Best South African crime series

Room 9 (2012)

A television series set in an alternate Pan-African world, where evil thrives and darkness rules. Here, a specialized Police Occult Unit led by ambitious young detective Alice Kunene together with seasoned veteran Harkness and their high-tech detective team, hunts down the perpetrators of evil, both in the world of the living and of the dead.

Fatal Seduction (2023)

A married professor is pulled into a passionate affair with a younger man that uncovers a path of tragedy and betrayal from those closest to her.

Reyka (2021)

In 1994 South Africa, the daughter of a multiracial couple is kidnapped. She escapes and as an adult becomes a detective. Continuing to deal with her past trauma, Reyka Gama uses her skills to raise her child and solve mysteries that have challenged others.

Recipes for Love and Murder (2022)

Tannie Maria sees food as "medicine for the body and heart". She envies romance as much as she enjoys cooking and eating. But it's death that shakes up Tannie Maria's life, when one of the correspondents to her column is brutally murdered.

Die Byl (2016)

The unit specializes in the investigation of serial murders and is led by Van der Bijl, a former murder and robbery detective who gained fame for his handling of several high-profile cases. Each episode focuses on a serial killer. The main character, Colonel Piet van der Bijl, also known as Die Byl, is loosely modeled on the famous ex-detective Piet Byleveld.

Die Vierde Kabinet (1998)

Die Vierde Kabinet revolves around corruption in the police and the Organised Crime Unit, the hated internal investigation unit of the police who set traps for and spy on other police units to try and uncover corrupt members.The same corrupt police attempt to turn the tables by trying to find information about who is in this specialised unit.In 1993, shortly before the first democratic election in South Africa, a group of policemen rushed to get rid of files containing information about illegal police operations.The files were placed in filing cabinets, taken to a secret place and destroyed with explosives. But in the atmosphere of panic and disorder a cabinet - the so-called "fourth cabinet" - got lost and was forgotten.In 1997, Bonnie Badenhorst (Vanessa Pike), a policewoman attached to the special police unit investigating corruption, discovers the cabinet. Badenhorst, whose brother died in Angola, decides to remove the cabinet and hide it without informing her colleagues.

Unseen (2023)

A house cleaner desperately searches for her husband as a dreaded criminal syndicate dredges up past tragedies and ultimately drives her to violence.

Surviving Escobar - Alias JJ (2017)

As the Medellín Cartel crumbles, Pablo Escobar's No. 1 hit man struggles to stay alive and gain respect in the prison hierarchy.

Trackers (2019)

Three story strands are interwoven into a sophisticated action-packed thriller that covers the length and breadth of South Africa, explosively colliding in Cape Town in a violent conspiracy involving organized crime, smuggled diamonds, state security, Black Rhinos, the CIA and an international terrorist plot.

Ludik (2022)

To save a kidnapped family member, an enterprising furniture tycoon must use his secret diamond smuggling operation to transport guns across the border.

White Lies (2024)

Set in the wealthy neighbourhood of Bishopscourt, Cape Town, investigative journalist Edie Hansen gets caught up in the ugly underbelly that lies beneath the picturesque beauty of the city, dragging her back to a turbulent past.

Lioness (2021)

A woman is wrongly convicted of fraud and in the process losses her children. She emerges from prison eight years later intending to reunite with her children and clear her name.

Devil's Peak (2023)

Based on Deon Meyer's 2004 best-selling novel of the same name - centres on Detective Benny Grissel, tasked with tracking down a righteous vigilante killer whose crimes capture the city's imagination.

Cape Town (2016)

Cape Town. Police captain Mat Joubert used to be the best, solved every crime, got every killer. But that was a year ago, before his wife Lara was murdered while working undercover. Mat's been on a downward spiral ever since, haunted by a blurred past, uncertain which role he played in the murder of his wife. Now Mat is an out of shape chain smoker who is ambivalent about the crime-ridden world around him. Gradually, Mat begins to overcome the ghosts of his past. But in order to stop the violence of his current cases he must relive the nightmare of his wife's murder.

Spinners (2023)

Ethan is a 17-year-old driver working for a local gang. Disgusted with gang life, Ethan discovers a possible way out via spinning, an extreme motorsport. But the looming gang war jeopardises that hope.

Donkerbos (2022)

When the bodies of six children are found in the backwater forests of Donkerbos, Limpopo, an ostracised detective must wrestle with her dark past, her family and a distrustful community to catch the killer before another child is taken.

Yizo Yizo (1999)

Snitch (0)

Arsenaal (2002)

Arsenaal is a South African, Afrikaans-language thriller drama television series created, written and directed by Jan Scholtz and produced by his production company Scholtz Films which is set against the backdrop of investigative journalism, corrupt security companies and corrupt police.

Boetie Boer: Inside The Mind Of A Monster (2023)

As Nelson Mandela is released from 27 years in prison in 1990, Stewart 'Boetie Boer' Wilken starts his killing spree. Unlike most serial killers, he had more than one type of victim. He also claimed to engage in necrophilia and cannibalism.

My Name Is Reeva (2023)

Paralympian Oscar Pistorius fatally shot his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in 2013. Almost a decade later, Reeva's parents prepare to confront their daughter's murderer.

Kings of Jo'Burg (2020)

The Masire brothers rule Johannesburg's criminal underworld, but a supernatural family curse and a tangled web of betrayal threaten to destroy them.

Die Spreeus (2019)

Die Spreeus (The Starlings) is a South Africa, Afrikaans-language supernatural crime procedural series which tells the story of two fearless detectives - Bas Koorts and Beatrice Mack - who investigate a new phenomenon each week and try to solve crimes... even in worlds that are not our own.