The 20 best thriller series streaming right now

Declan GallagherWed, September 23, 2026 at 9:00 PM UTC

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Gary Oldman on ‘Slow Horses’; Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell on ‘The Americans’; Hannah Cheramy on ‘From’Credit: Jack English/Apple TV; FX; Chris Reardon/MGM+

There’s something irresistible about a great thriller, the sort that grips you from the opening frame and refuses to let go until the last episode. Whether you prefer a slow-burning chill or a high-octane game of cat-and-mouse, thrillers tap into our most primal fears and unspeakable fascinations.

The genre has delivered some classics, such as the enduring British procedural Luther, the Cold War potboiler The Americans, and You, the Netflix staple featuring Penn Badgley as the brilliantly psychotic Joe Goldberg.

But a new wave of thrillers are making themselves known on streaming services, and they’re proliferating at such a staggering rate that you may have missed some of the best ones. How about Swarm, starring Dominique Fishback as an obsessed fan? Or Get Millie Black, a gritty subversion of the British procedural set in Jamaica? And you’ve probably heard of Dept. Q, Netflix’s most recent juggernaut about a disgraced detective trying to rehabilitate his career.

Whether you’re a connoisseur of the genre or a newcomer, this list provides a succinct breakdown of the best titles currently available on a variety of streaming services. Here is a collection of 20 great thriller series you can binge right now.

Alien: Earth (2025–present)

Timothy Olyphant as Kirsh, Sydney Chandler as Wendy, Samuel Blenkin as Boy Kavalier on ‘Alien: Earth’Credit: Patrick Brown/FX

We should let Noah Hawley make a TV show out of every classic movie. The man who turned Fargo from a single-movie wonder into a five-season anthology juggernaut took on Alien with equally grandiose results. Hawley reinvigorates the franchise with a breathtakingly cinematic blend of popcorn storytelling and thorny ideas of technological over-advancement.

It starts with catastrophe: A Weyland-Yutani ship containing various extraterrestrial specimens crashes down into Prodigy City after its mission goes awry. Meanwhile, the heart of the series is the hybrids — human consciences transplanted into highly advanced cyborg bodies — led by Wendy (Sydney Chandler). As corporate powers haggle over who has dominion over the ship’s creatures, our so-called “Lost Boys” begin to discover what they are (and aren’t), and what they’re capable of.

Where to watch Alien Earth: Hulu

The Americans (2013–2018)

Matthew Rhys as Philip and Keri Russell as Elizabeth on ‘The Americans’Credit: Patrick Harbron/FX

FX’s seminal espionage thriller stars Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys (whose real-life relationship began during production) as two Russian spies embedded in the U.S., tasked with hiding in plain sight as a normal American family while they spy on the government, one mission after the next. Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields’ outstanding period drama develops over six seasons like a sprawling novel, equally dividing its time between pressure-cooker plotting and more grounded domestic drama.

During its run, The Americans won Emmys, Golden Globes, and even two Peabody Awards. It’s often referred to as one of the best American TV shows, competing with the likes of peak-TV marvels like Breaking Bad and Mad Men, and the comparison is well earned.

Where to watch The Americans: Hulu

Breaking Bad (2008–2013)

Bryan Cranston as Walter White on ‘Breaking Bad’Credit: Everett

Speaking of Breaking Bad… There’s a good chance you already know the reason mild-mannered chemistry teacher Walter White (Bryan Cranston) turns to cooking meth alongside one of his burnout former students, Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul). But if you still haven’t seen Vince Gilligan’s Albuquerque outlaw caper turned international crime epic, you’re in for a treat.

Breaking Bad is Shakespearean in structure, a classical tragedy writ large and transposed onto the still-relevant economic and political struggles of the mid-2000s. Cranston reinvigorated his career with this role, and it remains a fearsome tour de force.

Where to watch Breaking Bad: Netflix

Dark (2017–2020)

Louis Hofmann as Jonas on ‘Dark’Credit: Julia Terjung/Netflix

There are the missing children. And the unexplained suicide. And the messy infidelities. But it’s more than that; there’s a dread hanging in the air in Winden, the small German village in which Dark takes place. That dread means, of course, secrets — dark and buried secrets. But what it also means, as it turns out, is a mind-bogglingly complicated time-travel framework that is both a narrative Rube Goldberg machine and a grand cosmic conspiracy.

