20 best movies like Scott & Bailey (2011)

A sharp detective with a messy life, DCI Vera Stanhope patrols her “patch” of northeast England, pursuing the truth in cases of murder, kidnapping, and blackmail. Vera is obsessive about her work and faces the world with caustic wit, guile and courage.

While playing outside one day, nine-year-old Michele discovers Filippo, who is chained to the ground at the bottom of a hole. Michele witnesses town baddie Felice nearby and suspects something bad is happening. Michele is unsure whom he should tell about his discovery, eventually spilling the beans to his closest friend. Michele's parents learn of his discovery and warn him to forget what he saw

A chilling real-time thriller featuring a teenager, Casey, battling with an anonymous cyber-stalker.

The adventures of Miss Jane Marple, an elderly spinster living in the quiet little village of St Mary Mead. During her many visits to friends and relatives in other villages, Miss Marple often stumbles upon mysterious murders which she helps solve. Although the police are sometimes reluctant to accept Miss Marple's help, her reputation and unparalleled powers of observation eventually win them over.

Charles Dobbs is a British secret agent investigating the apparent suicide of Foreign Office official Samuel Fennan. Dobbs suspects that Fennan's wife, Elsa, a survivor of a Nazi Germany extermination camp, might have some clues, but other officials want Dobbs to drop the case. So Dobbs hires a retiring inspector, Mendel, to quietly make inquiries. Dobbs isn't at all sure as there are a number of anomalies that simply can't be explained away. Dobbs is also having trouble at home with his errant wife, whom he very much loves, having frequent affairs. He's also pleased to see an old friend, Dieter Frey, who he recruited after the war. With the assistance of a colleague and a retired policeman, Dobbs tries to piece together just who is the spy and who in fact assassinated Fennan.

Set in Stalin-era Soviet Union, a disgraced MGB agent is dispatched to investigate a series of child murders -- a case that begins to connect with the very top of party leadership.

A tight-knit team of FBI investigators, along with their District Attorney supervisor, is suddenly torn apart when they discover that one of their own teenage daughters has been brutally murdered.

Nearly a year after a botched job, a hitman takes a new assignment with the promise of a big payoff for three killings. What starts off as an easy task soon unravels, sending the killer into the heart of darkness.

A dark comedy about four self-absorbed twenty-somethings who become entangled in an ominous mystery when a former college acquaintance suddenly disappears.

A young man recently released from prison recruits his three best friends to rob the local drug kingpin who is responsible for his incarceration.

Concerned about his friend's cocaine use, Dr. Watson tricks Sherlock Holmes into travelling to Vienna, where Holmes enters the care of Sigmund Freud. Freud attemts to solve the mysteries of Holmes' subconscious, while Holmes devotes himself to solving a mystery involving the kidnapping of Lola Deveraux.

An elite hitman returns to erase his past only to find that somebody has messed with his future.

A woman who survived the brutal killing of her family as a child is forced to confront the events of that day.

Will Graham, a former London crime boss who has left his former life to live as a recluse in the forest. Haunted by the blood of those he has murdered, Will wishes never to return. But when his brother commits suicide, following a sexual assault at the hands of a volatile car dealer, Will returns to London to discover the cause of his brother's death and administer justice to those responsible.

A serial killer, who drains his victims for blood is on the loose in London, the Police follow him to a house owned by an eccentric scientist.

An escort who caters to Washington D.C.'s society ladies becomes involved in a murder case.

Crime drama set in the 1960s about an old-school detective trying to come to terms with a time when the lines between the police and criminals have become blurred.

Lila, a grief-stricken mother reeling from her son’s murder, attends a support group where she meets Eve, who urges her to take matters into her own hands to track down her son’s killers.

Case Histories is a British drama television series based on the Jackson Brodie detective novels by Kate Atkinson. It stars Jason Isaacs as Jackson Brodie.

A British college professor, working in Russia, investigates certain mysteries surrounding the life and death of Joseph Stalin.

A gripping anthological relationship thriller series exploring the emotional fallout of a child's abduction not only on the family but on the wider community, told over two time frames.

A terrorist attack in London results in the capture of suspect, and the attorney general appoints Claudia Simmons-Howe as special advocate on his defence team. On the eve of the trial, the accused's attorney dies and a new one, Martin Rose, steps in. Martin and Claudia are former lovers—a fact which must remain hidden—and, as Martin assembles his case, he uncovers a sinister conspiracy that places him and Claudia in danger.

A thrilling and raw crime drama following a gang of drug dealers in Hackney, London - an honest and gripping rendition of inner-city drug and gang culture.

Charlie, a former mobster, is abducted by five privileged young men desperate to raise a $2 million ransom to save the sister of a friend. As Charlie plays mind games, however, his captors splinter -- each wondering whether one of their own had a hand in the crime.

A young Oxford academic and his attorney girlfriend holiday on Antigua. They bump into a Russian millionaire who owns a peninsula and a diamond watch. He wants a game of tennis. What else he wants propels the lovers on a tortuous journey to the City of London and its unholy alliance with Britain's intelligence establishment, to Paris and the Alps.

A Los Angeles detective and his Japanese partner woo an artist while solving a stripper's murder.

A cruel twist of fate catapults small time crook Mickey Skinner into the big league, as head of a brutal London gang poised on the brink of a lucrative human-trafficking deal.

A man with the ability to enter peoples' memories takes on the case of a brilliant, troubled sixteen-year-old girl to determine whether she is a sociopath or a victim of trauma.

