The Best Crime Fiction TV Adaptations of the Past Decade
The past decade has seen a major expansion in mystery and thriller TV series, with crime fiction as key source material for some of the best and most successful shows on TV. From enduring classics to recent bestsellers, crime novels continue to be top choices for prestige TV adaptations. Here are five of my picks for the best crime fiction TV adaptations of the past decade.
Justified and Justified: City Primeval
The TV series based on author Elmore Leonard’s U.S. marshal character Raylan Givens ended in 2015, just making it into the past decade, but its sequel series picked back up in 2023. Justified stars Timothy Olyphant as Raylan, who’s been demoted from his post in Miami and forced to return to his Kentucky hometown, where he faces backwoods criminals who are every bit as menacing as big-city mobsters. That includes his longtime frenemy Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins), who becomes a recurring antagonist and occasional ally over the course of six seasons. Justified: City Primeval transports Raylan to Detroit, but he retains his old-fashioned Western-style sense of justice — and his cowboy hat, of course.
The Night Manager
There have been numerous movies and TV series adapted from the spy novels of the legendary John le Carré, but this series starring Tom Hiddleston as the title character is one of the most intricate and most rewarding. Hiddleston’s Jonathan Pine is a military veteran now working the night shift at an upscale Cairo hotel, where he’s recruited by British intelligence agent Angela Burr (Olivia Colman) to spy on international arms dealer Dicky Roper (Hugh Laurie). As Pine gets more deeply involved with Roper’s operation (and Roper’s girlfriend, played by Elizabeth Debicki), his loyalties are tested, in a smart, suspenseful series that captures the best of le Carré’s crisp, layered plotting.
Big Little Lies
The show based on Liane Moriarty’s novel kicked off a new era in beach-read TV limited series, as well as Nicole Kidman’s ongoing dominance of prestige mystery TV. Kidman, Reese Witherspoon, Laura Dern, Shailene Woodley and Zoë Kravitz play five women caught up in a suspicious death in a high-end California beachside community, where everyone is hiding their own dark secrets. Presented via a non-linear structure, the first season of Big Little Lies is a fascinating, brilliantly acted mystery that explores an ensemble full of complex characters. The second season, which expands beyond Moriarty’s novel, is comparatively disappointing, but still finds new angles to examine these intense, troubled people.
Killing Eve
Luke Jennings’ Villanelle novels provide the jumping-off point for this darkly funny spy thriller series, starring Sandra Oh as the title character, a seemingly meek MI6 analyst whose life is forever changed by her pursuit of the international assassin known as Villanelle (Jodie Comer). The dynamic between Eve and Villanelle alternates between murderous and romantic across all four seasons, and the duo seem to get off on the constant threat of violence. The equally outlandish supporting cast includes Fiona Shaw and Kim Bodnia as the protagonists’ respective bosses, whose own relationship is just as twisted.
Perry Mason
Although most people’s memories of Perry Mason come from the long-running TV series starring Raymond Burr, the character of the dogged defense attorney originated in a series of novels by Erle Stanley Gardner, which were first adapted into films in the 1930s. The latest incarnation, set in 1930s Los Angeles, stars Matthew Rhys as a younger version of Mason in a grittier, serialized take on the character’s origins. The two seasons follow Mason as he investigates murder and corruption in LA while beginning his career as a lawyer. Rhys gives Mason a weary but determined quality, and the show captures the highs and lows of a rapidly expanding city.
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Josh Bell is a freelance writer and movie/TV critic based in Las Vegas. He has written about movies, TV, and pop culture for the Boston Globe, Vulture, Tom’s Guide, Inverse, Crooked Marquee, and more. With comedian Jason Harris, he co-hosts the podcast Awesome Movie Year.