The best Netflix original series to binge

A rollicking, endearing '80s pastiche that leans deep into its inspirations – a little John Carpenter here, some (ok, a lot of) Steven Spielberg there, a dollop of Stephen King with a dash of Red Dawn – Stranger Things took off thanks in no small part to its neo-Goonies cast of Dungeons & Dragons-obsessed kids highlighted by Millie Bobby Brown's telekinetic Eleven. With its creepy parallel-dimension threat, underbelly teeming with mad scientists and commies, genuinely chilling horror moments and penchant for cliffhangers, the show all but perfected the binge-watch model. 

The story of Queen Elizabeth II’s reign has landed countless wins on the awards circuit since its first season aired in 2016 – and for good reason. The writing is excellent, the acting wonderful and the cinematography outstanding, all contributing to the creation of a show appreciated even by those usually loath to give historical dramas a chance. 

A story about a 13-year-old accused of murdering a classmate would be a tough watch no matter the approach, but Stephen Graham, Jack Thorne and Philip Barantini, the team behind this wrenching miniseries, make it nearly unbearable by filming each hour-long episode in a single, unbroken shot, allowing no relief from the unfolding tragedy. But Adolescence is well worth braving: it’s a poignant meditation on grief and parental guilt, featuring a pair of spectacular performances from young Owen Cooper and Graham as his devastated father. It’s just about the most powerful – and formally daring – drama the streamer has yet produced.  

A showbiz comedy about a self-destructive '90s sitcom star who happens to be a horse isn't exactly an easy sell. BoJack is, after all, a show about humanoid animals that's also a stark meditation on the nature of depression, greed, addiction, fame, obsession, abuse and generational trauma. Against all odds, it’s one of the funniest shows on television, rife with visual gags and acidic turns of phrase and unafraid to go to dark places and rebound with moments of tenderness.

If you only look at the broad details, it scans like salacious true-crime fodder: a sad woman enters a pub. A young bartender takes pity on her. She becomes a regular. Then the emails arrive – hundreds a day, all horribly misspelled – as she grows increasingly delusional and threatening. Indeed, Baby Reindeer is based on an actual experience by writer-star Richard Gadd, but the story of a wannabe comedian targeted by an aggressive stalker is merely a framework for an uncommonly raw, emotionally complex, yet still darkly funny examination of shame, empathy and victimhood. By the end, you may not know exactly what to think of it, but one thing’s for sure: you won’t stop thinking about it.

An outta-nowhere smash, this South Korean series exploded up the Netflix streaming ranks upon release in 2021 to become the most-watched show in the platform’s history. It’s a feat made all the more astounding given the subject matter. Effectively a more overtly class-conscious – and way more violent – take on The Hunger Games, the show centres around a contest in which financially desperate competitors are made to participate in a series of children’s games. The winner stands to earn a significant cash prize and the losers are killed off one by one. It’s hard to watch at times, due to both the gore and hyperventilating suspense, but once its hooks set in, it’s impossible to turn away from. 

While Orange is the New Black is not without its faults, its heart, humour and humanising approach to the American prison system has made it one of Netflix's most compelling shows. Our entry to the prison is Piper Chapman, a spoiled white woman indicted on drug trafficking charges, but it's the other inmates, their stories and personalities that pull you into the goings on at Litchfield Prison. We sure miss it. 

Aziz Ansari's wry, ruminative, artistic tale of an Indian-American actor dating, eating and accessorising his way through New York City was a sensation upon its release in 2015, then it disappeared for five years following its Italian neorealism-inspired second season. When it returned, with Ansari behind the camera instead of in front, it focused on Lena Waithe's supporting character, Denise, as she hunkered down with her wife in the countryside. The narrative shift was jarring, but also a beautiful character study, proving that Ansari's gift for storytelling extends well beyond the semi-autobiographical.

