Best Indian OTT Crime Thrillers to Watch Right Now

1. Delhi Crime (2019–2022)

Platform: Netflix | Language: Hindi | IMDb: 8.5 | International Emmy: Best Drama Series (2020)

Delhi Crime made history as the first Indian show to win the International Emmy for Best Drama Series — and it earned it. Based on the 2012 Delhi gang rape case, the series follows DCP Vartika Chaturvedi (a career-defining performance by Shefali Shah) as she leads the investigation under crushing political, media, and emotional pressure.

What sets Delhi Crime apart is its refusal to be sensationalist. The crime itself is depicted with restraint. The focus is entirely on the investigation — the gruelling process of tracking down suspects, managing a depleted team, and navigating a city on the verge of eruption. Season 2 (2022) pivots to a serial killer case and maintains the same rigorous procedural quality.

The writing by Richie Mehta is surgical. Every episode is tight, propulsive, and emotionally grounded. This is Indian crime drama at its most mature.

Watch it for: Shefali Shah's Emmy-winning performance and a case that changed India.

→ Explore Delhi Crime on GudVibe

2. Paatal Lok (2019)

Platform: Prime Video | Language: Hindi | IMDb: 8.1 | Award: IIFA Best Series 2021

Paatal Lok is one of the most ambitious crime series India has produced. Inspector Hathiram Chaudhary (Jaideep Ahlawat, in a revelatory performance) is handed a career-making case — four suspects arrested for an alleged assassination attempt on a primetime TV anchor. What unravels is not a whodunit but a deep structural inquiry into caste, violence, and the soul of contemporary India.

The show operates on three levels simultaneously: a pulpy crime thriller, a social realist drama, and a meditation on aspiration and failure. The backstories of the four accused — drawn from the margins of Indian society — are devastatingly well-written. Ahlawat, previously unknown to mainstream audiences, carries every scene with a worn, quietly desperate energy that stays with you.

Executive produced by Anushka Sharma, Paatal Lok is proof that Indian streaming can deliver literary-quality storytelling in genre clothing.

Watch it for: Jaideep Ahlawat's performance — one of the best in Indian TV history.

→ Explore Paatal Lok on GudVibe

3. Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story (2020)

Platform: SonyLIV | Language: Hindi | IMDb: 9.3

With a 9.3 on IMDb — higher than Breaking Bad at its peak on Indian charts — Scam 1992 is the highest-rated Indian series ever made. Directed by Hansal Mehta and starring Pratik Gandhi as stockbroker Harshad Mehta, it dramatises the ₹5,000 crore securities scam that shook India's financial system in 1992.

The genius of the show is that it makes you root for a fraudster. Harshad Mehta is portrayed not as a villain but as a flawed visionary — a man who understood the stock market better than regulators, and exploited every gap in a broken system. The period detail is extraordinary: the rotary phones, the trading floor chaos, the smell of pre-liberalisation Bombay. Pratik Gandhi transforms completely, matching Mehta's outsized personality in every frame.

This is not just the best Indian crime show — it may be the best Indian series ever made.

Watch it for: The most charismatic financial villain in Indian drama history.

→ Explore Scam 1992 on GudVibe

4. Mirzapur (2018–2024)

Platform: Prime Video | Language: Hindi | IMDb: 8.4

Mirzapur is the show that proved Indian crime drama could be visceral, stylish, and commercially dominant at the same time. Set in the Purvanchal belt of Uttar Pradesh — a region synonymous with lawlessness and political violence — it follows the rise and fall of the Tripathi crime family and two brothers caught in their orbit.

Pankaj Tripathi as Kaleen Bhaiya remains one of the most iconic villains in Indian streaming history: soft-spoken, terrifying, and unexpectedly funny. The show doesn't romanticise violence but it doesn't flinch from it either. Three seasons in, Mirzapur has developed one of the most loyal fan bases in Indian OTT history, with every season's release becoming a cultural event.

The writing sharpens considerably in Season 2, expanding the world while deepening character motivation. Season 3 (2024) delivers a satisfying escalation to the central conflict.

Watch it for: Pankaj Tripathi redefining what an Indian crime boss looks like.

→ Explore Mirzapur on GudVibe

5. Dahaad (2023)

Platform: Prime Video | Language: Hindi | IMDb: 8.0 | Emmy Nomination: Outstanding Drama Series

Dahaad — co-directed by Reema Kagti and Ruchika Oberoi, produced by Excel Entertainment and Tiger Baby — is a serial killer procedural set in small-town Rajasthan. Inspector Anjali Bhaati (Sonakshi Sinha, in her best-ever performance) investigates a string of deaths among lower-caste women dismissed as suicides by her superiors.

What makes Dahaad exceptional is its double lens: it's simultaneously a tight police procedural and a piercing examination of caste discrimination in the Indian justice system. The killer's identity is revealed early, but the real suspense lies in whether an institution designed to ignore these deaths will be forced to confront them.

