10 TV Shows to Watch If You Like Dark Winds

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One of AMC’s best TV shows, certainly in recent years, is “Dark Winds,” which premiered in 2022. A neo-Western pulp thriller, the series is based on the “Leaphorn & Chee” novels by Tony Hillerman, with each season adapting a different book. Although set in the 1970s on and around a Native reservation in the American Southwest, the series doesn’t feel like a period piece, but instead focuses on delivering intensely crafted mysteries. The impressive ensemble cast is led by Zahn McClarnon, who also produces the series, as driven tribal police officer Joe Leaphorn.

While we wait for the next season of “Dark Winds,” there are plenty of other shows offering their own crime thriller. More than just procedural series, the shows we discuss here also veer into neo-Western and neo-noir thematic territory. Many of these series also look at social issues facing indigenous communities and feature indigenous characters. These are 10 TV shows to watch if you love “Dark Winds” and are looking for something similar.

Arguably the show that fueled the resurgence of the neo-Western genre on television, “Justified” is a creative tour de force. Based on author Elmore Leonard’s detective stories about protagonist Raylan Givens, Timothy Olyphant makes the role his own in the series. The show opens with Raylan, a fast-paced US Marshal, reassigned to his hometown in Kentucky, a region towards which he has a lot of unresolved angst. With his proactive sense of justice, Raylan takes on several criminal organizations in the area, often putting his shooting skills to the test.

“Justified” is hands down one of the best neo-Western TV shows of all time, so let’s get that out of the way first. The series is written from the top down and is driven by its character dynamics, particularly between Raylan and Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins), a resident who is not doing well. More for the purposes of the comparative premise of this list, the series depicts small-town crime in an engaging manner while also highlighting the detrimental consequences it has on Raylan’s personal life. Among the best shows ever produced for FX, “Justified” remains thoroughly enjoyable more than a decade after its conclusion.

Another show based on a series of neo-Western pulp novels, “Longmire” adapts Craig Johnson’s “Walt Longmire Mysteries.” The main character of the series is a small-town Wyoming sheriff, played by Robert Taylor, grieving the death of his wife. Due to his jurisdiction’s proximity to a reservation, Walt frequently consults his best friend Henry Standing Bear (Lou Diamond Phillips) when working with the tribal police. Walt’s daughter, Cady (Cassidy Freeman), solves crimes in and around the Cheyenne reservation while trying to move on with their lives.

Walt Longmire and Joe Leaphorn are both protagonists with careers in law enforcement who are introduced following a family tragedy. But even though there’s plenty of moral ambiguity and deadly stakes, “Longmire” is a consistently less intense spectacle than “Dark Winds.” Some of the best episodes of Western television of all time come from the series, bringing surprising twists and turns as it moves forward in its character arcs. Unpretentious in its presentation but nonetheless offering thrills and sympathetic characters, “Longmire” is a mature and measured take on the neo-Western genre.

While each season of “True Detective” touches on strong neo-noir aesthetics and narrative themes, the fourth season of the HBO series is the closest to “Dark Winds.” Subtitled “Night Country,” the season is the first for the series helmed by showrunner and director Issa López. The season brings the action to Alaska with the grisly murders of research station personnel investigated by Police Chief Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster) and Trooper Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis). Like “Dark Winds,” “Night Country” touches lightly on the supernatural, particularly through the visions experienced by its indigenous characters.

Beyond “Night Country,” “True Detective” still evokes the bona fide crime thriller that Joe Leaphorn is accustomed to in his own series. Each season of the series revolves around a mysterious and disturbing murder and is led by obsessive detectives who try to find the culprit. “Night Country” better captures these similarities, and with Issa López returning for “True Detective” Season 5, I hope these qualities are strengthened. One of the best crime TV shows ever made, “True Detective” still feels like event television every time a new season begins.

During this period between Khal Drogo and Aquaman, Jason Momoa starred in the crime drama “The Red Road.” The show takes place in the remote Ramapo Mountains on the New York-New Jersey border, with the Ramapough Lenape Native Nation playing a major role. Momoa plays Phillip Kopus, a man linked to criminal activity in his community and returning to his hometown after serving a prison sentence. Kopus’ return coincides with the arrival of police detective Harold Jensen (Martin Henderson) who is in town to investigate a missing persons case.

Like “Dark Winds” and “Longmire,” “The Red Road” delves deep into the tension between indigenous and white communities in a remote region. What the 2014 SundanceTV series does particularly well is explore these themes with considerably flawed characters, which is evident in the first episode. There’s a lot of unresolved trauma and shifting alliances that keep the story from becoming predictable, often ending an episode on a shocking twist. “The Red Road” is a complex, complicated story about hurting people, deserving better than the unresolved cliffhanger it ended on.

Among the delightfully darker shows airing on USA Network is “The Sinner,” which ran for four seasons from 2017 to 2021. The series stars Bill Pullman as Harry Ambrose, a detective who investigates mysterious murders around New York and New England. Given the series’ light-hearted anthology format, each season focuses on a different case and features a supporting cast revolving around Pullman. There are clear police procedural elements but, by pacing one case over the course of an entire season, the story and its characters are given a chance to breathe.

What “The Sinner” does so well is that it presents the audience with cases that are not as simple as they appear on the surface. Each investigation is filled with twists and turns but, above all, don’t feel forced for the sake of sensationalism, but rather provide a satisfying conclusion. The whole thing is grounded in a magnificently world-weary performance from Pullman, whose detective character has seen it all and is both the better and the worse for it. “The Sinner” is worth watching on Netflix as a current streaming site, “The Sinner” is a thrilling crime thriller.

Stephen King provided his own “True Detective” type story with his 2018 novel “The Outsider,” which was adapted by HBO as a limited series in 2020. The series has a…