Loved Furious? These 12 Dark Thrillers Go Even Further

If you haven’t seen Top of the Lake yet, you might want to make it a priority.

This moody series stars Elisabeth Moss as a detective from a darkly beautiful rural New Zealand town, currently stationed in Sydney. When she returns home to visit her ailing mother, she finds herself pulled into the local investigation of a pregnant 12-year-old girl who suddenly disappeared.

Like Furious, Top of the Lake deals with the topic of ingrained societal violence against women and girls, made all the more raw because the investigation is conducted by a highly competent yet flawed female detective whose personal traumas both inform and hinder her work.

Elisabeth Moss delivers a powerhouse performance as Robin Griffin, and even though the second season (in Sydney) isn't quite as good as the first, I cannot recommend this series enough to anyone who was captivated by Furious.

Killing Eve might be somewhat lighter fare than Furious, but there’s something eerily similar about both villains. Jodie Comer’s Villanelle and Lola Petticrew’s Catherine Grace are both angelic-looking yet vicious killers, and both use disguises to get close to their victims before striking.

The similarities don’t stop there: both series focus on a female detective intent on catching their target while simultaneously harbouring a respect and understanding for the injustices that brought them to commit such heinous crimes.

Although Killing Eve ran for four seasons, it’s really the first two that are worth a watch. The first season was written and produced by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, whose signature devastating wit and ability to write complex characters provide the blueprint for the rest of the series. The second season was helmed by another prominent feminist filmmaker, Emerald Fennell, who has another film on this list...

Based on Erik Axl Sund’s Swedish crime thriller novel of the same name, The Crow Girl, like Furious, is a gritty examination of the dark ways trauma can manifest and the moral ambiguity that emerges in the absence of functional systems of justice.

Set in Bristol, the series follows DCI Jeanette Kilburn’s investigation into a series of murders of young male asylum seekers around the city. As the case continues, Jeanette makes a connection between the crimes and a deeply traumatised woman who dropped off the map several years previously.

Meanwhile, she forms an increasingly tight bond with a psychologist, Dr Sophia Craven, who is assisting with the investigation. However, Sophia might be closer to the heart of the crimes than Jeanette could ever have imagined.

Long Bright River stars Amanda Seyfried as Mickey Fitzpatrick, a single mum and patrol officer working in Philadelphia's high-crime, high-addiction Kensington neighbourhood. As sex workers in the area start to go missing and turn up dead, the police are quick to rule them as overdose deaths — but Mickey is not so sure.

The stakes for Mickey are high, as her own sister is an addict who went missing some weeks prior. As she continues her investigation, her history of trauma begins to collide with the truth poisoning her neighbourhood and community.

Like Furious, Long Bright River tells the story of a woman working within and against deeply sexist systems while battling her own personal demons.

The 2018 miniseries Sharp Objects is Southern Gothic at its finest. If you were captivated by Furious' complex characters, you’ll enjoy diving into the psychological depths of Amy Adams’ Camille Preaker and her on-screen mother, Patricia Clarkson, as Adora Crellin.

The series takes place in Wind Gap, Missouri, Camille’s hometown, to which she returns after a stint in a psychiatric hospital to cover the story of the murder of two girls. Once back home, she is forced to reflect on her childhood and her overbearing mother — leading her down an increasingly dark path of discovery and remembering.

Mare of Easttown bears all the hallmarks of one of HBO's best series. This dark tale is both an enthralling mystery and as emotionally layered as the fog around the suburban Easttown, Pennsylvania. 

Like Furious, Mare of Easttown features a damaged but highly skilled detective, Marianne 'Mare' Sheehan, who is charged with investigating the murder of a local girl and the disappearance of another.

The series is both captivating and emotionally wrenching. As Mare doggedly continues with the case, she also grapples with challenges in her personal life. Still reeling from the aftermath of her son’s suicide and her subsequent divorce, she also finds herself in a custody battle over her grandson.

The BAFTA-winning Happy Valley is a gripping police procedural. Starring Sarah Lancashire as police sergeant Catherine Cawood in Halifax, West Yorkshire, each of the three seasons follows her local investigations, as well as her ongoing vendetta against local criminal Tommy Lee Royce (James Norton).

While Catherine is slowly reaching retirement age, she’s intent on using her last years on the job to keep her local community safe. However, she’s also recovering from the heartbreak of losing her daughter, Becky, to suicide.

Before her death, Becky was sexually assaulted by Tommy and gave birth to a son, Ryan. Catherine, who is now raising Ryan alone, holds Tommy responsible for Becky’s death and will stop at nothing to get him behind bars again, at any cost.

I said Emerald Fennell would appear on this list again, and I'm keeping my promise with this entry. Fennell’s 2020 debut film Promising Young Woman is both a thrilling drama and a disturbing profile of a woman taking justice into her own hands.

Carey Mulligan delivers a multifaceted performance as Cassie, a med school dropout who now lives with her parents, works at a coffee shop, and secretly entraps bad men at night by pretending to be intoxicated until they are alone, after which she incapacitates them and confronts them with their misdeeds.

This twisted behaviour stems from a very real crime committed against a dear friend. Like Catherine in Furious, Cassie has diverted her whole life and potential to serving the justice the system has failed to bring.

The Chestnut Man, especially the first season, is prime Scandinavian noir. "Dark" doesn’t even begin to describe the depths of intensity this series arrives at — but it’s beautifully crafted, compellingly told, and riveting the whole way through.

The series follows police detectives Naia Thulin and Mark Hess as they team up to investigate a series of gruesome murders around Copenhagen — in which the killer leaves behind a little chestnut man figurine at each scene — and their possible link to the disappearance of the daughter of a prominent politician.

While the second season shares Furious’ theme of warped justice-seeking, there is a twist that I am still having trouble forgiving the makers for. That said, the entire series has the kind of immersive, tense vibe that's sure to scratch the itch for Furious fans.

One of the most critically lauded crime dramas of all time, The Fall is obligatory viewing for any fan of the genre. From the intensity of its prolonged cat-and-mouse chase to the disturbing crimes it depicts, The Fall is nothing if not powerful viewing.

Like in Furious, The Fall features a captivating protagonist in Superintendent Stella Gibson (played with poise by the one and only Gillian Anderson). Stella gets called in to supervise an investigation in Belfast, where a serial killer targeting young professional women is wreaking havoc.

While dealing not only with rampant sexism in her team, the unabashedly forward Stella enters into a complex game with the killer (played by Jamie Dornan) that challenges his own deeply misogynistic beliefs.