Overwhelmed by the number of TV shows on Netflix? Finding you spend more time scrolling than you do watching these days? Looking for new TV series that break out of the echo-chamber of algorithmic recommendations? Our list of the 50 best TV shows to watch on Netflix right now may be just what you’ve been looking for.
Below we’ve collected our critics’ pick of some of the best TV shows to help you make the most of your Netflix subscription. We’ve included a mix of some of the best shows presently on the streamer as well as some classics that we think everyone should try.
New for 2024
3 Body Problem
Sci-fi fantasy, one season, 2024-
It would be an understatement to call this drama from the creators of Game of Thrones ambitious. After all, not many shows would manage to cram astrophysics, virtual reality and China’s Cultural Revolution into the first of eight episodes. Part sci-fi wildcard, part detective thriller, 3 Body Problem is based on Liu Cixin’s philosophically heavy 2008 Chinese novel, opening in Chairman Mao’s Beijing, where a young physicist witnesses her father being publicly murdered by zealots. In a modern timeframe, scientists are dying in bizarre circumstances, while results emerging from laboratories across the globe suggest that the laws of physics have ground to a halt. What unfolds is a dense mystery in which a shadowy billionaire (Jonathan Pryce) and five scientists who met at the University of Oxford, among them tech entrepreneur Auggie (Eiza González) and snack mogul Jack (John Bradley), must attempt to make sense of this terrifying new world. A close encounter of a different kind — watch the skies.
Girls5Eva
Musical comedy, three seasons, 2021-
Let us rejoice. Abandoned by US streamer Peacock, this wonderful sitcom now returns on Netflix. For those who need a recap, Sara Bareilles, Paula Pell, Renée Elise Goldsberry and Busy Philipps play four surviving members of our titular one-hit-wonder 1990s girl group, blessed with another shot at fame when a rapper samples their signature track. Meredith Scardino (Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt) is the showrunner, and while the rapid-fire joke hit-rate is high, the real delight here is our four leads who invest the absurdist jokes with real wit and humanity.
The Believers
Crime thriller, one season, 2024
In debt after failed start-ups, three young Thai entrepreneurs decide to pay off their loan sharks by investing in a Buddhist temple and taking the donations for themselves. That’s the premise of this new Thai crime thriller series, which has the feel of Danny Boyle’s 1994 black comedy Shallow Grave, a paranoid morality play that asks its audience “what would you do in our situation?”. It’s also fascinating to see a Thai series that dares to question the ethics of a religion so closely interconnected with state and culture.
Bandidos
Action thriller, one season, 2024-
Adrian Grunberg, an American film director and screenwriter, is responsible for two of the most thrillingly violent movies of recent years: 2012 Mel Gibson vehicle Get The Gringo and 2019’s gory Rambo send-off, Last Blood. With this new Mexican-language adventure drama about a gang of criminal misfits hunting Mayan treasure in the Caribbean, he has toned down the blood-letting but retained the brilliant action sequences. The result is a hybrid of Money Heist and the National Treasure franchise whose sole purpose is to distract and entertain. Stars Ester Expósito, Alfonso Dosal and Mabel Cadena.
The Gentlemen
Crime comedy, one season, 2024-
Eddie Horniman (Theo James) lives in a very big house in the country. It’s been in his family for more than 600 years and the dukedom should have passed to his elder brother Freddy (Daniel Ings) on their father’s recent death. On Eddie’s to-do list: handle his brother’s £8 million drug debt then deal with a cannabis farm hidden underneath the cowsheds, leased by his dad to a crime family headed by the brittle Kray-ette Susie Glass (Kaya Scodelario). This is the starting point of Guy Ritchie’s new series, a spin-off from his 2019 film of the same name — and it doesn’t simmer down from there. Aristocrats, gangsters, boxers, Vinnie Jones — Ritchie’s not straying far from his blood-spattered comfort zone. Despite the dated post-Britpop swagger, The Gentlemen is admirably committed to keeping its entertainment value above the market price, its manic escalations and incipient dread packed into nonstop action. All this and Ray Winstone too — quite the gangsters’ paradise.
