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Crime · 2000s

The 2000s account for 46 of the 337 crime shows here, and 52 opening sequences.

CBS carries the most, with 13.

Three of them rebuilt their titles mid-run, The Wire most of all with five sequences.

46 shows52 sequences

Still from the opening titles of Dexter1 sequence

Dexter

2006–2013ShowtimeCrime

Breakfast filmed as though it were a murder. A mosquito swatted, a blood orange crushed, a shaving nick, a steak sliced, floss drawn tight — every shot of an ordinary morning framed exactly as the violence the show never puts on screen this early.

  • Seasons 1–8
Still from the opening titles of The Wire5 sequences

The Wire

2002–2008HBOCrime

The same song recorded five different ways. Every season re-cuts the images and hands 'Way Down in the Hole' to a new artist, matching the institution that season is about.

  • Season 1
  • Season 2
  • Season 3
  • and 2 more
Still from the opening titles of NCIS2 sequences

NCIS

2003–CBSCrime

Naval insignia, photographs and a snare roll, refreshed periodically as a cast that has now turned over almost completely came and went.

  • Season 10
  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of The Mentalist1 sequence

The Mentalist

2008–2015CBSCrime

A red smiley face drawn in blood, which is the whole of the series' mythology compressed into one image.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Sons of Anarchy2 sequences

Sons of Anarchy

2008–2014FXCrime

Leather, chrome and a reaper patch, over a theme re-recorded by a different artist as the club's situation deteriorates.

  • Season 1
  • Season 7
Still from the opening titles of Bones1 sequence

Bones

2005–2017FoxCrime

Skeletal reconstruction rendered as clean laboratory graphics — a procedural that opens on anatomy rather than crime.

  • Season 2
Still from the opening titles of Veronica Mars1 sequence

Veronica Mars

2004–2019UPN / The CW / HuluCrime

The Dandy Warhols over surveillance photographs and a Californian beach town that is much worse than it looks.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Castle1 sequence

Castle

2009–2016ABCCrime

Typewriter keys and New York, for a series about a novelist who follows a detective around.

  • Season 2
Still from the opening titles of Southland1 sequence

Southland

2009–2013NBC / TNTCrime

Los Angeles patrol work shot like documentary, dropped by NBC and picked up by TNT.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation1 sequence

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

2000–2015CBSCrime

The Who over forensic macro photography, and the sequence that turned laboratory work into prime-time spectacle for a decade.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Murdoch Mysteries1 sequence

Murdoch Mysteries

2008–Citytv / CBCCrime

A Toronto detective in the 1890s using methods the era has not invented yet, past twenty seasons.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of The Closer1 sequence

The Closer

2005–2012TNTCrime

Kyra Sedgwick's LAPD deputy chief, and the most-watched drama basic cable had at the time.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of White Collar1 sequence

White Collar

2009–2014USA NetworkCrime

Nine seconds. A fedora, a card, and straight into it.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Psych1 sequence

Psych

2006–2014USA NetworkCrime

'I Know, You Know' — a theme re-recorded in a different genre for special episodes, which makes it a rare case of a comedy varying its own titles.

  • Season 4
Still from the opening titles of Monk1 sequence

Monk

2002–2009USA NetworkCrime

Randy Newman singing about being obsessive over a detective straightening things — a theme that explains the character faster than the pilot does.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of NCIS: Los Angeles1 sequence

NCIS: Los Angeles

2009–2023CBSCrime

The first NCIS spin-off, fourteen seasons of undercover work.

  • Season 5
Still from the opening titles of The Killing1 sequence

The Killing

2007–2012DR1Crime

Copenhagen in the dark and the rain, over twenty-nine seconds that established the visual language of an entire decade of Nordic crime drama.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Law & Order: Criminal Intent1 sequence

Law & Order: Criminal Intent

2001–2011NBC / USA NetworkCrime

The franchise entry that follows the criminal rather than the case, and so has to break the format's own rule about not showing you the answer.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of CSI: Miami1 sequence

CSI: Miami

2002–2012CBSCrime

The first CSI spin-off, opened by The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again".

