murder case unfolds with real legal grime and moral murk instead of tidy resolution — the justice system as swamp, not machine. Riz Ahmed is extraordinary.

But It's a courtroom-and-investigation slow burn with none of Mare's small-town warmth — colder, more procedural, less personal.

Big Little Lies2017

Another Kate Winslet performance, another community keeping a death quiet — this time among wealthy mothers rather than a struggling one. Same rot under a different postcode.

But Glossier and starrier than Mare — Monterey mansions instead of rowhouses — which some will find tonally jarring.

Olive Kitteridge2014

Frances McDormand plays a difficult, unlovable New England woman across decades of quiet domestic damage. No crime plot, just the same unflinching gaze at ordinary suffering.

But There's no mystery to pull you through — it's a character study, and a slow, sad one.

The Killing2011

A detective who can't let a case go, a grieving family, rain-soaked misery stretched over a whole season — this is where a lot of Mare's DNA comes from.

But Infamously drawn-out, and the ending caused real backlash — commit only if you can tolerate a slow unravel.

The Thin Blue Line1988

Mare treats the mechanics of an investigation as seriously as the emotional wreckage around it. This film is where that clinical, doubt-riddled approach to 'who actually did it' was pioneered, decades before prestige TV caught up.

Errol Morris's documentary about a wrongful murder conviction in small-town Texas invented a whole visual language for true crime — stylised reenactments, unreliable witnesses, moral fog instead of resolution.

But No plot momentum, no characters to root for, and it's built entirely around interviews and reconstruction — a very different rhythm.

Wind River2017

Same engine, different landscape: an isolated, wounded community, a female-adjacent investigator, and a crime that's really an excuse to examine collective trauma nobody outside the town will ever fully see.

A wildlife officer investigates a young woman's death on a Wyoming reservation, and the film is less concerned with solving it than with sitting inside communal grief and quiet fury.

But Bleaker and more violent than Mare, with almost no levity to relieve the pressure — a genuinely heavy watch.