Avatar: The Last Airbender
Fantasy drama, one season, 2024-
Avatar: The Last Airbender started life as an animated series, attracting millions of viewers and spawning numerous spin-offs, including a critically mauled 2010 film adaptation from M Night Shyamalan. It’s best to put that abomination to one side when approaching this eight-part live-action series. Avatar is set in a war-torn Asian and Arctic-inspired world in which some people can telekinetically manipulate one of the four elements — water, earth, fire or air. The Avatar, the only individual who can bend all four, is responsible for maintaining harmony among the world’s four nations. The present Avatar is a 12-year-old boy named Aang (Gordon Cormier), who is tasked with ending the ambitions of the militaristic Fire Nation to conquer the world. The special effects and world building are mightily impressive, with the writers preserving the cartoon’s thoughtful mythology and endearingly goofy tone, amid an avalanche of impressive CGI and portentous plotting.
Boy Swallows Universe
Drama, one season, 2023-
Based on Trent Dalton’s 2018 fictionalised memoir detailing his troubled childhood, this is an eight-part, gritty coming-of-age drama set in Brisbane’s underworld in the 1980s. It follows Eli Bell (Felix Cameron) and his mute brother, Gus, as they try to support their damaged parents (a recovering addict mum and a heroin-dealing stepfather) and save themselves from the violent criminals led by Tytus Broz (Anthony LaPaglia). In a world of unreliable adults the boys’ mentor is their “babysitter” Slim (Bryan Brown), a convict famed for having escaped from the Boggo Road Gaol.
House Of Ninjas
Action drama, one season, 2024-
In feudal Japan ninjas were covert assassins in the employ of warlords. What if one family of ninjas survived and they were now needed to come out of retirement, the last line of defence against a terrorist attack on Japan? That’s the premise of this new eight-part series from the writer/director Dave Boyle, which mixes family drama with martial arts action in a manner that calls to mind a live-action Incredibles crossed with Seven Samurai and the Japanese exploitation cinema of the 1970s.
One Day
Romantic drama, one season, 2024
Set across a succession of July 15ths from 1988 to 2003, David Nicholls’ 2009 novel was a high-concept love story that effortlessly combined the comic and the romantic, detailing the intertwined lives of privileged, self-confident Dexter and spiky Northerner Emma with an endearing wit and depth. Molly Manners’ 14-part adaptation deftly retains all those necessary elements while stripping out some of the crassness. Leo Woodall and Ambika Mod are perfect as Dex and Emma and embarrassing 1990s period details are horribly accurate. Weepy perfection.
Griselda
Crime drama, one season, 2024
Griselda Blanco was the only person that Pablo Escobar feared, so it was only a matter of time before the Narcos production team told the story of this 1970s Miami drug queen bee. As played by Sofía Vergara, Griselda is portrayed as a more glamorous and sympathetic figure than she was in real life. Griselda is closer to your classic rise-and-fall morality tale, albeit one enamoured with the glamorous life of its criminal protagonist.
Loudermilk
Comedy, three seasons, 2017-2020
Although this show is not new, it’s fast gained traction with comedy fans since arriving on Netflix. Ron Livingston is at his finest when playing the jerk (Office Space, Search Party). As such, this Seattle-set comedy from Peter Farrelly (Dumb and Dumber) and Bobby Mort (The Colbert Report) is a dream gig. As ex music journalist Sam Loudermilk, Livingston is front-and-centre as a substance abuse counsellor who can’t keep his inner misanthrope in check. Across its three series the show is at its strongest when exploring the inner lives of his friends, flatmates and fellow addicts.
Fool Me Once
Drama, one season, 2024-
We know the drill with Harlan Coben thrillers — they may not be high art but we’ll devour them in an afternoon. This new eight-parter stars the Brassic regular Michelle Keegan as Maya Stern, a woman trying to discover the truth behind her husband’s brutal murder, yet stymied by dogged detective Sami Kierce (Adeel Akhtar) and her insufferable mother-in-law, Judith (an extravagant Joanna Lumley).
Best drama
Better Call Saul
Crime drama, six seasons, 2015-22
It’s rare that spin-off shows are anything to write home about, let alone something that can be compared to the original in any serious sense, but this Breaking Bad prequel, an origin story of Walt and Jessie’s lawyer Jimmy “Saul Goodman” McGill, certainly breaks the mould. Once again set against the backdrop of the scorching Albuquerque desert, the series delivers a brilliantly crafted slow-burn crime drama led by accomplished performances from Bob Odenkirk as the titular Saul, Rhea Seehorn as fellow lawyer Kim Wexler and Jonathan Banks as the enigmatic Mike Ehrmantraut.
