20 best shows like American Me (1992)

An anthology series centered around some of history's most famous criminals.

Set in the present, the series offers a bold, subversive take on Archie, Betty, Veronica and their friends, exploring the surreality of small-town life, the darkness and weirdness bubbling beneath Riverdale’s wholesome facade.

8 August 1963: Britain wakes up to news of the biggest robbery in the country’s history. A train has been hijacked and robbed, 35 miles from its arrival in central London. The country is stunned. Who could be behind it? How did they pull off such an audacious raid?

The stranger-than-fiction account of a prison break in upstate New York in the summer of 2015, which spawned a massive manhunt for two convicted murderers who were aided in their escape by a married female prison employee with whom they both became sexually entangled.

This drama series is a fictionalized retelling of the story of meth dealer-turned-ATF informant Charles Falco, who spent three years inside one of America's most dangerous motorcycle gangs, the Vagos. Although Falco originally took on the assignment to avoid spending 20 years in prison on drug charges, it eventually evolved into a quest for justice for him. “Gangland Undercover” documents the lives of outlaw bikers, who live in a world in which respect is earned through fear. The series is based on Falco's memoir, “Vagos, Mongols, and Outlaws,” and documented historical research of gang rivalries.

In the late 1960s, a Los Angeles police sergeant with a complicated personal life starts tracking a small-time criminal and budding cult leader seeking out vulnerable women to join his “cause.” The name of that man is Charles Manson.

Dr. Temperance Brennan and her colleagues at the Jeffersonian's Medico-Legal Lab assist Special Agent Seeley Booth with murder investigations when the remains are so badly decomposed, burned or destroyed that the standard identification methods are useless.

Loosely based on infamous crime boss Bumpy Johnson, who in the early 1960s returned from ten years in prison to find the neighborhood he once ruled in shambles. With the streets controlled by the Italian mob, Bumpy attempts to regain his piece of Harlem.

The daily lives of prisoners in Emerald City, an experimental unit of the Oswald Maximum Security Prison where ingroups - Muslims, Latinos, Italians, Aryans - stick close to their mutual friends and terrorizes their mutual enemies.

Jack the Ripper is a 1988 two-part television film/miniseries portraying a fictionalized account of the hunt for Jack the Ripper, the unidentified serial killer responsible for the Whitechapel murders of 1888. The series coincided with the 100th anniversary of the murders.

An intense and fictionalized account of actual events and people surrounding Lizzie’s life after her controversial acquittal of the horrific double murder of her father and stepmother in 1892.

Cleopatra, the famed Egyptian Queen born in 69 B.C., is shown to have been brought by Roman ruler Julius Caesar at age 18. Caesar becomes sexually obsessed by the 18 year old queen, beds her, and eventually has a son by her. However, his Roman followers and his wife are not pleased by the union. In fact, as Caesar has only a daughter by his wife, he had picked Octavian as his successor.

Three "good girl" suburban wives and mothers suddenly find themselves in desperate circumstances and decide to stop playing it safe and risk everything to take their power back.

The story of one of the most infamous cases in UK criminal history, that of serial killer Dennis Nilsen. Told through the prism of three men, the series explores the personal and professional consequences of coming into contact with a man like Nilsen.

Factual drama based on the notorious White House Farm murders, and the ensuing police investigation and court case.

Detective Jane Timoney finds that being a homicide detective in New York City is tough enough and having to contend with a male-dominated police department to get respect makes it that much tougher. She's an outsider who has just transferred to a new precinct dominated by an impenetrable clique of a boys' club. Timoney has her own vices too – with a questionable past – and she tends to be forceful, rude and reckless. But she's also a brilliant cop who keeps her eye on one thing: the prime suspect.

When a brilliant bookstore manager crosses paths with an aspiring writer, he uses the internet and social media to gather the most intimate of details and get close to her. A charming and awkward crush quickly becomes obsession as he quietly and strategically removes every obstacle - and person - in his way.

A seasonal anthology series that tells startling, stranger-than-fiction true crime stories with the first season following Gypsy Blanchard, a girl trying to escape the toxic relationship she has with her overprotective mother.

