If the feeling of an adrenaline rush coupled with your heart rate spiking is your ideal Friday night, look no further than a mysterious and tense TV thriller. We were treated to some brilliant mind-bending (and often stressful) series last year, including The Woman In The Wall and the second season of Vigil.

2024 is looking just as promising, with a whole host of major thrillers due to be released this year. From a new conspiracy-inspired BBC series, The Listeners, to Netflix’s latest star-studded thriller series, Black Doves, these are some of the best thriller series to watch out for in 2024.

Black Doves follows Helen Webb (Keira Knightley), a quick-witted, dedicated wife and mother – and professional spy. For 10 years, she’s been passing on her politician husband’s secrets to the shadowy organisation she works for, the Black Doves. But when her secret lover, Jason, is assassinated, her spymaster, the enigmatic Reed (Sarah Lancashire), calls in Helen’s old friend to keep her safe.

Coming to Netflix on 5 December

The story focuses on Claire, a popular English teacher, who begins to hear a low humming sound that no one else around her can hear. This constant noise gradually upsets the balance of her life, increasing tension between herself and her family – her husband, Paul, and daughter, Ashley. But no obvious source or medical cause can be found for Claire. However, she then finds out that a student of hers, Kyle, can also hear the sound and the two strike up an unlikely and intimate friendship.

Coming soon to BBC

Picking up some two years after the events of season two, a young teenager is the victim of a brutal stabbing. During her investigations, Sarah once again crosses paths with Lizzie Adama, who is trying to balance her role as a detective with her family life.

It isn’t long before Sarah encounters further conflict in the form of DI Kieran Shaw, who is running Operation Perseus, “an undercover police task force set up to bring down south London drug kingpin Shakiel Oliver… The focus of Sarah and Kieran’s conflict is 15-year-old Ryan Kennedy, who witnessed the fatal stabbing but is also a key part of Shakiel’s inner circle” – culminating in a shocking climax for the operation.

Available to watch via ITVX

When a small community becomes plagued by murder, it’s up to Detective Lois Tryon to unmask the killer. “These crimes are eerily personal, as if someone – something – is taunting her,” says the show synopsis, which adds that Tryon is already grappling “with a strained relationship with her daughter, a husband in long-term hospital care and her own inner demons”. She needs help. And so, unsure where to turn, she begins to lean hard upon Sister Megan, a nun and journalist with the Catholic Guardian. “As Lois and Sister Megan string together clues, they find themselves ensnared in a sinister web that only seems to raise more questions than answers.”

Available to watch via Disney+

When his identical twin brother, James, disappears without a trace, it’s up to John ‘Ludwig’ Taylor (played by David Mitchell) to track him down. What better way to do so, then, than by assuming his brother’s identity? Well, we’re about to find out.

Available to watch via BBC iPlayer

After an explosive (literally) first season, the upcoming second season will have viewers discover what happens next in this tense storyline following a US diplomat posted to the UK, as well as witnessing the arrival of Grace Penn, the US vice president.

Available to watch via Netflix

If you love a Bourne-style thriller, this one is for you. “An unrivalled and highly elusive lone assassin, the Jackal, makes his living carrying out hits for the highest fee. But following his latest kill, he meets his match in a tenacious British intelligence officer who starts to track down the Jackal in a thrilling cat-and-mouse chase across Europe, leaving destruction in its wake.”

Available to watch via Sky and NOW

This new series stars Billy Crystal as Eli, a “child psychiatrist who, after recently losing his wife, Lynn, encounters a troubled young boy, Noah, who seems to have a haunting connection to Eli’s past. As Eli attempts to help Noah, their mysterious bond deepens,” reads the official synopsis.

Available to watch via Apple TV+

Ella Purnell plays Rhiannon Lewis, a woman who doesn’t make much of an impression. People walk past her in the street without a second glance, she’s continually overlooked for a promotion at work, the guy she likes won’t commit and her dad is really, really sick. When Rhiannon is pushed over the edge, she loses control. Suddenly the wallflower is gone, and in its place is a young woman capable of anything…

Available to watch via Sky and NOW

While we wait to hear if we really will get a third season of Big Little Lies, this new six-part series will fill the gap nicely. Nicole Kidman stars as rich and successful novelist Greer Garrison Winbury, about to celebrate (sort of) her son’s wedding. But when a dead body washes up on the beach, their beautifully manicured lives all begin to fracture. 