The Queen’s Gambit
Period drama, one season, 2020
For those who believe there aren’t enough TV shows made about the world of chess, this fabulous period drama starring Anya Taylor-Joy will be well received. The stylish and glossy mini-series charts the rise of a fictional chess prodigy Beth Harmon as she takes on a male-dominated sporting establishment while fighting her own demons. Rightfully scooping 11 Emmy awards, this story will draw you into a world of emotional turmoil and surprises framed by a well-recreated 1960s setting.
Mindhunter
Psychological thriller, two seasons, 2017-19
A psychological thriller based within the FBI’s academy in Quantico, Virginia, Mindhunter is an impressive and eerie exploration of the mind and thinking of serial killers. The show is set in the late 1970s and 1980s as FBI agents attempt to learn from those who have offended to predict behaviours and stop similar incidents in the future. It’s not exactly light-hearted viewing, but it is very rewarding for fans of immersive and powerful drama.
The Last Kingdom
Historical drama, five seasons, 2015-22
The historical drama based on the Saxon Stories novels of Bernard Cornwell began life on the BBC before being co-produced by Netflix and eventually becoming a Netflix Original. Starring Alexander Dreymon as Uhtred, a Saxon raised by Danes living against the warring backdrop of a divided England, the show begins following his story as King Alfred of Wessex holds out against the marauding armies. There’s politics, power and battles aplenty in this gripping series.
The Crown
Historical drama, six seasons, 2016-2023
Like the saga of Harry Potter, the story of Elizabeth Windsor has provided a raft of fine British actors with employment. And as with the JK Rowling adaptations, the denouement of Peter Morgan’s drama has had to be split into two parts. After a first batch dominated by Diana, the concluding tranche runs from 1997 to 2005, the year of Charles (Dominic West) and Camilla’s (Olivia Williams) marriage. They are expected to include a tribute to the late Queen (hitherto rather unflatteringly portrayed in the Imelda Staunton years) when she celebrates her Golden Jubilee in 2002. Rows, setbacks and deaths — Princess Margaret and the Queen Mother — will be offset by romance: the mature love of Charles and Camilla, completing a story arc that began in the 1970s in series three, and the young love of William (Ed McVey) and Kate (Meg Bellamy).
Burning Body
True crime, one season, 2023
Inspired by the real-life 2017 murder of the police officer Pedro Rodríguez, whose charred body was found in the boot of his car at Barcelona’s Foix reservoir, Jorge Torregrossa’s eight-part drama is effectively a steamy cross between tense courtroom drama and modern Spanish noir, where a single murder unearths a dark network of deceits, double-cross, sexual infidelities and institutional corruption. Money Heist’s Úrsula Corberó and Quim Gutiérrez play the two police officers implicated in Rodríguez’s murder and it’s their edgy performances that invest this true-crime drama with an extra level of emotional unease.
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar
Drama, one season, 2023
The recent Oscar victory for Wes Anderson’s 40-minute adaptation of Roald Dahl’s short story about a gambler who learns how to see through objects is reason enough to revisit the other three short films he made for Netflix. They are all adaptations of tales from the BFG author and possess a dark, macabre edge rarely seen in Anderson’s full-length movies. Most striking is his 17-minute film The Swan, a tale of bullying and animal cruelty — starring Rupert Friend — that is imbued with the brooding, uncanny quality of British folk horror.
Sex Education
Comedy-drama, four seasons, 2019-23
With Otis (Asa Butterfield) and Eric (Ncuti Gatwa) now relocated to Cavendish Sixth Form College after the closure of Moordale Secondary at the end of season three, the final instalment of Laurie Nunn’s teenage sex-comedy drama arrives with a welcome freshness of outlook. Admittedly, the progressive nature of the new place of learning sometimes borders on self-parody, but the show still knows how to balance the knob jokes and nudity with the hugs and the learning. Also, as Otis’s sex-therapist mum, Gillian Anderson continues to invest her character with layers of sadness and profundity.
The Railway Men
Drama, one season, 2023-
The 1984 gas leak at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, remains the world’s worst industrial disaster, with the number of deaths estimated at 16,000. Sidestepping comparisons with Craig Mazin’s 2019 miniseries, Chernobyl, the writer-director Shiv Rawail’s four-part dramatisation focuses on the railway employees who helped to organise aid and evacuation. Inevitably harrowing and suitably angry in all the right places, this is a tale of courage in the face of certain death.