After a serial killer imitates the plots of his novels, successful mystery novelist Richard "Rick" Castle receives permission from the Mayor of New York City to tag along with an NYPD homicide investigation team for research purposes.

A team of young superheroes led by Nightwing (formerly Batman's first Robin) form to combat evil and other perils.

The two-night scripted miniseries “Houdini” follows the epic tales of Harry Houdini as he emerges as America’s first bonafide world-renowned superstar.

Pablo Escobar: El Patrón del Mal is a 2012 Colombian television series produced and broadcast on Caracol TV, about the life of Pablo Escobar. It is only available in Spanish. There is a version available with English subtitles.

Based on the true story of Grace Marks, a housemaid and immigrant from Ireland who was imprisoned in 1843, perhaps wrongly, for the murder of her employer Thomas Kinnear. Grace claims to have no memory of the murder yet the facts are irrefutable. A decade after, Dr. Simon Jordan tries to help Grace recall her past.

In Beacon Heights, a seemingly perfect town, a group of three college friends struggle with the stress of being overachievers. In the aftermath of the town’s first murder, each Perfectionist hides behind a secret, a lie and an alibi.

Meet the Donnelly brothers: Tommy, Jimmy, Kevin and Sean. There is nothing these four Irish brothers wouldn't do to protect each other, and for them that means lying, cheating, stealing and, occasionally, calling the cops. Narrated by wannabe gangster Joey "Ice Cream," this gritty series bears witness to the Donnelly brothers' sudden involvement in organized crime, focusing on how they go from boys to mobsters, and showing how their new life affects their relationships with friends, family and lovers.

This four-part historical drama follows the end of Catherine the Great's reign and her affair with Russian military leader Grigory Potemkin that helped shape the future of Russian politics.

Carlos is a French-German television and cinema biographical film from 2010, about the life of the 1970s international terrorist Carlos the Jackal, from his first series of attacks in 1973 until his arrest in 1994. It premiered as a three-part TV mini-series on French pay channel Canal+, with the three parts airing on 19 May, May 26 and June 2, 2010. On the same day it premiered on Canal+, the full 5½ hour version was also shown out of competition at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival. Produced by Daniel Leconte of French production company Film En Stock and Jens Meuer of German production company Egoli Tossell Film, in association with Canal+ and French Arte, it was directed by Olivier Assayas from a screenplay by Leconte, Assayas and Dan Franck, and stars Édgar Ramírez as Carlos. The film exists both as a three-part mini-series and a feature film of various lengths between 338 and 319 minutes, but also in several abridged versions, from 187 minutes down to 166 minutes. Classified as a theatrical film as well as a TV film/TV mini-series, Carlos has been awarded both theatrical awards and TV awards; among them the 2010 Golden Globe award for the 'Best Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television', the 2010 Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Foreign Language Film and Best Director, the National Society of Film Critics 2010 award for Best Director, the New York Film Critics Circle 2010 award for Best Foreign Language Film, the 2010 European Film Award for Best Editor, the 2010 Critics Award for Best Film at the São Paulo International Film Festival, and Édgar Ramírez won the 2010 César Award for Most Promising Actor.

A prisoner becomes a lawyer, litigating cases for other inmates while fighting to overturn his own life sentence for a crime he didn’t commit.

In early 90s Boston, an African-American District Attorney comes in from Brooklyn advocating change and forms an unlikely alliance with a corrupt yet venerated FBI veteran invested in maintaining the status quo. Together they take on a family of armored car robbers from Charlestown in a case that grows to encompass and eventually upend Boston’s city-wide criminal justice system.

Set in 15th century Italy at the height of the Renaissance, The Borgias chronicles the corrupt rise of patriarch Rodrigo Borgia to the papacy, where he proceeds to commit every sin in the book to amass and retain power, influence and enormous wealth for himself and his family.

A contemporary and culturally resonant drama about a young programmer, Elliot, who suffers from a debilitating anti-social disorder and decides that he can only connect to people by hacking them. He wields his skills as a weapon to protect the people that he cares about. Elliot will find himself in the intersection between a cybersecurity firm he works for and the underworld organizations that are recruiting him to bring down corporate America.

