Shows Like Painkiller
Fans of Painkiller, can dive deeper into questions the purpose and weight of our choices while maintaining targets the intellect with complex, multi-layered ideas. Carefully balances character depth with narrative flow makes this a deeper look into what makes these stories stick.
Standard feature-length experiences.
Best for fans of who appreciate concise storytelling.
★ Top Picks
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 Tower
A veteran beat cop and teenage girl fall to their deaths from a tower block in south-east London, leaving a five-year-old boy and rookie police officer Lizzie Griffiths on the roof, only for them to go missing. Detective Sergeant Sarah Collins is drafted in to investigate, working to find Lizzie before she comes to serious harm, but also to uncover the truth behind the grisly tower block deaths.
Suspicion
Four ordinary Brits are accused of kidnapping the son of a prominent U.S. media mogul. They embark on a desperate race against time to prove their innocence, but will anyone believe them—and are they telling the truth?
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.
Goliath
Once a powerful lawyer, Billy McBride is now burned out and washed up, spending more time in a bar than a courtroom. When he reluctantly agrees to pursue a wrongful death lawsuit against the biggest client of Cooperman & McBride, the massive law firm he helped create, Billy and his ragtag team uncover a vast and deadly conspiracy, pitting them all in a life or death trial against the ultimate Goliath.
Hightown
Amid the drug trade on Cape Cod, a body washes ashore and is discovered by an irreverent National Marine Fisheries Service officer, Jackie Quinones, who is determined to help solve the murder even if the state cops want her nowhere near the case.
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.
London Kills
With a documentary style delivery, this drama tells the story of a team of top murder detectives with each episode featuring a different murder while also following a serialized story involving the lead detective’s missing wife.
More Shows Like Painkiller
Hill Street Blues
A realistic glimpse into the daily lives of the officers and detectives at an urban police station.
A Nero Wolfe Mystery
Genius detective Nero Wolfe and his right-hand man, Archie Goodwin, solve seemingly impossible crimes.
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.
Power Book IV: Force
Tommy Egan leaves New York behind and plans to take on Chicago, using his outsider status to break all the local rules and rewrite them on his quest to become the biggest drug dealer in the city.
56 Days
When an unidentified body is found in a luxury apartment linked to Oliver Kennedy and his girlfriend Ciara Wyse, Detectives Lee Reardon and Karl Connolly reconstruct the couple's deadly romance across the past 56 days.
Hidden Assets
A routine raid led by Emer Berry, a detective in the Irish Criminal Assets Bureau, reveals that a small-time drug dealer has been receiving substantial funding from a seemingly untraceable source – not in cash, but in rough diamonds. When these diamonds are linked to a series of bombings in Belgium, Emer is forced to work with Police Commissioner Christian De Jong.
The Hitchhiker
A young hitchhiker introduces characters who are about to experience a frightening and sometimes supernatural incident of some kind in this moody anthology series.
Bancroft
A dark and compelling thriller centering on Detective Superintendent Elizabeth Bancroft, a female detective with an explosive secret.
Cross
Alex Cross is a brilliant but flawed homicide detective and full of contradictions. A doting father and family man, Cross is single-minded to the point of obsession when he hunts killers. He is desperate for love, but his wife’s murder has left him too damaged to receive it.
The Crow Girl
DCI Jeanette Kilburn and eminent psychotherapist Dr. Sophia Craven join forces to hunt the killer of young men. The investigation takes Jeanette and Sophia into a dangerous world of historic abuse and murder.
L.A.'s Finest
Syd Burnett has left her complicated past behind to become an LAPD detective. Paired with a new partner, Nancy McKenna, a working mom with an equally complex past, Syd is pushed to examine whether her unapologetic lifestyle might be masking a greater personal secret. These two women don't agree on much, but they find common ground when it comes to taking on the most dangerous criminals in Los Angeles.
Why These Shows Are Similar
These recommendations share core qualities with Painkiller (2023): Drama and 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 Painkiller.
See full details for Painkiller (2023)