Beef
Comedy drama, one season, 2023
Described by our TV critic Camilla Long as “possibly the best thing I’ve seen this year”, the black comedy set among Asians in Los Angeles stars Steven Yeun and Ali Wong as Danny Cho and Amy Lau, a pair who are involved in a road rage incident that sees them pitted against one another. “This is a nerve-jangling, synapse-zinging ride into madness, and it’s great.” High praise, indeed. Sound good? Read the full Beef review.
The Night Agent
Action thriller, one season, 2023
Created by Shawn Ryan and based on Matthew Quirk’s book of the same name, this action spy thriller follows the adventures of Peter Sutherland (Gabriel Basso), an FBI agent looking for a mole in the US government. He must track down the traitor and stop them while ensuring the safety of the tech expert Rose Larkin (Luciane Buchanan). This is adrenaline-fuelled fun.
Hard Broken
Thriller, one season, 2023
More and more Arabic-language television shows are turning up on Netflix. The highlight so far has been the Egyptian supernatural horror-drama Paranormal, based on Ahmed Khaled Tawfik’s revered metaphysical horror novels about the sceptical paranormal investigator Dr Refaat Ismail (Ahmed Amin). However, this new series about a seemingly normal group of Lebanese friends whose lives are thrown into disarray after a tragic murder possesses a nice mood of shifting unease, its soapy machinations gradually giving way to darker subtexts concerning the country’s economic, political and social unease.
Narcos
Crime drama, three seasons, 2015-17
Focusing its attention on the life and criminal empire of the Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar, Narcos is an intriguing and at times bloody dramatisation of the powerful Medellin cartel and their multibillion-dollar narcotics business. And as US federal agents and rival cartels plot to bring down Escobar the screw begins to turn in this excellent crime drama that later spawned a new show Narcos: Mexico, which is also worth checking out. Narcos is the cartel drama fix you’ve been looking for.
Devil’s Advocate
Thriller, one season, 2023
In 2015 the director Essam Abdel Hamid co-directed the brilliant Egyptian thriller Nawara, about a housemaid (Mena Shalabi) who, on the eve of the 2011 revolution, begins working for a family closely linked to the Mubarak regime. For his Netflix debut, Hamid helms this seemingly sensationalist series about a determined defence lawyer (Haya Abdulsalam) who takes on the controversial case of a footballer who is accused of murdering his wife. However, much like Nawara, this is a tense drama that also works well as a neat parable about life in modern Kuwait, specifically addressing the theme of domestic violence.
Best comedy
After Life
Comedy drama, three seasons, 2019-22
There’s not much funny-sounding about a man whose wife dies of breast cancer and who becomes suicidal, but if anyone can pull it off, Ricky Gervais can, and he does. His comedic work has always touched on dark places, and in this black comedy Gervais blends the philosophical with the absurd and the sentimental with the silly as he takes the viewer on an emotional rollercoaster. Assisted by a wonderful cast, including Kerry Godliman and Ashley Jensen, this is Gervais at his best.
Ololade
Dark comedy, one season, 2023-
Two friends suddenly come into money. All does not go smoothly. From Brewster’s Millions to A Simple Plan it’s an age-old narrative device, so what makes this version different? It’s a Nigerian drama steeped in the culture of modern Lagos. Frank Donga and Femi Adebayo are excellent as unhappy school teacher Shina and playboy car-mechanic Lateef but the real success is how Taj, the writer-director, makes the city itself a central character in the show.
Arrested Development
Comedy, five seasons, 2003-19
Michael Cera’s star turn as the forsaken sidekick Allan in Barbie is surely reason enough to revisit his starring role in this absurdist early Noughties family farce. As the eternally bemused scion George-Michael Bluth, Cera invests the show’s ruthless absurdist wit with a necessary melancholy heart.
The Baby-Sitters Club
Comedy drama, two seasons, 2020-2022
It began as a series of mid-1980s novels by Ann M Martin about a group of suburban Connecticut teens running a childcare service. Then, in the early 1990s, it was adapted into a cheap-as-chips US TV series. This 2020 adaptation comes with a dash of irony and nostalgia, but it’s also utterly wonderful. At a time when young adult dramas are gritty and grave, here is a show that is warm, funny and heartfelt yet also presents an intelligent portrait of what it means to be a young teenage girl in the modern world. The cast includes Alicia Silverstone (Clueless) as the mother of Kristy Thomas, the president of the club.
