Best Of
Thriller Shows Worth Starting Next
By Jordan A. · · Updated · 5 min read
Checked September 9, 2026. "Thriller" covers about six different things, which is why most lists in this genre feel useless. A conspiracy thriller and a serial killer procedural and a corporate paranoia show have almost nothing in common except that you're supposed to feel tense. So the picks below say which kind they are, how long they take, and what they cost you.
Two housekeeping notes. Everything in the main list has finished airing or has enough episodes out to judge, so nothing here is a gamble on a premise. And there's a short section at the end for what's genuinely new this year, split between what has already aired and what is only dated so far.
The ones that finish in a week
Bodyguard (BBC One, 2018, six episodes) opens with a twenty minute sequence on a train that is still the best hour of tension British television has produced this decade. Richard Madden plays a veteran assigned to protect a home secretary he politically despises. It became the most watched BBC drama in years, and it earns that in the first episode alone. The plot gets sillier as it goes, which is the trade. Six hours, one weekend, no commitment.
The Night Of (HBO, 2016, eight episodes) follows a college student who wakes beside a dead woman with no memory of the night, and then spends eight hours inside the machinery of the New York court system. Riz Ahmed and John Turturro lead it. It's the least sensational thriller here: no twist, no reveal, just process grinding a person down. If you want to be gripped without being jerked around, this one.
Sharp Objects (HBO, 2018, eight episodes) sends Amy Adams back to a Missouri town to report on two dead girls, drinking from a water bottle full of vodka the whole way. Jean-Marc Vallee directed all eight and the editing hides things in single frames, which rewards a rewatch. It's more atmosphere than plot. The closing shot is the most discussed ending on this page.
The procedural ones, done properly
Line of Duty (BBC One, 2012 to 2021, six seasons, thirty six episodes) is anti-corruption police investigating other police, and its signature is a long interview scene, sometimes twenty minutes, with three officers and a suspect at a table. That sounds like nothing and it's unbearable. Jed Mercurio wrote it, and each season is largely self-contained with a running thread. Start at season one, not season two, despite what people tell you.
Broadchurch (ITV, 2013 to 2017, three seasons, twenty four episodes) puts David Tennant and Olivia Colman in a Dorset coastal town after a boy's body is found on the beach, and it is really about what suspicion does to neighbors. The first season is the reason to come. The third handles a sexual assault investigation with unusual care and is better than its reputation. The second is the weak one and you can skim it.
MINDHUNTER (Netflix, 2017 to 2019, two seasons, nineteen episodes) has two FBI agents in the late 1970s interviewing incarcerated killers to invent the vocabulary of criminal profiling. David Fincher directed seven of them. The tension is almost entirely conversational, and the Ed Kemper scenes are the best acting in any of these shows. Netflix never made a third season and never formally canceled it either, so it ends mid-thought. Worth it anyway.
The Sinner (USA Network, 2017 to 2021, four seasons, thirty two episodes) is an anthology built backwards: you see the crime in the first ten minutes and spend the season on why. Bill Pullman plays the detective across all four. Season one, with Jessica Biel, is the strongest by a wide margin, and each subsequent one is a standalone you can skip freely.
The paranoid ones
Mr. Robot (USA Network, 2015 to 2019, four seasons, forty five episodes) is a hacker with a plan to erase consumer debt, an unreliable narrator, and a show that reinvents its own form every season, including one episode shot to look like a single take and one with almost no dialogue. Rami Malek leads. The technical detail is genuinely accurate, which is rare enough to matter. It gets very strange in season two, and that is the point where people either commit or leave.
Severance (Apple TV+, 2022 to present, two seasons, nineteen episodes) surgically splits employees so their work selves and home selves share no memories, and then asks what you owe a version of yourself you've never met. It's the most stylish thing here and the slowest burn. Two seasons out, a third confirmed, and the gap between seasons one and two was three years, so be prepared to wait.
Bad Sisters (Apple TV+, 2022 to 2024, two seasons, eighteen episodes) is Sharon Horgan's adaptation of a Flemish series about five Irish sisters and the brother-in-law they'd all like dead. It's a thriller and a comedy at full strength simultaneously, which almost never works. The first season is a closed, complete story. The second is good and less necessary.
What is actually new this year
Out now: The Night Manager returned for a second season on Prime Video starting January 11, 2026, ten years after the original six episodes aired on BBC One, with Tom Hiddleston back as Jonathan Pine. Reacher came back for a fourth season on Prime Video on August 12, 2026, adapting Lee Child's Gone Tomorrow.
Dated but not yet aired as of today: Slow Horses begins its sixth season on Apple TV+ on September 16, 2026, with weekly episodes through October 21, and a spinoff following Reacher's Frances Neagley is set for Prime Video the same week. Treat both as things to plan for rather than things to recommend, since nobody has seen them yet.
How to choose tonight
If you have one evening, Bodyguard. If you want the best written of these, Line of Duty. If you want to be unsettled rather than thrilled, MINDHUNTER or Sharp Objects. If you want something still running that you can talk to people about, Severance. Where each of these streams changes; the title page on BingeNext shows current US options.
If you'd rather have a shortlist built from shows you already rate, our TV recommendation tool returns picks with a reason for each and where they stream.
Topics covered: best-of, 2026, thriller, suspense, mystery, genre
About the author
Jordan A., Founder, BingeNext
Jordan A. is the founder of BingeNext and is responsible for every guide published on this site. He built the recommendation engine after one too many nights lost to the streaming menu. Dates, season counts and where-to-watch details in these guides are checked against official sources before publishing, and corrections are welcome at Jordan@Bingenext.com.