Big-budget John le Carre, Cockney mobsters and crime in Calder Valley – it’s all happening in British and Irish television.
We’ve selected the 20 best thrillers to watch On Demand right now – sifting through thousands of options to save you the bother.
Looking for a new series to stream?
Read on to find out the shows worth investing your time in…
Table of Contents
Slow Horses
Gary Oldman plays the leader of a team of out-of-favour British intelligence agents
Year: 2022
Certificate: 15
Like Ian Fleming and John le Carre, Mick Herron brings a very specific point of view to the spy genre, and Apple’s adaptation of his Slough House series captures that well.
Herron’s main characters are all misfits, out-of-favour spooks looking for a way to prove themselves and get out of purgatory – and it’s a lot of fun to cheer them on as they try, even as they sabotage themselves, over and over again.
It’s amusing that a show about losers should have so much money behind it – the spies’ decrepit leader, Jackson Lamb, is played by Gary Oldman and look out too for Kristin Scott Thomas and Jonathan Pryce, and an opening sequence that’s reminiscent of a Bond movie in its scale. Also, and perhaps most tellingly, the theme tune is written and performed by Mick Jagger. (Three series)
The Gentlemen
Crime thriller series based on Guy Ritchie’s movie The Gentlemen
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
Full of dangerous Cockney geezers, treacherous aristos and all manner of other colourful underworld characters, Guy Ritchie’s 2019 movie The Gentlemen was a brutal thriller romp. This eight-part series may not use any of the same characters but it captures the same wisecracking sense of violent excess as its movie big brother (no surprise really, as Ritchie produces the whole thing and even directs a few episodes).
The White Lotus star Theo James takes the lead as the black sheep of a noble family who discovers that unexpectedly inheriting his family estate puts him in the crosshairs of a number of dodgy characters, not least those played by Skins’s Kaya Scodelario, Better Call Saul’s Giancarlo Esposito and crime-drama legends Vinnie Jones and Ray Winstone. (Eight episodes)
Bad Sisters
Dark Irish comedy thriller co-created by and starring Sharon Horgan
Year: 2022
Certificate: 15
Nothing is black and white in this dark comedy thriller from Sharon Horgan, although its villain, played by Dracula’s Claes Bang, comes close.
John-Paul (Bang) is a vile husband and Eva (Horgan), the eldest of his four sisters-in-law, isn’t sorry to be attending his funeral as the story opens. The details of why are what compel us to watch the following episodes, which flash back across a six-month whirlwind of events.
Anne-Marie Duff is superb as John-Paul’s wife, Grace, whom he patronises constantly. Yet even she isn’t totally sympathetic, which is a mark of the show’s skill. The other three sisters (The Last Kingdom’s Eva Birthistle, The Luminaries’ Eve Hewson and Normal People’s Sarah Greene) are by no means innocent bystanders, and The Lazarus Project’s Brian Gleeson plays the life insurance agent tasked with getting to the truth of John-Paul’s suspicious demise. (One series)
Top Boy
Netflix’s revival of the gritty Channel 4 gangster drama
Year: 2011-2023
Certificate: 18
This convincing gangster drama began life on Channel 4 back in 2011, and those two original series are on Netflix as Top Boy: Summerhouse, named after the East London estate where the show is set.
The story followed street gangs and starred Ashley Walters and Kane Robinson as drug dealers Dushane and Sully – both actors transferred over to Netflix in 2019, along with original writer Ronan Bennett (Public Enemies, Gunpowder), after the Canadian rapper Drake, a huge fan of the show, decided to revive it after learning it had been axed by Channel 4.
Three series have followed on the global streamer, keeping up and even raising the high standards of the original as they follow Dushane and Sully into their thirties, and into some difficult decisions – will both of them live to see the end of the story in the final six-part series? (Five series)
Happy Valley
Gritty classic crime drama starring Sarah Lancashire and James Norton
Year: 2014-2023
Certificate: 15
A crime drama filmed and set in the Calder Valley in West Yorkshire, written by Last Tango In Halifax and Gentleman Jack creator Sally Wainwright.
Life here is anything but a barrel of laughs – hence the show’s ironic title. On the contrary, it’s a hotbed of drug-taking, dysfunctional relationships and violent crime. Keeping the peace on these mean streets is police sergeant Catherine Cawood (played by the brilliant Sarah Lancashire), whose own personal life is a mess.
The first series begins with Catherine focusing on her police work, but it’s not long before her personal life takes over, with James Norton’s evil criminal Tommy Lee Royce the source of her troubles. Catherine gives as good as she gets, even against someone as wicked and remorseless as Tommy, and the first two series are a masterclass in sharp writing and snappy dialogue with Catherine staying strong and true amid the chaos that surrounds her.
