Best tv shows like Devices and Desires
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
A particularly vicious serial killer is stalking the Norfolk coast in the vicinity of the Larksoken nuclear power station. The press have branded him 'The Whistler' because witnesses have heard a hymn being whistled in the vicinity of the murders. His trademark is the letter 'L' carved on the forehead of his victims. L for Larksoken? At first, his victims seem to be chosen entirely at random - women in the wrong place at the wrong time - but then two women employed at the nuclear power station are murdered in quick succession.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 358
Genere: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: UK
Duration: 50 min
Plot tags: detective
Best tv shows and movies like Devices and Desires (1991):
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Hope Street (2020)
Plot Summary:
The arrival of DC Leila Hussain sets tongues wagging – what brings this big city girl to a sleepy Northern Irish seaside town? Warm-hearted detective drama in a stunning setting.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 44 min
Plot tags: detective
Similar in 87%
Helen West (2002)
Plot Summary:
Helen West is crusading senior prosecutor with the Crown Prosecution Service. Her life is complicated by her ongoing affair with a senior police officer.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 171
Genere: Drama, Mystery
Country: UK
Duration: 289 min
Plot tags: detective
Similar in 83%
Karen Pirie (2022)
Plot Summary:
Karen is a refreshingly normal and charmingly unfashionable young woman – slick, maverick cop she is not – but her quick mouth and ingenuity make her an impressive investigator. Following her promotion to Police Scotland’s Historic Cases Unit, Karen is tasked with reopening the investigation into a murder that has been the subject of a provocative true crime podcast. When teenage barmaid Rosie Duff was stabbed to death in 1995, suspicion fell on the three drunken students who discovered her body. But despite police suspicion, the boys were never charged. Nearly 25 years on, DS Karen Pirie is determined to uncover what happened that fateful night. Do the men know more than they previously revealed? When Karen uncovers flaws in the initial investigation, she finds herself in conflict with the very officers who led the original hunt for the killer.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 9000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: UK
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: detective
Similar in 87%
Inspector Ricciardi (2021)
Plot Summary:
Naples, 1932. Detective Luigi Alfredo Ricciardi leaves no crime unsolved, being able to see the ghosts of people who have died violently and listen to their last thought. But this extraordinary gift is both a blessing and a curse!.
IMDB Rating: 7.8
IMDB Votes: 641
Genere: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: Italy
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: detective
Similar in 82%
White Lab (2014)
Plot Summary:
Due to violent crimes becoming more and more complicated, it is crucial to make arrests with concrete evidence. The White Lab is the formed within the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Departments First Investigative Division. The lab uses scientific investigation methods involving physics, chemistry, biology and medical science to solve cases. Members of the White Lab have knowledge of these scientific areas and have the authority to investigate cases. At the White Lab, Satoshi (Kazuki Kitamura) is a detective. He solves cases with his excellent scientific methods as well as his own unique methods.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 11
Genere: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: Japan
Duration: 54 min
Plot tags: detective
Similar in 77%
Shroud for a Nightingale (1984)
Plot Summary:
British TV mini series.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 379
Genere: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: UK
Duration: 50 min
Plot tags: detective
Similar in 81%
Cover Her Face (1985)
Plot Summary:
Chief Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh investigates the death of Alice Liddell who ran a home for unwed mothers. One of those residents is Sally Jupp who was a witness in a drugs smuggling and murder investigation in London. Sally works at the local manor house for the Maxies and it is apparent that eldest son Stephen has more than just a passing interest in her. The night after they announce their engagement, Sally is found strangled in her bed. The question is whether her death is related to the London investigation or a completely different reason altogether. Her engagement created a good deal of ill feeling among the Maxies and several guests in the house with any one of them having a motive to kill her.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 360
Genere: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: UK
Duration: 291 min
Plot tags: detective
Similar in 79%
Original Sin (1997)
Plot Summary:
Commander Adam Dalgliesh is consulted by one of his literary heroes when Peverell Press staff fall victim to a rash of hate mail. When the body of an editor is discovered and another member of the venerable firm is found dead soon after, Dalgliesh and his team -- Detective Inspectors Kate Miskin and Daniel Aron -- turn to the past to track down a murderer who seems prepared to kill and kill again.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 285
Genere: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: UK
Duration: 50 min
Plot tags: detective, atmospheric, serious, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 86%
The Agatha Christie Hour (1982)
Plot Summary:
This ten episode program was based on ten short stories written by Agatha Christie but with wide-ranging themes. Some were romances, some had supernatural themes and a couple were adventures. The common link was that all came from the talented pen of Agatha Christie, all were entertaining and each drama was carefully crafted and well cast with many of Britain's best known actors of the time represented.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 390
Genere: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: UK
Duration: 52 min
Plot tags: anthology, detective, dark fairy tale
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Children of A Lesser God (2018)
Plot Summary:
Kim Dan, a detective who can feel someone’s feelings, past memories and even their deepest secrets, partners with a genius detective Cheon Je-in to investigate a murder case.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 159
Genere: Drama, Fantasy, Mystery
Country: South Korea
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: detective, suspense, detective series
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Maigret (1992)
Plot Summary:
Based on the novels by Georges Simenon, Michael Gambon plays the eponymous detective from the Sûreté in this 1992 revival of the 1960s BBC drama series. Maigret is an intuitutive detective, who investigates his cases by watching and listening, getting to know everyone on his list of suspects until someone makes a slip or breaks down and confesses.
IMDB Rating: 7.8
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: UK, Hungary
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: detective, confusing, serious, captivating, realistic, intellectual, crime drama
Similar in 87%
A Taste for Death (1988)
Plot Summary:
Sir Paul Berowne (Bosco Hogan) - a prominent Government Minister - turns to his old friend Adam Dalgleish following a series of threatening letters delivered to his London home. The minister's wife is in an adulterous affair with a prominent surgeon and she makes no secret of it. Berowne's only daughter is involved in left-wing politics and rejects her conservative father. Adding to his woes, his own mother favoured her son who was killed in an IRA terrorist ambush over Paul. The informal investigation has barely began when Dalgliesh is faced with a series of bizarre deaths that turn the case into an urgent assignment.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 338
Genere: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: UK
Duration: 50 min
Plot tags: detective, atmospheric, serious, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 88%
The Black Tower (1985)
Plot Summary:
Frustrated with his career, Commander Dalgliesh is invited to Toynton Grange, a home for the disabled, by his old teacher, Father Baddeley, who is resident there. But unbeknown to Dalgliesh, something happening at the Grange is making the Father uneasy, and Dalgliesh quickly finds himself investigating a series of mysterious deaths.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 363
Genere: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: UK
Duration: 50 min
Plot tags: detective, atmospheric, serious, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 90%
The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes (1971)
Plot Summary:
The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes is a British television series that was produced by Thames Television and originally broadcast on the ITV Network. There were two series of 13 fifty-minute episodes; the first aired in 1971, the second in 1973. The programme presented adaptations of short mystery, suspense or crime stories featuring, as the title suggests, detectives who were literary contemporaries of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes took its inspiration – and title – from a series of published anthologies by Hugh Greene, elder brother of author Graham Greene and the former director-general of the BBC. Hugh Greene is credited on the programme as a creative consultant. The authors and detectives featured on the programme include: ⁕Robert Barr ⁕Guy Boothby ⁕Ernest Bramah ⁕R. Austin Freeman ⁕Jacques Futrelle ⁕Adalbert Goldscheider, a.k.a. "Balduin Groller" ⁕George Griffith.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 334
Genere: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: UK
Duration: 50 min
Plot tags: anthology, detective, dark fairy tale
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Magpie Murders (2022)
Plot Summary:
Book editor Susan Ryeland is given an unfinished manuscript by best-selling mystery writer Alan Conway featuring Conway’s longtime main character, detective Atticus Pünd. When she attempts to attain the final chapters from Conway, she finds herself in the middle of a shocking mystery case of her own that will change her life in ways she never expected.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: UK, USA, Ireland
Duration: 45 min
Plot tags: captivating, tense, suspense, disturbing, detective
Similar in 84%
Dalziel and Pascoe (1996)
Plot Summary:
A British crime drama based on the "Dalziel and Pascoe" series of books by Reginald Hill, set in the fictional Yorkshire town of Wetherton. The unlikely duo of politically incorrect elephant-in-a-china-shop-copper Detective Superintendent Andrew Dalziel (pronounced Dee-ell) and his more sensitive and university educated sidekick Detective Sargent, later Detective Inspector, Peter Pascoe is always on hand to solve the classic murder mystery, while maintaining a down to earth wit and humour.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Crime, Mystery, Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: serious, detective, crime drama, tense, realistic, witty, suspenseful
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Mystery!: Cadfael (1994)
Plot Summary:
Cadfael is the name given to the TV series of The Cadfael Chronicles adaptations produced by British television company ITV Central between 1994 and 1998. The series was broadcast on the ITV network in the UK, and starred Sir Derek Jacobi as the medieval detective.