Omar Sy’s master-thief Assane Diop may be the most effortlessly charismatic man on TV just now. The world has been slow to catch up on the stylish adventures of French literary hero Arsène Lupin – think Thomas Crown’s light fingers combined with Sherlock Holmes’s smarts – but Netflix’s smash-hit two-parter, in which Diop channels Lupin in the name of revenge, has brought the non-French-speaking world right up to speed. Even the subtitle-averse will get a major kick out of its super-sexy Parisian backdrops and hairpin plot twists.

Kimmy Schmidt will help fill that 30 Rock-sized hole in your DVR and leave you wishing you had Tina Fey as your therapist. Crafted by Fey and brought to life by the perfectly-cast Ellie Kemper, chipper Kimmy comments on modern society with the innocence of a child and the experiences of an adult (an adult locked in a bunker for most of her life, that is) to make you wonder just how we let some things in the world get so weird.

Sweet birthday baby! In this dramedy, creator-director Natasha Lyonne stars as a game developer stuck in a Groundhog’s Day-esque time-loop scenario, forced to live the same day over and over again, until she discovers her circumstance is not quite as unique as it seems. With its not-wholly-necessary second season, the show seems trapped in a time loop of its own, but the first season is excellent on its own. Plenty of movies and series have explored similar existential themes using the same conceit, but few of them are as smart and soulful. 

Ozark was relatively slow at capturing the attention and devotion of Netflix's audience, but it's now considered one of the best crime dramas of recent TV history. Jason Bateman is a financial advisor that moves his family from Chicago to Missouri after a money laundering scheme gone bad. The crime and the drama don't end after the move: expect the Mexican drug cartel and local criminals to make appearances in what often feels like a more dour Breaking Bad… which is really saying something.

This Ava DuVernay miniseries about the 1989 Central Park jogger case was much anticipated and very well received, earning Jharrel Jerome, one of the many cast members, an Emmy for his work. The series tells the true story of the five suspects falsely accused of assaulting and raping a woman in Central Park. The show was accompanied by a special, Oprah Winfrey Presents When They See Us Now, that also drew a lot of attention.

Across three seasons and a six-episode spinoff, Shonda Rhimes’ 18th century period drama has set hearts aflutter and millions of pantaloons aflame. Set in an alternate-reality Regency era, in which racial equality is decreed by the king and 21st century pop songs exist as classical music, it follows the romantic entanglements of the noble Bridgerton siblings, whose exploits are in turn followed by an anonymous gossip columnist named Lady Whistledown. So it’s a little bit Jane Austen, a little bit Gossip Girl – an irresistible combination.

Admittedly, the comedy of Tim Robinson is an acquired taste – it’s manic, surreal, discursive, profane and often quite loud. Acquiring the taste for it, though, is actually quite easy: each episode of his cultishly beloved sketch show clocks in under 20 minutes, so it requires little commitment to keep going until you get attuned to its bizarre, disorienting rhythms. Robinson excels at taking a seemingly mundane premise and turning it inside out until you can hardly remember how it started. Summarising sketches like ‘Coffin Flop’ and ‘The Driving Crooner’ is nearly impossible, yet you’ll end up laughing to the point you might think someone spiked your drink.  

It’s surprising it took so long to get an excellent television show about professional wrestling – a deeply weird industry that’s also greatly misunderstood as an artform – but Netflix’s semi-fictionalised dramedy about the ultra-campy ‘80s women’s league Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling was one of the best series the platform has put out to date. That is, until Netflix decided to cancel the show after COVID-19 delayed the production of its fourth and final season. So yes, the lack of a proper ending is frustrating, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t dive in if you haven’t already. 

Described by one reviewer as 'high-concept drama,' this show's main thrust is highlighting the impact of the international drug trade, while also telling the infamous story of Escobar’s rise and fall. The scope of the show is broad, but it’s centred by the use of archive news footage. The third season diverts a little bit, focusing on what happened when Escobar died. While the show didn't continue after Season 3, it was rebooted in 2018 as Narcos: Mexico with a new premise and setting. 

If you like your TV served with a slice of social commentary then this is the show for you. Based on the 2014 film of the same name by Justin Simien, the series examines race relations in America through the lives of black students at an Ivy League education college. The show is zeitgeisty, sure, but it also feels prescient, touching on the past as well as the future.