After a break of seven years, the series returned in 2023 to catch-up with Catherine as she nears retirement – but is still a long, long way from living a quiet life. (Three series)
Fool Me Once
Richard Armitage stars in a thriller series based on a Harlan Coben book
Year: 2024
Certificate: 15
Prepare for more shock revelations and domestic thrills as Netflix adapts another Harlan Coben thriller for the screen. Maya (Michelle Keegan) believes her husband Joe (Richard Armitage) was brutally murdered. But long after his funeral, she’s shocked to find new footage on the nanny cam of someone who looks an awful lot like Joe entering the house. As she sets out to discover whether Joe really is alive, Maya’s taken to some very dark places…
Tense and often scary, this is another satisfyingly brain-twisty British adaptation of a Coben thriller. Joanna Lumley and Adeel Akhtar line up alongside Keegan and serial Coben star Armitage, who also starred in adaptations of The Stranger and Stay Close for Netflix. (Eight episodes)
Culprits
Slick British crime thriller starring Gemma Arterton and Eddie Izzard
Year: 2023
Certificate: 15
After pulling off the heist of their careers, a mob of hi-tech robbers (including Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Gemma Arterton, Eddie Izzard, Kirby Howell-Baptiste and Niamh Algar) go their separate ways and relax into enjoying their ill-gotten gains. But then someone begins targeting them one by one and the surviving members of the gang are reluctantly forced to regroup before the assassin can pick them off too. Just what’s prompted the killings though? And can all the gang members be trusted not to be involved?
Twisty, clever and exciting, this is a top-drawer British crime series that trades on paranoia and excitement as much as it does plot twists and surprises. (Eight episodes)
Hijack
Edge-of-your-seat plane hijack thriller series
Year: 2023
Certificate: 15
A thriller about a plane hijack suggests big action, explosions and Hollywood-style special effects and, while this seven-parter from George Kay, the British writer of Lupin and Criminal, does have moments like that, it’s really all about the characters on board and that’s what keeps you gripped throughout.
What do the hijackers want? Are the crew harbouring secrets? Will the hulking passenger played by Idris Elba prove to be the hero we all want him to be? These are the questions that keep you guessing as the story unfolds, flipping between the tense situation on the plane and the steady realisation of it by the authorities on the ground.
It feels like a very British show in general, with a supporting cast that includes familiar faces like Ben Miles, Archie Panjabi, Max Beesley and Eve Myles, and a way of delivering action in short, sharp and satisfying bursts when you least expect it. The end of each episode is also precision engineered to make you want to watch the next one, so be prepared for that if you start watching it late at night. The story resolves neatly by the end, but there will be more – Hijack has been picked up for a second series. (Seven episodes)
The Tourist (Series 1)
Cat and mouse thriller with Jamie Dornan set in the Australian outback
Year: 2022
Certificate: 18
This mind-bending six-part thriller is from the team behind the hit BBC dramas Baptiste and The Missing, and proves equally addictive.
Jamie Dornan (The Fall, Fifty Shades Of Grey) stars as the Brit caught up in a deadly game of cat and mouse in the unforgiving Australian outback. But it’s when he wakes in a local hospital suffering with amnesia that things really start to get interesting.
As well as Dornan, who’s a big draw, the show also features a memorable performance from Australian actress Danielle Macdonald, whose character, ‘Probationary Constable’ Helen Chambers, undergoes quite a personal journey of her own. It ends on a cliffhanger but fear not, there is a second series. (Six episodes).
The Ex-Wife
Thriller about a woman’s search for her missing husband and child
Year: 2022
Certificate: 15
This high-concept, four-part thriller asks just how much you can trust your partner’s ex, as a chilling story of disappearances and deception plays out. Tasha (Celine Buckens, so brilliant in the BBC drama Showtrial) looks like she has the perfect life with a loving, handsome husband and a beautiful child. But she also has her husband Jack’s ex-wife, Jen, to contend with, a lingering presence who seems unable to let her former partner out of her life.
When Jack and their baby mysteriously vanish, though, Tasha has no choice but to turn to Jen for help. Full of twists and turns, this is a teasing, chilling tale that unsettles at every opportunity, leaving you constantly wondering who to believe and who to trust. (Four parts)
The Woman In The Wall
Ruth Wilson stars in an offbeat thriller inspired by a shocking scandal in Ireland
Year: 2023
We first meet troubled Lorna Brady (played by Luther’s Ruth Wilson) lying on a road in her blood-stained nightie, surrounded by cows. How did she end up there? This surreal, six-part psychological thriller is inspired by the real-life harrowing events that took place in the Irish Catholic institutions known as Magdalene Laundries, and Mother and Baby Homes.
