The great thing about having so many streaming services these days to choose from, from Netflix to Apple TV Plus and more, is that it pretty much guarantees there will always be something for everyone to enjoy. Granted, some of the streamers have much deeper libraries of content than others. But if you’re especially into specific popular genres — like, say, crime shows — you’ll most likely find an abundance of riches across multiple platforms.
On Friday, Netflix released the official trailer for season two of Snabba Cash, a fantastic and seriously underrated Swedish-language crime show. The new season is coming to the streamer on September 22, and you can watch the trailer right here. I’ll have a review of the new season in a separate post, but the trailer got me reminiscing about some of my favorite and what I also think are the best crime shows across multiple services, titles that we’ll take a closer look at below.
Narcos – one of the best crime shows on Netflix
Ever since Narcos: Mexico, the spinoff of Netflix’s Narcos crime show franchise that was set in Colombia, dropped its final episodes late last year, I’ve yet to see a similar series emerge from the streamer with the same amount of world-building, complex storylines and richly drawn characters to satisfy a fan of big crime sagas.
I stand by my assertion in a November 2021 piece, that the Narcos franchise will, in fact, go down as one of the greatest Netflix originals of all time. And it’s not just because of the propulsive storytelling, the larger-than-life villains, the power struggles, and the explosive violence juxtaposed with the at-times breathtaking beauty of Mexico and Colombia. The show also gets the little things right. Like the mannerisms and personality of Andrea Nunez — a fictional journalist in the final season of Narcos: Mexico who, as an idealist in a dying and deadly profession, brings heart and humanity to the story.
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Two more crime shows to stream
Gomorrah (HBO Max)
From the haunting soundtrack to the authentic Neapolitan dialect that’s spoken in this crime show, everything about the five-season Gomorrah on HBO Max is note-perfect. In a just world, this will be the mafia saga by which all other comers would be judged.
There are no cartoonish goons in neck chains and jumpsuits here, sitting around eating lasagna and telling people to fuhgeddaboudit. Rather, this is a super-violent, Shakesperean drama about Italian cities and towns governed by “il Sistema” (The System).
Rival clans of the Camorra, the Italian criminal organization upon which the name of this show is based, jockey for power and fight a turf war that never ends. One where the battlefield is demarcated by city streets, ugly apartment blocks, and the sound of automatic gunfire that’s as commonplace as children playing in the street.
Think of this series as the love child of Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones.
ZeroZeroZero (Prime Video)
Italian journalist Roberto Saviano wrote the book that Gomorrah was based on. He also did the same for ZeroZeroZero, a similarly gritty and violent 1-season crime show available to stream on Prime Video.
From Amazon’s official description: “ZeroZeroZero is an … action crime drama spanning three continents and six different countries inspired by the book of the same title from best-selling author Roberto Saviano. The series follows the journey of a cocaine shipment, from the moment a powerful cartel of Italian criminals decides to buy it until the cargo is delivered and paid for. The international cocaine trade has its roots in the fragile network linking powerful organizations and unscrupulous individuals.”
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