You may need charts and graphs to understand it all, by the end, but there is more imagination in this series’ twists of fate than in a dozen time-travel movies combined. There’s a perverse glee to the unfolding chaos and twists, one which colors the series with a pleasantly baroque tone.

Where to watch Dark: Netflix

Dept. Q (2025–present)

Chloe Pirrie as Merritt Lingard on ‘Dept. Q’Credit: Netflix

After his partner is grievously injured and a young officer killed in an operation gone wrong, disgraced hotshot detective Carl Morck (Matthew Goode) is assigned a cold case that will either redeem him or break his career entirely. First things first: He gets to put together a team of misfits who will tolerate his abrasive egomaniacal genius while filling in his blind spots and doing the dirty work. It’s a classic formula, executed well.

Scott Frank and Chandni Lakhani created this compulsively watchable series, which gives Goode one of his best roles and provides a necessary shot in the arm to the overpopulated British procedural format. Dept. Q rivals Slow Horses for sweaty, anxiety-ramping intensity, and that’s exactly what we want from our murder mysteries.

Where to watch Dept. Q: Netflix

Disclaimer (2024)

Cate Blanchett as Catherine Ravenscroft in ‘Disclaimer’Credit: Apple TV

Alfonso Cuarón created this twisty, sweaty morality play, which stars Cate Blanchett as Catherine Ravenscroft, a documentarian known for exposing the secrets of powerful people. Then along comes the disheveled Stephen Brigstocke (Kevin Kline), who wants to give her a taste of her own medicine. He has his reasons. Turns out she once knew his deceased son (Louis Partridge); he has the Polaroids and intimate details to prove it (and intends to do so).

Cuarón’s series takes on various points of view — Stephen’s late wife; Catherine’s husband (Sacha Baron Cohen); their son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) — while Catherine is stuck in the middle, tumbling frantically into paranoia, guilt, and shame. Disclaimer is a warped melodrama built on a clever interplay of reality, memory, and fiction.

Where to watch Disclaimer: Apple TV

Evil (2019–2024)

Katja Herbers as Kristen Bouchard on ‘Evil’Credit: Elizabeth Fisher/Paramount+

This fabulous supernatural procedural originally aired on CBS before moving to Paramount+. Lucky us, because that means even weirder, gorier setups. Mike Colter and Katja Herbers play David Acosta and Dr. Kristen Bouchard, respectively, a priest and psychologist who make a most unexpected team as they solve cases related to supernatural phenomena within Acosta’s parish.

Evil harks back to classic small-screen thrillers like Kolchak: The Night Stalker, The X-Files, and American Horror Story, piling on bloody twists and outrageous turns. Each episode follows a phenomena-of-the-week structure, which makes this a terrifically easy-to-binge series.

Where to watch Evil: Paramount+

From (2022–present)

The cast of ‘From’Credit: MGM+

In one of many long, classical narrative traditions featured on this list, From is one of those shows where everyone’s stuck in a mysterious place — in this case, a small, scary little town called Township — and cannot get out. It knows what you’re thinking: What is this place? Where is it? How do people get here? Why are they here? Has anyone ever gotten out? And what is actually, secretly going on here? Is it hell? Is it purgatory?

These are the kinds of questions the series will tantalizingly not quite answer over the course of each addictive season. It’s a particularly gnarly Twilight Zone riff, with a bit of Lost in there — not least because of the casting of Harold Perrineau as the town’s ostensible leader.

Where to watch From: MGM+

Get Millie Black (2024)

Tamara Lawrance as Millie-Jean Black in ‘Get Millie Black’Credit: Fernandez Hevia/HBO

Bereaved Millie-Jean Black (Tamara Lawrance) is unceremoniously dismissed from her position at Scotland Yard after a tragic work accident and heads back to her native Jamaica, where she solves local missing persons cases alongside her partner, Curtis (Gershwyn Eustache Jr). But Millie and Curtis find themselves in unexpectedly hot water when their investigation leads them to a dangerous gang that appears to be controlled by the city’s richest family.

Created and written by acclaimed novelist Marlon James, Get Millie Black is a punchy potboiler that moves like a bullet and has enough twists to fill several seasons. Lawrance and Eustache Jr. share a warm chemistry, and James throws in just enough good-natured perversity to keep you on your toes.

