Lenny’s Netflix Review – Top 5 Crime TV Shows on Netflix

Netflix is great, but sometimes there are too many things to choose from. I’m sure you have wasted lots of time just browsing through the many shows and movies trying to find something that interests you, only to be disappointed in the end. Some things you’ve never heard of end up being fantastic. Others you have heard of are just boring and often overrated. Luckily for you, I have watched(binged) way more Netflix than should be legally allowed in most states.

Lenny’s Top 5 Crime TV Shows on Netflix

(List is in alphabetical order, followed by a brief summary of each show)

  • Aquarius
  • Better Call Saul
  • Dexter
  • Mindhunter
  • Narcos

Aquarius

Brian Shafe and Sam Hodiak. Aquarius.

Set in 1967, LAPD detective Sam Hodiak (David Duchovny) takes a case investigating a missing teenage girl. He and his undercover colleague Brian Shafe (Grey Damon) soon find themselves deep in a world of sexual revolution, experimental drugs, rock and roll, and ultimately confronting “The Family” led by Charles Manson (Gethin Anthony).

Aquarius is a fictional story, inspired by the real events and characters that led up to Charles Manson’s “Helter Skelter” and his family of brainwashed followers brutally murdering Sharon Tate and 4 of her friends.

As typical of most Duchovny roles, he’s always the coolest customer in the room. Even playing a washed up, old, detective on the back end of his career, Hodiak has that signature Duchovny swager; amazingly, in the case of Aquarius, it somehow works. This show was a very enjoyable and an interesting perspective on the Manson story.


Better Call Saul

Gus Fring and Jimmy McGill at Los Pollos Hermanos. Better Call Saul.

Better Call Saul is a “Spin off” based around several characters from the extremely popular Breaking Bad TV Series. If you haven’t seen Breaking Bad, stop reading this right now and start watching that instead. No seriously. It’s one of the best Crime TV shows in the last 20 years and if you haven’t seen it yet, this show probably won’t do very much for you. However, if you have seen Breaking Bad, you will instantly fall in love with Better Call Saul.

Set in the early 2000’s, Better Call Saul is a prequel, which focuses on the story of gifted grifter and sometimes lawyer, Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk), his struggles to gain his eccentric brother Chuck’s (Michael McKean) acceptance, and with the help of love interest Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn), his ultimate transformation into “Saul Goodman”. A familiar cast of characters, such as Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks),  Hector (Mark Margolis) and Tuco (Raymond Cruz) Salamanca, Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito) and others, intermingle with Jimmy, eventually setting the stage for events that take place in Breaking Bad.

For a prequel, Better Call Saul doesn’t disappoint even for a second. Jimmy’s transformation into Saul is not at all what I had expected. His character is so rich and full of amazing backstory that it totally changes your preconceived notions about the sleazy, slimeball, ambulance chaser, from Breaking Bad.


Dexter

Joey Quinn, Dexter Morgan, Debra Morgan, Angel Batista. Dexter.

Dexter is a seemingly normal Cop show centered around Miami Metro PD’s Homicide blood spatter forensics expert Dexter Morgan, with one major twist. He’s also Miami’s most prolific serial killer.

By day, Dexter (Michael C. Hall) is helping solve brutal murder cases with his sister Detective Debra Morgan (Jennifer Carpenter) and her partner and eventual love interest, Detective Joey Quinn (Desmond Harrington), and colleagues Angel Batista (David Zayas) and María LaGuerta (Lauren Vélez). By night, he’s a ruthless vigilante, guided by visions of his deceased father, Detective Harry Morgan (James Remar), plotting the murders of the people he’s investigating to satiate his own primal urges to kill.

I thoroughly enjoyed the first 6 seasons of Dexter, but like most shows that run long it started to get a little played out. Their attempts to spice it up a little and stretch the show created some very bizarre and uncomfortable situations in the waning stories of seasons 7 and 8. That aside I still highly recommend watching this amazing, original take on a crime TV show.


Mindhunter

Bill Tench, Wendy Carr, Holden Ford. Mindhunter.

Mindhunter is a period piece based on true events that tell of the beginning of using criminal psychology and profiling to help solve cases at the FBI in the 1970’s.

Agents Holden Ford (Jonathan Groff) , Bill Tench (Holt McCallany), and Physiologist Wendy Carr (Anna Torv), create the FBI’s behavioral sciences unit in Quantico Virginia to try and get inside the minds of serial killers and find out what makes them tick, in hopes to have a better understanding of how to catch them. Their efforts find them face to face interviewing imprisoned serial killers, by trial and error, who help them solve open cases and create the standards for future protocols and procedures creating a new powerful investigative tool.

Mindhunter is a very cerebral, fascinating and addictive show; so much so that I binged the first 5 episodes in one sitting. Like Black Mirror (Reviewed last week on TNB), Mindhunter, is on the very top of my list of Netflix recommendations!


Narcos

Pablo Escobar. Narcos.

Narcos portrays the real life story of the illicit drug trade in the 1980’s, with the first two seasons focusing on the notorious “King of Cocaine” Pablo Escobar (Wagner Moura) and two DEA agents Javier Peña (Pedro Pascal) and Steve Murphy (Boyd Holbrook) who were instrumental in eventually taking him down. Season 3 focuses on the Rise of the Cali Cartel, who flourish after Escobar’s Death.

Narcos does a brilliant job of covering all the details you never knew, portraying all sides of the story, including how the investigations affect the personal lives of the DEA agents, criminals and everyone around them. It covers many tactical aspects of the “War on Drugs”, and the relentless efforts of the DEA and Local Authorities to wage it. From the politicians to the soldiers, the kingpins, the middle men, the street level operators, and everything in between, Narcos covers it all, in an exciting, thoughtful, and powerful docudrama that’s leaves you only wanting more.


Let me know if you agree or disagree with my picks and why, in the comments section. Feel free to make your own lists as well.

About the opinions in this article…

Any opinions expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this website or of the other authors/contributors who write for it.

About Lenny Ghoul 424 Articles
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