Best movies & TV Shows like Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
The fight never ends.
A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Law & Order: Special Victims Unit Starring Mariska Hargitay, Ice-T, Peter Scanavino, Octavio Pisano, and more. If you liked Law & Order: Special Victims Unit then you may also like: Exiled, Victim/Suspect, Midsomer Murders, Blue Bloods, Law & Order and many more popular movies featured on this list. You can further filter the list even more or get a random selection from the list of similar movies, to make your selection even easier.
In the criminal justice system, sexually-based offenses are considered especially heinous. In New York City, the dedicated detectives who investigate these vicious felonies are members of an elite squad known as the Special Victims Unit. These are their stories.
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Victim/Suspect
Investigative journalist Rae de Leon travels nationwide to uncover and examine a shocking pattern: Young women tell the police they’ve been sexually assaulted, but instead of finding justice, they’re charged with the crime of making a false report, arrested, and even imprisoned by the system they believed would protect them.
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.
Blue Bloods
A drama about a multi-generational family of cops dedicated to New York City law enforcement. Frank Reagan is the New York Police Commissioner and heads both the police force and the Reagan brood. He runs his department as diplomatically as he runs his family, even when dealing with the politics that plagued his unapologetically bold father, Henry, during his stint as Chief.
Law & Order
In cases ripped from the headlines, police investigate serious and often deadly crimes, weighing the evidence and questioning the suspects until someone is taken into custody. The district attorney's office then builds a case to convict the perpetrator by proving the person guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Working together, these expert teams navigate all sides of the complex criminal justice system to make New York a safer place.
Criminal Minds
An elite team of FBI profilers analyze the country's most twisted criminal minds, anticipating their next moves before they strike again. The Behavioral Analysis Unit's most experienced agent is David Rossi, a founding member of the BAU who returns to help the team solve new cases.
Death in Paradise
A brilliant but idiosyncratic British detective and his resourceful local team solve baffling murder mysteries on the fictional Caribbean island of Saint-Marie.
True Detective
An American anthology police detective series utilizing multiple timelines in which investigations seem to unearth personal and professional secrets of those involved, both within or outside the law.
Chicago P.D.
A riveting police drama about the men and women of the Chicago Police Department's District 21 who put it all on the line to serve and protect their community. District 21 is made up of two distinctly different groups: the uniformed cops who patrol the beat and go head-to-head with the city's street crimes and the Intelligence Unit that combats the city's major offenses - organized crime, drug trafficking, high profile murders and beyond.
The Closer
Deputy Police Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson transfers from Atlanta to LA to head up a special unit of the LAPD that handles sensitive, high-profile murder cases. Johnson's quirky personality and hard-nosed approach often rubs her colleagues the wrong way, but her reputation as one of the world's best interrogator eventually wins over even her toughest critics.
Columbo
Columbo is a friendly, verbose, disheveled-looking police detective who is consistently underestimated by his suspects. Despite his unprepossessing appearance and apparent absentmindedness, he shrewdly solves all of his cases and secures all evidence needed for indictment. His formidable eye for detail and meticulously dedicated approach often become clear to the killer only late in the storyline.
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
A Las Vegas team of forensic investigators are trained to solve criminal cases by scouring the crime scene, collecting irrefutable evidence and finding the missing pieces that solve the mystery.
Medical Detectives
Real crimes, disease outbreaks and accidents around the world are solved by experts using scientific laboratory analysis which helps them find previously undetectable evidence. Brilliant scientific work helps convict the guilty and free the innocent.
Homicide: Life on the Street
An American police procedural chronicling the work of a fictional version of the Baltimore Police Department's Homicide Unit.
JAG
Harmon "Harm" Rabb Jr. is a former pilot turned lawyer working for the military's JAG (Judge Advocate General) division, the elite legal wing of officers that prosecutes and defends those accused of military-related crimes. He works closely with Lt. Col. Sarah Mackenzie, and together they do what needs to be done to find the truth.
The Killing
The Killing is an American crime drama television series based upon the Danish television series Forbrydelsen. Set in Seattle, Washington, the series follows the various murder investigations by homicide detectives Sarah Linden and Stephen Holder.
L.A. Law
L.A. Law is an American television legal drama series that ran for eight seasons on NBC from September 15, 1986, to May 19, 1994. Created by Steven Bochco and Terry Louise Fisher, it contained many of Bochco's trademark features including a large number of parallel storylines, social drama and off-the-wall humor. It reflected the social and cultural ideologies of the 1980s and early 1990s, and many of the cases featured on the show dealt with hot-topic issues such as abortion, racism, gay rights, homophobia, sexual harassment, AIDS, and domestic violence. The series often also reflected social tensions between the wealthy senior lawyer protagonists and their less well-paid junior staff. The show was popular with audiences and critics, and won 15 Emmy Awards throughout its run, four of which were for Outstanding Drama Series.
Law & Order: Criminal Intent
The third installment of the “Law & Order” franchise takes viewers deep into the minds of its criminals while following the intense psychological approaches the Major Case Squad uses to solve its crimes.
