How many seasons of Law & Order are there?

Law & Order has aired 26 seasons so far.

How many episodes of Law & Order are there?

There are 545 episodes of Law & Order across 26 seasons.

Who created Law & Order?

Law & Order was created by Dick Wolf.

Where can I watch Law & Order?

Law & Order is available to stream on Netflix, Hulu, fuboTV, Peacock Premium, Philo, YouTube TV, NBC, Netflix Standard with Ads, Peacock Premium Plus, Amazon Video, Apple TV Store, Google Play Movies and Fandango At Home.

What is Law & Order's IMDb rating?

Law & Order holds an IMDb rating of 7.8/10 from 49,546 votes.

Crime

When Does Law & Order Season 26 Come Out? Is It Renewed?

“Truth matters.”

Law & Order Season 26 premieres October 8, 2026.

IMDb

7.8/10

Seasons

Episodes

545

Diagnostics

Network: NBC
Genres: Crime, Drama
First aired: 1990-09-13
Last aired: 2026-05-14
Runtime: —
Rated: TV-14

Awards Won 6 Primetime Emmys. 50 wins & 207 nominations total

Predictive Logic Analysis

Law & Order is confirmed to return. Season 26 has a scheduled premiere date of October 8, 2026 — definitive proof of renewal, since a network or streamer does not schedule and date a season it has not ordered.

What is Law & Order about?

Law & Order runs on a simple structural premise: the first half follows detectives working a case, the second half follows prosecutors trying it in court. That split format, introduced in 1990 and still intact across more than five hundred episodes, is both the show's signature and the reason it works. The police procedural and the legal drama are each, on their own, familiar television territory. Putting them in the same hour, with the investigation handing off to the courtroom at the midpoint like a relay baton, gives the show a rhythm that most crime dramas never achieve.

The tone is workmanlike, and that is a compliment. Dick Wolf built the franchise on a kind of deliberate restraint, where the system itself is the main character and individual detectives or attorneys are largely interchangeable pieces within it. The current cast, including Hugh Dancy as prosecutor Nolan Price and Maura Tierney as a more recent addition, carries that tradition forward without much sentimentality. The show does not ask you to care deeply about the personal lives of its characters. It asks you to care about whether the right person ends up convicted, and whether the law can actually deliver that outcome. The "ripped from the headlines" quality means episodes often feel like editorials, sometimes productively uncomfortable, occasionally a little smug.

The original run ended in 2010 after twenty seasons, which was itself a record. NBC revived it in 2022, and the reception has been warm if not rapturous. Critics noted that it slots back into its old rhythms with surprising ease. Audiences, measured against the inflated expectations of prestige television, seem relieved to have a show that does not demand they remember a season-long mythology to follow a single episode.

That self-contained episodic structure is what separates Law & Order from the wave of serialized crime dramas that dominated the years it was off the air. You can watch episode forty before episode four and lose almost nothing. For a certain kind of viewer, tired of homework, that is not a limitation. It is the whole point.

Created by Dick Wolf

Themes

new york citypolicelawyerhomicide detectivecrime investigationcriminal lawlegal dramacriminal justice system