Hardly any other genre is as popular with Germans as crime fiction, be it long-lived crime series such as ‘Tatort’ or the countless crime series on public and private television channels. But What is the best crime series of all time? The answer is: how could it be otherwise? – a series about the best and most famous detective of all time: Sherlock Holmes.
TOP 10 NAMED CRIME SERIES BY FILM START USERS
- “Sherlock” – 4,529 stars out of 5
- “True Detective” – 4,449 stars out of 5
- “Fargo” – 4,335 stars out of 5
- “The Blacklist” – 4,296 stars out of 5
- “Lucifer” – 4,258 stars out of 5
- Person of Interest – 4,235 stars out of 5
- Brooklyn Nine-Nine – 4,203 stars out of 5
- “Twin Peaks” – 4,195 stars out of 5
- “Mindhunter” – 4,189 out of 5 stars
- “The Mentalist” – 4,144 stars out of 5
Taking first place is the British series “Sherlock”, which transports the iconic character of Arthur Conan Doyle to present-day Britain. Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes and Martin Freeman as Dr. Watson and countless other stars of British cinema, the series not only has a great cast and acting, the creators Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss also succeed in a convincing modernization of the most famous Sherlock Holmes cases.
With ‘True Detective’ also follows a classic crime series in second place, albeit as an anthology format, that is, with a new cast and plot. However, ‘Fargo’ at number 3 – just like the police comedy ‘Brooklyn Nine-Nine’ – is less easy to classify in a Gerne. However, since ‘Fargo’ focuses on the investigations, especially in the first two seasons, we included Noah Hawley’s great series in the list.
In any case, the transitions from crime to related genres are fluid, especially since different terms are used in English-speaking and German-speaking countries. Not every crime series is therefore a crime series, for example when the focus is mainly on the gangsters. We showed the best thrillers in an equally strict way:
The author of this article is also very happy that “Twin Peaks” is also included in the ranking – but the mystery crime classic would have earned a spot higher in the top 10. Moreover, the list already shows very well that the format ‘crime series with unequal detective duo’ is very popular in Germany:
Besides “Lucifer” (devil & policewoman) and “The Mentalist” (ex-medium & CBI agent), series like “White Collar” (master thief & FBI agent), “Castle” (crime writer & policewoman) or “Elementary” (Master Detective & Therapist) narrowly missed the top 10.
Finally, a few words about the list: According to the official figures of IVW, FILMSTARTS is the German-language site with the largest coverage for films and series for the whole of 2022. The above list is based on the viewing figures of our community, which includes numerous film and series fans, and can therefore be regarded as representative of the German be considered public.
All users can give ratings between 0.5 (nonsense) and 5 stars (masterpiece), just like the FILMSTARTS editors do with their reviews. The average ratings are rounded up to the third decimal place.