The Good Place
Fantasy comedy, four seasons, 2016-2020
Four series and 53 episodes of near perfection. Set in a bland non-denominational afterlife — a place of eternal sunshine and pink bungalows — where selfish chiseller Eleanor Shellstrop (Kristen Bell) believes she’s arrived by mistake, this seemingly frothy sitcom is anything but. Steered by a dazzling supporting cast topped by Ted Danson as the hereafter’s gatekeeper and D’Arcy Carden as his cheery, Siri-like PA, Janet, conventions are subverted, knotty philosophical questions debated, and jokes land at a rate that puts all other modern comedies to shame.
Ricky Gervais — Armageddon
Stand-up comedy, one off, 2023
This 2023 tour made more than £25 million for the anti-woke firebrand comic, yet received disparaging reviews from critics. Filmed at the London Palladium and themed around mortality and the end of the world, it’s a mix of clever observations and crude broadsides. It’s the crude stuff that gets the big laughs, which suggests Gervais has no financial imperative to up his game any time soon.
Fisk
Comedy, one season, 2021-
Kitty Flanagan is an absolute star in this fitfully funny Australian sitcom. Playing the speak-as-you-find contracts lawyer Helen Tudor-Fisk, she is a comic delight. After a majestic first episode, the script, co-written by the star and her sister, Penny Flanagan, flags as often as it soars but the deft and loveable lawyer Helen keeps you watching.
Best foreign language
Ragnarok
Fantasy, two seasons, 2020-
Another Scandinavian saga from the Borgen creator Adam Price, this modern-day remix of the Norse legends stars David Stakston as Magne Seier, an angsty teenager who becomes embroiled in a battle with the local businessman Vidar (Gisli Orn Gardarsson). However, it’s not long before you realise Magne is the reincarnation of Thor, Vidar is his arch mythological enemy Jotunn, and the end of the word is nigh. Now into its third and final season, this is bold-strokes young-adult drama but one that perfectly mixes big themes (big business, climate change LGBTQ+ issues) with an authentic feel for small-town Norwegian life.
Fauda
Political thriller, four seasons, 2015-
This gripping drama is developed by Lior Raz and Avi Issacharoff, screenwriters who served in the Israel Defense Forces and took inspiration from their experiences for the show. It is set against the brutal and bitter conflict between Palestinian terrorists and Israeli authorities and explores a cat-and-mouse relationship between the terrorist ringleader Abu Ahmad (Hisham Sulliman) and the key Israeli special operative Doron (Lior Raz). It’s a fast-paced show filled with action, political manoeuvring and shocking twists.
Borgen
Foreign language/political drama, three seasons, 2010-22
One of the great success stories of the Scandinavian TV movement of the early 2010s, Borgen tells the story of Birgitte Nyborg Christensen (Sidse Babett Knudsen), a centrist politician from a minor party who becomes the Danish prime minister. A masterclass in intriguing and absorbing small-screen political shows, Borgen has been described as Denmark’s answer to the American series The West Wing. It is definitely another box set classic for fans of political drama.
Call My Agent!
Comedy drama, four seasons, 2015-
A show from France, Call My Agent! is primarily concerned with the business at the ASK (Agence Samuel Kerr) talent agency in Paris. The four main agents are left to keep the business alive after the founder dies, while managing the egos of their clients and their own often chaotic private lives. The sharp satire has spawned a number of remakes, including Prime Video’s Ten Percent.
Squid Game
Survival drama, one season, 2021–
This South Korean survival drama series took the TV world by storm in the autumn of 2021 when it became one of the most-watched shows on the streaming platform. Down-on-their-luck people are recruited to play deadly children’s games for a huge cash prize. If you haven’t already seen this dystopian mega-hit, now is the time to take a leap into Squid Game ahead of the second series.
