One Of The Best Crime Thriller Series Of All Time Is Finally Resurrected As A Streaming Hit

Published Sep 3, 2026, 6:52 PM EDT

Felipe Rangel is a Movie and TV Journalist ScreenRant. He has been writing about movies and TV since 2021. Felipe joined ScreenRant in 2022, working across different teams, covering everything from breaking news to features to reviews and more.

Felipe is a writer who is an avid film and TV fan, with superhero movies and series being his biggest passion. He graduated from college in 2019, having studied Journalism. Before college, he spent a month studying at the Oxford English Centre. His superhero knowledge expands to the comics, with his undergraduate thesis being "Politics Reflected In American Comics."

Other hit crime thrillers across different streaming services include Cross, The Chestnut Man, 56 Days, Steal, Jo Nesbø's Detective Hole, His & Hers, and many more. That said, TV shows that were originally released on network TV have also come to become huge hits on streaming over the years. Given how there are so many popular long-running crime series on network TV, it makes sense that they would fare well, with shows like Criminal Minds, The Blacklist, Person of Interest, finding success on streaming. Now, The Mentalist has become the latest of those, rising on Amazon VOD's chart in the United States.

The Mentalist Is Back On The Case & Rising On Streaming

At the time of writing, The Mentalist stands as the 22nd most-watched TV show on Amazon VOD's Top 25 in the US, and it continues to rise on the list, having already climbed two spots recently. The crime series ranks higher than World War II with Tom Hanks, the animated sensation Bluey, and Anne of Green Gables. As The Mentalist hopes to rise on the Amazon VOD chart, it will face competition from some major TV shows. Higher than it on the chart are powerhouse shows like Marvel's The Punisher, the Taylor Sheridan series Lioness and Landman, ted, and more.

The Mentalist was created by Bruno Heller, who is also behind the Batman prequel series Gotham and Pennyworth. The crime series debuted on CBS in 2008, starring Simon Baker as Patrick Jane, a former charlatan pretending to be a psychic until he taunted a serial killer, Red John, and had his wife and daughter murdered as a result. Now, Jane spends his days using his skills to read people as a consultant to the California Bureau of Investigation. The Mentalist is also a global hit on Netflix worldwide, trending in 28 countries, according to FlixPatrol, but it is not available on Netflix nationwide.

The Mentalist's Streaming Success Follows The Perfect Release

The Mentalist's international success on Netflix and domestic rise on Amazon VOD comes a few months after its star, Baker, came back in his biggest role since playing Patrick Jane. The actor gives life to Benton Wesley in Prime Video's Scarpetta, a crime thriller series based on a long-running series of novels that comes with a star-studded cast, his character is married to Nicole Kidman's Kay Scarpetta, and rose to become Prime Video's most-watched series worldwide right after releasing on March 11.

For The Mentalist fans, not only does Baker return to crime thriller territory, but Benton is an FBI profiler, drawing some exciting parallels to Patrick Jane. Scarpetta also features another The Mentalist star, as Grace Van Pelt actress Amanda Righetti plays the young version of Jamie Lee Curtis' Dorothy Scarpetta. Finally, with Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu now streaming on Disney+, the fact that Pedro Pascal gave life to Marcus Pike adds another layer to The Mentalist's resurrection on streaming.