25 Of The Best Comedy Crime TV Series For When You Want A Little Murder With Your Laughs
The best comedy crime TV series have witty dialogue, an entertaining cast, and a juicy mystery. Shows like Poker Face and The Afterparty combine A-list casts with nonstop laughs. The former comes from Knives Out director, Rian Johnson, and follows Charlie Cale (Natasha Lyonne) as she drives across the country, using her intuitive power to suss out the truth to solve murders along the way. The Afterparty - starring Sam Richardson, Ilana Glazer, and Ben Shwartz, to name a few - covers one overarching murder case. However, each episode offers a different perspective and a POV of a different character.
Other hilarious comedy crime series include Murderville, which is part-scripted and part-improvised, and the wildly popular Netflix hit, Wednesday. Some of the below are procedurals, like New Tricks, Bones, and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, while others, like Dead to Me and The Boys, are in a category all their own. There are beloved older series, like Monk, as well as newer fare, like Hulu’s Reservation Dogs.
1. The Boys - Prime Video
The Boys, based on the comic book of the same name, takes a much different approach to the superhero genre. “The Boys” refers to a group of vigilantes working to take down a group of heroes who abuse their powers, called “The Seven,” as well as the corrupt corporation that employs them, Vought International. The Boys, which is one of the most successful original programs on Amazon Prime, boasts an impressive ensemble cast, including, but not limited to, Jack Quaid, Antony Starr, Elisabeth Shue, Jensen Ackles, and Aya Cash.
2. Psych - USA Network
Psych follows Shawn Spencer (James Roday Rodriguez), a crime consultant for the Santa Barbara Police Department who uses his eidetic memory and observational skills to trick people into thinking he has psychic powers. Psych aired on USA Network, and was paired with another popular comedy crime TV series, Monk. There were eight seasons of the series, as well as multiple follow-up movies, a podcast - The Psychologists Are In: A Psych Rewatch - and even books, like Chad Gervich’s Psych’s Guide to Crime Fighting for the Totally Unqualified.
3. Only Murders in the Building - Hulu
Who knew Selena Gomez, Steve Martin, and Martin Short would make such a delightful trio? The three star as Mabel Mora, Charles-Haden Savage, and Oliver Putnam, respectively, in Only Murders in the Building, a Hulu series that follows three tenants who were strangers until a murder in their building brought them together to make a true crime podcast about it. Only Murders in the Building has been praised for the chemistry of the leads, and the show's brilliant blending of comedy and crime fiction.
4. Wednesday - Netflix
Wednesday follows the iconic Addams Family character as she is sent off to the Nevermore Academy. Though there are plenty of supernatural elements, when it comes down to it, Wednesday is about solving a murder mystery. A lot of the humor in the Netflix smash hit comes from Wednesday’s infamous stubborn nature and seemingly emotionless personality, as well as from delightful new characters, like her roommate and foil, Enid Sinclair (Emma Myers).
5. Barry - Max
Barry, co-created by Alec Berg and Bill Hader, follows a former U.S. Marine (Hader) who works as a hitman, but ponders a career change after following a target into an acting class in Los Angeles. The series is beloved by fans and critics, with Rotten Tomato scores for reach season ranging from 95 percent to a whopping 100 percent (for season two). Barry has taken home nine Primetime Emmy awards, including for outstanding lead actor in a comedy series, for Hader, and outstanding supporting actor for Henry Winkler.
6. Brooklyn Nine-Nine - FOX, NBC
Brooklyn Nine-Nine follows seven New York City police detectives (including Andy Samberg, Stephanie Beatriz, and Terry Crews) as they adjust to the very stern and stoic nature of their new commanding officer, Captain Holt (Andre Braugher). The Fox (and then NBC) series has been particularly praised for how it handles serious issues - police brutality, COVID-19, etc. - while keeping its signature comedic style. It also won the GLAAD Media Award for outstanding comedy series for its portrayal of LGBTQ+ people.
7. The Afterparty - Apple TV+
The Afterparty has an unbelievable cast, including Tiffany Haddish, Sam Richardson, Ike Barinholtz, Ben Schwartz, Ilana Glazer, and Dave Franco, and each one gets an episode where the story is recounted through their eyes. It’s a fresh take on a murder mystery whodunnit, and was liked enough to warrant a second season on Apple TV+. The events of the story take place the evening of a high school reunion, after which, one of the stars is murdered at an after party.
