BOX SETS to binge watch, from Luther to Hill Street Blues
31. ADDICTIVE LEGAL DRAMA
In Damages, Glenn Close plays ruthless New York trial lawyer Patty Hewes opposite Rose Byrne as her protegée Ellen Parsons in this legal drama. The plot hurtles from one switchback to the next and Close is utterly commanding. All five seasons on All4
32. EIGHTIES COP SHOW THAT HASN’T DATED
Hill Street Blues ran for seven seasons in the Eighties and helped transform the TV landscape, linking the simplistically plotted
Seventies cop show with the smartly scripted crime shows of the Nineties. It’s a trailblazer of a show that feels surprisingly undated. Daniel J Travanti heads the cast as Captain Frank Furillo. All4
33. HAUNTING DETECTIVE TALE YOU CAN’T STOP WATCHING
In The Missing, dogged French detective Julien Baptiste (Tcheky Karyo) is the fulcrum of two gutwrenchingly visceral childabduction cases. Compelling and haunting, these make for addictive binges, boosted by a cast including James Nesbitt, Keeley Hawes and David Morrissey. Amazon
34. WATCH AGAIN THE SHOW THAT MADE IDRIS A STAR
The troubled detective classic,
Luther, is all about Idris Elba as murder detective DCI John Luther. Its plotting is occasionally bonkers but the show has a big heart and, best of all, a powerhouse performance from the immense Elba – complex, soulful and just a little bit sexy. Ruth Wilson plays his nutbag nemesis/flame Alice Morgan. All five series, Netflix
35. COMPULSIVE COLD WAR SAGA
A pacy geopolitical spy thriller set against the backdrop of the
Cold War, Deutschland 83&86 is stylish, mischievous and a lot of fun. Jonas Nay stars as Martin Rauch, a naive East German border guard who is recruited by his aunt to spy for the Stasi in the West German army. In the sequel, our reluctant hero finds himself back in the field after exile in Angola. Walter Presents
36. SLICK SWEDISH CRIME DRAMA
Hanna Svensson has it all going on as the nerveless detective at the centre
of Before We Die, for starters having to arrest her own son for drug dealing. On top of that, her lover is then kidnapped. Both seasons of the thriller, described by Ricky Gervais as
‘one of the best police dramas of all time’, are available. Walter Presents
37. CEREBRAL COPS TRACKING KILLERS
There are two seasons of Mindhunter, set at the dawn of forensic science and serial-killer profiling in late Seventies Virginia. The drama revolves around a cracking central partnership between Jonathan Groff and Holt McCallany as a pair of FBI agents attempting to climb inside the heads of monsters. Netflix
38. MODERN-DAY WESTERN
Timothy Olyphant gives it both barrels in Justified as the oldschool US marshal reassigned to his home town in this massively underrated crime show. Based on an Elmore Leonard short story, it’s a cool, seductive, modern-day western, and without doubt one of TV’s best-kept secrets. Amazon
39. CLAUSTROPHOBIC THRILLER
Harlan Coben’s mystery The
Stranger is relocated to the north of England in an eight-part thriller. The life of a lawyer (Richard Armitage) is turned upside down when a stranger imparts some devastating news about his wife (Dervla Kirwan). From there, the waters get muddier and muddier as secret piles upon secret. An eminently bingeable thriller. Netflix
40. CHILLING TALE FROM STEPHEN KING
An instant cult hit based on Stephen King’s crime mystery
The Outsider, which starts out with a seemingly straightforward investigation into the murder of an 11-year-old boy. From there, the beguiling story unexpectedly shifts gear into an unusual hybrid of moody police drama and supernatural horror. Stars Ben Mendelsohn and Jason Bateman. NOW TV, until April 8