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Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Hope in the darkness.
Golden Globe winnerBest Actress – Television Series Drama1 Golden Globe won1 more nomination8.0 TMDB worldwide · 4,403 ratings
Story
In the criminal justice system, sexually-based offenses are considered especially heinous. In New York City, the dedicated detectives who investigate these vicious felonies are members of an elite squad known as the Special Victims Unit. These are their stories.
About the show
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (often shortened to Law & Order: SVU or SVU) is an American police procedural crime drama television series created by Dick Wolf for NBC. The first spin-off of Law & Order, expanding it into the Law & Order franchise, it originally starred Christopher Meloni as Detective Elliot Stabler (until Meloni left the series in 2011 after 12 seasons, moving to CBS Studios, formerly known as CBS Television Studios) and Mariska Hargitay as Detective (now promoted to Captain) Olivia Benson remaining the longest starring character in the series. Law & Order: Special Victims Unit follows the detectives of the Special Victims Unit as they investigate and prosecute sex-based crimes. Some of the episodes are loosely based on real crimes that have received media attention.
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The series, produced by Wolf Entertainment and Universal Television, premiered on September 20, 1999. The series has received 108 award nominations, winning 59 awards. Hargitay was the first and only regular cast member on any Law & Order series to win an Emmy Award when she won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series in 2006.
After the premiere of its 21st season in September 2019, the series became the longest-running primetime live-action series on American television. Since the end of the original run of the main Law & Order series in 2010, SVU is the only live-action primetime series having debuted in the 1990s to remain in continuous production. The 23rd season premiered on September 23, 2021, during which the show aired its milestone 500th episode. As of May 14, 2026, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit has aired 594 original episodes, well surpassing the episode count of the original Law & Order series. In terms of all-time episode count for an American primetime scripted series, SVU now ranks third behind The Simpsons (with 808 episodes) and Gunsmoke (with 635 episodes). The 25th season premiered on January 18, 2024, and on March 21, 2024, NBC announced that it had renewed the series for its 26th season, which premiered on October 3, 2024. The 27th season premiered on September 25, 2025. In April 2026, the series was renewed for a 28th season, which premiered on October 8 of the same year.
The two longest-running regular characters in primetime live-action scripted American television history both achieved that record on SVU. Richard Belzer's John Munch character began his 21st consecutive season as a main character, first on Homicide: Life on the Street and then on SVU, in the show's 14th season in fall 2012, breaking the 20-season record held by two cast members of Gunsmoke and remaining through SVU's 15th season before departing as a regular. In fall 2021, Mariska Hargitay began her 23rd season as Olivia Benson, in turn breaking Belzer's record.
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