Best documentaries
Robbie Williams
Documentary, one season, 2023-
“It feels as though the past has me in a headlock,” says Robbie Williams at the start of this remarkable close-up portrait of the pop star as baby boy band member, older, unwiser pop star and 49-year-old family man. He’s prone to insomnia, he says, to waking up in the night and becoming entangled in fear and shame. In this four-part documentary, where he views footage of his past as a kind of prompt for discussion, he sits in or on his bed, looking at his younger self with a mixture of horror and wonder. Directed by Joe Pearlman, whose films about Lewis Capaldi (Lewis Capaldi: How I’m Feeling Now) and Bros (Bros: After the Screaming Stops) give him the right frame of reference, it’s an intense rush of old video, from the earliest days of Take That to Williams’s solo pomp. The star’s commentary on fame, ambition and his mental health is laceratingly honest — “I felt like I was an infant in the grown-up world,” he says at one point — building up a powerful, intimate profile of a troubled man still slowly moving towards peace.
Beckham
Sports documentary, one season, 2023
“All I ever wanted to do was play football,” David Beckham says in this four-part documentary. Yet, as the director Fisher Stevens’s portrait of the player makes clear, a world outside football would soon creep into his life, turning him into the kind of global figure that could never have been imagined by the east London schoolboy. The white-hot intensity of Beckham’s fame has tempered slightly, but this film brings it all rushing back: the way his heroic sporting status was amplified and distorted by his relationship with the Spice Girl Victoria Adams; the paparazzi cameras; the ferocity of the scrutiny and the judgment. Featuring interviews with Beckham and Victoria, Alex Ferguson, Gary Neville, Eric Cantona and Beckham’s mum and dad, this is as essential for students of modern fame as it is for fans of football.
Escaping Twin Flames
Documentary, one season, 2023-
Jeff and Shaleia Ayan, who run the dating cult Twin Flames Universe, have surely come of age with two docs on Prime Video and Netflix: sad tales of lonely millennials and Gen Zs taking online classes delivered by a messianic Jeff and a suspiciously compliant Shaleia, whose Zoom backgrounds are becoming more luxurious with every broadcast. The more negative publicity they receive, the richer they seem to become.
Sly
Documentary, one-off, 2023-
Thom Zimny’s feature-length portrait of the Rocky and Rambo star is a film caught midway between a hagiography and a genuinely moving confessional. You sense that Zimny was perhaps a little too cautious around the Hollywood icon, but even when batting softball questions, Stallone is a great storyteller and myth-maker, at ease with the braggadocio, but also disarmingly self-aware.
The Deepest Breath
Documentary, one-off, 2023
Freediving — an aquatic contest in which the aim is to descend deeper and stay down longer than your opponent — is the stuff of nightmares. Focused on the Italian champion Alessia Zecchini and the Irish expert Stephen Keenan, Laura McGann’s documentary is beautiful and terrifying, a profound insight into a sport where near-death states are the norm.
Tour de France Unchained
Sport documentary, one season, 2023
Netflix users will be no strangers to the behind-the-scenes sports documentary, with Formula One (Drive to Survive), golf (Full Swing) and tennis (Break Point) providing compelling series, so it’s perhaps no surprise that the world’s most famous cycling race would eventually become a subject. This eight-part series takes cycling enthusiasts and casual observers behind the 2022 tour, illustrating the physical and mental strength required to win, and the personal and team battles that rumble on across the 21 stages.
Lewis Capaldi: How I’m Feeling Now
Music documentary, one season, 2023
One of the most celebrated British music stars of the last few years, Capaldi has not only produced chart-topping hits like Someone You Loved, but also very publicly battled issues of mental health. This intimate portrait of the singer-songwriter offers up a first-hand account of a meteoric rise to stardom and the many highs and lows that he has experienced.
Formula 1: Drive to Survive
Sport documentary, five seasons, 2019-
The godfather of the modern sporting documentary, spawning spin-offs in tennis (Break Point) and golf (Full Swing), this Netflix documentary is the original and the best when it comes to this form of storytelling. Offering unprecedented access to the glamorous world of Formula One, each series takes us behind the scenes of a year in the motorsport, combining the drama on the track with footage of the drivers and their teams.
The Last Dance
Sport documentary, one season, 2020
This absorbing basketball documentary about the Chicago Bulls star player Michael Jordan during his final season with them in 1998 was a hit during the 2020 lockdown. The show’s success was not based on the sport but on the storytelling and the way the series blends archive footage and interviews with players, coaches, fans and even two former US presidents (Barack Obama and Bill Clinton).
