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Homicide: Life on the Street was an American police procedural series chronicling the work of a fictional version of the Baltimore Homicide Unit. It ran for seven seasons (122 episodes) on NBC from 1993 to 1999, and was succeeded by a TV movie, which also acted as the de-facto series finale. The series was originally based on David Simon's book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets. Many of the characters and stories used throughout the show were based on events depicted in the book, which was also used for Simon's own series, The Wire on HBO.

Despite featuring an ensemble cast, with the "starring" roles being given to Richard Belzer, Daniel Baldwin and Ned Beatty, Andre Braugher, as Frank Pembleton, emerged as the breakout star. The show won Television Critic's Awards for outstanding drama in 1996, 1997, and 1998. It also became the first drama ever to win three Peabody Awards for best drama in 1993, 1995, and 1997.

The show inspired the spin-off Homicide: Second Shift, which was shown exclusively online.

Homicide: Life on the Street was adapted from Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, a non-fiction book by Baltimore Sun reporter David Simon, based on his experience following a Baltimore Police Department homicide unit. Simon, who became a consultant and producer with the series, said he was particularly interested in the demythification of the American detective. Although detectives are typically portrayed as noble characters who care deeply about their victims, Simon believed real detectives regarded violence as a normal aspect of their jobs. Levinson approached screenwriter Paul Attanasio with the material, and Homicide became Attanasio's first foray into television writing. Subsequently, all episodes of Homicide display the credit, "Created by Paul Attanasio" at the end of their opening sequence, a credit which both Eric Overmyer and James Yoshimura dispute on the DVD audio commentary to the season 5 episode, "The Documentary," claiming instead the show was created by Tom Fontana and Yoshimura. The series title was originally Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, but NBC changed it so that viewers would not believe it was limited to a single year; the network also believed the use of the term "life" would be more reaffirming than the term "killing streets". The opening theme music was composed by Baltimore native, Lynn F. Kowal, a graduate of the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

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