Are you someone who is obsessed with true crime? From documentaries to YouTube videos, you’ll be able to get your hands on everything that even vaguely connects to that genre. Your mind becomes numb after ingesting so much information; it refuses to accept any more true crime documentaries into its synapses, so you decide to find something binge-worthy. However, the algorithm steers you toward all of the available crime TV shows based on your search history. And you can’t help yourself. This is the post you ended up clicking, and lucky for you, it’s exactly what you’re looking for. So, keep reading to see our list of the top 25 Serial Killers TV Series.
25. Wolf Creek
In both seasons of the Australian anthology series Wolf Creek, outback serial murderer Mick Taylor is featured, but with a different set of targets each time.
He targets an American family on vacation in the first season, killing the parents and shooting their 19-year-old daughter Eve before leaving her for dead. Unbeknownst to him, she is apprehended and transported to the hospital, where she survives and vows vengeance.
Taylor targets a party of international tourists in the second season, kidnapping their tour bus and abandoning them in the middle of the desert. Mick chases them down one by one, while the survivors do everything they can to survive.
24. Big Sky
Cody Hoyt and Cassie Dewell are private investigators who are looking into the disappearance of two young children who were abducted somewhere along a rural Montana roadway.
They realize that these two girls aren’t the only victims after teaming up with Hoyt’s ex-wife Jenny (also an ex-cop).
With their sights set on Ronald Bergman, a long-haul truck driver, the team of investigators strives to ensure that no one else falls victim to his misdeeds.
23. Hannibal
Will Graham, an FBI agent, is overburdened by the continuous investigation of a serial killer in Minnesota, so he seeks help from forensic psychiatrist Dr. Hannibal Lector, who is also a serial killer and cannibal. The series has received a lot of praise, notably for Mads Mikkelson and Hugh Dancy’s performances, making it one of the best TV dramas about serial killers.
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22. Prodigal Son
Fox’s Prodigal Son is a procedural crime drama that takes a unique approach to the serial murderer genre by combining it with the biblical story of the prodigal son.
It centers on Malcolm Bright, a former FBI profiler who now works as a consultant for the New York Police Department. Bright’s reputation precedes him not only for his remarkable capacity to see murders through the eyes of the perpetrator but also as the guy who, when he was a little boy, implicated his own father – Martin Whitly, better known as the legendary serial killer “The Surgeon.”
When a copycat murderer begins his own spree, Bright must return to his estranged father for important information.
21. True Detective
True Detective has three seasons so far, with a fourth in the works; we’re talking about the first season, which is near-perfect. Rust and Marty, homicide detectives, investigated the 1995 murder of a prostitute. They relive the crime seventeen years later, dealing with their secrets and mental torment.
20. You
Joe Goldberg, the main character in Netflix’s You, appears to be your average kind guy, but he has a dark secret.
He falls in love with a girl he meets at the bookstore where he works in the first season. However, the love gradually devolves into a toxic obsession in which he stalks her and manipulates every area of her life in order for her to fall in love with him as well. When their relationship falls apart, he murders her, and his ex-girlfriend is presumed to have died in the same way.
Joe is in a new town with a new identity in the second season, and the cycle begins all over again. Joe is now married to Love, his season 2 fixation, and the two strive to live a normal life in a Californian suburb in the third season.
19. Mindhunter
The series is based on John Douglas’ book of the same name. The film Mindhunter is a strange mix of fiction and reality. It tells the true account of how, in the late 1970s, the FBI’s Behavioural Science Unit began investigating psychopaths and serial killers. The show features some outstanding performances, and David Fincher establishes the visual approach in the first few episodes. When Fincher does something, we can be confident that it will be excellent. And it is, as it is one of the best serial killer TV series ever made.
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18. Mindhunter
The series takes place in the late 1970s and early 1980s when FBI profiling was still in its infancy. Agents Holden Ford and Bill Tench, with the support of psychologist Wendy Carr, lead the Behavioral Science Unit, which aims to improve their knowledge of criminal psychology and profiling in order to assist in the resolution of current and future cases.
They do so by interviewing convicted serial killers such as Ed Kemper, Jerry Brudos, David Berkowitz (Son of Sam), Dennis Rader (BTK), Richard Speck, Charles Manson, and others.
