Every Law & Order Franchise Series, Ranked Worst to Best

Credit:- NBC

Dick Wolf’s Law & Order franchise began in 1990 with the original series and has remained a major presence on television for the last 36 years. The franchise has expanded with multiple spinoffs, crossover events, and even international adaptations.

The show follows a unique format, combining one part police procedural and one part legal drama. Many fans have come to love this format. Its first spinoff, SVU, went on to become an even bigger success, becoming one of the longest-running television series of all time. With so many entries in the franchise, fans naturally have their favorites and least favorites, and so do we.

Excluded from this list of the best shows in the franchise are the shows set in the same universe as that of Law & Order. These include the One Chicago shows, the FBI shows on CBS, Homicide: Life on the Street, and New York Undercover.

Also, the NBC-released television movie, Exiled, starring the original Law & Order actors, is not included in this list. Stephanie March’s SVU spinoff Conviction, the New York Ledger-based (the in-universe tabloid newspaper) spinoff Deadline, and the legal docudrama Crime & Punishment are also excluded from this list.

We have also excluded the international remakes of the show, like the Russian remakes: Law & Order: Division of Field Investigation and Law & Order: Criminal Intent, the French version: Paris Criminal Investigations, and the Canadian Criminal Intent remake. However, one international version was so good that it made it to this list.

Here are the shows from the Law & Order universe, ranked from worst to best.

8 Law & Order: LA (2010-2011)

Law & Order: LA was the fifth series to be announced in the franchise, and perhaps the most star-studded one. But even the popular stars of the show, including Skeet Ulrich, Regina Hall, Alfred Molina, Corey Stoll, and Terrence Howard, couldn’t save this show from being cancelled after one season. What went wrong? The LA setting of the show turned out to be the biggest factor working against it.

It was brought in place of its grittier predecessor, Law & Order, which was cancelled after a 20-year run just months prior to this show. However, the show set in Los Angeles couldn’t bring you the same intensity for a cop drama that New York had to offer. From the get-go, viewership became a problem.

Midway through the season, the show went for a creative overhaul to bring in more viewers. Ulrich, Hall, and Megan Boone were let go from the show. Molina went from the prosecutor side to the cop side. These major changes made it even harder for the viewers to keep up with the show. As a result, it became the second show in the franchise to be cancelled after a single season.

Law & Order: LA is now available for purchase on Amazon & AppleTV.

7 Law & Order: Trial by Jury (2005-2006)

Trial by Jury was Law & Order‘s attempt to focus only on the legal drama aspect, excluding the police procedural side of things. The show came amongst a sea of legal dramas on television at the time. A standalone show for the legal side of things was a bad idea, especially since both Law & Order and SVU were doing it best in their episodes.

Bebe Neuwirth and Amy Carlson played executive ADA Tracey Kibre and ADA Kelly Gaffney. But fans were more excited for the return of Jerry Orbach as Lenny Briscoe from the original show. Briscoe retired as a detective but returned as a DA investigator. However, he only appeared in two episodes of the show. (Sadly, Orbach passed away due to cancer two months before the show premiered.)

While some of the episodes were really good with the cases they handled, the show didn’t have many reasons to exist. It became the first Law & Order show to be cancelled, that too after just one season.

Law & Order: Trial by Jury is now available for purchase on Amazon Prime Video.

6 Law & Order True Crime (2017)

True Crime is one of those shows that feels like it doesn’t belong to the Law & Order brand. Inspired by other real-life-inspired legal shows, Dick Wolf greenlit this show based on the popular Menendez Brothers trial. Edie Falco played the central character, Leslie Abramson, who served as the defense attorney to Erik and Lyle Menendez.

René Balcer, who worked on previous shows in this franchise, helmed the eight-episode first season. Falco did a great job in her role, and the show handled the subject matter better than many of these true crime-based shows.

The intention was to make it into an anthology show, with each season focused on a particular true crime. However, it never came back for another season. Interestingly, the series was never officially canceled.

Law & Order True Crime is now available for purchase on Amazon & AppleTV.

5 Law & Order: Organized Crime (2021-2025)

Law & Order: Organized Crime was the latest series to be greenlit in the franchise and marked Christopher Meloni‘s big comeback after his exit from SVU. Meloni’s exit came after failed contract negotiations, which meant that Stabler’s exit from the unit was sudden, and fans didn’t really get to say goodbye to his character.

So when he returned in a backdoor pilot in Season 22 of SVU, fans had a lot to celebrate. Organized Crime wasn’t just a fan service for Stabler fans. The cases of his Organized Crime Task Force were bigger and dealt with some vicious and violent gangsters, terrorists, and crime lords. It largely had a serialized format as opposed to the episodic format of its parent shows.