This British dramedy has likely been Netflix's most surprising win. Focusing on a socially awkward teenager and his sex therapist mother (a stellar Gillian Anderson), the series has been praised for its subtle sense of humor and extreme sex positivity both commercially and critically. Not often does British humor so effortlessly translate to American laughs, but Sex Education has managed to cross-over thanks to its warm heart, John Hughes-inspired high-school antics and anything-goes approach to the awkwardness of teen sexuality. 

A barely-used chessboard is probably languishing in your game closet right now thanks to this ’60s-set character drama about an orphan vying to become the female Bobby Fischer. Anya Taylor-Joy is exceptional as Beth Harmon, a Kentucky woman who discovers a preternatural gift for chess at a young age and steadily climbs the worldwide ranks, while battling substance abuse, emotional trauma and Cold War anxiety. A phenomenon upon release, it sparked an uptick in public interest in the royal game, and no wonder: the actual chess scenes have the intensity of a championship boxing match.

The Politician is considered by many to be a niche watch, just like almost all other shows created by Ryan Murphy. The show stars the wonderful Ben Platt as Payton Hobart, a high-achieving student at the fictional Saint Sebastian High School in Santa Barbara, California. The second season takes the character to New York, where he runs for a seat in the New York State Senate. Expect anything but high school drama from the show, which boasts the dramatic comedy that Murphy is renowned for and a stellar cast of characters.

The 2019 miniseries is based on the 2015 Pulitzer Prize-winning article An Unbelievable Story of Rape, written by T Christian Miller and Ken Armstrong and conjunctively published by ProPublica and The Marshall Project. The cast is phenomenal both in name and performance — Toni Collette, Merritt Wever and Kaitlyn Dever in particular — but it is the poignancy of the adaptation that helped the series earn superb reviews. 

Given constant Hollywood chatter about the difficulty that older actresses face when looking for suitable roles, Grace and Frankie is a truly refreshing show that makes full use of Jane Fonda's and Lily Tomlin's comedic chops. Add to that Sam Waterston and Martin Sheen as supporting actors and you've got yourself a sure success. At seven seasons and 94 episodes in total, it's one of the longest-running Netflix series to date.

13 Reasons Why was marred in controversy, and we understand why. The show was extremely graphic, at times even seemingly glorifying teen depression and suicide. The second season even includes a warning video at the beginning of each episode. That said, there was just something about the show that truly hit home, especially during the first season, which was intended as a limited series. The show eventually capped off at four seasons. Beware: this is a very sad story.

Sam Gardner (Keir Gilchrist) is an 18-year-old with autism spectrum disorder living in Connecticut. Atypical is his show. Although criticized in season one for its lack of autistic actors, the second and third seasons were well received by critics, an opinion matched by the show's rising popularity.

The OA is one of those rare shows that lands on the scene without notice, is anchored by relatively unknown actors, yet unexpectedly makes a mark on television history and society in general. Unfortunately, after an absolutely incredible first season — probably one of the best that Netflix has ever aired — the second one turned out to be the exact opposite. The negative reviews are likely what prompted the network to cancel the show after season two, after originally announcing The OA would wrap up after five.

Nick Kroll and John Mulaney's star-studded puberty comedy shares a lot of themes — and cast members — with Hulu's Pen15, primary among them a fearlessness in addressing gross teenage sexuality and a massive amount of heart. What at first seemed like a hackneyed, rat-a-tat joke factory a la Family Guy has, over seven seasons, evolved into a beacon of good-natured discourse and emotional revelations… all while maintaining its roster of hormone monsters (Maya Rudolph, we adore you) and talking poop. No small feat, that. 

The antithesis of Amazon's gore-soaked superhero bro-down The Boys, Umbrella Academy is part X-Men, part Harry Potter and part Hellboy, yet somehow weirder than that recipe would have you believe. Elliot Page anchors a cast that also includes psychics, time travelers and one very smart monkey butler. It's wildly unpredictable, wholly original and further evidence that audiences are more than ready for superhero stories to get extra weird. 