IMDB Rating: 8.1
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: UK
Duration: 75 min
Plot tags: detective, serious, historical drama, costume drama, contemplative, atmospheric, realistic, suspenseful, period drama, detective series
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Agatha Christie's Miss Marple: At Bertram's Hotel (1987)
Plot Summary:
Miss Jane Marple is staying at an elegant hotel from her childhood compliments of her nephew Raymond. Also there is international adventurer Bess Sedgwick and Lady Selena Hazy (Joan Greenwood in her next to last performance). A doorman working at the hotel turns out to be from Bess' past, and when he is killed, she is the prime suspect. But what does his murder have to do with the disappearance of an elderly vicar staying at the hotel, and a string of robberies over the last few months? Miss Marple must find out before the murderer strikes again!!!.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: UK, USA, Australia
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: detective, clever, serious, captivating, mind bending, realistic, suspenseful, contemplative
Similar in 83%
Partners in Crime (2015)
Plot Summary:
Set in a 1950s Britain rising from the ashes of the Blitz into the grip of a new Cold War, our beekeeping duo stumble into a world of murder, undercover agents and cold war conspiracy. Tuppence is a woman who sees adventure round every corner, throwing herself head first into every mystery with passion and fervour, determined to get to the truth no matter what it takes, much to the dismay of her more cautious husband Tommy.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: UK
Duration: 55 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, humorous, semi serious, suspenseful, detective, costume drama, realistic, stylized, period piece, detective series
Similar in 87%
Death of an Expert Witness (1983)
Plot Summary:
When Dr. Edwin Lorrimer, a forensic scientist working at a private laboratory is found killed, Detective Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh is sent to investigate. Dalgliesh had been in the area a few months previously investigating the murder of a young woman found in an abandoned car. There are several suspects: Lorrimer's subordinate, Clifford Bradley, who despises him; the new head of the laboratory, Maxim Howarth, who is jealous of his sister's relationship with him; a colleague, Paul Middlemass, who had a fight with Lorrimer. There is also a gruff and likely unethical policeman who was on the grounds of the laboratory at the time of the killing and a local pathologist who is raising his two young children after his wife leaves him for another man. When one of the suspects is also murdered, Dalgliesh learns a key piece of information.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 374
Genere: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: UK
Duration: 50 min
Plot tags: detective, crime drama, atmospheric, serious, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 85%
The Loch (2017)
Plot Summary:
The search for a serial killer becomes a matter of life and death for detective Annie Redford, who is trying to cope with her first murder case.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: UK
Duration: 45 min
Plot tags: scenic, enigmatic, captivating, detective, colorful, crime drama, colourful
Similar in 77%
A Certain Justice (1998)
Plot Summary:
The story is about the murder of Venetia Aldridge, a QC (Queen's Council) in a London "Chambers" and a very ambitious barrister who has a track record of winning her cases. She doesn't necessarily prove that her clients are innocent, she simply disproves the prosecution's case against them. In the course of her career ,she has made enemies and one of them kills her and she is found in a very ritualistic setting.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 290
Genere: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: UK
Duration: 54 min
Plot tags: detective
Similar in 79%
Four Lives (2022)
Plot Summary:
The true story of the courageous families of four young gay men who lost their lives to killer Stephen Port. Facing police failings, they fought for justice for their loved ones.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Crime, Drama, History, Mystery
Country: UK
Duration: 175 min
Plot tags: tense, captivating, suspenseful, thrilling, detective