17. Killing Eve
This series, created by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, isn’t really about a serial killer because Villanelle is a professional assassin. However, her track record immediately reveals that she is not an ordinary killer. Eve is sent to assassinate Villanelle by an intelligence organization, but as the episode unfolds, the two women become strangely drawn to each other.
16. The Alienist
When a string of brutal child killings sweeps the city, he enlists the help of Dr. Laszlo Kreizler and his team to launch a parallel investigation without informing the NYPD.
Kreizler was a known alienist – now known as a criminal psychologist – who specialized in youngsters with mental problems, and he solves the murders using both his knowledge and insights from prior patients.
The inquiry into the kidnapping of a diplomat’s daughter is linked with the second season’s emphasis on yet another killer.
15. Murders in Valhalla
The series follows Arnar, who is transferred to his native Iceland from Oslo to investigate the country’s first case involving a serial murderer. It is based on genuine events that occurred in a state-run institution for troublesome boys in Iceland.
14. Scream
Are you a fan of the Scream slasher film series? Then you’ll enjoy this TV show adaptation as well!
The Scream series is unrelated to the events of the film, but it does use the figure of Ghostface to wreak havoc in Lakewood.
Emma Duval, the protagonist of the first two seasons, discovers that her family is hiding a terrible secret connected to the horrific events in their town’s history, the consequences of which have been felt to this day in a series of murders targeting Emma and her friends.
Ghostface’s killing spree continues in Atlanta in the third season, where he torments a young football player and his family.
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13. Beyond the Pale
Are you a Korean film buff? Yes, I am. Particularly films about serial killers, such as Memories of Murder. However, this is the first in a series. It follows two police officers, Lee Dong-sik and Han Joo-won, as they attempt to apprehend a serial killer while concealing their own dark secrets.
12. Bates Motel
Bates Motel is established as the prequel to the 1960s thriller Psycho – albeit reinvented in a modern environment – and is another picture based on an incredible classic.
Norman Bates had already established himself as a disturbing figure in the film as an adult, and Bates Motel gives audiences a glimpse into his psyche during his adolescent years.
His childhood was tragic and painful, and he was engulfed in an odd, almost Oedipal connection with his mother. That doesn’t excuse his acts, but the show allows us to see the events that lead to his mental health being shattered and better comprehend why he becomes a serial killer.
11. Des
Des, an ITV drama, is based on the 1983 arrest and conviction of serial killer Dennis Nilsen. Nilsen was found guilty of six charges of murder and two counts of attempted murder, while his true tally is said to be 12 victims and another seven attempts – all of whom were young men and boys.
Des accompanies fictitious Detective Peter Jay as he investigates a North London residence where the sewers are blocked with human remains. That takes him to Dennis Nilsen, the homeowner, who admits to having “15 or 16” bodies.
Meanwhile, a biographer interviews Nilsen while he is on trial in order to learn more about the motivations behind his horrible deeds.
10. Slasher
Another anthology series is on the way! With three seasons already under its belt and a fourth on the way in 2021, each episode depicts a distinct story centred on a mysterious serial killer.
Slasher isn’t your typical slasher series, with 80 per cent jump scares and 20 per cent plot — the plots are intricately intertwined with twists and turns that will have you chewing your fingernails throughout each episode.
Season 1 is about a copycat murder targeting a young woman whose past and present are intertwined, while Season 2 is about a summer camp serial murderer with an epic twist. Season three, on the other hand, is a revenge story gone tragically wrong. In season 4, members of the rich Galloway family battle for the title of “King of the Hill.”
9. Marcella
Marcella Backland, a former investigator with the London Metropolitan Police Service, is the protagonist in this story. She returns to work after an unforeseen upheaval in her marriage and devotes her time to investigating an 11-year-old multiple murder case when the culprit appears to have struck again.
Marcella is dealing with regular blackouts that are causing her mental health to deteriorate in the second season, which involves a string of child murders. Marcella went undercover in Northern Ireland to infiltrate a wealthy crime family in the third season.
