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 never the most powerful person in the room through brute force or authority. He watches. He listens. He notices the thing everyone else walked past, and then he uses it. That gap between what people think they're hiding and what Jane can plainly see is where the show lives. It's a procedural at its core, but the real engine is character: Jane's grief, his ego, his genuine warmth toward the CBI team, and the long shadow of Red John that gives the series a spine beyond any single case.
The best shows like The Mentalist
1. Criminal Minds
Like The Mentalist, Criminal Minds is built around a team that wins cases by understanding how criminals think rather than just chasing them. The Behavioral Analysis Unit's profiling work scratches the same itch as Jane's cold-reads, even if the tone is considerably darker and the cases more disturbing. If you liked the Red John arc's psychological cat-and-mouse quality, Criminal Minds runs on that energy for its entire run.
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2. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
CSI shares The Mentalist's fundamental satisfaction: a smart person notices something small that cracks a case wide open. The approach is more forensic and less psychological, but the structure of watching experts dismantle a crime scene methodically is very familiar. It's a reliable procedural that doesn't demand the same emotional investment, which can be exactly what you want.
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3. The Closer
Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson is probably the closest thing on television to Patrick Jane in a skirt: brilliant at reading people, socially abrasive in ways that irritate colleagues, and almost supernaturally good in the interrogation room. The Closer has the same mixture of weekly case structure and long-running character dynamics that made The Mentalist so easy to watch in long stretches. Johnson's quirks and contradictions are written with real care, and the show trusts her to be difficult without making her unlikable.
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4. Medium
Where The Mentalist gave Jane fake psychic abilities to expose, Medium takes its premise straight: Allison Dubois genuinely communicates with the dead and uses those dreams to help solve crimes. The tone is warmer and more domestic than The Mentalist, with Allison's family life given as much weight as her casework. Fans who enjoyed the idea of an intuitive outsider working alongside skeptical law enforcement will find the same core dynamic here, played with more sincerity.
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5. Lie to Me
Dr. Cal Lightman does with science exactly what Patrick Jane does with showmanship: reads people so accurately it looks like a trick. The show is built scene by scene around the same pleasure of watching a perceptive person catch something everyone else missed, whether it's a microexpression or a tell in someone's posture. Lightman is pricklier and less charming than Jane, but the cat-and-mouse dynamic between him and the people trying to deceive him is immediately familiar.
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More on shows like The Mentalist
Fans of The Mentalist tend to want a few things from their next show. A central character with an unusual skill set that puts them slightly outside normal law enforcement. Cases that reward attention and don't just resolve by force. And ideally, some texture in the lead, someone funny or strange or difficult enough to make the weekly formula feel less mechanical. The recommendations here cover different angles of that appeal, some leaning into psychological depth, others into forensic detail, and one sharing the show's own slightly supernatural edge.
Criminal Minds and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation both offer the procedural satisfaction of watching experts dismantle a crime piece by piece, though Criminal Minds skews darker and more character-focused across its ensemble, while CSI is more about the physical evidence than the people collecting it. The Closer is probably the closest match in tone: a brilliant, socially unconventional investigator who solves cases through reading and manipulating people in the interrogation room, not unlike Jane himself. Lie to Me splits the difference, putting a scientist rather than a former con man at the center, but the week-to-week pleasure of watching someone spot a lie in real time is very familiar. And Medium earns its place on this list because it does something The Mentalist only pretended to do, taking the idea of a crime-solving intuitive seriously on its own terms, with a warmer domestic life than Jane ever gets to have.
These five shows collectively cover most of what makes The Mentalist tick. None of them replicate it exactly, which is probably a good thing. The Closer comes closest to matching its wit and character-driven interrogation scenes. Lie to Me has the sharpest conceptual overlap with Jane's skill set. Criminal Minds and CSI satisfy the procedural appetite while the other half of your brain rests. And Medium is the odd one out in the best way, slower and stranger, but built on the same fundamental question the show always asks: how much can one perceptive person see that the rest of us simply miss?
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.