8. Landscapers - HBO Max
Landscapers is based on the true crime story of the 1998 murders of William and Patricia Wycherley. That’s not exactly funny, but the series, directed by Will Sharpe and starring Olivia Colman and David Thewlis as Susan and Christopher Edwards, has been commended for being “howlingly funny” amidst the darkness. Landscapers also boasts an impressive 98 percent - Certified Fresh - score on Rotten Tomatoes.
9. Queens of Mystery - Acorn TV
Queens of Mystery follows three crime-writing sisters - Cat (Julie Graham), Jane (Siobhan Redmond), and Beth (Sarah Woodward) Stone - who solve whodunit-style murder cases with their young niece, Matilda (Olivia Vinall, season 1, Florence Hall season 2), who has been assigned as a detective in their fictional town of Wildemarsh, England. Queens of Mystery has been compared to other beloved mystery shows, like Murder, She Wrote, Agatha Raisin, and Pushing Daisies.
10. Poker Face - Peacock
Poker Face, from Rian Johnson, follows Charlie Cale (Natasha Lyonne), who has the special talent of being able to tell when someone is lying. Each episode sees Cale helping to solve the mystery of another murder. It’s the perfect series for fans of Johnson’s Knives Out film series, and features new guest stars in each episode, including Hong Chau, Chloë Sevigny, Ellen Barkin, Tim Meadows, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
11. Agatha Raisin - SKYREP
Agatha Raisin follows the titular character (played by Ashley Jensen), a PR guru and amateur sleuth who solves mysteries in the Cotswolds. The series is based on the M.C. Beaton books of the same name. Fans have called the series “better than the books” and “amusing nonsense,” and many praise Jensen’s acting.
12. Murderville - Netflix
Murderville is a scripted, comedic murder mystery series on Netflix that also incorporates improvisation. Will Arnett plays Terry Seattle, a senior detective for the Murderville Police Department. Each episode, a celebrity guest star plays his rookie detective partner, but they are not given a script, and must improvise their way through the episode, trying to figure out who the killer is. Murderville guests included Conan O’Brien, Marshawn Lynch, Kumail Nanjiani, Annie Murphy, Sharon Stone, and Ken Jeong, with Jason Bateman, Maya Rudolph, and Pete Davidson appearing in a Christmas special.
13. Bones - FOX
Bones follows a forensic anthropologist (Emily Deschanel) who has to work with an FBI Special Agent (David Boreanaz) to solve murders and other federal legal cases. In the series, Temperance “Bones” Brennan (Deschanel) writes a popular series of mystery novels that follow a fictional forensic anthropologist Kathy Reichs. Kathy Reichs is a producer on the show, and the series itself is actually inspired by her life working in forensic anthropology.
14. Search Party - TBS, HBO Max
Search Party, co-created by Michael Showalter, follows aimless New York City assistant Dory Sief (Alia Shawkat), who becomes obsessed with the disappearance of a college acquaintance, Chantal. Ironically, Dory’s insistence that Chantal is in danger actually puts herself and her friend group in danger, as they pursue the mystery, despite having no qualifications to do so. Search Party gets weirder and quirkier as the show goes on - even more so after it moved to Max - but even so, the Rotten Tomatoes score for each season doesn’t drop below 93 percent.
15. Good Girls - NBC
Good Girls follows three suburban moms - played hilariously by Retta, Christina Hendricks, and Mae Whitman - who band together to rob a grocery store in order to help with financial problems - but end up in a much more dangerous position, working with a crime boss (Manny Montana). Good Girls aired for four seasons on NBC, and also starred Matthew Lillard, June Squibb, Allison Tolman, and Andrew McCarthy.
16. Castle - ABC
Castle follows the titular character - Richard Castle (Nathan Fillion) - a mystery novelist who is brought in by the NYPD after a copycat murder based on one from his novels. He ends up taking a liking to Detective Kate Beckett (Stana Katic), and decides he wants to shadow her for inspiration for his next book series. The juxtaposition of Castle’s man-child personality and Beckett’s no-nonsense professional attitude brings about much of the show’s humor. Castle is in syndication, and plays on TNT, Ion, and Lifetime.