Where to watch Get Millie Black: HBO Max

The Last of Us (2023–present)

Pedro Pascal as Joel and Bella Ramsey as Ellie on ‘The Last of Us’Credit: Liane Hentscher/HBO Max

Craig Mazin’s fantastic series might be the best video game adaptation of all time. Amidst a pandemic that has turned humanity into raging zombies, wizened survivor Joel (Pedro Pascal) is tasked with transporting immune 14-year-old Ellie (Bella Ramsey) out of a quarantine zone and across the country. If you haven’t seen The Last of Us, we won’t spoil anything for you except to say: Believe the hype. This is small-screen filmmaking at its most exciting, with performances and writing that rival any major drama series in recent memory.

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Where to watch The Last of Us: HBO Max

Luther (2010–2019)

Idris Elba as John Luther in ‘Luther: The Fallen Sun’Credit: John Wilson/Netflix

Idris Elba stars as the title character, one cut from a classic mold: a legendarily brilliant detective whose methods aren’t exactly by the book — to say nothing of legal. Elba and writer Neil Crossdeepen that archetype; their John Luther is a rigid psychological portrait, equal parts angelic and violent. That he knows what makes killers tick is his cross to bear, and he pays many times over for it.

Luther is similar in tone to Dexter, except this show knows when to call it quits. This is the first post-Stringer Bell role that gave Elba the chance to show off his remarkable range. Each of the five seasons is a cracking watch, with the twists flying fast and furious.

Where to watch Luther: Hulu

The Night Of (2016)

Riz Ahmed as Naz and John Turturro as John Stone in ‘The Night Of’Credit: Craig Blankenhorn/HBO

Riz Ahmed is electric as Naz, a young Pakistani-American who borrows his father’s cab and hooks up with a woman, only to find her murdered the next morning. He is the prime suspect, swiftly incarcerated at Rikers Island among the types of hardened criminals he most certainly is not.

Though this is, in part, a murder mystery, we’re never led to believe Naz is guilty. Instead, the show is interested in the effect being in the prison system — in this case, while awaiting trial — can have on a person’s soul and psyche, particularly an innocent one. It’s also a classical courtroom drama, with John Turturro as his do-gooder attorney in a performance that rightly earned him an Emmy nomination. (He lost — to Riz Ahmed.)

Where to watch The Night Of: HBO Max

Severance (2022–present)

Adam Scott as Mark S. on ‘Severance’Credit: Apple TV+

In a world… where you can sever your brain into distinct selves (work you, personal you), Mark S. (Adam Scott) has chosen to do exactly that. He works at Lumon Industries with a handful of other severed employees doing incomprehensible tasks. Then he goes home, where he lives alone with memories of his dead wife. (No wonder he wants to forget himself for eight hours a day.)

That is only the start of the high-wire conceptual act that is Severance, which evolves into something that is much more than a satire of work-life balance: a shrewder commentary on mythmaking, religion, and identity itself. This is the best sort of sci-fi series that takes the preoccupations of the moment and spins them into a terrifying (yet frequently hilarious) what-if scenario.

Where to watch Severance: Apple TV

Slow Horses (2022–present)

Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb and Jack Lowden as River Cartwright on ‘Slow Horses’Credit: Apple TV

Apple TV’s poppy, pulpy adaptation of Mick Herron’s novels stars Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb, a slovenly (but exceptionally good) MI5 operative tasked with overseeing the agency’s screw-ups, a.k.a. the Slow Horses (or Slough Horses, if you’re into it). Balancing lowbrow comedy with sweaty-palmed espionage, Slow Horses immediately carved out a space for itself in the increasingly busy world of streaming. The way it expertly juggles tones and storylines does Herron proud, building a universe which is at once eminently inhabitable and completely repulsive.

Where to watch Slow Horses: Apple TV

Station Eleven (2021–2022)

Gael García Bernal as Arthur in ‘Station Eleven’Credit: Ian Watson/HBO Max

In the before, Kirsten was a child actress in New York, taken in during the snowy start of what turns out to be an apocalyptic pandemic by Jeevan (Himesh Patel). In the after, two decades on, Kirsten (Mackenzie Davis) is a member of a group of traveling actors making their way across what remains of the ravaged landscape.