Available to watch via Netflix

This six-part series follows the journey of Irish detective Theo Richter (Richard Flood), who teams up with Kiwi detective Diana Huia (Acushla-Tara Kupe) when a young Irish couple go missing from a rural New Zealand town. Their job becomes more complicated with the community’s growing concern that the disappearances may be linked to a series of historical murders, putting the whole town on edge.

Available to watch via BBC iPlayer

As the official description reads: “Nightsleeper is a real-time thriller set on a sleeper train travelling from Glasgow to London, while a government agency desperately tries to intervene in the rapidly escalating events onboard.

“Can two people who’ve never met, one on the train and one not, work together to save the lives of its disparate group of passengers as the Heart of Britain service hurtles towards what might quite literally be its final destination?”

Available to watch via BBC iPlayer

Exploring the first-hand experiences of a long-term witness protection officer, Protection focuses on what happens when a system that’s supposed to keep people safe fails.

Detective Inspector Liz Nyles (Siobhan Finneran) is a police officer who finds herself in trouble after she’s been personally compromised by an affair with a colleague. However, she’s motivated to fight back and find out the truth of the corruption within her unit.

Coming soon to ITVX

Sophie Turner leaves Winterfell firmly in the past in this 1980s series based on the UK’s most notorious jewel thief. She plays Joan Hannington who, when her criminal husband goes on the run, seizes the chance to make a better life for her and her daughter and becomes an incredibly successful diamond thief. 

Available to watch via ITVX

Series one of Sherwood, about a murder investigation in a former mining village, was utterly engrossing so expect more twists, turns and emotional upheaval as the series returns. 

David Morrissey reprises his role as DCS Ian St Clair who is dealing with the fallout of the two murderers in series one – as well as the revelation there was a spy in their midst. There are also two new families getting entangled in proceedings. Series one stars Lesley Manville and Lorraine Ashburn will be joined by David Harewood, Robert Lindsay, Monica Dolan and Sharlene Whyte. 

Available to watch via BBC

The Cate Blanchett takes the lead in the brilliant-sounding Disclaimer coming to Apple TV+. She plays Catherine Ravenscroft, a journalist who has made her name uncovering the misdeeds of others, but the tables are turned when she receives an anonymous novel with her own transgressions front and centre. Directed by Alfonso Cuaron and also starring Kevin Kline and Kodi Smit-McPhee, this psychological thriller will be unmissable. 

Available to watch via Apple TV+

Set in Belfast, Blue Lights follows Grace, Annie and Tommy, a trio of probationary police officers on the beat, grappling with the extraordinary demands of their new job. We don’t know too much about season two’s plot but we won’t have to wait too long as the new series will air later this month.

Available to watch via BBC iPlayer

The Apple TV+ series follows Suzie (played by Rashida Jones), an American woman living in Kyoto, Japan, whose life falls apart when her husband and son disappear in a mysterious plane crash. As ‘consolation’, she’s given Sunny, one of a new class of domestic robots made by her husband’s electronics company. Together, they form an unlikely friendship and uncover the dark truth of what happened to her family…

Available to watch via Apple TV+

Set in 1960s China, the series follows a young woman who makes a fateful decision that reverberates across space and time into the present day. Split across several timelines and with many characters to keep on top of, it’s astrophysicist Ye Wenjie who soon proves herself to be a key player in the plot…

Available to watch via Netflix

Set in Edinburgh, the series reimagines John Rebus as a younger detective sergeant drawn into a violent conflict that turns personal when his brother Michael, a former soldier, crosses the line into criminality. Rebus finds himself torn between protecting his brother and enforcing the law to bring Michael to justice.

Available to watch via BBC iPlayer

One of the most anticipated thrillers of the year, Andrew Scott will star as Tom Ripley, the handsome, murderous psychopath of Patricia Highsmith’s most famous work, The Talented Mr. Ripley.

