"Dark Winds," AMC’s addictive adaptation of Tony Hillerman’s best-selling Navajo tribal police novels has been a standout with critics since its 2022 debut. After its arrival on Netflix in August, “Dark Winds” has officially become a hit with the masses.
A staple on the streamer’s Top 10 TV Shows list, the ‘70s-set Western Noir stars a riveting Zahn McClarnon ("Reservation Dogs," "Fargo" season 2) as laconic Lt. Joe Leaphorn, whose murder investigations lead to him chasing robbers and a crooked Fed before hunting the men responsible for his son’s mine-explosion death.
While we wait to see how Leaphorn poetically taking justice into his own hands for the latter crime affects him — the series (also streaming on AMC Plus) returns for a third round in 2025, with Kiowa Gordon’s Jim Chee back carrying a badge — here are five similar dramas worthy of a binge now.
'True Detective: Night Country'
The striking vistas of “Dark Winds” intimidate with their isolation, even more so when the canyons are snow-covered in the second season. The 2024 fourth installment of HBO’s anthology series, under new showrunner Issa López, employs an equally haunting landscape in Alaska. Reluctantly reunited partners Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster) and Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis), who’s of Iñupiaq descent, become convinced the chilling fate of eight men who’ve vanished from an Arctic research center is somehow linked to the brutal unsolved murder of Iñupiaq activist Annie K. (Nivi Pedersen). While they search for answers, questions lingering from their past family traumas prove as dangerous as the ice that surrounds them.
Both Foster and Reis earned Emmy nominations for their performances, as did costar John Hawkes, who plays passed-over lawman Hank Prior. Fans of the “Dark Winds” Season 2 resolution, and of Leaphorn’s nurse-activist wife Emma (Deanna Allison), will find the “Night Country” conclusion satisfying. Just be prepared to debate one character’s ambiguous ending.
Watch on Max
'Longmire'
Viewers who appreciate the fatherly bond between Leaphorn and Sgt. Bernadette Manuelito (Jessica Matten) will enjoy the more irreverent — and potentially romantic — relationship between Wyoming Sheriff Walt Longmire (Robert Taylor) and his ball-busting righthand, transplanted Philadelphia homicide detective Victoria "Vic" Moretti (Katee Sackhoff).
The 2012-17 neo-Western, based on a series of novels by Craig Johnson, has a case of the week: a murdered man in a field and a missing teen from the Cheyenne reservation to start (there’s McClarnon in uniform again!). But the series, which split its original run between A&E and Netflix, quickly sets up an ongoing mystery as well: How did Walt get the scars on his back, and why did he ask his Cheyenne friend of 30-plus years, bar owner Henry Standing Bear (Lou Diamond Phillips), to keep them a secret from his lawyer daughter, Cady (Cassidy Freeman)? Could it have something to do with his late wife’s death? Spoiler: She didn’t die the way Walt says.
You’ll know the truth by the end of season 3, when the body count rises. The Cheyenne continue to be prominent in the story with juicy arcs involving Henry, the vindictive former chief of the tribal police (Graham Greene), and a shifty casino owner (A Martinez, also from “Dark Winds”).
Watch on Netflix
'Mystery Road'
In the first season of this Aussie favorite, spun off from a 2013 film of the same name, grizzled lone wolf Indigenous detective Jay Swan (Aaron Pedersen) arrives in an Outback town to help competent local police sergeant Emma James (Judy Davis) investigate the disappearance of two ranch hands from a remote cattle station.
You’ll want to make your own whiteboard to connect these dots: Missing Marley (Aaron L. McGrath) is a local Indigenous soccer star, whose uncle Larry (Wayne Blair) is about to be released from prison after serving a 10-year-sentence for raping barmaid Shevorne (Tasia Zalar) when she was 13. (Larry claims he’s innocent.) The other young man, known as Reese, is an Aussie backpacker who’s dating Shevorne. She’s also a single mom who’s never named the father of her daughter, who was born two years after Emma arrested Larry.
As in “Dark Winds,” this case gets personal: Emma’s brother runs the cattle ranch and wants to sell the family land, and divorced Jay’s troubled daughter shows up and immediately befriends two of his suspects. Block out six hours to watch in one sitting. Season 2 takes Swan to a coastal community in Western Australia. A prequel series, “Mystery Road: Origin,” stars Mark Coles Smith in the stoic role.
Watch on AMC Plus
'Justified'
Like Leaphorn, Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens is one of fiction’s iconic lawmen brought to life by an actor born to play him. Timothy Olyphant scored an Emmy nomination for the 2010-15 FX series, which begins with Elmore Leonard’s Stetson-topped gunslinger being transferred back to his native Kentucky.
There, Raylan has an unpredictable reunion with his old coal-mining buddy turned bank-robbing militia leader Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins, also at his finest), who wants to romance his own sister-in-law, Ava (Joelle Carter), who just shot and killed his abusive brother. Boyd himself was originally supposed to die at the end of the pilot, but producers saw the layered cool-guy chemistry between Goggins and Olyphant — and the potential of a long-running cat-and-mouse game between two men who’d dug coal together — and let Boyd live.
With its rotating roster of Big Bads (Emmy winners Margo Martindale and Jeremy Davies are not to be missed in season 2), epically clever showdowns, and Leonard-worthy humor and dialogue, “Justified” would definitely make Netflix’s Top 10 list if it ever hits the streamer. Raylan returned in 2023 for the Detroit-set revival “Justified: City Primeval.” We hope we haven’t seen the last of him.
Watch on Disney Plus and Hulu
'Godless'
You won’t find a more gorgeously-filmed Western than this seven-episode limited Netflix series from 2017. And its premise feels as fresh for the genre as the representation in the “Dark Winds” cast does for TV. In the 1880s, after most of the men in La Belle, New Mexico were killed in a mining accident, the frontier town is run largely by women. Notable among them: pants-wearing straight-shooter Mary Agnes (Merritt Wever), widow of the mayor and sister of the sheriff (Scoot McNairy), who’s losing his eyesight and nerve.
Ruthless outlaw Frank Griffin (Jeff Daniels) and his loathsome posse have had their latest payday stolen by Frank’s reformed protégé, Roy Goode (Jack O’Connell). Frank has vowed to burn any town harboring Roy. Roy is hiding out on a ranch outside La Belle, where widowed Alice Fletcher (Michelle Dockery), her Paiute mother-in-law Iyovi (Tantoo Cardinal), and son Truckee (Samuel Marty) can use his horse-whispering skills.
Just like with “Dark Winds” Season 2, we know the classic good vs. evil showdown is coming. The ladies’ jaw-dropping 15-minute stand in the finale does not disappoint. Frank and Roy do meet again. Only one of them gets to ride off into the sunset with the kind of peace Leaphorn knows. At least Daniels, and Wever, walked off with Emmys.
Watch on Netflix
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