The story of a young Louis XIV on his journey to become the most powerful monarch in Europe, from his battles with the fronde through his development into the Sun King. Historical and fictional characters guide us in a world of betrayal and political maneuvering, revealing Versailles in all its glory and brutality.

The story of an inner-city Los Angeles police precinct where some of the cops aren't above breaking the rules or working against their associates to both keep the streets safe and their self-interests intact.

A sexy, suspense-driven legal thriller about a group of ambitious law students and their brilliant, mysterious criminal defense professor. They become entangled in a murder plot and will shake the entire university and change the course of their lives.

The rise and fall of Bernie Madoff, who's Ponzi scheme bilked $65 billion from unsuspecting victims.

In the early 1990s in New York, during the height of the crack cocaine epidemic, a visionary musician named Bobby Diggs aka The RZA begins to form a super group of a dozen young, black men, who will eventually rise to become one of the unlikeliest success stories in American music history.

Anne Frank: The Whole Story is a two-part mini-series based on the book Anne Frank: The Biography by Melissa Müller. The mini-series aired on ABC on May 20 and 21, 2001. The series starred Ben Kingsley, Brenda Blethyn, Hannah Taylor-Gordon, and Lili Taylor. Controversially, but in keeping with the claim made by Melissa Müller, the series asserts that the anonymous betrayer of the Frank family was the office cleaner, when in fact the betrayer's identity has never been established. A disagreement between the producers of the mini-series and the Anne Frank Foundation about validity of this and other details led to the withdrawal of their endorsement of the dramatization, which prevented the use of any quotations from the writings of Anne Frank appearing within the production. Hannah Taylor-Gordon received both Golden Globe and Emmy Award nominations for her performance as Anne Frank, while Ben Kingsley won a Screen Actor's Guild Award for his performance as Otto Frank, Anne's father.

John Ellis, a disillusioned suburban ER doctor, who finds his existence transformed when he intervenes in a drive-by shooting, saving a young boy's life and killing one of his attackers. When he learns the boy is still marked for death he finds himself compelled to save him at any cost and discovers that his life and his outlook on medicine may never be the same.

Follow the complicated dynamic between the rich and powerful Cryer family and the hired help who work in their opulent Savannah, Georgia, mansion.

A hit man from the Midwest moves to Los Angeles and gets caught up in the city's theatre arts scene.

A look at the life of notorious drug kingpin, El Chapo, from his early days in the 1980s working for the Guadalajara Cartel, to his rise to power of during the '90s and his ultimate downfall in 2016.

A hotheaded widow searching for the hit-and-run driver who mowed down her husband befriends an eccentric optimist who isn't quite what she seems.

An anthology series that goes beyond the headlines to look at the funny, romantic, heartfelt, inspiring and surprising stories of immigrants in America at a time when they are more relevant than ever.

The story of how Detective Superintendent Steve Fulcher deliberately breached police procedure and protocol to catch a killer, a decision that ultimately cost him his career and reputation.

Police detective Peter Wendel leads a cold case group. Based on an original idea by Leif GW Persson, one of Sweden’s most recognized criminologists.

An origins story, beginning in 1947, which follows Ratched's journey and evolution from nurse to full-fledged monster tracking her murderous progression through the mental health care system.

A hyper-noir story that follows a relentless femme fatale who, after being left for dead, sets out to take revenge against her brother and his bombastic gang of gear-heads.

Inspector Morse is a detective drama based on Colin Dexter's series of Chief Inspector Morse novels. The series starred John Thaw as Chief Inspector Morse and Kevin Whately as Sergeant Lewis, as well as a large cast of notable actors and actresses.

A woman haunted by her past, Detective Robin Griffin, investigates complex and unsettling cases.

Billy and Cody LeFever dream of a new life and move to "The Bakken" in North Dakota, booming after the biggest oil discovery in American history. They’re soon pitted against a ruthless tycoon who forces them to put everything on the line, including their marriage.