Shows Like Balthazar
If you loved Balthazar's Crime storytelling, these series deliver a similar experience — chosen for tone, narrative quality, and viewer satisfaction. Each includes where to stream it now.
★ Top Picks

Hill Street Blues
A realistic glimpse into the daily lives of the officers and detectives at an urban police station.

Spiral
This gritty crime drama set in the dark underbelly of Paris follows police officers and lawyers as they investigate and prosecute crimes. Throw any romantic notion of Paris out the window. Crime is dark. The legal system is darker. This is Spiral.

The Oath
Explore a gang world we've never seen before: gangs that are made up of the very men and women sworn to uphold the law – cops. Only select officers make the cut, but once inside, gang members will do what they must to protect each other from enemies inside and outside their ranks.

Crime Story
The hard-boiled saga of hair-trigger cop Lieutenant Mike Torello and his obsessive pursuit of ruthless gangster Ray Luca.

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.

T. J. Hooker
Sergeant Thomas Jefferson Hooker is a tough-as-nails veteran police officer with the LCPD who turns his back on a gold badge and goes back to patrolling the streets and training recruits. Along with his young partners in blue, Hooker take on Lake City's toughest criminals.

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.

The Bill
The daily lives of the men and women at Sun Hill Police Station as they fight crime on the streets of London. From bomb threats to armed robbery and drug raids to the routine demands of policing this ground-breaking series focuses as much on crime as it does on the personal lives of its characters.
More Shows Like Balthazar

Rookie Blue
Ambitious young cops try to prove themselves in their high-stakes careers, in which the smallest mistake can have deadly consequences. At the core of the close-knit group is perfectionist Andy McNally, whose father was a homicide detective before he burned out on the job. The series follows Andy and her four colleagues -- Dov Epstein, Gail Peck, Traci Nash and Chris Diaz -- as they experience the trials, triumphs and tribulations of police work, as well as its effect on their personal lives.

A Nero Wolfe Mystery
Genius detective Nero Wolfe and his right-hand man, Archie Goodwin, solve seemingly impossible crimes.

Reacher
Jack Reacher, a veteran military police investigator, has just recently entered civilian life. Reacher is a drifter, carrying no phone and the barest of essentials as he travels the country and explores the nation he once served.

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.

Inspector George Gently
Crime drama set in the 1960s about an old-school detective trying to come to terms with a time when the lines between the police and criminals have become blurred.

Lupin
Inspired by the adventures of Arsène Lupin, gentleman thief Assane Diop sets out to avenge his father for an injustice inflicted by a wealthy family.

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.

19-2
The day-to-day life of two unwilling partners of the Montreal Police Department, Officers Nick Barron and Ben Chartier. These two beat cops patrol the urban sprawl of downtown's 19th district, in cruiser No. 2. 19-2 is about the tensions and bonds that develop between two incompatible men of very different temperaments and life experiences. Over time, Nick and Ben's mistrust and antagonism for each other give way to moments of mutual respect and a wavering chance at a true partnership.

Interior Chinatown
Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural, tries to find his way into the larger story–and along the way discovers secrets about the strange world he inhabits and his family's buried history.

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.

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.
Why These Shows Are Similar
These recommendations share core qualities with Balthazar (2018): Crime 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 Balthazar.
See full details for Balthazar (2018)
