Apple TV has delivered a great amount of quality content, much of which flies under the radar of widespread public attention. The streamer’s efforts in the science fiction genre, such as the sly mind games of “Severance,” are pretty well known. Apple TV also has a robust back catalog of original drama and comedy shows, and the audience has loved “Ted Lasso” for combining the two genres to a great effect. However, the platform also excels at other genres that don’t get quite as much attention.
While the streamer might not be your first instinctive port of call when it comes to crime drama, some of the best shows streaming on Apple TV are representatives of this genre that you simply cannot watch anywhere else. To save you the effort of finding and vetting them one by one, Looper has scoured the platform’s offerings and collected a set of five great crime shows you can only stream on Apple TV.
Sugar
To give you an idea of how well a crime show can fly under the radar on Apple TV, look no further than “Sugar.” Where else could a quality private detective series that stars none other than Colin Farrell — who would later dominate news and awards buzz over his portrayal of Oz Cobb in the similarly ambitious HBO crime drama “The Penguin” — go so comparatively unnoticed?
Here, Farrell plays John Sugar, a contemporary private detective who operates in Los Angeles and is tasked with investigating the disappearance of an influential movie mogul’s young relative. The show is stylish and as twisty as you could ever hope for a detective drama, with murders, mayhem, and misconduct permeating each and every episode. “Sugar” goes to some seriously weird places — in fact, it’s one of the shows where saying just about anything about its plot might count as a spoiler. This may actually have something to do with why it hasn’t received more attention. After all, how do you discuss a show that can barely be discussed without revealing key twists?
“Sugar” Season 1 arrived on the streamer in 2024, and Season 2 unfolds over the summer of 2026. Though it has distinctly modern sensibilities, it remains faithful to the noir detective tales of old, giving crime show fans the best of both worlds.
Your Friends & Neighbors
Considering the roles Jon Hamm has taken after “Mad Men” ended (and “Mad Men” itself, really), it seems that he would be custom-designed to lead a show that’s a combination of a black comedy and a crime drama. This is absolutely correct, and “Your Friends & Neighbors” is the proof. Created by Jonathan Tropper, “Your Friends & Neighbors” is about Andrew Cooper (Hamm), whose luxurious life as a hedge fund manager is thrown into disarray when his family falls apart and he is fired from his job. The solution to acquire more funds is simple: embrace a life of crime.
Coop’s existing contacts and wealthy friends make it easy to steal the occasional knick-knack at first, but before long, things become convoluted. Increasingly, the struggling socialite has to deal with the kind of people and situations he isn’t accustomed to, and his desperate attempts to keep up appearances become more and more difficult.
Hamm brings his signature charm to a character who’s finding it harder and harder to be charming with every passing moment. The end result has shades of “Breaking Bad,” “Mad Men,” and even “American Psycho” — but at the end of the day, the excellent “Your Friends & Neighbors” is its own, deliciously uncomfortable beast. With two seasons of the show out, it’s truly interesting to see where Coop ends up if his character gets to break bad for long enough.
Bad Monkey
Speaking of black comedies that double as a crime series, “Bad Monkey” scratches this particular itch with a vengeance. Here, we follow Vince Vaughn’s disgraced police detective Andrew Yancy, who’s making ends meet as a restaurant inspector in Florida. If you think this means Vaughn is giving us a comedic role, you’re absolutely correct and may even have a hunch of what Andrew is like. Things aren’t quite as simple as they seem, though. While his comedic sensibilities are on full display here, Vaughn can be a serious actor when he wants to, and “Bad Monkey” allows him to bring both sides of his game to the table as a grisly discovery drags Andrew back into the crime investigation business.
Deploying Vaughn’s range like this allows him to mix his comedic sensibilities with the more serious tones that he’s shown in projects like “True Detective” Season 2, and it turns out to be a winning combination. “Bad Monkey” is relentlessly entertaining and critically appreciated, and if you’re a fan of the actor, it is a wonderful series to get a nice “best of” collection of his abilities. (And yes, the show does have a monkey.)
Criminal Record
Some of the best crime shows ever come from Britain, and “Criminal Record” definitely belongs in the conversation of the best crime thrillers from recent years. Paul Rutman’s London-based series has the classic premise of juxtaposing the methods of two different detectives with each other. Here, we have “Doctor Who” star Peter Capaldi playing the seasoned but morally dubious Daniel Hegarty opposite Cush Jumbo’s younger idealist June Lenker. As the reemergence of an old case threatens to cause trouble for Hegarty, the two end up on a collision course — but “Criminal Record” isn’t as simple as a tale of a good cop and a bad cop. Instead, it’s a mystery box that only keeps getting better the more you get to know its characters and the situations they’re trapped in.
“Criminal Record” is classic British cop show fare, and compares well with just about any other representative of the genre. Time will tell how long it runs and whether it will be able to sustain the delicious suspension it establishes during its first season and manages to keep going during its sophomore one. For now, at least, it seems that the series is a must-watch for any crime show fan.
Dope Thief
Peter Craig’s “Dope Thief” gives us Brian Tyree Henry as Ray Driscoll, who partners with his friend Manny Carvalho (Wagner Moura) to earn a living in a way that’s both ingenious and incredibly dangerous. The pair sets up a hustle where they rob the kind of people who definitely don’t want to go to the police: drug dealers. Their method involves pretending to be DEA agents, which obviously is a very risky trick — especially since a particular heist turns out to have far bigger consequences than either man could ever have expected, sending both dangerous criminals and the very real DEA on their tail.
“Dope Thief” benefits from the massive talent of its central duo, both of whom are more than capable of adding gravitas in even the most ordinary moments. Oh, and if you’re concerned about the premise getting potentially repetitive, that’s not an issue either, since “Dope Thief” is a one-season miniseries. Because of this, the fates of all characters are very much up in the air, which raises both the stakes and the realism of the series. This unpredictability pairs well with a talented cast that includes the likes of Ving Rhames and Kate Mulgrew in supporting roles.
