Shows Like River
If you loved River's Crime and Drama 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.
21 Jump Street
21 Jump Street revolves around a group of young cops who would use their youthful appearance to go undercover and solve crimes involving teenagers and young adults.
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.
Dalgliesh
A recent widower and acclaimed poet, enigmatic Inspector Adam Dalgliesh employs his exceptional empathy and insight to plumb the darker depths of the human psyche while investigating complex crimes in 1970s England.
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".
Homicide: Life on the Street
An American police procedural chronicling the work of a fictional version of the Baltimore Police Department's Homicide Unit.
Luther
A dark psychological crime drama starring Idris Elba as Luther, a man struggling with his own terrible demons, who might be as dangerous as the depraved murderers he hunts.
More Shows Like River
HIS & HERS
Two estranged spouses — one a detective, the other a news reporter — vie to solve a murder in which each believes the other is a prime suspect.
Midsomer Murders
The peacefulness of the Midsomer community is shattered by violent crimes, suspects are placed under suspicion, and it is up to a veteran DCI and his young sergeant to calmly and diligently eliminate the innocent and ruthlessly pursue the guilty.
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.
No Offence
Keeping these streets clean is a Herculean task, enough to demoralize even the keenest rookie – but there’s a reason why this hotchpotch of committed cops are on this force, on this side of town. Drug labs, arsonists, neo-Nazis and notorious murderers are all in a day’s work for this close-knit team, led by the dizzyingly capable but unquestionably unhinged DI Vivienne Deering. But when a particularly twisted serial killer emerges it leaves even the most hardened of these seasoned coppers reeling.
DCI Banks
A thrilling drama based on the novels by Peter Robinson. Stephen Tompkinson and Andrea Lowe star as the tenacious and stubborn Chief Inspector Alan Banks and the feisty and headstrong Detective Sergeant Annie Cabbot.
Unforgettable
Former Syracuse, New York, police detective Carrie Wells has hyperthymesia, a rare medical condition that gives her the ability to visually remember everything. She reluctantly joins the New York City Police Department's Queens homicide unit after her former boyfriend and partner asks for help with solving a case. The move allows her to try to find out the one thing she has been unable to remember, which is what happened the day her sister was murdered.
Black Work
'Black Work' is the story of Jo Gillespie, a woman who's husband is shot dead in the line of action, in his job as a undercover cop. Jo, a police officer herself soon has to confront issues in her marriage and family life in order to discover who really killed her husband.
The First 48
The First 48 follows detectives from around the country during these first critical hours as they race against time to find the suspect. Gritty and fast-paced, it takes viewers behind the scenes of real-life investigations with unprecedented access to crime scenes, autopsies, forensic processing, and interrogations.
Murder in a Small Town
Karl Alberg moves to a quiet coastal town to soothe a psyche that has been battered by big-city police work but finds himself needing to call upon all his skills to solve the murders that continue to wash up on his shore.
CSI: NY
Follow the investigations of a team of NYPD forensic scientists and police officers identified as "Crime Scene Investigators".
Ridley
Retired Detective Inspector Alex Ridley is lured back into service as a consultant detective when his former protégée, Carol Farman, needs help cracking a complex murder case.
A Nero Wolfe Mystery
Genius detective Nero Wolfe and his right-hand man, Archie Goodwin, solve seemingly impossible crimes.
Why These Shows Are Similar
These recommendations share core qualities with River (2015): Crime and Drama 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 River.
See full details for River (2015)