Television series

The Blacklist

Name: The Blacklist
Genre: Drama, Crime, Thriller
Released: 2013
Cast: James Spader, Diego Klattenhoff, Harry Lennix, Hisham Tawfiq, Amir Arison

A globe-trotting FBI thriller built entirely around Raymond Reddington, ex-government asset turned world's most wanted criminal, who walks into headquarters and offers up a rotating gallery of terrifying names in exchange for protection. Case-of-the-week plots orbit a slow-burn mystery about who Reddington really is and what he wants with young profiler Elizabeth Keen. Stylish, pulpy, occasionally ridiculous, always watchable — comfort food for people who like their comfort food armed.

TVMaze rating

8.0

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White Collar2009

The closest cousin to Reddington's arrangement: a charming con artist works off his sentence by helping the FBI catch criminals smarter than they are, with genuine warmth between captor and captive.

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Something you would not have found on your own.

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But It's a dense, talky courtroom documentary with none of the show's stylish shootouts — this is about corruption, not caper.

Whitey: United States of America v. James J. Bulger poster

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Sydney Bristow's double life as a double agent inside a shadowy organisation delivers the same glossy mythology-heavy pleasures, complete with a father figure whose loyalties you're never quite sure of.

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A blacklisted spy stuck doing odd jobs for Miami's criminal underbelly brings the same charm-forward, wisecracking energy to morally grey work, minus the operatic scale.

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