The Andy Warhol Diaries
Art documentary, one season, 2022
This absorbing six-part series, directed by Andrew Rossi and executive produced by Ryan Murphy (American Horror Story), offers a carefully crafted portrait of the artist in his own words. Based on Warhol’s diaries, which themselves were transcriptions of telephone conversations with his friend Pat Hackett between 1976 and Warhol’s death in 1987, we are taken deep into the mind of a troubled and conflicted man struggling with sexuality, religion and his place in the world.
Life on Our Planet
Natural history, one season, 2023
While Planet Earth III might represent the gold standard of natural history programming, this offers a more Hollywood-style take on the wonders of existence. The opening CGI animations of a sabre-toothed cat squaring up to a giant terror bird hint at the programme’s pedigree: Steven Spielberg is among the executive producers, giving the whole thing a Jurassic Park sheen. Adding to the high-spec finish is the narration by Morgan Freeman. From the “last universal common ancestor” to numerous mass extinctions, the dazzle of the visuals is matched by a rush of information — not least that the ten million species of plants and animals alive today represent just 1 per cent of all species that have existed.
Face To Face With ETA — Conversations With A Terrorist
Documentary, one-off, 2023
This feature-length documentary explores key moments in the history of Eta, the armed Basque separatist group responsible for more than 800 deaths between 1959 and its disbanding in 2018. At its heart is an interview with José Antonio Urrutikoetxea, aka Josu Ternera, an Eta leader who was sentenced to jail terms for fatal bombings in the 1980s.
Get Gotti
Documentary, one season, 2023
This three-part documentary about the rise and fall of New York City’s most flamboyant Mob boss in the 1980s is a sleazy delight for anyone who ever loved The Sopranos. Produced by the same team behind Netflix’s Fear City — about the FBI’s investigation into organised crime in the 1970s and 1980s — it’s a series that has no respect for the loathsome John Gotti but is utterly fascinated by his language, style and (utter lack of) ethics.
Squid Game — The Challenge
Reality show, one season, 2023-
“People do a whole lot worse for a whole lot less,” says one of the 456 contestants in this vast reality TV show based on Squid Game. The 2021 Korean drama was the platform’s most watched show, so it’s no surprise that its sadistic premise — hard-up participants compete in deadly children’s games to win a fortune — should be reanimated for this game show with a $4.56 million prize. The show sticks to the drama’s uncanny aesthetic — masked guards, singing doll and all — although the “eliminations” don’t appear fatal. It’s a disorientating cross between Takeshi’s Castle, Big Brother and The Traitors, and it’s not long before the squid ink of human unkindness starts to confuse the game as contestants are given chances to betray their colleagues. You have watched a lot worse for a lot less, but no one comes out of it well.
Best sci-fi/fantasy
Snowpiercer
Dystopian thriller, three seasons, 2020-22
Pivoting on the central premise of a giant train hurtling around a frozen, post-apocalyptic wasteland, the Netflix adaptation of the graphic novel of the same name is a refreshing watch for sci-fi fans. Starring Jennifer Connelly and Daveed Diggs, it treads the fine line between far-fetched dystopian ideas and very real human problems, while tackling ethical conundrums along the way.
The Sandman
Fantasy drama, one season, 2022-
An adaptation of the author Neil Gaiman’s comic-book epic that tells the story of the King of Dreams, who is captured in an occult ritual, and follows him as he influences other people’s dreams. Tom Sturridge as Dream leads an all-star cast that includes Charles Dance, who plays Dream’s captor, Gwendoline Christie as Lucifer and even Mark Hamill voicing a man with a pumpkin for a head.
Black Mirror
Sci-fi/dystopian, six seasons, 2011-
Charlie Brooker’s dystopian anthology started on Channel 4 but has grown into a global phenomenon since it became a Netflix Original series. Now attracting some of the biggest stars to its episodes, from Salma Hayek and Jon Hamm to Miley Cyrus and Bryce Dallas Howard, the chilling visions of things that may come are largely based on technology. In the most recent sixth series the show turned its attention on television, with excellent results.
Stranger Things
Sci-fi horror drama, four seasons, 2016-
Stranger Things is a TV phenomenon and a show that has been responsible for a huge amount of Netflix’s global success as a streaming business. The Duffer brothers’ sci-fi is set in the 1980s and follows a group of kids in Hawkins, Indiana, who battle supernatural evil in a parallel dimension known as The Upside Down. With a final chapter of the series still to come, now is the perfect time to find out what all the fuss is about if you missed the first few waves of Stranger Things-mania.