Vijay Varma as the villain delivers one of the most chilling performances in Indian crime drama — understated, methodical, and deeply unsettling. Amazon immediately greenlit Season 2 after the critical reception.

Watch it for: Vijay Varma's spine-tingling antagonist performance.

→ Explore Dahaad on GudVibe

6. Aarya (2020–2023)

Platform: JioHotstar | Language: Hindi | IMDb: 7.8 | International Emmy: Best Drama Nomination

Sushmita Sen's return to screens after years of absence was announced by Aarya — and what a return. She plays a wife and mother who, after her husband is assassinated, is forced to enter the drug cartel he secretly ran in order to protect her children. It's a Rajasthani-set crime saga with the emotional intelligence of a family drama.

Sen has never been better. She carries Aarya's moral evolution — from sheltered housewife to ruthless operator — with complete conviction. The show's Rajasthani milieu and its female-centred perspective on crime give it a distinct texture that separates it from the male-dominated genre. Three seasons in, Aarya remains one of JioHotstar's most consistent performers.

Watch it for: Sushmita Sen owning every room she walks into.

→ Explore Aarya on GudVibe

7. Asur (2020–2023)

Platform: JioHotstar | Language: Hindi | IMDb: 8.2

Asur is the smart Indian thriller that doesn't get enough mainstream credit. A forensic crime drama that weaves Hindu mythology into a serial killer investigation, it stars Arshad Warsi and Barun Sobti as a former CBI duo reunited to catch a killer who stages murders as mythological tableaux.

The show's signature move is cutting between the present-day investigation and ancient mythology, drawing parallels that work both thematically and narratively. Season 1 is relentlessly intelligent — tight plotting, strong performances, and a villain with genuine philosophical menace. Season 2 expands the mythology ambitiously, though it occasionally loses the procedural discipline that made the first season so gripping.

For anyone who loved True Detective's interest in cosmic dread, Asur is the Indian equivalent.

Watch it for: The most intellectually ambitious villain in Indian crime TV.

→ Explore Asur on GudVibe

8. Khakee: The Bihar Chapter (2022)

Platform: Netflix | Language: Hindi | IMDb: 8.6

Based on IPS officer Amit Lodha's memoir, Khakee: The Bihar Chapter is a cat-and-mouse thriller between a principled cop (Karan Tacker) and a Robin Hood-style outlaw (Avinash Tiwary) in 2000s Bihar. Directed by Neeraj Pandey — the master of patriotic thrillers — it's his best work for streaming.

What gives Khakee its moral weight is that neither man is entirely wrong. The outlaw, Chandan Mahto, has genuine grievances rooted in caste injustice and systemic failure. The cop believes in the law even when the law fails its people. Their confrontation is not good vs evil but system vs conscience. The Bihar setting — its dust, heat, and political volatility — is rendered with documentary authenticity.

Watch it for: Avinash Tiwary's morally complex performance as India's most sympathetic criminal.

→ Explore Khakee on GudVibe

9. Special Ops (2020)

Platform: JioHotstar | Language: Hindi | IMDb: 8.3

Special Ops is India's answer to 24. Kay Kay Menon plays Himmat Singh, a RAW officer who has spent 19 years tracking a single terrorist he believes was behind the 2001 Parliament attack. The series spans five countries and uses the non-linear structure — flashbacks, field operations, bureaucratic battles — to build sustained tension across all eight episodes.

The show is meticulous about tradecraft: surveillance, source recruitment, and the unglamorous logistics of intelligence work. Menon anchors it with his characteristic intensity — a man consumed by a singular obsession, battling institutional disbelief. Season 1.5 (a prequel mini-series) and Season 2 followed, each expanding the universe. Special Ops established that Indian spy drama could compete with the best international procedurals.

Watch it for: Kay Kay Menon delivering the most controlled slow-burn spy performance in Indian TV.

→ Explore Special Ops on GudVibe

10. Panchayat (2020–2024)

Platform: Prime Video | Language: Hindi | IMDb: 9.0

A word about Panchayat: it's not a crime thriller. But with a 9.0 IMDb rating and three seasons of near-perfect storytelling, it deserves mention as proof that Indian OTT can produce something quietly extraordinary. An engineering graduate posted as a panchayat secretary in rural UP slowly falls in love with the job, the place, and the people.

Jitendra Kumar, Raghubir Yadav, and Neena Gupta form one of the finest ensemble casts in Indian streaming. The show is funny, moving, and politically perceptive without ever being didactic. Season 3's emotionally devastating finale broke the internet in 2024. If you've only watched crime thrillers so far, Panchayat is the palate cleanser that might make you cry.

Watch it for: The most emotionally satisfying Indian streaming series of the decade.

→ Explore Panchayat on GudVibe