Cross-media recommendations across film, TV, games, books & music — picked by taste.
Hawaii Five-0 follows Steve McGarrett, who returns to Oahu and accepts the governor's offer to lead a special task force — Five-0 — while pursuing his father's killer. Alongside Danny Williams, Chin Ho Kelly, and Kono Kalakaua, he operates outside normal department constraints. That combination of personal mission, close-knit team dynamics, and institutional muscle points toward crime stories where the case and the protagonist's private grief are never fully separate.
Hawaii Five-0 is an American police procedural drama television series developed for CBS by Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Peter M. Lenkov. It is a reboot of the 1968–1980 series, which also aired on CBS. The series starred Alex O'Loughlin and Scott Caan and centers around a fictional special police major crimes task force operating at the behest of the governor of Hawaii. It was produced by K/O Paper Products and 101st Street Television, initially in association with CBS Studios. The series premiered on September 20, 2010, airing for ten seasons, with the finale airing on April 3, 2020.
From the Wikipedia article Hawaii_Five-0_(2010_TV_series), available under CC BY-SA.
Film
Seven
A government agent assembles a team of seven to stop a cartel plotting to seize control of Hawaii.
Film
Case Closed: Zero the Enforcer
A detective works a bombing investigation while a parallel inquiry races to clear a wrongly implicated figure.
Film
Fast Five
Fugitives from law enforcement form their own tight crew, pursuing a high-stakes mission outside official channels.
Film
Yakuza Demon
Deep loyalty between partners is tested when their criminal family is pulled into a deadly power conflict.
Film
Savage Beach
Federal drug enforcement agents based in the Hawaiian isles are pulled into danger beyond a routine assignment.
Film
Boiling Point
An ordinary man entangled with the yakuza in Okinawa confronts violence while forging an uneasy alliance.
Game
Kara no Shoujo
An ex-cop turned private investigator assists a police detective on a series of disturbing murders.
Game
Umineko When They Cry (Question Arc)
A closed-island setting and a mounting body count demand forensic reasoning to untangle who is really responsible.
Game
Umineko When They Cry - Question Arcs
The first half of the Umineko When They Cry sound novel series, covering episodes one through four.
Game
Umineko When They Cry - Answer Arcs
The concluding arcs of a layered mystery where solving the central puzzle still leaves deeper truths hidden.
Game
AI: The Somnium Files
A detective investigates a serial killer by entering crime scenes and suspects' dreams for hidden evidence.
Game
Higurashi When They Cry Hou - Ch.1 Onikakushi
A close-knit rural community conceals a dangerous secret that a newcomer slowly pieces together.
Book
Wild ones
A young man confronts feelings of betrayal and abandonment when his long-lost father suddenly reappears.
Book
Countdown to Terror
Two brothers investigate stolen evidence, deploying teamwork and ingenuity to outmaneuver their suspects.
Book
Criminal Macabre
A detective inhabits a world where the supernatural and criminal overlap, demanding a different kind of investigation.
Book
Hurricane Joe
Two young agents investigate coordinated false emergency alerts that mask a string of targeted crimes.
Book
False Alarm
A rival duo challenges the protagonists across multiple fronts, raising the stakes with each confrontation.
Book
Close to home
A detective fighting institutional obstruction uncovers how a military connection buried a key piece of evidence.
Series
Hawaii Five-O
The original Hawaii-set police procedural that the 2010 series directly reimagines across twelve seasons.
Series
Hawaii
An elite Honolulu crime unit blends a local veteran with an outsider detective transferred from Chicago.
Series
Task
An FBI agent leads a specially assembled task force to dismantle a string of violent robberies.
Series
Quiz
A kidnapping triggers a stylish, fast-moving investigation led by a special unit chasing cryptic clues.
Series
Guilty Flag
An ordinary man becomes entangled in crime, with family loyalty tested against mounting danger.
Series
Mission To Kill
A long-running franchise about skilled operatives returning across decades to resolve violent assignments.
If you want more Hawaii-set crime drama, Hawaii Five-O (1968) is the original series the show reimagines, running twelve seasons on CBS. For a fresh take on the assembled task-force format, Task follows an FBI agent leading a crew built to crack a single violent case in the Philadelphia suburbs.
AI: The Somnium Files is the closest match — a detective-led investigation with a driven protagonist who enters both crime scenes and suspects' dreams for clues. Kara no Shoujo delivers similar ex-cop-turned-investigator energy for players who want a slower, darker burn set in postwar Tokyo.
The show earns loyalty through its combination of a personal vendetta driving the protagonist, a tight ensemble whose loyalty is constantly tested, and a Hawaiian setting that contrasts sharply with the violence underneath. The special task-force structure keeps the plots moving while the character dynamics give them weight.