The Widower

Series Similar to The Widower

If you enjoyed The Widower, these series share similar themes, tone, and quality. Each recommendation is scored on genre overlap, tonal match, and critical acclaim.

1. The Pembrokeshire Murders

   2021 · Drama, Crime · ended

   Recommended for similar Crime profile, also on ITV1.

   In The Pembrokeshire Murders, the story centers around two unsolved double murders from the 1980s. In 2006, newly promoted Detective Superintendent Steve Wilkins decided to reopen both cases. Employing pioneering forensic methods, Wilkins and his team found microscopic DNA and fibres that potentially linked the murders to a string of burglaries committed in the 80s and 90s. The perpetrator of those robberies was nearing the end of his prison sentence, but if Steve Wilkins was right, he was also a serial killer. Could Steve and his team find enough forensic evidence to charge their suspect before he was released to potentially kill again?

2. 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.

3. Caught

   2018 · Drama, Crime · ended

   Recommended for similar Crime profile, hidden gem.

   Caught is set in 1978 and follows a young man who was caught smuggling drugs to Newfoundland. After spending five years in prison, he breaks out in order to do one last drug run in a futile attempt to shake off his past and set himself up for life. Slaney embarks on a cross-country adventure filled with fascinating characters and close calls.

4. Black Bird

   2022 · Drama, Crime, Thriller · ended

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

   Inspired by actual events, when high school football hero, decorated policeman's son and convicted drug dealer Jimmy Keene is sentenced to 10 years in a minimum security prison, he is given the choice of a lifetime — enter a maximum-security prison for the criminally insane and befriend suspected serial killer Larry Hall, or stay where he is and serve his full sentence with no possibility of parole. Keene quickly realizes his only way out is to elicit a confession and find out where the bodies of several young girls are buried before Hall's appeal goes through. But is this suspected killer telling the truth? Or is it just another tale from a serial liar? 

5. Ripley

   2024 · Drama, Crime, Thriller · ended

   Recommended for similar Crime / Thriller profile.

   Ripley follows Tom Ripley, a grifter scraping by in early 1960s New York, who is hired by a wealthy man to try to convince his vagabond son, Dickie Greenleaf, who is living a comfortable, trust-funded ex-pat life in Italy, to return home. Tom's acceptance of the job is the first step into a complex life of deceit, fraud and murder.

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. Bodyguard

   2018 · Drama, Crime, Thriller · ended

   Recommended for similar Crime / Thriller profile, highly rated (8.2).

   Set in and around the corridors of power, Bodyguard tells the fictional story of David Budd, a heroic but volatile war veteran now working as a Specialist Protection Officer for the Royalty and Specialist Protection Branch (RaSP) of London's Metropolitan Police Service.When he is assigned to protect the ambitious and powerful Home Secretary Julia Montague, whose politics stand for everything he despises, Budd finds himself torn between his duty and his beliefs. Responsible for her safety, is he actually her biggest threat?

9. Mr. Robot

   2015 · Drama, Crime, Thriller · ended

   Recommended for similar Crime / Thriller profile, highly rated (8.3).

   Mr. Robot follows Elliot, a young programmer who works as a cyber-security engineer by day and as a vigilante hacker by night. Elliot finds himself at a crossroads when the mysterious leader of an underground hacker group recruits him to destroy the firm he is paid to protect. Compelled by his personal beliefs, Elliot struggles to resist the chance to take down the multinational CEOs he believes are running (and ruining) the world.

10. Mr. Mercedes

    2017 · Drama, Crime, Thriller · ended

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

    A demented serial killer taunts a retired police detective with a series of lurid letters and emails, forcing the ex-cop to undertake a private, and potentially felonious, crusade to bring the killer to justice before he can strike again. Based on the bestselling novel by Stephen King.