Similar in 90%
Waking the Dead (2000)
Plot Summary:
Waking the Dead is a British television police procedural crime drama series produced by the BBC featuring a fictional Cold Case unit composed of CID police officers, a psychological profiler and a forensic scientist. A pilot episode aired in September 2000, and there have been a total of nine series since. Each story is split into two hour-long episodes, shown on consecutive nights on BBC One. A third series episode won an International Emmy Award in 2004. The programme was also shown on BBC America in the United States, though these screenings are edited to allow for advertising breaks, as well as UKTV in Australia and New Zealand and ABC1 in Australia. The show aired its final episode on 11 April 2011. A spin-off from the series, titled The Body Farm, revolving around forensic scientist Eve Lockhart, was announced by the BBC in January 2011 and ran for just one series.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: UK
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: suspenseful, realistic, detective, crime drama, rough, serious, gloomy
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Trial & Retribution (1997)
Plot Summary:
Trial & Retribution is a feature-length ITV police procedural television drama series that began in 1997. It was devised and written by Lynda La Plante as a follow-on from her successful television series Prime Suspect. Each episode of the Trial & Retribution series is broadcast over two nights. The 2008 series 10 had 10 episodes, the longest run of the drama so far. The latest series was number 12 which aired in February 2009.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: UK
Duration:
Plot tags: detective, crime drama, tense, rough, bleak, serious, captivating, realistic, suspenseful
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DCI Banks (2010)
Plot Summary:
A thrilling drama based on the novels by Peter Robinson. Stephen Tompkinson and Andrea Lowe star as the tenacious and stubborn Chief Inspector Alan Banks and the feisty and headstrong Detective Sergeant Annie Cabbot.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 9000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: UK
Duration: 45 min
Plot tags: detective, realistic, crime drama, tense, rough, serious, suspenseful, dark, gloomy
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Dalgliesh (2021)
Plot Summary:
A recent widower and acclaimed poet, enigmatic Inspector Adam Dalgliesh employs his exceptional empathy and insight to plumb the darker depths of the human psyche while investigating complex crimes in 1970s England.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: UK
Duration: 45 min
Plot tags: detective, tense, captivating, disturbing, crime drama
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Grantchester (2014)
Plot Summary:
Drama series set in 1953, against the backdrop of the real hamlet of Grantchester. The drama focuses upon the life of Sidney Chambers, a charismatic, charming clergyman who turns investigative vicar when one of his parishioners dies in suspicious circumstances.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 17000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: UK
Duration: 45 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, detective, crime drama, period piece, slasher, costume drama, historical drama, realistic, suspenseful
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The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1986)
Plot Summary:
Dr. Watson, finds a mystery in an empty house, while Holmes and he later solve the mysteries of an abbey grange, the Musgrave ritual, a second stain, a man with a twisted lip, the priory school, and a half-dozen plaster busts of Bonaparte.
IMDB Rating: 8.7
IMDB Votes: 13000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: UK
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: detective, gothic, spiritual, mind bending, serious, realistic, suspenseful, period drama
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In Plain Sight (2016)
Plot Summary:
Based on the true story of Lanarkshire detective William Muncie’s quest to bring to justice notorious Scottish killer Peter Manuel.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: UK
Duration: 150 min
Plot tags: detective, captivating, tense, suspense, slasher, suspenseful, historical drama, contemplative