8. Mr Mercedes
The name of the book Mr Mercedes is the unidentified perpetrator of a horrible crime involving a Mercedes grand theft auto that resulted in the deaths of sixteen people.
Even after his retirement from the force, Detective Bill Hodges continues to be haunted by the unresolved case. To make matters worse, he’s now the focus of internet threats and harassment from a new psychopath named Brady Hartsfield.
As Hartsfield becomes increasingly determined to establish a reputation for himself, he goes to extreme lengths with slain victims, leaving Hodges just as desperate to capture him.
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7. The Following
You might believe there’s nothing worse than a serial killer on the loose, but Fox’s The Following will show you that you’re incorrect when it blends a serial killer with a cult. That’s when you understand how much more dangerous a serial killer with a cult of loyalists is.
In The Following, former FBI agent Ryan Hardy is on the hunt for Joe Carroll, an escaped murderer who has recruited a devoted cult to do his bidding in a big conspiracy aimed at Agent Hardy himself.
In the second and third seasons, new cults and serial killers are introduced, but Carroll’s story arc is maintained as he continues to play an important role in Hardy and his team’s hunt for the murders.
6. American Horror Story: Asylum
The anthology series American Horror Story is highly successful. Here, we’re discussing the second season, named Asylum. The series alternates between present-day and 1964, when a new couple investigates the now-defunct mad institution Briarcliff Manor, suspecting Kit Walker of being the serial killer “Bloody Face.”
5. The Bridge
Whereas the original series was set on the border between Denmark and Sweden, this American adaption is set on the border between the United States and Mexico. This is where El Paso, Texas, detective Sonya Cross and Chihuahua, Mexico, and detective Marco Ruiz join forces to investigate the death of a notoriously anti-immigration judge whose body is discovered on the border.
Despite the fact that their investigative approaches are significantly different, the two must work together to prevent the murders from becoming more widespread, especially given the country’s ongoing problems with illegal immigration, violence, and drug cartels.
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4. Luther
The eponymous John Luther is a committed Detective Chief Inspector working in their agency’s Serious Crimes Unit. He’s investigating Alice Morgan, a clever but crazy murderer who gets away with it owing to a lack of evidence at the start of the series.
As the series unfolds, they continue to meet paths, and she finally becomes a type of companion to him, providing crucial insight to assist him to solve his cases. This strange partnership, however, isn’t without its drawbacks, and it was always doomed to fail.
3. Aquarius
NBC’s Aquarius, like Mindhunter, takes its serial murderer – and parts of the series’ events – right from the pages of real-life history books.
When you think of Los Angeles in the late 1960s, you’re likely to think of one killer in particular: Charles Manson. When Detective Sam Hodiak of the Los Angeles Police Department and his young colleague Officer Brian Shafe are investigating the abduction of a teen girl called Emma, they come upon Manson and his “family,” which includes Emma herself.
Aquarius follows Hodiak’s pursuit of Manson as he advances toward propagating his “helter-skelter” mentality against the backdrop of a changing America, as well as how these historical events influenced an already evolving American society.
2. The Loch
Though this six-part miniseries named The Loch (also known as Loch Ness) takes set in a little community near the notorious Loch Ness – don’t be fooled, the series has little to do with the Loch Ness monster legend (though admittedly, that would be kind of cool).
When a body is discovered at the foot of a mountain beside the lake, a team led by Detective Sergeant Annie Redford, Detective Chief Inspector Lauren Quigley, and psychological profiler Blake Albrighton leads the investigation.
While it appeared to be an accident at first, when a human heart is discovered along the lakefront, it quickly becomes evident that they’re dealing with a serial killer.
1. Wicked City
Set in Los Angeles during the early 1980s, ABC’s Wicked City reminds viewers how the City of Angels was home to the devil incarnate himself, Kent Grainger, and his lover Betty Beaumontaine, during this very eventful period in LA history.
The Hollywood industry was booming, and many young women were seeking to break into the profession, which Grainger took advantage of in his drive for a celebrity by going on a serial killing spree around the city.
Detectives Jack Roth and Paco Contreras must create odd relationships with civilians, including a journalist, a photographer, and an undercover cop, in order to catch him before his body count continues to increase.