Lorna, who spent time in one of these, is haunted by what happened to her there and when she finds the corpse of a mysterious woman in her house, she wonders whether it has something to do with her traumatic past.
The second strand of this series involves the murder of a local priest in Dublin. Daryl McCormack (whom you may recognise from Bad Sisters and Good Luck To You, Leo Grande) plays detective Colman Akande, who is put on the case. His investigations soon lead him to Lorna and the two characters find that they have a profound connection.
The Woman In The Wall uses the framework of a gothic murder-mystery to re-examine a very dark part of Irish history – it’s intense but essential viewing. (Six episodes)
Unforgotten
Cracking cold case thriller with Sanjeev Bhaskar and Nicola Walker
Year: 2015-
Certificate: 15
Cold cases don’t come colder than those in Unforgotten – series four actually begins with a body in a freezer. Only thanks to the discovery of a wrapper for a chocolate bar that has subsequently been renamed can DCI Cassie Stuart (Nicola Walker) begin to date the death.
Even more complicated is Cassie’s private life – her widower father (Peter Egan) has dementia and is planning on marrying again, but at least she has the steadying influence of her work partner, DI Sunny Khan (Sanjeev Bhaskar), to help keep things on an even keel. That sense of reality is key to the success of Chris Lang’s intricate and beautifully well-written drama, which has no need for over-the-top psycho killers to create good stories. (Five series)
The Gold
Follow the trail of the Brink’s-Mat fools gold in a thrilling star-studded mini-series
Year: 2023
Certificate: 15
This thrilling look at the fallout from the 1983 Brink’s-Mat robbery is truly epic in scope, shot through with humour, horror and the odd detour into social commentary.
Unlike so many heist dramas that focus on the robbers, this takes in a huge range of characters and digs into the nitty-gritty of the ramifications of this spectacular theft.
It opens with the balaclava-hooded gang bursting into the depot. Expecting easily laundered cash, they’ve instead got three tons of gold bullion, which calls for creative thinking to turn it from useless paperweights to spendable dosh.
While the villains tackle the problem, the police have their own difficulties, hampered by widespread corruption and a lack of co-operation between forces.
The cast is huge and peppered with familiar faces, not least Hugh Bonneville as the man leading the police task force and Jack Lowden as ringleader Kenneth ‘Kenny’ Noye – but special mention also goes to Tom Cullen as John Palmer, smelting the gold in a shed at the bottom of his garden, and Charlotte Spencer as the fictional ‘Flying Squad’ detective who has intimate knowledge of the kind of villains she’s chasing. (6 episodes)
Boat Story
Daisy Haggard and Paterson Joseph star in an offbeat thriller
Year: 2023
This six-parter from Harry and Jack Williams, the creators of The Missing and The Tourist, is not for those who can’t stomach gore – there’s blood from the get-go, and it’s treated with total irreverence. In a sleepy Yorkshire town, Janet (Daisy Haggard) and Samuel (Paterson Joseph) discover a haul of cocaine washed up on the beach. They decide to sell it, but soon become the targets of a mad French mob boss called The Tailor (The Missing’s Tcheky Karyo).
The story that follows from there is enjoyably offbeat in style, partly because of the quirky voiceover, as the naive pair are drawn ever deeper into a nightmare of their own making involving a violently unhinged local drugs kingpin, an enigmatic hitman and a very determined bobby. (Six episodes)
The Undeclared War
Cyber warfare nightmare set in the near future
Year: 2022
Certificate: 15
The horrific reality of what would happen if our computer network was taken down by a hostile state is the subject of this classy cyber thriller from writer Peter Kosminsky (Wolf Hall). It has a cast of well-known faces, notably Simon Pegg channelling his inner boffin as a GCHQ manager reacting to the ensuing chaos. There’s also Adrian Lester as the PM, Alex Jennings as GCHQ chief and Mark Rylance as a retired expert parachuted in to help.
The six-part drama is set in the near future – at the 2024 election – when Russian hackers are able to disable the UK network, leading to meltdown as people realise how life as we know it is dependent on being online. It’s terrifying stuff but also somewhat static – most of the threat comes at you through computer screens, which doesn’t make for the most dynamic telly. (Six episodes)
Vigil (Series 1)
Claustrophobic murder mystery set aboard a nuclear submarine
Year: 2021
Certificate: 15
This six-part thriller felt like a drastic change of pace when it first aired in the prestigious Sunday night slot on BBC1. A police procedural with a brilliant but troubled detective – so far so familiar – it was the claustrophobic nuclear submarine setting, a culture of secrecy and a creeping threat to national security that raised the ante and pushed viewers to the edge of their seats.
