TV Shows Like The Mentalist
If you like The Mentalist, 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.
CBS · Crime · The Mentalist is ended
The Mentalist works because Patrick Jane is not a cop. He is a fraud turned asset, a man whose whole career was built on telling people what they wanted to hear, now using those same skills to catch killers. The show's pleasure is watching him read a room in seconds, set a trap three scenes before the audience notices, and irritate every law enforcement official in his vicinity while doing it. The crime plots are solid procedural fare, but the real engine is Jane himself, the weight of his past and his long pursuit of the serial killer Red John threading through the episodic cases and giving the series a spine that pure case-of-the-week shows often lack.
The best shows like The Mentalist
1. Criminal Minds
The FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit does in a team what Patrick Jane does alone: builds a precise psychological picture of a criminal to predict and intercept their behavior. The show leans harder into the darkness of its subject matter than The Mentalist does, but the core pleasure of watching experts decode a criminal mind before it strikes again is exactly the same. Fans who enjoyed the Red John arc will find that Criminal Minds sustains that serial-killer tension across multiple seasons.
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2. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Where Jane reads people, the Las Vegas CSI team reads physical evidence, and the two approaches deliver very similar satisfaction: a puzzle assembled piece by piece until the answer snaps into place. The procedural structure is meticulous, and the Las Vegas setting gives the show a personality of its own. It lacks a con-man protagonist but more than compensates with sheer craft and a strong ensemble.
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3. Medium
Allison Dubois is in many ways the mirror image of Patrick Jane: she works as a consultant for law enforcement, uses unconventional methods her colleagues find hard to trust, and relies on a form of perception others cannot replicate. Her gifts are played straight, not as psychological tricks, so viewers who prefer Jane's rational-skeptic approach will need to adjust. That said, the crime-solving framework and the consultant-versus-institution dynamic are very familiar ground.
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4. The Closer
Brenda Leigh Johnson reads people the way Jane does, through patience, performance, and the careful exploitation of what they want to believe about her. She is a world-class interrogator who uses her Southern manner as a kind of misdirection, which will feel instantly recognizable to anyone who has watched Jane work a room. The California setting, the resistant team, and the high-profile cases all make this an easy transition for Mentalist fans.
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5. Profiler
Profiler is the rougher, earlier version of the forensic psychology procedural that The Mentalist would later refine, following a brilliant criminal profiler working FBI violent crimes cases with a serial antagonist haunting her across the series. The ongoing cat-and-mouse between the protagonist and her personal nemesis gives it the same serialized tension The Mentalist built into its Red John storyline. Fans who want to see where this subgenre came from will find it rewarding, even if the production has aged.
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More on shows like The Mentalist
Fans of The Mentalist tend to want a few specific things: smart investigators who rely on observation and psychology over brute force, cases that reward attention, a procedural rhythm that still leaves room for character, and a setting or atmosphere that gives the show a distinct identity. They are not necessarily looking for supernatural elements, but they can tolerate them if the detective work remains grounded. What they almost certainly want is a lead character with a strong, clearly defined point of view and the intelligence to back it up.
The five shows here cover that territory from different angles. Criminal Minds and Profiler go deepest into the psychology of the criminals themselves, with teams that construct detailed behavioral portraits of offenders before closing in. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation moves the emphasis to physical evidence over personal insight, but the puzzle-solving satisfaction is very much the same. Medium is the most obvious companion piece, built around a protagonist who is also a psychic consultant working alongside law enforcement, though here the gifts are presented as genuine and not as elaborate stagecraft. The Closer is the outlier in the best way: Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson is a very different kind of people-reader, an interrogation specialist whose charm and apparent guilelessness mask a relentless tactical mind, and her California setting and difficult team dynamics should feel immediately familiar to Jane's fans.
None of these are perfect matches, and that is fine. Profiler is the oldest and roughest around the edges, but its serial-killer throughline gives it the same kind of long-game tension The Mentalist built around Red John. Criminal Minds can be repetitive across its long run, though the profiling methodology is consistently satisfying. CSI delivers reliable procedural craft even if its leads never quite develop Jane's showmanship. Medium plays its premise with full sincerity, a tonal shift from The Mentalist's skeptical rationalism. And The Closer is simply a very good show about a very smart woman in a room full of people underestimating her, which is something every Mentalist viewer will recognize immediately.
More shows like The Mentalist
Frequently asked
- What is the most popular show like The Mentalist?
- Criminal Minds is the most popular show similar to The Mentalist in the IsItRenewed catalogue.
- Are shows like The Mentalist still on the air?
- Of the 12 shows similar to The Mentalist listed here, 1 currently carry a renewed verdict — the rest are cancelled, ended, or awaiting a decision.
- How does IsItRenewed pick shows like The Mentalist?
- 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.