Station Eleven is a deceptively complex dystopian survival story, equal parts hopeful and painful. The ensemble includes a group of survivors who’ve rebuilt a mini-civilization in an airport, an enigmatic cult leader, and, in flashbacks, a woman (Danielle Deadwyler) who once wrote a comic book that somehow ties it all together. Station Eleven is one of the most thought-provoking takes on the last-survivors formula, mixing its influences in startling, often emotionally devastating fashion.

Where to watch Station Eleven: HBO Max

Stranger Things (2016–2025)

The cast of ‘Stranger Things’Credit: Netflix

Who doesn’t know about Stranger Things? In the small town of Hawkins, a group of D&D-loving kids discover a mysterious girl, Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), who’s escaped from life in a lab as part of an elaborate scientific experiment. She has the superpowers to prove it — and a target on her back. Did we mention this is the 1980s? Yeah, so the Cold War is part of this.

Her arrival sets in motion a chain of events that challenges the town’s very existence. If you’ve somehow missed out, now is the perfect time to catch up — because you can do it all in one fell swoop, with the climactic final season bringing it all to an extravagant close a decade after it began.

Where to watch Stranger Things: Netflix

Squid Game (2021–2025)

Park Hae-soo as Cho Sang-woo, Lee Jung-jae as Seong Gi-hun, and Hoyeon as Kang Sae-byeok on ‘Squid Game’Credit: Netflix

In the long, grand tradition of the “win, you live/lose, you die” subgenre, Squid Game revolves around something altogether innocent: fun childhood games! The only wrinkle is, if you lose at these childhood games, you got shot in the head. The players for this recurring event are recruited from across the country, their only connection being that they all desperately need money. Little do they know exactly what they signed up for.

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Part Battle Royale, part Alice in Borderland, with touches of The Purge thrown in for good measure, Squid Game is a squeamishly enjoyable South Korean thriller that balances the macabre thrills of the games themselves with the lives of the characters playing them — expertly keeping viewers guessing on both fronts.

Where to watch Squid Game: Netflix

Swarm (2023)

Chloe Bailey as Marissa and Dominique Fishback as Dre in ‘Swarm’Credit: Warrick Page/Prime Video

Dominique Fishback gives an incendiary performance as Dre, who has something of an obsession with pop star Ni’Jah (Nirine S. Brown) — so much so that she takes it upon herself to track down anyone who says anything remotely negative about her on the internet. As Dre’s fandom becomes more dangerous, she begins adopting alternate identities and traveling across the country in the hopes of embedding herself in Ni’Jah’s life.

Swarm is a fabulously barbed satire with much to say about the current state of celebrity on and off the internet, all wrapped in an entertainingly genre-inflected bow. It’s a sharp inspection of the music industry and a blazing takedown of toxic fandom.

Where to watch Swarm: Amazon Prime Video

Under the Bridge (2024)

Chloe Guidry as Josephine and Lily Gladstone as Cam Bentland in ‘Under the Bridge’Credit: Darko Sikman/Hulu

Under the Bridge is based on the tragic true story of Reena Virk, a 14-year-old British Columbia girl beaten to death in 1997 by her fellow teenagers — who, it turns out, had made her something of a bullying target even before the murder.

Under the Bridge charts the efforts of real-life novelist Rebecca Godfrey (Riley Keough) and local police officer Cam Bentland (Lily Gladstone) to uncover the truth behind Virk’s (Vritika Gupta) death. Along the way, it uncovers some dark truths about teenage relationships that feel even more relevant in the social media era. The series is a respectful telling of Virk’s story, the antithesis to certain true-crime productions with queasier intentions.

Where to watch Under the Bridge: Hulu

You (2018–2025)

Penn Badgley as Joe on ‘You’Credit: Clifton Prescod/Netflix

Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) is really good at being a psycho. He also has a penchant for falling in love with beautiful young women, like Guinevere Beck (Elizabeth Lail) and Love Quinn (Victoria Pedretti). Sometimes that leads to an antagonistic relationship, which occasionally ends with his betrothed chained in a soundproof box in the basement of his bookstore. All in a day’s work.

You became (deservedly) huge once it hit Netflix. This wickedly devious confection pushes all the right buttons, constantly reinventing itself all the way through the final season. It’s such good fun, you’ll want to watch it again, and again, and again…

Where to watch You: Netflix

on Entertainment Weekly

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