From ‘Beyond Evil’ to ‘Stranger’: 12 best K-dramas for true crime lovers

True crime type: the everyone-is-suspicious viewer

Twenty years after a series of murders in the small town of Manyang, another case appears to echo the crimes of the past. Lee Dong-sik (Shin Ha-kyun), a detective with his own troubled history, is partnered with young detective Han Joo-won (Yeo Jin-goo), who arrives determined to find the truth.

The clever part is that the mystery isn’t simply “Who is the killer?” It is “Who can you trust?” Every suspect has a history, every revelation creates another question and even the detectives investigating the case are treated as potential pieces of the puzzle.

True crime type: the serial-killer-profiler nerd

Based on the experiences of South Korea’s first criminal profiler, Through the Darkness follows a team of detectives studying the minds of murderers during the period when South Korea’s first serial murders were terrifying the country. Song Ha-young (Kim Nam-gil) works to develop criminal profiling as investigators try to understand violent offenders rather than simply catch them.

This is the closest thing on the list to a dramatised true-crime investigation. It is less interested in glamorous detectives and last-minute revelations than in the painstaking work of understanding why someone kills.

See more: Fact meets fiction: 10 K-dramas inspired by true events

True crime type: the “follow the money” listener

Prosecutor Hwang Si-mok (Cho Seung-woo), who has lost his ability to feel empathy, joins forces with detective Han Yeo-jin (Bae Doona) after a murder leads them into a much larger web of political corruption.

There is a murder at the centre, but Stranger refuses to let the investigation remain a straightforward whodunnit. Evidence keeps pointing upwards into institutions where influence, money and professional loyalty can be just as dangerous as the person holding the knife.

True crime type: the “what if the killer is my husband?” viewer

Cha Ji-won (Moon Chae-won) is a homicide detective married to Baek Hee-sung (Lee Joon-gi), who appears to be an ideal husband and father. Then Ji-won starts investigating a series of murders and discovers that her husband has been hiding his identity and a deeply disturbing past.

The true crime fantasy here is deliciously horrifying: what if the person sitting beside you on the sofa every night is connected to the case you’ve been investigating? The drama turns domestic intimacy into its own crime scene.

See more: No bad vibes: 5 K-dramas with zero toxic misunderstandings

True crime type: the “can you spot a psychopath?” obsessive

Rookie police officer Jung Ba-reum (Lee Seung-gi) joins forces with detective Go Mu-chi (Lee Hee-joon) to hunt a notorious serial killer known as the Predator. The investigation becomes tangled up with a disturbing question: could psychopathy be identified before someone actually commits a crime?

Mouse is not shy about its big questions. It takes the nature-versus-nurture debate, genetic predisposition and serial-killer psychology and turns them into an increasingly twisty mystery.

True crime type: the emergency-call addict

Police officer Kang Kwon-joo (Lee Ha-na) works at an emergency 112 call centre, where she uses her exceptional hearing to help identify and locate people in danger. After her father and detective Moo Jin-hyuk’s (Jang Hyuk) wife are killed by the same serial killer, the pair join forces to track him down.

The gimmick makes Voice particularly stressful viewing: investigators aren’t simply following clues after the crime. They are racing against the clock while the crime is happening.

True crime type: the forensics nerd

Forensic doctor Baek Beom (Jung Jae-young) works with rookie prosecutor Eun Sol (Jung Yu-mi) to solve cases, bringing forensic science into the centre of the investigation.

If your favourite part of a true-crime documentary is when someone pulls out the forensic report and suddenly explains exactly what the body is telling investigators, this is your show. It trades the glamorous detective chase for evidence, autopsies and the grim business of figuring out what actually happened.

True-crime type: the unsolved-case sleepless one

Detective Cha Young-jin (Kim Seo-hyung) has spent years carrying the weight of an unsolved murder. When a boy living nearby falls from a rooftop and ends up in a coma, she begins to suspect that something about the incident is deeply wrong.

The drama connects a long-unsolved murder with a new mystery, giving it the particular ache of cases where the truth has been buried for years. It is less about spectacle than the question that drives so much real-world true crime: what did everyone miss?

True crime type: the wrongful-conviction obsessive

University student Kim Hyun-soo (Kim Soo-hyun) makes a disastrous decision one night and finds himself accused of murdering a woman. Shin Joong-han (Cha Seung-won), a struggling lawyer, becomes the only person willing to help him navigate a legal system that already seems to have decided what happened.

Based on the BBC series Criminal Justice, the drama shifts the true-crime perspective from the investigator to the accused. The question isn't simply whether Hyun-soo committed the crime. It is what happens when the machinery of justice starts moving before anyone is certain of the facts.

True crime type: the courtroom deep-diver

Judge Sim Eun-seok (Kim Hye-soo) presides over a juvenile court, handling cases involving young offenders while wrestling with her own uncompromising ideas about punishment and justice. The cases include murder, sexual assault, runaway teenagers and crimes involving privileged students.

This is true crime from the courtroom, not the crime scene. Juvenile Justice is particularly compelling if your interest goes beyond “who did it?” to the harder questions: what should happen next, who is responsible and how much should age change the punishment?

True crime type: the “justice wasn’t enough” viewer

Former special-forces soldier Kim Do-gi (Lee Je-hoon) works for a secret taxi service that takes revenge on behalf of clients who have been failed by the law. Instead of simply investigating criminals, the team goes undercover and delivers its own version of revenge.

It is the least conventional true crime pick here, but perhaps the most satisfying for anyone who has ever finished a documentary muttering, “That’s it? That’s all they got?” Taxi Driver answers that frustration with elaborate undercover schemes and vigilante justice.

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