If viewers are fans of Animal KingdomIt’s clear they are fans of crime, drama and action television. Animal Kingdom has been running since 2016 and has received great reviews everywhere. After four seasons in the pocket, a fifth is on the way sometime in 2020. Fans eagerly awaited, as things took an unfortunate turn at the end of season four. To say the least, the season ahead will be interesting as it’s up in the air as to what the Cody guys will do next.
For now, there is a need for binge-worthy shows to fill the space while fans wait Animal Kingdom† There are a lot of shows that deal with crime, families with die-hard loyalties, risky business and dodgy partners; this type of show is not new to television, but the storylines just keep getting better and better.
Updated January 19, 2022 by Ben Hathaway: There are countless crime series on the air, so many that it can be difficult to pick the right series to spend your time on. However, some shows rise above the rest, and they are rather worth watching Animal Kingdom concludes with its sixth and final season.
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13 Justified (2010-2015)
Streaming on Hulu
FXs justified mainly benefited from two things: the violent/funny sensibility of author Elmore Leonard and the rock-solid lead role of Timothy Olyphant as Raylan Givens.
Givens was a character in several Leonard stories and novels: Riding the Rap† pronto† Fire in the holeand Raylan† Fire in the hole, in particular, was a major inspiration for the show in its first season. Along with Olyphant’s Givens, Walton Goggins’ Boyd Crowder is one of the more interesting and contradictory characters in crime TV history. In January 2022, nearly six years after the series ended, Justified: City Primeval was announced. It will be a miniseries (with Olyphant returning) based in part on Leonard’s City Primeval, which interestingly didn’t include Givens. However, the sometimes dingy tone was similar to the Raylan books and justifiedthe most intense moments.
12 Godfather of Harlem (2019- )
Stream on Epix
A lot of Godfather of HaarlemThe best characters are based on real historical figures: Malcolm X, Bumpy Johnson, Cassius Clay, Frank Costello. All of them, as well as the performances across the board, are stunningly realized.
Epix’s series has another reason to watch it: Godfather of Haarlem is a prequel to Ridley Scott’s american gangster† The cast is also blessed with several acting legends: Forest Whitaker, Paul Sorvino, Giancarlo Esposito and Vincent D’Onofrio, among others. The series has been renewed for a third season.
11 The Sopranos (1999–2007)
Stream on HBO Max
After the dawn of the era of prestige television and fueling the public’s appetite for crime series centered around complex antiheroes, HBO’s the sopranos has a huge, glowing reputation that precedes it. As responsible for making HBO as South Park was before the making of Comedy Central, the series features a substantial cast of characters, almost all of whom get their fill.
But it’s Tony Soprano who holds it all together. The late James Gandolfini’s breathtaking performance is as remarkable in the 2020s as it was in the late 90s and early years.
10 Sons of Anarchy (2008-2014)
Streaming on Hulu
Sons of Lawlessness tells the story of a motorcycle club that operates legally and illegally, depending on the business they do. The club is located in a small town called Charming, where they combine the gun trade, adult movies and a motorcycle garage. As the old-fashioned president of Sons of lawlessness, Clay Morrow cleverly likes to keep things the way they are. Jax, the club’s vice president, thinks it’s time for a change. Viewers will find that some characters are hard to just love or hate.
After Jax finds his father’s old diaries, everything changes, both for the better and for the worse. As the saga unfolds, viewers will have to discover it for themselves.
9 Queen of the South (2016-2021)
Stream on Netflix
Since 2016, Queen of the South proves that strong female protagonists make the best television no matter what. When the main character, Teresa, flees her home in Mexico after her boyfriend, a drug smuggler, is murdered. She eventually settles in Dallas, Texas and from that point on she takes matters into her own hands to become the largest and most powerful drug smuggler in the country to avenge her boyfriend’s death.
Starring actress Alice Braga, this show is action packed, the script is excellent and the storyline keeps viewers on the edge of their seats.
8 Kingdom (2014-2017)
Stream on Peacock
Even Kingdom lasted three short seasons, but it still impressed its viewers and was called one of the most underrated shows on television. For starters, when a retired MMA fighter becomes a trainer, he finds it much harder to sustain his personal and professional life than he ever imagined.
Also with two sons on the line, Alvey Kulina, played by Frank Grillo, must make decisions and hope they are the right ones for everyone.
7 Succession (2018- )
Stream on HBO Max
succession is an age-old story about a rich and brilliant patriarch, who tries to hold on to his legacy as long as possible, without the help of his children. Of course the children do not agree and want him to retire early.
The show shows what greed looks like among siblings and the power to control the company shows desperation among the family which is a wild ride to watch. Brian Cox, who plays Logan Roy, does an amazing job in this role, making it one of the actor’s best roles to date.
6 Ray Donovan (2013-2022)
Stream on Showtime
Since 2013, Ray Donovan has become increasingly popular and the drama never stops in each season. Starring Liev Schreiber, he plays a professional “fixer” named Ray Donovan, with the rich and famous as his clients.
He lives in Los Angeles and seems to be the less political male version of Scandal‘s Olivia Pope, even though she didn’t make the best decisions because he makes his client’s problems go away. Donovan seems to know everything, except when it comes to his own family. Showtime closed the series in 2022 with the well-received Ray Donovan: the movie†
5 Bloodline (2015-2017)
Stream on Netflix
In 2015, a new series was born, with an incredible storyline and familiar faces as cast. bloodline is a show about a family forced to face secrets from the past when a relative returns home.
With Kyle Chandler, Linda Cardellini and Sissy Spacek, bloodline survived only three seasons, but during those seasons, family ties were tested and the line between good and evil blurred as drugs were introduced into the family business.
4 Green Leaf (2016-2020)
Stream on Netflix
For five seasons Green leaf entertained viewers as a drama/mystery about a wealthy, yet dysfunctional family known as the Greenleafs. This is a great show that leaves viewers in a world of corrupt and reminds everyone that what people see on the outside may not be the whole truth. Led by church owners, Bishop James Greenleaf and his wife, Lady Mae Greenleaf, it is chock full of secrets, loss and lies.
3 Ozarks (2020- )
Stream on Netflix
Ozark, a Netflix Original, is an American crime drama about a financial planner named Marty Byrde, played by Jason Bateman. Byrde suddenly had to get his life out of the way, so his family moves from a big city to a summer resort in Missouri.
It seems pretty simple until the public finds out that he has to launder money to pay off a debt owed to a dangerous man. This is one of Bateman’s most serious roles to date, played perfectly and successfully.
2 Power (2014-2020)
Streaming on Hulu
James “Ghost” St. Patrick, a wealthy New York club owner, lives a life between the glamorous and the rich. Serving the elite in Manhattan, St. Patrick finds the time to lead a double life as a drug lord. With Omari Hardwick as St. Patrick and rap legend, 50 Cent as Kanan, Power is a thrilling ride, with a serious realism that many shows fail to deliver.
The series gives audiences a glimpse into a fictional world of the rich and famous and the dirty deeds they do to get what they want.
1 Peaky Blinders (2013-)
Stream on Netflix
Since 2013, Peaky Blinders has remained an incredibly popular show among fans yearning for another era of crime drama. It’s about a crime family operating in England in 1919, a gang that uses razor-blade paperboy caps as weapons (hence the name) and follows orders from a man named Tommy Shelby.
Peaky Blinders has no shortage of major deaths, powerful characters, and binge-worthy seasons, one after the other. In fact, this is arguably one of Cillian Murphy’s most popular characters to date and he deserves all the attention for it. Since the upcoming sixth season is the series’ last, audiences will have a good chance of giving Shelby a proper goodbye.
