A Mother's Son

Series Similar to A Mother's Son

If you enjoyed A Mother's Son, these series share similar themes, tone, and quality. Each recommendation is scored on genre overlap, tonal match, and critical acclaim.

1. Thirteen

   2016 · Drama, Thriller, Mystery · ended

   Recommended for similar Thriller profile.

   After thirteen years held captive by her kidnapper, Ivy Moxam escapes. Piecing back together the version of family life that existed before is no easy task.

2. Hollington Drive

   2021 · Drama, Thriller · ended

   Recommended for similar Thriller profile, also on ITV1.

   Hollington Drive focuses on the lives of two sisters, Theresa, and her older head teacher sibling, Helen, and a missing child. Both women appear close and their families enjoy spending time together.  The series opens on a warm, balmy evening, barbecue sizzling on the patio, the perfect family setting. The atmosphere is chilled, as they lounge in Theresa and her partner Fraser's perfectly manicured garden. Apart from Fraser's brother Eddie winding everyone up, there's hardly a hint of tension, but this is the calm before storm. When Theresa's ten-year-old son, Ben, asks to play in the nearby park with his cousin Eva, the adults begin to niggle.  Fraser is relaxed and is fine for them to go, but this doesn't help Theresa's fears of foreboding and growing feelings of anxiety. As expected the children don't return on time, and Theresa goes in search.  Her suspicions are heightened when she finds the children on the edge of a woodland area and they appear to be fighting.  Immediately her instincts tell her something terrible has happened. Later that evening distraught neighbour, Jean, calls on the family.  Her ten-year-old son Alex has gone missing. In a plot thick with secrets, lies, twists and turns, Theresa can't help thinking her son knows more than he is saying. Could Ben and his cousin Eva be implicated in Alex's disappearance? Why are they both so subdued and now behaving out of character? The neighbourhood are compelled to help with the search for Alex, but what if he's been murdered and her own son is his killer?

3. The Widower

   2014 · Drama, Crime, Thriller · ended

   Recommended for similar Crime / Thriller profile, highly rated (8), also on ITV1.

   The Widower is a three-part drama from ITV Studios based on the crimes of convicted murderer, Malcolm Webster, played by Reece Shearsmith (Psychoville, The League of Gentlemen, A Field in England).The Widower tells how, over a 13 year period Malcolm Webster set about poisoning and murdering his first wife, attempting to do the same to his second wife and moving on to a further scheme to deceive his third fiancée.

4. The Missing

   2014 · Drama, Crime, Thriller · ended

   Recommended for similar Crime / Thriller profile, highly rated (8), hidden gem.

   Thriller series exploring the emotional fallout of a child's abduction not only on the family but on the wider community.

5. Midwinter of the Spirit

   2015 · Drama, Crime, Thriller · ended

   Recommended for similar Crime / Thriller profile, also on ITV1.

   Merrily Watkins, a single mother who is not your average country vicar. Her newly acquired training in the works of exorcisms has pulled her to the dark side of the pulpit. She has become one of the very few women priests who are working as exorcists - a job which is mistrusted by the modern church and rarely ever talked about. Merrily is joined by Rev Huw Owen, a deliverance ministry tutor and Merrily's mentor. Her advanced and excessive knowledge of the paranormal underworld brings her to the notice of the local police who need her help. The force need her advice on the investigation of a grisly murder. However Merrily is still going through the motions of losing her late unfaithful husband, Sean, in a car crash. She seeks shelter in her job despite having a 16-year-old daughter, Jane. After the discovery of a gruesome murder, Merrily becomes convinced that Satanists are operating in the city.

6. MINDHUNTER

   2017 · Drama, Crime, Thriller · ended

   Recommended for similar Crime / Thriller profile, highly rated (8.4).

   MINDHUNTER is based on the 1996 book Mind Hunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit, by former special agent John Douglas and Mark Olshaker. For years, Douglas pursued some of the most notorious serial killers and rapists, developing profiling techniques to catch them. The book goes behind the scenes of some of his highest-profile cases, including the man who hunted prostitutes in Alaska, the Atlanta child murderer, and Seattle's Green River killer. To hone in his profiling methods Douglas interviewed and studied a skew of serial killers. Several book and TV characters have been based in part on him, including Jack Crawford in Thomas Harris' The Silence of the Lambs, Will Graham on Hannibal and Jason Gideon on Criminal Minds.

7. Des

   2020 · Drama, Crime, Thriller · ended

   Recommended for similar Crime / Thriller profile, also on ITV1.

   Des is based on material from the book Killing for Company by Brian Masters, which focuses on one of the most infamous cases in UK criminal history, that of serial killer Dennis Nilsen. Told through the prism of three men—Dennis Nilsen, Detective Chief Inspector Peter Jay and biographer Brian Masters—the series exploring the personal and professional consequences of coming into contact with a man like Nilsen.

8. Hidden

   2011 · Drama, Crime, Thriller · ended

   Recommended for similar Crime / Thriller profile, hidden gem.

   When the mysterious lawyer Gina Hawkes turns up asking Harry to find a missing alibi witness for her client he agrees to take on the job but is unwittingly drawn into investigating the death of his brother 20 years ago. Harry quickly finds himself caught up in a much bigger and more complex conspiracy that reaches deep into the heart of the British political system.

9. Criminal Justice

   2008 · Drama, Crime, Thriller · ended

   Recommended for similar Crime / Thriller profile, hidden gem.

   Thriller by Peter Moffat about the challenges and politics of the criminal justice system seen through the eyes of the accused.Season one follows Ben Coulter (Ben Whishaw), a young man who is accused of murder after a drunken night out, though is unable to remember committing the crime. Season two follows Juliet Miller (Maxine Peake) as she struggles to come to terms with her life after attempting to kill her husband, a respected and powerful barrister at the height of his profession.

10. London Spy

    2015 · Drama, Crime, Thriller · ended

    Recommended for similar Crime / Thriller profile, hidden gem.

    A romance between an MI6 code genius and an ordinary man promises happiness. But tragedy strikes when the spy dies in suspicious circumstances, forcing his lover to pursue the truth behind his death.