Despite good storytelling, the show couldn’t maintain momentum due to the frequent change in leadership. The show burned through five showrunners over its five-season run. NBC wasn’t happy with the ratings and tried moving it to Peacock. Eventually, they announced the cancellation of the show 10 months after airing its fifth season.

Law & Order: Organized Crime is now available for streaming on Peacock.

4 Law & Order: UK (2009-2014)

This international version has earned its place in this list because of how fresh the stories felt despite following the same format as its U.S. version. The Murder Investigation Unit of the London Metropolitan Police Service investigates the crimes, and the Crown Prosecutors from the London Crown Prosecution Service press charges against the perpetrators.

Some of the episodes adapted the scripts of the parent series, making necessary modifications to represent the U.K.’s legal system. Law & Order: UK ran for 8 series and 53 episodes from 2009 to 2014. Interestingly, it was announced that the show was taking an indefinite break after series 8 (via ITV Press). However, it was never brought back again.

Law & Order: UK is now available for streaming on AMC+ & BritBox.

3 Law & Order: Criminal Intent (2001-2011)

Many fans went back to Law & Order: Criminal Intent after Vincent D’Onofrio‘s turn as the notorious Kingpin in Daredevil. Detective Bobby Goren and his Major Case Squad team handled high-profile cases involving some of the most prominent figures in the city.

In the early seasons, the focus was put on the tortured Goren, a former agent with the U.S. Army’s CID, and his relationship with his work partner, Alexandra Eames, played by Kathryn Erbe. It was a stark contrast from the usual Law & Order format that relied on its ensemble cast.

Chris Noth’s Mike Logan joins as a regular in Season 5 after his stint in the original series. Jeff Goldblum also took a leading role as Detective Zack Nichols for two seasons. What set the series apart from others in the franchise was its format, often revealing the culprit early and then following the detectives’ psychological journey to identify them.

After six seasons, Criminal Intent was moved to USA Network, where it ran for four more seasons. The tenth and final season brought back D’Onofrio and Erbe in the main roles after their absence for the majority of the ninth season. It is believed that the costs involved was a major reason for USA Network to not continue this show.

Law & Order: Criminal Intent is now available for streaming on Peacock.

2 Law & Order (1990-2010, 2022- )

The show that started it all in 1990 is regarded as one of the best cop shows on television. It ran for 20 years before being pulled from the air in 2010. NBC realized that it had made a mistake when SVU soared past the 20-year mark with excellent ratings. The network eventually brought the show back in 2022, and the show is currently on its fifth season since its grand return.

Over the long years that the show has aired on television, it has given us some gripping tales adapted from real-life stories in each of its episodes. When Sam Waterston stepped down as DA Jack McCoy in Season 23, it felt like the end of an era, despite the show being off air for more than a decade.

The faces of the show have changed many times over the years, with many fans having their own favorites. Moreover, the show, along with SVU, marked the first appearances of many famous actors in Hollywood.

Law & Order is now available for streaming on Peacock & Hulu.

1 Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999- )

When a show has a meaningful impact on society, its greatness is hard to deny. Law & Order: SVU and its star Mariska Hargitay have become some of the most prominent advocates for s*xual assault victims in the U.S. The show kicked off in 1999 and has since become the longest-running primetime live-action show on television.

Hargitay has remained with the series throughout its run, becoming synonymous with her character, Olivia Benson, in the eyes of fans. In the fifth year of joining the series, Hargitay founded the Joyful Heart Foundation to help victims of s*xual assault and domestic violence. She even did a 40-hour training to become a r*pe crisis advocate. Hargitay spoke about the impact of her show, sharing (via THR):

When I walk down the street and people say, ‘I knew what to do because of watching your show. I knew not to shower. I reported immediately. I took myself to the hospital instead of saying forget it, forget this ever happened.’

Sadly, there’s no shortage of real-life inspired stories for the Special Victims Unit. While its spinoff, Organized Crime, was recently cancelled, SVU has been renewed for a 28th season.

Rank	Law & Order shows	IMDb Score (as of April 17, 2026)
1	Law & Order: SVU	8.1/10
2	Law & Order	7.8/10
3	Law & Order: Criminal Intent	7.6/10
4	Law & Order: UK	7.7/10
5	Law & Order: Organized Crime	7.7/10
6	Law & Order: True Crime	7.4/10
7	Law & Order: Trial by Jury	6.5/10
8	Law & Order: LA	6.8/10

Which of these shows do you think is next on your watchlist? Let us know in the comments below!

Law & Order: SVU is now available for streaming on Peacock & Hulu.