Four new Netflix crime dramas are coming soon - and they sound incredible

Last week Netflix announced a string of British-made shows coming to Netflix. Alongside some slices of reality TV and the much-welcomed return of Black Mirror, we heard about four brand-new crime dramas.

Let’s take a closer look at these because, well, who doesn’t love a good crime drama?

All of these shows were touched on at Next on Netflix UK, an event hosted by Netflix’s vice president of UK content Anne Mensah and Matt and Emma Willis, of Busted fame.

Adolescence

First up is a four-part series called Adolescence. We don’t know anything about the story beyond what the title conjures, but we do know it’s “told in a real-time, one-shot style.” And plenty of the names involved have been spilled.

Adolescence is written by Stephen Graham and Jack Thorne. You may well know Graham from Boiling Point or Bodies, but he’s much better known as an actor than a writer. Thorne, though, is a bit of a scrip-writing star, having written the Enola Holmes films, His Dark Materials’s TV adaptation and the This is England shows, alongside Shane Meadows.

We have no estimate as to when Adolescence will be out, or who will star, but we’ll be surprised if Stephen Graham isn’t a lead.

The Choice

Quite the opposite of Adolescence, we heard quite a bit about new series The Choice’s story and cast. Suranne Jones plays the British Prime Minister, and is kidnapped while visiting her French President counterpart, played by Julie Delpy.

Netflix says the two are put into "a fierce rivalry where their political futures, and lives, might hang in the balance.” Sounds pretty tense, right? The two have to work together to get to the bottom of the conspiracy before it undoes them.

No release date for this one, but it sounds like a hit.

The Witness

This next pick is a true crime series, based on the murder of Rachel Nickell on Wimbledon Common. It took place in 1992, her two-year-old son looking on as it happened.

The Witness looks into the tragedy “from the point of view of Alex and his father André,” according to Netflix. It's a dramatisation, and is being made in collaboration with Alex and André themselves.

"It’s a story of trauma but also one of survival and healing," says STV Studios's Sarah Brown. True crime stories can sometimes catch a bit of stick these days for their ethical issues, but it doesn't sound like that's going to be an issue for The Witness. The show starts filming in the summer.

Missing You

We already knew Missing You was coming to Netflix. It’s yet another Harlan Coben adaptation. These have been thrust into the spotlight recently thanks to the mega-success of Fool Me Once.

It’s a 2014 novel, with a storyline that may sound familiar. Detective Kat Donovan’s fiancé went missing almost two decades ago, but she then sees him on a dating app. As she tries to rekindle that relationship, she realises it isn’t quite a simple as it seems. Because of course it isn’t. This is a Harlan Coben story, after all.

In this latest announcement we heard the cast will include Richard Armitage, Rosalind Eleazar, Jessica Plummer, Steve Pemberton and Paul Kaye, among others.

• Best crime dramas on Netflix