Shows Like Wallander
If you loved Wallander's Drama and Mystery storytelling, these series deliver a similar experience — chosen for tone, narrative quality, and viewer satisfaction. Each includes where to stream it now.
★ Top Picks
Crime
Detective Inspector Ray Lennox investigates the disappearance of a schoolgirl while battling cocaine addiction and a mental breakdown.
Wallander
This drama follows Inspector Kurt Wallander – a middle-aged everyman – as he struggles against a rising tide of violence in the apparently sleepy backwaters in and around Ystad in Skane, southern Sweden. Based on the international best-selling books by Henning Mankell.
Suspect
A Veteran detective is called to a hospital mortuary to identify a corpse only to find it is his estranged daughter. Traumatized by the news she apparently took her own life, Frater sets out to discover the truth about her death.
Beck
Beck follows Swedish police officer Martin Beck and his team as they investigate various crimes.
Dexter: Resurrection
Dexter Morgan awakens from a coma to find Harrison gone without a trace. Realizing the weight of what he put his son through, Dexter sets out for New York City, determined to find him and make things right. But closure won't come easy. When Miami Metro's Angel Batista arrives with questions, Dexter realizes his past is catching up to him fast. As father and son navigate their own darkness in the city that never sleeps, they soon find themselves deeper than they ever imagined - and that the only way out is together.
Barnaby Jones
Barnaby Jones is a television detective series starring Buddy Ebsen and Lee Meriwether as father- and daughter-in-law who run a private detective firm in Los Angeles. The show ran on CBS from January 28, 1973 to April 3, 1980, beginning as a midseason replacement. William Conrad guest starred as Frank Cannon of Cannon on the first episode of Barnaby Jones, "Requiem for a Son" and the two series had a two-part crossover episode in 1975, "The Deadly Conspiracy".
Young Wallander
An incendiary hate crime stirs civil unrest, fast-tracking rookie cop Kurt Wallander to detective in this origin story for the popular character.
The Purge
Set in a dystopian America ruled by a totalitarian political party, the series follows several seemingly unrelated characters living in a small city. Tying them all together is a mysterious savior who’s impeccably equipped for everything the night throws at them. As the clock winds down with their fates hanging in the balance, each character is forced to reckon with their pasts as they discover how far they will go to survive the night.
More Shows Like Wallander
Mosaic
Explore the psychological underpinnings of love and murder in a small mountain resort town while following popular children’s book author and illustrator Olivia Lake, whose literary success makes her a local celebrity in the tight-knit community.
CSI: Vegas
Facing an existential threat that could bring down the Crime Lab, a brilliant team of forensic investigators must welcome back old friends and deploy new techniques to preserve and serve justice in Sin City.
Agatha Christie's Marple
The adventures of Miss Jane Marple, an elderly spinster living in the quiet little village of St Mary Mead. During her many visits to friends and relatives in other villages, Miss Marple often stumbles upon mysterious murders which she helps solve. Although the police are sometimes reluctant to accept Miss Marple's help, her reputation and unparalleled powers of observation eventually win them over.
Baretta
Baretta is an American detective television series which ran on ABC from 1975 to 1978. The show was a milder version of a successful 1973–74 ABC series, Toma, starring Tony Musante as chameleon-like, real-life New Jersey police officer David Toma. While popular, Toma received intense criticism at the time for its realistic and frequent depiction of police and criminal violence. When Musante left the series after a single season, the concept was retooled as Baretta, with Robert Blake in the title role.
A Nero Wolfe Mystery
Genius detective Nero Wolfe and his right-hand man, Archie Goodwin, solve seemingly impossible crimes.
Inside Man
A prisoner on death row in the US, a vicar in a quiet English town, and a maths teacher trapped in a cellar cross paths in the most unexpected way.
Bad Girls
Bad Girls is a British television drama series that was broadcast on ITV from 1 June 1999 to 20 December 2006 and starred Simone Lahbib, Mandana Jones, Debra Stephenson, Linda Henry, Jack Ellis and many more throughout the eight-year run. The series was broadcast in 17 countries and was produced by Shed Productions, the company which later produced Footballers' Wives and Waterloo Road. It is set in the fictional women's prison of Larkhall, and features a mixture of serious and light storylines focusing on the prisoners and staff of G Wing. From 2010, the UK broadcast rights were bought by CBS Drama, and is repeated regularly – as of September 2012, the channel is re-running the series again in a late-night time slot.
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
A television anthology series hosted by Alfred Hitchcock featuring dramas, thrillers, and mysteries.
Stockholm Requiem
A series of violent murders paralyze Stockholm. Private investigator Fredrika Bergman and her colleagues seek out to solve these crimes, but soon their existence is put under threat.
Vigil
The mysterious disappearance of a Scottish fishing trawler and a death on-board the submarine HMS Vigil bring the police into conflict with the Navy and British security services. DCI Amy Silva and DS Kirsten Longacre lead an investigation on land and at sea into a conspiracy that goes to the very heart of Britain’s national security.
The Afterparty
Nothing is as it seems in this hilarious murder mystery where each suspect's story is told through a different film genre.
Missing You
When Detective Kat Donovan matches on a dating app with the fiancé who disappeared years before, she learns that some secrets are best left in the past.
Why These Shows Are Similar
These recommendations share core qualities with Wallander (2005): Drama and Mystery themes, similar pacing, and comparable production quality. NoBadPicks uses TMDB collaborative filtering, genre matching, and AI analysis to surface series most likely to resonate with fans of Wallander.
See full details for Wallander (2005)