📺 Crime Dramas Trivia Questions & Answers
Breaking Bad, The Wire, whodunits and TV's darkest storytelling. Below are 28 free crime dramas trivia questions with answers — part of TV trivia on BUZZ. Want a real challenge that adapts to what you know? Play the TV quiz — no signup needed to start.
28 Crime Dramas trivia questions
Q1. The original CSI: Crime Scene Investigation is set in which US city?
Answer: Las Vegas
💡 Its success spawned spin-offs set in Miami and New York.
Q2. In which show does a chemistry teacher cook methamphetamine with a former student?
Answer: Breaking Bad
💡 Breaking Bad's creator Vince Gilligan described the show as taking Mr. Chips and turning him into Scarface. Bryan Cranston won four consecutive Emmy Awards for his role as Walter White.
Q3. In which country is the TV series Dark set?
Answer: Germany
💡 Dark was the first German-language Netflix original series and ran for three seasons.
Q4. The Wire is set in which American city?
Answer: Baltimore
💡 The Wire is widely considered one of the greatest TV shows ever made despite modest original ratings.
Q5. Who played Tony Soprano in The Sopranos?
Answer: James Gandolfini
💡 James Gandolfini won three Emmy Awards for his role as Tony Soprano.
Q6. Which hit Netflix show is set in a women's prison?
Answer: Orange Is the New Black
💡 Orange Is the New Black was based on Piper Kerman's memoir about her year in a federal prison. It was Netflix's first original dramedy and launched several of its cast members to international stardom.
Q7. What is the name of the newspaper in the TV show 'The Wire'?
Answer: The Baltimore Sun
💡 Creator David Simon was a journalist at the real Baltimore Sun before writing The Wire. The fifth and final season focused on journalism and media corruption, drawing on his own experiences at the paper.
Q8. Which country produces the TV show 'Money Heist' (La Casa de Papel)?
Answer: Spain
💡 La Casa de Papel originally aired on a Spanish network (Antena 3) and was cancelled after two parts with moderate ratings. Netflix picked it up, re-edited it, and it became the platform's most-watched non-English series.
Q9. Who plays the title character in 'Sherlock' (BBC)?
Answer: Benedict Cumberbatch
💡 Martin Freeman plays Watson to Cumberbatch's Sherlock — and both actors later joined the MCU as Doctor Strange and Everett Ross respectively.
Q10. In 'The Simpsons', who owns the power plant where Homer works?
Answer: Mr. Burns
💡 Homer works in Sector 7-G of the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, owned by the miserly Charles Montgomery Burns.
Q11. In Better Call Saul, con-artist lawyer Jimmy McGill reinvents himself under what name?
Answer: Saul Goodman
💡 Bob Odenkirk earned six Emmy nominations for the Breaking Bad prequel.
Q12. The first season of Narcos charts drug lord Pablo Escobar's rise in which country?
Answer: Colombia
💡 Brazilian actor Wagner Moura learned Spanish to play Escobar for Netflix.
Q13. Idris Elba plays troubled detective John Luther in a series set in which city?
Answer: London
💡 Neil Cross's drama returned as a 2023 film, Luther: The Fallen Sun.
Q14. In which city is 'Peaky Blinders' primarily set?
Answer: Birmingham
💡 The Peaky Blinders were a real gang in Birmingham in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Q15. Which network originally aired 'The Wire'?
Answer: HBO
💡 The Wire (2002–2008) is set in Baltimore and is often considered one of the greatest TV dramas ever made.
Q16. Which US state is 'The X-Files' FBI duo originally based in?
Answer: Washington D.C.
💡 Mulder and Scully work in the J. Edgar Hoover Building, the real FBI headquarters in Washington D.C.
Q17. Which HBO series adapts Gillian Flynn's first novel, starring Amy Adams as a troubled reporter?
Answer: Sharp Objects
💡 Amy Adams stars as Camille Preaker in Sharp Objects. Gillian Flynn also wrote Gone Girl, her later novel adapted as a film, not an HBO series.
Q18. Which show follows the Byrde family laundering money in the Missouri Ozarks?
Answer: Ozark
💡 Jason Bateman both stars in and directed multiple episodes of Ozark. The show is often compared to Breaking Bad but takes a different approach — the protagonist was already morally compromised from the start.
Q19. The first season of True Detective is set in the bayous of which US state?
Answer: Louisiana
💡 Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson played detectives Cohle and Hart.
Q20. The FX anthology Fargo is inspired by a dark comedy from which filmmakers?
Answer: The Coen Brothers
💡 Noah Hawley tells a fresh self-contained story each season.
Q21. The BBC thriller Line of Duty follows which fictional police anti-corruption unit?
Answer: AC-12
💡 Jed Mercurio's series made hunting 'bent coppers' a national obsession.
Q22. Kate Winslet plays a small-town detective in Mare of Easttown, set in which US state?
Answer: Pennsylvania
💡 Winslet won an Emmy; she called the region's 'Delco' accent her hardest ever.
Q23. Which Danish noir series, later remade for US TV, features Detective Sarah Lund?
Answer: The Killing
💡 Sofie Grabol's chunky-sweatered detective helped launch the Nordic noir craze.
Q24. Which actress played pioneering DCI Jane Tennison in ITV's Prime Suspect?
Answer: Helen Mirren
💡 Lynda La Plante based Tennison on a real female detective at Scotland Yard.
Q25. The Netflix drama Mindhunter follows FBI agents pioneering which investigative method?
Answer: Criminal profiling
💡 Set in the late 1970s, it dramatizes the FBI's real Behavioral Science Unit.
Q26. Which prolific producer created the Law & Order crime franchise?
Answer: Dick Wolf
💡 As of 2024 his Law & Order: SVU is US TV's longest-running primetime scripted drama.
Q27. Which Scandinavian country produced the crime drama 'The Bridge'?
Answer: Sweden and Denmark
💡 The Bridge (Broen/Brøen) was a Swedish-Danish co-production, and its setting on the Øresund Bridge between the two countries was central to the plot.
Q28. Name the 2018 BBC thriller starring Richard Madden as a specialist police protection officer.
Answer: Bodyguard
💡 Line of Duty creator Jed Mercurio wrote this ratings smash; its finale drew 10 million.
Think you know crime dramas?
BUZZ tracks what you’ve mastered and serves exactly what you need next. Play free — no signup to start.
PLAY FREE →