Suranne Jones stars as DCI Amy Silva, who boards HMS Vigil to investigate the death of a crewman. She’s basically trapped on board, while on dry land her colleague and former lover (Games Of Thrones’ Rose Leslie) aids the investigation. (Six episodes)
Kin
Irish gangster drama with a strong cast
Year: 2021
When Michael Kinsella (Charlie Cox), scion of a well-known Dublin crime clan, gets out of prison, he wants to turn his back on the family business – to finally live a good, clean life. But just when you think you’re out, they pull you back in.
The Kinsellas are drawn into a dispute with a more powerful gangster outfit and in no time they’re at war, so Michael’s life becomes very complicated indeed. Kin makes great use of the Dublin cityscapes and has a fantastic Irish cast including The Terror’s Ciaran Hinds, Aidan Gillen (Peaky Blinders) and, of course, Cox (Daredevil). (One series)
Wolf
Weird tale of obsession, torture and death from the creators of Sherlock and Inside Man
Year: 2023
Certificate: 15
Be warned, this new crime drama isn’t for the faint-hearted, and it won’t be for everyone. It’s dark and, at times, fairly depraved, with some scenes best watched from behind a cushion.
It’s based on Mo Hayder’s acclaimed Jack Caffery novels and produced by the award-winning team behind Sherlock and Dracula, with a similar tendency to shock and push viewers to the limit while making everything look super-stylish.
The Midwich Cuckoos’ Ukweli Roach plays DI Jack Caffery, a young detective obsessed with the neighbour he believes murdered his ten-year-old brother in the 1990s; Juliet Stevenson, Owen Teale and Annes Elwy are the wealthy Anchor-Ferrers family being held hostage in their isolated Monmouthshire home by a couple of psychopaths (played with great relish by Sacha Dhawan and Game Of Thrones bad boy Iwan Rheon).
The fates of Jack and the Anchor-Ferrers become inextricably linked in a nail-biting thriller. ‘It’s a series for people who like their crime served up in a slightly different way,’ says writer Megan Gallagher. ‘The episodes build and build and the finale is truly an example of everyone – actors, directors, scripts, music, art department, everyone! – all coming together in a gorgeous harmony.’
The Night Manager
Classy Le Carre adaptation with a knockout cast
Year: 2016
Certificate: 15
This updated adaptation of John le Carre’s 1993 novel is a big-budget spy thriller with decadent, exotic locations and an A-list cast – Tom Hiddleston, Olivia Colman, Tom Hollander and a revelatory Hugh Laurie. It’s also a remarkably astute and involving character-led drama in which retribution and redemption play out in style.
Tom Hiddleston is Jonathan Pine, a former British soldier tasked with bringing down arms dealer Richard Roper (Hugh Laurie) by British intelligence officer Angela Burr (Olivia Colman). Much of the action takes place at Roper’s elegant villa in Majorca, where Pine walks a precarious line (including with Roper’s girlfriend, played by Elizabeth Debicki) and where we learn more about Roper and the kind of man who sells weapons for a living.
Le Carre was still alive when the show aired in 2016 (he died in 2020) and spoke favourably of the six-part adaptation that also modernised his story. He was fully behind the casting of Olivia Colman as a female (and pregnant, as in real life) version of his agent runner Mr Burr, and sang the praises of director Susanne Bier’s ‘meticulous style of storytelling’. Bier won a primetime Emmy, while Tom Hollander won a BAFTA for his portrayal of Corky, one of Roper’s henchman.
The show was a phenomenal success for the BBC and its US partner AMC, and one they are keen to repeat. A second series has long been rumoured and, in February 2023, there was word that the BBC and Amazon Prime Video have partnered to develop series two. This is promising news, but not yet a green light. (Six episodes)
Six Four
Husband-and-wife cops frantically search for their missing daughter
Year: 2023
Certificate: 15
Hideo Yokoyama’s crime novel, Six Four, was a publishing phenomenon in Japan – that country’s equivalent of a Gone Girl – and sold well in English. This loose adaptation switches location primarily to Glasgow, tweaking where necessary to bring this sweeping crime story to these shores.
We follow DC Chris O’Neill (Trainspotting and Grey’s Anatomy’s Kevin McKidd) working in a low-key police role in Glasgow – dealing with robberies of supermarket delivery vans – while reeling from the disappearance of his teenage daughter three weeks ago. The personal dimension, through Chris and his family, is a key element of the drama, but this is also a crime story with a broad scope, as Chris is drawn into the 14-year-old case of a missing girl and a dark, far-reaching conspiracy – while Chris’s wife Michelle (Sherlock’s Vinette Robinson) follows her own dangerous path in her quest to find their missing daughter. (Four episodes)
