Southland (Seasons 1–5)

Southland (2009) is an American police drama you can watch online on iFILM across five seasons. Set entirely on the streets and precincts of Los Angeles, the show shoots handheld, on location, with an almost documentary refusal to make police work look glamorous. NBC pulled it after one season for being too raw; TNT picked it up and let it run until 2013.

Ben McKenzie plays rookie officer Ben Sherman, assigned to veteran John Cooper, played by Michael Cudlitz — a man working through chronic back pain and a personal life he mostly keeps locked away. Regina King as Detective Lydia Adams anchors one of the strongest character arcs in the series; her Emmy-winning work here is what the show is really built around. Shawn Hatosy rounds out the core four as Detective Sammy Bryant, a former detective who went back to uniform after losing his partner.

The show has no interest in procedural tidiness. Cases arrive, collide with the officers' private lives, and sometimes resolve badly. It sits closer to The Shield than to CSI — tense, morally complicated, and shot like it happened yesterday. Stream all seasons of Southland online on iFILM.