Law & Order: UK
Adapted from the hit US series, Law & Order: UK follows a team of police detectives and prosecutors representing the public interest in the criminal justice system.
Major Crimes
Major Crimes explores how the American justice system approaches the art of the deals as law enforcement officers and prosecutors work together to score a conviction. Los Angeles Police Captain Sharon Raydor heads up a special squad within the LAPD that deals with high-profile or particularly sensitive crimes.
The Mentalist
Patrick Jane, a former celebrity psychic medium, uses his razor sharp skills of observation and expertise at "reading" people to solve serious crimes with the California Bureau of Investigation.
MINDHUNTER
An agent in the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit develops profiling techniques as he pursues notorious serial killers and rapists.
Night Court
Night Court is an American television situation comedy that aired on NBC from January 4, 1984 to May 31, 1992. The setting was the night shift of a Manhattan court, presided over by the young, unorthodox Judge Harold T. "Harry" Stone. It was created by comedy writer Reinhold Weege, who had previously worked on Barney Miller in the 1970s and early 1980s.
The Practice
A provocative legal drama focused on young associates at a bare-bones Boston firm and their scrappy boss, Bobby Donnell. The show's forte is its storylines about “people who walk a moral tightrope.”
Without a Trace
The series follows the ventures of a Missing Persons Unit of the FBI in New York City.
Nash Bridges
Fun-loving San Francisco Police Department investigator Nash Bridges is part of the elite Special Investigations Unit. He tackles crime using his keen sense of humor and charm. Joe Dominguez comes out of retirement to become Bridges' wisecracking yet more rule-abiding partner.
CSI: Miami
CSI: Miami follows Crime Scene Investigators working for the Miami-Dade Police Department as they use physical evidence, similar to their Las Vegas counterparts, to solve grisly murders. The series mixes deduction, gritty subject matter, and character-driven drama in the same vein as the original series in the CSI franchise, except that the Miami CSIs are cops first, scientists second.
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.
Line of Duty
A drama about the investigations of AC-12, a controversial police anticorruption unit.
Bosch
Based on Michael Connelly's best-selling novels, these are the stories of relentless LAPD homicide Detective Harry Bosch who pursues justice at all costs. But behind his tireless momentum is a man who is haunted by his past and struggles to remain loyal to his personal code: “Everybody counts or nobody counts.”
NCIS: New Orleans
A drama about the local field office that investigates criminal cases affecting military personnel in The Big Easy, a city known for its music, entertainment and decadence.
The Murder Detectives
Groundbreaking series with unprecedented access to a police murder investigation, telling the true story, as a drama, from the perspective of the police and the victim and suspect's families.
Marcella
Marcella is shocked to the core of her being when her husband Jason leaves her unexpectedly, confessing he no longer loves her. Heartbroken, Marcella returns to the Met’s Murder Squad. Ten years ago Marcella gave up her fast-tracked police career to marry and devote her life to her family. With the abrupt end to her marriage and isolated from her 13 year old daughter and 10 year old son, Marcella throws herself into work to stop herself from falling apart.
The Alienist
New York, 1896. Police commissioner Theodore Roosevelt brings together criminal psychologist Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, newspaper illustrator John Moore and secretary Sara Howard to investigate several murders of male prostitutes.
Prodigal Son
The son of a notorious serial killer becomes an acclaimed criminal psychologist who uses his unique insight into how killers think to help the NYPD.
Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes
A unique look inside the mind of an infamous serial killer with this cinematic self-portrait crafted from statements made by Ted Bundy, including present-day interviews, archival footage and audio recordings from death row.
Mark of a Killer
All serial killers commit murder to satisfy their grand fantasies, but the murderers featured in this true-crime docuseries take it one step further, committing heinous acts that allow them to extend their fantasies and relive the excitement of their crimes again and again.
Very Scary People
A chronicle of the twisted lives of some of the most frightening, diabolical characters in recent history. Each two-hour episode traces the heinous, criminal acts of these elusive miscreants and the eventual road to justice.
The Outsider
When an insidious supernatural force edges its way into a seemingly straightforward investigation into the gruesome murder of a young boy, it leads a seasoned cop and an unorthodox investigator to question everything they believe in.
Law & Order: Organized Crime
Detective Elliot Stabler returns to the NYPD to battle organized crime after a devastating personal loss. Stabler journeys to find absolution and rebuild his life, while leading a new elite task force that is taking apart the city’s most powerful criminal syndicates one by one.
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.
Crime Scene: The Times Square Killer
In 1970s NYC, the “Torso Killer” preys on women to fulfill his grotesque fantasies while eluding police. A docuseries dive into crime’s darkest places.
The Night Of
After a night of partying with a female stranger, a man wakes up to find her stabbed to death and is charged with her murder.
Exiled
NYPD Detective Mike Logan, who was demoted to a beat on Staten Island after punching a corrupt politician, seeks to solve the grisly murder of a prostitute and thereby help regain his old job in Manhattan.