TV Shows Like Dexter
If you like Dexter, here are 12 similar TV shows — each with its current AI renewal verdict, so you can see which are still going and which have been cancelled.
Showtime · Crime · Dexter is ended
Dexter works because it pulls off something genuinely difficult: it makes you root for a serial killer without letting you forget what he actually is. The Miami setting gives it heat and color, but the real engine is the tension between Dexter's two lives. He's methodical, controlled, even likeable, and the show uses that likeability to keep you slightly uncomfortable with yourself for enjoying it. The dark humor helps. So does the procedural framework, which gives each season a shape and a nemesis worth tracking.
The best shows like Dexter
1. Criminal Minds
Dexter's appeal is partly about getting inside the mind of a killer, and Criminal Minds is built on exactly that premise. The FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit profiles serial offenders by thinking the way they think, which gives the show a similar psychological texture to Dexter without requiring you to sympathize with the killer. It's more procedural and less personal, but fans who enjoy the criminology angle will find plenty to sink into.
Stream on Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, Paramount Plus Premium, Paramount Plus Essential
Renewed100%
2. Miami Vice
Dexter is soaked in Miami, and Miami Vice essentially invented that version of the city for television: humid, neon-lit, and morally slippery. The show's focus on undercover work and the porous border between cops and criminals echoes some of Dexter's best ideas about performing an identity. It's older and stylistically different, but the city itself feels like shared territory.
Ended0%
3. Inspector Morse
Inspector Morse is a different pace and a different climate, but the central character has a lot in common with Dexter's appeal: a brilliant investigator who operates by his own logic and keeps people at arm's length. Morse is literary and methodical, and the show rewards attention the same way Dexter does. Fans who like their crime drama character-driven rather than action-driven will find this one satisfying.
Stream on Britbox Apple TV Channel , BritBox, BritBox Amazon Channel
Ended0%
4. Imperfect Women
Dexter is fundamentally about the gap between what people present to the world and what they actually are, and Imperfect Women works that same seam. A murder tears open decades of friendship and exposes the betrayals hiding underneath. It's more intimate in scale than Dexter, but the interest in concealed lives and uncomfortable truths is the same.
Stream on Apple TV, Apple TV Amazon Channel
Ended0%
5. Cross
Alex Cross is a detective whose personal grief and obsession are part of what makes him effective, which is a dynamic Dexter fans will recognize immediately. The show treats his psychological complexity as the main event rather than a subplot, and his pursuit of killers has the same relentless, almost compulsive quality that defines Dexter at its best. If you want a protagonist who is genuinely hard to read, Cross delivers that.
Stream on Amazon Prime Video, Amazon Prime Video with Ads
Likely Renewed82%
More on shows like Dexter
Fans of Dexter tend to want a few specific things in a follow-up. They want crime that feels personal rather than purely institutional. They're drawn to detectives or investigators who carry something heavy, whether that's a moral code that doesn't quite fit the law, a damaged past, or an obsessive streak that makes them effective and dangerous at the same time. They also tend to appreciate atmosphere, shows where the setting is doing real work rather than just serving as backdrop.
The recommendations here cover a solid range of that territory. Criminal Minds leans hardest into the procedural side, putting the focus on understanding criminal psychology from the inside out, which any Dexter fan will recognize as familiar ground. Miami Vice shares the Miami DNA and the same interest in the blurry line between law enforcement and the criminal world. Inspector Morse is slower and more literary, but it has that same quality of a brilliant, solitary investigator who operates on his own terms. Cross is the closest in spirit to Dexter's character study approach, following a detective whose personal damage is inseparable from what makes him good at the job. Imperfect Women is the outlier in terms of tone, but its interest in hidden lives and the secrets people keep beneath a presentable surface is very much in Dexter's wheelhouse.
None of these shows are exactly Dexter, which is fine. The antihero-as-protagonist is a hard trick to repeat, and the shows here are smart enough not to try. What they offer instead is the particular satisfaction of watching someone navigate a world where guilt and justice are rarely distributed the way they should be.
More shows like Dexter
Frequently asked
- What is the most popular show like Dexter?
- Criminal Minds is the most popular show similar to Dexter in the IsItRenewed catalogue.
- Are shows like Dexter still on the air?
- Of the 12 shows similar to Dexter listed here, 1 currently carry a renewed verdict — the rest are cancelled, ended, or awaiting a decision.
- How does IsItRenewed pick shows like Dexter?
- The recommendations come from TMDB's similar-titles data, and each is shown with its current AI renewal verdict so you know which are still going.