Paramount’s Streaming Sensation Crime Thriller Is Still a Must-Watch

Nowadays, it feels like every Paramount/CBS show is a Taylor Sheridan production. Yellowstone’s creator has made great contributions to the brand, and it’s a shame that he’ll be leaving soon for NBCUniversal. However, Sheridan’s shows aren’t the only pillars holding Paramount high. We have two Star Trek series as well as hits like MobLand and The Agency. Criminal Minds is another show that continues to do well.

The cop show originally ended after its fifteenth season on February 19, 2020, but was revived and retitled Criminal Minds: Evolution for its sixteenth season, which premiered in 2022. With the change, the show moved from CBS to Paramount+. Four years later, it continues to perform well. The crime thriller series also spawned two spin-offs: Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior and Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders.

‘Criminal Minds’ Focuses on a Little-Known Law Enforcement Unit

Charlie Chaplin once remarked that tragedy and comedy are pretty much the same thing, just viewed from different lenses. No show demonstrates this perception of duality more forcefully than Criminal Minds. The villains, commonly known as unsubs (unknown subjects), are so delusional in their violent criminal undertakings that it is sometimes laughable, and members of the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) have a lot of fun hunting them down. The unit is modeled after the real-world BAU, which was launched in 1972 and investigates different types of crimes, ranging from cybercrimes to sexual offenses.

The show’s protagonists are a group of criminal profilers who use behavioral analysis and profiling to investigate crimes and locate the suspect. Sticking to the usual teamwork template, the Paramount gem presents these investigators as different people with the same goal. Some are love-starved, others are impish, others are obsessive, but they all learn to get along under the same roof. Sometimes the situation gets thick and complicated, resulting in them warily eyeing each other with suspicion. But even when there is a cross-hatching of misunderstandings and hostile exchanges, they always manage to get the job done.

As delusional as the villains are, they are some of the devious kind, running circles around the investigators until they contemplate a career change. These are the kinds of people who find a ton of loot and turn it in to the authorities, earning ridicule from fellow lawbreakers, but they are also the type to keep severed heads inside refrigerators. I was particularly intrigued by James Van der Beek’s Tobias Hankel, who was a person with schizophrenia. I also liked Aubrey Plaza’s Cat Adams, a femme fatale straight out of the noir playground.

‘Criminal Minds’ Continues to Rule Streaming Charts

Nicholas Brendon stars in Criminal Minds

In Nielsen’s breakdown of the most streamed shows and movies of 2025, seven of the Top 10 spots were occupied by long-running shows. Criminal Minds sat at #10, garnering an impressive 24.1 billion minutes. And, according to FlixPatrol, the procedural is currently the sixth most-watched show on Paramount+ globally. It’s thus not surprising that it has already been renewed for a twentieth season.

The show’s recent excellent performance proves that the move to streaming was a wise one. Before the change, Criminal Minds had averaged 5 million viewers per season (per TV By The Numbers), a huge drop, as it had never gone below 10 million viewers in its first 10 seasons. The streaming success can be attributed to the shortening of the seasons to 10 episodes each and a rerouting from episodic arcs to serialized arcs.

The only thing lacking at the moment is award recognition. During its original run, Criminal Minds was nominated for several trophies, including multiple Emmys for Outstanding Stunt Coordination. Additionally, it won a few Image Awards. Is the recent snub a reason to be worried? Personally, I enjoy the current format more. The cop show feels more intelligent, with the plots a little more realistic. It also has a more sumptuous design complemented by an almost operatic scale – it’s more redolent of a Michael Mann motion picture than a TV procedural.

Should you watch the spin-offs? I chose not to, after learning they were all canceled. Suspect Behavior only had a 13-episode run. Beyond Borders survived a little longer, stretching to two seasons before being axed. However, Criminal Minds Korea (a remake) is engrossing. Comprising 20 hour-long episodes, it conjures pretty much the same magic as the original show while offering great insights into Korean culture.