Curator Watchlist
A slick, watchable crime thriller with a strong lead performance and an easy binge pace, but it leans heavily on familiar serial-killer procedural beats and can feel more pulpy than distinctive. Best if you want a glossy, emotionally wounded detective story rather than a deeply original mystery.
Where to watch: Buy
Thu
Created by: Ben Watkins
Starring: Aldis Hodge, Isaiah Mustafa, Juanita Jennings
Alex Cross is a brilliant but flawed homicide detective and full of contradictions. A doting father and family man, Cross is single-minded to the point of obsession when he hunts killers. He is desperate for love, but his wife’s murder has left him too damaged to receive it.
Ben Watkins
Aldis Hodge, Isaiah Mustafa, Juanita Jennings, Alona Tal, Samantha Walkes, Caleb Elijah, Melody Hurd, Johnny Ray Gill
A slick, watchable crime thriller with a strong lead performance and an easy binge pace, but it leans heavily on familiar serial-killer procedural beats and can feel more pulpy than distinctive. Best if you want a glossy, emotionally wounded detective story rather than a deeply original mystery.
Cross is built for momentum: a charismatic central performance, a grim Washington, D.C. setting, and a steady stream of murders, conspiracies, and personal stakes. It understands the appeal of a brilliant detective whose private life is as damaged as the cases he solves, and it keeps the episodes moving with enough twists to make it easy to keep going.
What keeps it from being a stronger recommendation is familiarity. The show often feels like a polished remix of better-known serial-killer and cop-thriller traditions, with emotional beats and procedural turns that rarely surprise for long. It’s effective more than revelatory, and the tone can slide toward melodrama when it would benefit from restraint.
If you like your crime dramas sleek, intense, and bingeable, it delivers solid entertainment. If you’re looking for a standout mystery engine or a fresh take on the genre, it’s likely to feel like good-enough television rather than essential viewing.
A brooding, high-intensity detective series with a charismatic lead, moral corrosion, and a similar blend of casework and personal damage.
For viewers drawn to serial-killer psychology, methodical investigation, and a chilling, prestige-level crime atmosphere.
A tense cat-and-mouse thriller that emphasizes obsession, psychological dread, and the procedural side of hunting a killer.
Continues the grounded, case-driven crime-drama appeal with a more serialized family-and-justice focus.
If you want crime storytelling with deeper social texture, institutional corruption, and a more ambitious long-form structure.
Best for viewers who want moody, atmospheric investigations with damaged investigators and a strong sense of dread.
Stylized, psychologically twisted, and visually rich, with a fascination for killers, obsession, and intimate horror.
A somber, rain-soaked murder mystery with emotional weight, procedural detail, and slow-burn suspense.
A tightly wound murder mystery that balances investigation with grief, family strain, and community fallout.
An accessible, case-by-case psychological crime series that leans into trauma, obsession, and hidden motives.
For a similarly fractured detective lead and a moody, twisty crime narrative with personal instability at the center.
A more grounded and emotionally serious crime drama that prioritizes investigation, empathy, and procedural realism.
serial killers, grief and trauma, family stakes, obsession, detective work, corruption, psychological suspense, urban crime
crime thriller, procedural, serial killer, dark tone, bingeable, psychological suspense, family drama, urban setting, mystery, neo-noir