17. New Tricks - BBC One
The name of British crime comedy series New Tricks comes from the proverb, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” and follows three retired police officers as they work in the (fictional) Unsolved Crime and Open Case Squad (UCOS) in London, re-investigating unsolved crimes. A few of the series' stars include Alun Armstrong, James Bolam, Amanda Redman, Dennis Waterman, and Anthony Calf. What started as just a one-off episode in 2003, New Tricks went on to have 12 seasons.
18. Monk - USA Network
Monk is a beloved police procedural comedy, having earned eight Emmy Awards, one Golden Globe Award, and two Screen Actors Guild Awards during its eight-season run. Tony Shalhoub stars as the titular Adrian Monk, a former detective who has become a private investigator following a personal tragedy. Monk works as a consultant for the San Francisco Police, while struggling with his obsessive-compulsive disorder. Though it can make things difficult, his OCD is also what helps him solve cases, thanks to his impressive memory and attention to detail.
19. iZombie - CW
iZombie is a murder mystery with more of a sci-fi supernatural twist, as the protagonist, Liv Moore (Rose McIver) is a zombie, having been turned into one after a horrible boat party. Instead of feeding off of innocent people, the medical resident instead gets a job at the King County Morgue, where she eats the brains of the dead. They give her flashbacks into the deceased’s life, and help her to solve the person’s murder. It’s definitely a different take on a whodunnit, but very well-done, funny, and featuring great performances from the stars, including Rahul Kohli and David Anders.
20. Dead to Me - Netflix
Dead to Me is a beautiful black comedy featuring Christina Applegate as Jen Harding, a woman who recently lost her husband due to a hit-and-run, and Linda Cardellini as Judy Hale, who may or may not have been the one who hit him. The pair meet and bond in a grief support group, and the crime and murder go from there. No matter how insane things become, the show never loses its humor or its heart. It also has fantastic performances from James Marsden, Brandon Scott, Diana-Maria Riva, and Natalie Morales.
21. The Outlaws - Amazon Video, BBC One
From Elgin James and Stephen Merchant - co-writer/director of the British The Office - The Outlaws follows seven strangers who are forced to come together thanks to a community service sentence. The group think their luck is about to change when they find a bag of money, but thanks to its owners, their lives are about to get a lot more dangerous. The BAFTA-nominated series stars Merchant, Christopher Walken, and Eleanor Tomlinson.
22. The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window - Netflix
The Netflix miniseries The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window is a hilarious parody of films that came before it, including The Girl on the Train, and the particularly bizarre, The Woman in the Window. Kristen Bell was praised for her entertaining and truly funny performance as Anna, a woman who unwisely mixes alcohol with mental health medications, is afraid of the rain, and has frequent hallucinations, who thinks she may have witnessed a murder. Though it is incredibly silly, there is still a fun bit of murder mystery involved.
23. Scream: The TV Series - MTV, VH1
Like the films that inspired it, Scream: The TV Series is a murder mystery whodunnit. The first two seasons follow the lives of Emma Duval (Willa Fitzgerald) and her fellow students in the fictional town of Lakewood, which has a dark and troubled past. The third season has a new cast and location, and a new network - VH1. It follows Atlanta high school football star Deion Elliot (RJ Cyler), who has a tragic past that comes back to haunt him and his classmates. All of the seasons incorporate the tongue-in-cheek humor and meta vibes of the beloved film franchise.
24. Reservation Dogs - Hulu
Reservation Dogs, from Taika Waititi and Sterlin Harjo, is the first series to feature all Indigenous writers and directors, as well as an almost entirely Indigenous North American cast and production team. The FX Production series follows four Indigenous teens - played by Devery Jacobs, D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Lane Factor, and Paulina Alexis - who live on a reservation in rural Oklahoma, but dream of moving to California, as was the wish of their late friend. Reservation Dogs is critically-acclaimed, has won a Peabody Award, two Independent Spirit Awards, and was dubbed by the American Film Institute as one of the ten best TV shows of 2021 and 2022.
25. Year of the Rabbit - Channel 4
Year of the Rabbit follows Detective Inspector Rabbit (Matt Berry, What We Do in the Shadows, The IT Crowd), who loves his booze as much as he loves to solve a mystery. He, a brilliant policewoman named Sergeant Mabel Wisbech (Susan Wokoma), and his rookie partner, Detective Sergeant Wilbur Strauss (Freddie Fox), work together to solve murders in 1887 London. In February 2021, the show was renewed for a second season. However, the COVID-19 pandemic started shortly after, and it ended up getting cancelled because of that.
This article was originally published on Ranker.com.