In the series, Tom Ripley, a grifter scraping by in 1960s New York, is hired by a wealthy man to travel to Italy to try to convince his vagabond son Dickie Greenleaf (Johnny Flynn) to return home. Tom’s acceptance of the job is the first step into a life of deceit, fraud and murder. Dakota Fanning plays Marge Sherwood, an American living in Italy who suspects darker motives are at play.

Available to watch via Netflix

The Gathering centres around a violent attack on a teenage girl during a rave on a tidal islet. Set on Merseyside, the drama focuses on a group of teens from disparate backgrounds, each of whom could have committed the crime, along with their parents – who give equal cause for suspicion.

Available to watch via Channel 4

When a fatal accident occurs on board the International Space Station, a lone astronaut (played by Noomi Rapace) makes the journey back to Earth, only to discover key pieces of her life have changed…

“The action-packed space adventure is an exploration of the dark edges of human psychology,” reads the official synopsis, “and one woman’s desperate quest to expose the truth about the hidden history of space travel and recover all that she has lost.”

Available to watch via Apple TV+

After her local town gets hit by a flood, PC Joanna Marshall sets out to find out what happened to an unidentified man found dead in a lift in an underground car park. As the investigation goes on, questions begin to arise and PC Marshall becomes obsessed with finding out what really happened to him. How did he get in the lift? And why does no one in the town seem to know who he is?

Available to watch via ITVX

Based on the bestselling non-fiction book Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase For Lincoln’s Killer by James L Swanson, Manhunt is a conspiracy thriller about one of the best-known but least-understood crimes in history: finding John Wilkes Booth in the aftermath of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination.

Available to watch via Apple TV+

When a fire tears through a holiday home in a small Lancashire town, rookie detective Ember Manning (Jenna Coleman) is tasked with working out “how it connects to a podcast journalist investigating a missing persons cold case and an illicit ‘love’ triangle between a man in his 20s and two underage girls” in The Jetty.

But as Ember starts to get close to the truth, it threatens to destroy her life – forcing her to re-evaluate everything she thought she knew about “her past, present and the town she’s always called home”.

Available to watch via BBC iPlayer

Set in the fictional town of Chadder Vale, this six-part series explores an insular community that shares a real distrust of outsiders. Five years before the drama begins, former Met police detective Riya Ajunwa (played by Loki’s Wunmi Mosaku) arrives in town and has been waiting for a case to investigate ever since.

Then, one night a local girl called Katie Wells disappears. But what’s weirder is that the next day she reappears, seemingly totally fine. The inhabitants of the town remain unbothered, but Detective Ajunwa thinks there is something off about the whole thing…

Available to watch via ITVX

Based on Sarah Pinborough’s novel of the same name, Insomnia is being adapted into a six-part series created for Paramount+ and is set to star Vicky McClure as Emma Averill.

A few weeks before Emma turned 40, she stopped sleeping – just like her mother did before experiencing a violent psychotic breakdown on the night of her own 40th birthday. Her mother warned Emma that she would face the same reality. As things start to take a turn, Emma begins to investigate the truth of her own dark past.

Available to watch via Paramount+

We finally have a new drama series from Peaky Blinders and SAS Rogue Heroes creator Steven Knight, and it’s set to be a tense one. Set against a backdrop of violence and the social unrest of the early 1980s, This Town follows the journey of one band’s formation as they fight to choose their own paths in life – in need of the second chance that music offers them.

Available to watch via BBC iPlayer

The six-part thriller will be “set between an all-night plane flight from London to Beijing and the corridors of power within Whitehall” and follows the story of Dr Matthew Nolan (played by Richard Armitage), who is arrested at Heathrow Airport shortly after almost dying in a car crash in Beijing.

Nolan finds himself being sent back to Beijing to face murder charges – accused of killing a woman who was in the car he crashed, even though he insists he was driving alone. And so, the mystery begins.

Available to watch via ITVX

Images: Netflix; Sky; BBC; Paramount+; Apple TV+; Channel 4; ITV