A darkly comic swamp noir story of two best friends set in the late 1980s. Based on the novels by Joe R. Lansdale, the series follows Hap Collins, an East Texas white boy with a weakness for Southern women, and Leonard Pine, a gay, black Vietnam vet with a hot temper.

Mike Hoolihan is an unconventional New Orleans cop investigating the murder of renowned astrophysicist Jennifer Rockwell, a black hole expert found shot to death in her observatory. As Mike tumbles down the rabbit hole of the disturbing, labyrinthine case, she finds herself grappling with increasingly existential questions of quantum mechanics, parallel universes, and exploding stars. The hunt for a killer draws a detective into an even larger mystery: the nature of the universe itself.

A group of teachers must defend themselves from a gang of murderous kids when their school comes under siege after hours.

Set in Brazil, three kids who make a discovery in a garbage dump soon find themselves running from the cops and trying to right a terrible wrong.

A stranger in the increasingly strange city of San Francisco, Japanese crime novelist Aki is unsure of precisely what role she has to play in a real-life murder mystery involving ambiguous MacGuffins and amorphous identities. Unfolding in lonely places such as bookshops and hotel bars, Dave Boyle's moody thriller uncovers exhilarating new takes on genre conventions. Consequently, it's an alluring l'homme fatal who supplies Aki with the breadcrumb trail of clues that entices her into a labyrinthine plot of sinister dealings. In turn, the aging sheriff (veteran character actor Pepe Serna, fantastic in a rare leading role), who should rightfully be riding to her rescue, proves to be equally out of his depth. The game is afoot, the chase is exhilarating and the stakes are perilously high in this inspired neo-noir.

Accused is a British television anthology series created by Jimmy McGovern. The drama series first aired on 15 November 2010 on BBC One and has run for two series. Each episode follows a different character as they await their verdict in court, and tells the story behind how they find themselves accused. The series has featured actors and actresses such as Christopher Eccleston, Benjamin Smith, Juliet Stevenson, Andy Serkis, Marc Warren, Naomie Harris, Sean Bean and Anne-Marie Duff as the accused in each episode.The series follows previous drama series by McGovern, including anthology series The Street and Moving On. After the cancellation of The Street in 2009 by Granada Television, McGovern formed RSJ Films to produce independent drama programmes and consequently devised the Accused anthology series. Accused is written by McGovern, Danny Brocklehurst and Alice Nutter and is filmed in Manchester. In 2011 it won an International Emmy for best drama series.

Handsome, unflappable U.S. Congressman Stephen Collins is the future of his political party: an honorable appointee who serves as the chairman of a committee overseeing defense spending. All eyes are upon the rising star to be his party's contender for the upcoming presidential race. Until his research assistant/mistress is brutally murdered and buried secrets come tumbling out.

After an attack leaves him in limbo -- invisible to the living and also near death -- a teenager discovers the only person who might be able help him is his attacker.

Good policing doesn't necessarily mean doing everything by the book. But as the business of crime in London turns to favour the Albanians and Turks, how does a "good" policeman survive?

Mourning the accidental death of his wife and having just moved to New York with his young son, laconic police psychologist Cal Jamison is reluctantly drawn into a series of grisly, ritualistic murders involving the immolation of two youths.

A thief is caught up in a deadly game of cat-and-mouse between a maverick cop and London crime boss.

The film is based on a true yet unsolved murder case from the early 1990s that is known among Koreans as the "disappearance of the frog children." In 1991, five elementary school students told their parents that they were going to hang out on a nearby mountain to catch frogs, and then they go missing.

While working undercover as a bodyguard to arms dealer Harry, former-soldier-turned-secret-service-agent Ewan survives a bloody shootout with a member of an Islamic terrorist cell who steals Harry's briefcase full of Semtex explosives and escapes. Ewan's spymasters task Ewan with hunting down the cell members and retrieving the briefcase.

Sara, the daughter of Oliver and Julia suddenly disappears. Days pass by without any news about the girl. But one morning, the family receives a letter from someone who claims to have retained Sara and wants to talk with them that night.

During a handover to the head of counter-terrorism of MI5, Harry Pearce, a terrorist escapes custody. When Harry disappears soon after, his protégé is tasked with finding out what happened as an impending attack on London looms, and eventually uncovers a deadly conspiracy.

When a young rancher crosses paths with a Lakota girl from a nearby reservation, her mysterious disappearance sparks a search that uncovers a harrowing past and hints at a dire future.

A C-list celebrity gets kidnapped and held hostage after a night-club appearance. When the police interrogate the man she accuses, they question whether she's after justice or a front-page story.

Inspired by the true events of the infamous 1983 prison breakout of 38 IRA prisoners from HMP Maze, which was to become the biggest prison escape in Europe since World War II.

Marcella is shocked to the core of her being when her husband Jason leaves her unexpectedly, confessing he no longer loves her. Heartbroken, Marcella returns to the Met’s Murder Squad. Ten years ago Marcella gave up her fast-tracked police career to marry and devote her life to her family. With the abrupt end to her marriage and isolated from her 13 year old daughter and 10 year old son, Marcella throws herself into work to stop herself from falling apart.

Charts the headlong fall of Pinkie, a razor-wielding disadvantaged teenager with a religious death wish.

Happy Valley is a dark, funny, multi-layered thriller revolving around the personal and professional life of Catherine, a dedicated, experienced, hard-working copper. She is also a bereaved mother who looks after her orphaned grandchild.

A detective, who is deeply grieving over the tragic loss of his wife and daughter, becomes determined to find the kidnapped daughter of the U.S. Ambassador, no matter what the cost.