Picture Credit: NBCUniversal / Paramount
Netflix is gearing up to rotate its library of two of television’s biggest crime dramas: CBS’s NCIS and NBC’s Law & Order in the United States over the next few weeks. Here is everything you need to know (so far as all the details have yet to be officially announced) about the upcoming library swaps in late September and October.
As we’ve covered extensively over the past few years, Netflix’s strategy with licensed procedural shows has shifted toward a “rolling library” approach. Rather than licensing a massive, 20-plus season backlog all at once (which costs a pretty penny), Netflix has been securing rolling batches of seasons to keep the lineup fresh. The benefit is that anyone wanting to quickly dive in can but obviously, for completionists, you’ll need to watch on their main streaming channel.
Now, both NCIS and Law & Order are getting ready for their next big refresh. Let’s break down what’s coming and what’s going.
NCIS Gets Another Refresh on October 1st
If you boot up Netflix right now and navigate to NCIS, you might be greeted with a bit of a jump scare. Both of the currently available seasons—Season 18 and Season 19—are displaying “Leaving Soon” notices. But don’t panic just yet! While it does look like those specific seasons are checking out of the library, the hit CBS naval procedural isn’t leaving Netflix entirely. In fact, we’ve been pinged that new seasons of NCIS are also scheduled to hit Netflix on October 1st.
So, which seasons are we getting?
If we look at Netflix’s recent track record of shuffling older seasons in and out, our best educated guess is that we’ll be moving down the timeline to Seasons 20 and 21. But it could be more or it could be less. We’ll have to wait until the official “New on Netflix” October PR newsletter drops later this month to get absolute confirmation on which team Gibbs (and Parker) cases we’ll be bingeing next.
Of course, Paramount+ remains the best place to watch NCIS with 23 seasons available. Hulu also streams 11 seasons. Netflix previously held all prior seasons and was regularly the most-watched show on Nielsen every year but moved to this select-seasons-available phase back in 2024.
Classic Law & Order Adds Season 25 in September
Meanwhile, Dick Wolf’s flagship NBC series is also getting a top-up later this month.
When classic Law & Order first made its triumphant return to Netflix, it dropped fans right into the modern revival era. Currently, Netflix US houses Seasons 21 through 24 of the iconic crime drama.
If you’ve already burned through those cases, we have good news: Season 25 of Law & Order is officially confirmed to drop on Netflix on September 25th.
This perfectly aligns with the start of the fall broadcast television season, giving fans a chance to catch up on the most recent batch of ripped-from-the-headlines episodes before the network premieres even more.
Hulu is the best place to stream this show, with all 20 seasons, while Peacock streams 9 seasons, though it’s also about to get a shuffle.
As always, keep an eye on our New on Netflix hub page for the most up-to-date daily arrivals, and we’ll keep you posted as soon as we get our hands on that October newsletter to confirm the NCIS seasons!
Will you be checking out the new seasons of NCIS and Law & Order when they rotate onto Netflix? Are you sad to see seasons 18 and 19 of NCIS depart? Let us know in the comments below!