Criminal Minds will end with its 20th season on Paramount+, the streamer announced on October 30, 2026. The final season is set to premiere in 2027, and it will be the fifth season since the series moved to Paramount+ under the title Criminal Minds: Evolution. No exact premiere date has been announced. The decision was reported first by The Hollywood Reporter, which published a statement from showrunner and executive producer Erica Messer.
Messer said it was hard to put into words what Criminal Minds had meant to those who had been part of it, first on CBS for 15 seasons and then on Paramount+ for five. She added that she and the team were suddenly navigating the end of this chapter, and she thanked the cast, writers, directors and crew, along with fans around the world whose loyalty had kept the show going for two decades. She said the team looked forward to sharing season 20 and celebrating the legacy of the show they had built together.
The wording of that statement drew attention because season 20 was not planned as a farewell when it was ordered. Paramount+ picked up the season in March 2026, ahead of the season 19 premiere, and production has already wrapped. That means the final episodes were filmed before the end was announced, so the closing episodes were not written as a planned goodbye. Reports have noted that the decision was made recently, under new leadership at the streamer, after the previous team had also discussed bringing the series to a close.
Criminal Minds cast for the final season
Joe Mantegna returns as David Rossi, A.J. Cook returns as Jennifer Jareau, Kirsten Vangsness returns as Penelope Garcia, and Paget Brewster returns as Emily Prentiss. Aisha Tyler returns as Tara Lewis, Adam Rodriguez returns as Luke Alvez, and RJ Hatanaka returns as Tyler Green. The seven actors form the core team for the final run, and first look photographs from season 20 were released alongside the announcement.
Zach Gilford will not return for season 20. Gilford played Elias Voit, the former serial killer known as Sicarius, who became a central figure in the revival seasons. Season 19 ended with Voit in a high security federal prison after he took the blame for a killing carried out to protect his daughter Holly, who had been kidnapped. TV Insider reported his absence from the final season, and Parade noted that his character had sacrificed his own freedom for his daughter.
Criminal Minds follows the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit, a team of profilers who study the behaviour of violent offenders in order to predict their next moves. That format stayed in place through the move from broadcast television to streaming, though the Paramount+ seasons used longer story arcs and a single unsub pursued across a whole season. Season 19, which ran from May 28 to July 23, 2026, had 10 episodes and continued the Voit story that began when the revival launched.
Criminal Minds history from CBS to streaming
The series began on CBS in 2005 and ran for 15 seasons, ending in 2020 after more than 300 episodes. It was created by Jeff Davis and produced by 20th Television and CBS Studios. Two shorter spinoffs followed during the CBS years: Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior, which lasted one season, and Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders, which lasted two seasons. Neither matched the run of the parent show.
Paramount+ revived Criminal Minds in 2022, two years after the CBS finale, under the Evolution title. The revival kept the core cast and Messer as showrunner, and it treated the new seasons as a continuation rather than a reboot. Season 16 was the first Paramount+ season, and the numbering continued from the CBS run, so the streaming seasons are counted as seasons 16 to 20 in the full history of the show.
Criminal Minds ending and what remains unannounced
Paramount+ has not given a public reason for ending the series. Collider reported that the decision was made recently under the team led by Casey Bloys, co-chair and chief content officer for Skydance direct to consumer, after the Skydance purchase of Warner Bros. CarterMatt noted the same context and added that Paramount does not own all of the series, which may have affected the commercial case for keeping it going. Neither report was confirmed by Paramount+ in its announcement.
The streamer has also moved away from other network television continuations in recent years. SEAL Team, Frasier and NCIS: Tony and Ziva were all cancelled, leaving the crime drama as the last of that group still running on the service. Deadline described the franchise as ending for now, a phrase that leaves room for a future return in some form, though no such plan has been announced.