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Cold Case1 sequence

Cold Case

2003–2010CBSCrime

Evidence boxes and faded photographs, for a procedural whose whole method is that the past is filed somewhere.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of New Tricks1 sequence

New Tricks

2003–2015BBC OneCrime

Retired detectives reopening cold cases, with a theme song sung by Dennis Waterman about the premise.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Damages1 sequence

Damages

2007–2012FX / DirecTVCrime

Legal documents, blood and Manhattan glass, cut in the same non-linear fashion the series tells its story.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Leverage1 sequence

Leverage

2008–2012TNTCrime

Twenty seconds of heist iconography, in a show that opens each episode with a job already half underway.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of CSI: NY1 sequence

CSI: NY

2004–2013CBSCrime

The third CSI, opened by "Baba O'Riley".

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Without a Trace1 sequence

Without a Trace

2002–2009CBSCrime

Missing-person photographs and a clock, in thirty-two seconds that state the format precisely.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Numb3rs1 sequence

Numb3rs

2005–2010CBSCrime

An FBI agent and his mathematician brother, with the equations drawn over the city in the titles.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Crossing Jordan1 sequence

Crossing Jordan

2001–2007NBCCrime

A Boston medical examiner who investigates her own cases against instruction.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Flashpoint1 sequence

Flashpoint

2008–2012CTV / CBSCrime

A Toronto tactical unit, and the first Canadian drama to air simultaneously on an American network.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Medium1 sequence

Medium

2005–2011NBC / CBSCrime

Patricia Arquette as a consultant to the district attorney who dreams the cases.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Whitechapel1 sequence

Whitechapel

2009–2013ITVCrime

Modern police work in the streets the Ripper murders happened in, with each series restaging an old case.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Hustle1 sequence

Hustle

2004–2012BBC OneCrime

Playing cards, sleight of hand and London — a con-artist series whose titles are themselves a piece of misdirection.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Law & Order: UK1 sequence

Law & Order: UK

2009–2014ITVCrime

American scripts reshot in London with the two-part structure intact, and the chung-chung kept.

  • Season 6
Still from the opening titles of Underbelly1 sequence

Underbelly

2008–2013Nine NetworkCrime

Australian organised crime, a different true story each season.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Law & Order: Trial by Jury1 sequence

Law & Order: Trial by Jury

2005–2006NBCCrime

The shortest-lived Law & Order, cancelled after thirteen episodes, covering the half of the format the parent series skipped.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Spiral1 sequence

Spiral

2005–2020Canal+Crime

Paris police, courts and lawyers in thirty-one seconds, with none of the city that appears on postcards.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Boomtown1 sequence

Boomtown

2002–2003NBCCrime

A Los Angeles crime series that told each case from five points of view, and opened with the device stated up front.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Braquo1 sequence

Braquo

2009–2016Canal+Crime

Olivier Marchal's Paris police series, about four officers who stop pretending to follow the law.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Wallander1 sequence

Wallander

2005–2016SVT / BBC OneCrime

Henning Mankell's Ystad detective, filmed twice — in Swedish with Krister Henriksson, and in English with Kenneth Branagh.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Agatha Christie's Marple1 sequence

Agatha Christie's Marple

2004–2013ITVCrime

The ITV Marple, which adapted novels Miss Marple was never in by writing her into them.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Criminal Minds1 sequence

Criminal Minds

2005–CBS / Paramount+Crime

Case files and profiler jargon in thirty-one seconds, from a procedural that has now run for two decades.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of The District1 sequence

The District

2000–2004CBSCrime

A police chief running Washington on statistics, loosely modelled on the man who did it in New York.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of In Plain Sight1 sequence

In Plain Sight

2008–2012USA NetworkCrime

A US marshal running witness protection in Albuquerque.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Inspector George Gently1 sequence

Inspector George Gently

2007–2017BBC OneCrime

A Northumberland detective in the 1960s, and a series that uses the decade for its politics rather than its clothes.

  • Season 2
Still from the opening titles of Lie to Me1 sequence

Lie to Me

2009–2011FoxCrime

A deception expert reading faces frame by frame, built on the research of the psychologist who consulted on it.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Life (2007)1 sequence

Life (2007)

2007–2009NBCCrime

A detective released after twelve years for a crime he did not commit, handed back his badge and a very large settlement.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Rosemary & Thyme1 sequence

Rosemary & Thyme

2003–2007ITVCrime

Two gardeners who keep finding bodies in the borders they have been hired to replant.

  • Season 1