Netflix’s very first series came out swinging, with David Fincher enlisting Seven villain Kevin Spacey and the great Robin Wright for an eerily ahead-of-its-time look at cutthroat politicians. There hasn’t been anything like it since maybe The West Wing aired, and Frank Underwood’s methods to manipulate become darker and his ethical code more invisible with each new season. Things, alas, started to go sideways as the series ran on, transitioning from brilliant to ridiculous and overwrought long before revelations about Spacey led to his character getting the axe. 

No, not Sigourney Weaver, the other Ripley – the sociopathic smokeshow of Patricia Highsmith’s 1955 novel, The Talented Mr Ripley. Although the book has already received two exemplary big-screen adaptations, this miniseries, from Schindler’s List screenwriter Steven Zaillian, burrows deeper into the psyche of the titular handsome devil than ever before, even if star Andrew Scott plays him as an impenetrable block of ice. Shot in gorgeously austere black-and-white, in sharp contrast to the previous films’ blinding Mediterranean palette, it lends Highsmith’s iconic thriller the noirish sheen it’s always deserved.

Initially pitched as a grimdark version of Stranger Things, this nihilistic apocalyptic German time-travel saga is actually more indebted to David Lynch than Steven Spielberg. Merrily kicking off with a series of child murders, the show leaps back and forth in time over the course of three seasons as teens in a small town attempt to thwart a nuclear disaster. Hilariously void of humour and gorgeously shot, the series starts off intriguing, takes a delightfully batty turn in the middle and nearly spins out in the homestretch before miraculously sticking the landing. 

Although failing when attempting to honestly depict modern love, Easy should still be considered part of Netflix's golden canon. A total of three seasons and 25 half-hour episodes, the anthology series boasts some pretty swanky cast members, including Orlando Bloom, Malin Akerman, Aubrey Plaza and Dave Franco. Given its format, you don't necessarily need to watch the episodes in order — although we suggest you do.

American Vandal deserves a spot on this list for many reasons. Chiefly, its sheer originality. The mockumentary is basically a parody of the true crime documentaries that still seem to capture the world's attention — we're talking Serial, Abducted in Plain Sight and especially Netflix's Making a Murderer more. Keep national trends in mind while watching, and remember: Anyone and everyone can be the Turd Burglar.

The always wonderful Neil Patrick Harris takes us inside the eponymous children's novel series written by Lemony Snicket (yes, that's a pen name). All 13 books are adapted across the three seasons in which Harris' sinister count — played by Jim Carrey in a film adaptation — chases a group of orphans through some seriously Edward Gorey-esque landscapes. For older kids with a morbid streak, and adults with nostalgia for their gothier days, it's a visual and comedic feast. 

This Henry Cavill-starring video-game adaptation answers a question nobody thought to ask: What if Game of Thrones didn't take itself so seriously? It's a bit campy, but the production design is great, and Cavill fully commits to everything, particularly taking baths and swinging a broadsword, both of which he does with reckless abandon. 

Unorthodox is both hard and easy to watch. Heavy material depicted in digestible bits (4 episodes, each just under an hour), the story takes you inside the Hasidic community that calls Williamsburg, Brooklyn home. Loosely based on Deborah Feldman's 2012 autobiography (Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots), this is the first Netflix series almost exclusively shot in Yiddish.

As can be expected with TV dramas, this serial thriller lets you know right away that, obviously, nothing is as it seems. But this particular family and the particular secrets they protect are gripping and layered and will draw viewers in as they tear relationships and familial trust apart. As any original fan of the series will likely agree, although season one was above-average good, the second and final one unfortunately fell short. Ben Mendelsohn's performance as the black sheep of the family still resonates, though.

Minari’s Steven Yeun’s handyman and stand-up star Ali Wong’s entrepreneur become embroiled in a demolition derby of mutually assured destruction over ten LA-set episodes of this barbed, personally brutal and always blackly funny road-rage drama. Despite a late storytelling wobble, Beef is brilliantly assured telly, with creator Lee Sung Jin’s vision of rage playing like a darky comic Biblical parable.

The Marvel show about an unassuming vigilante (Mike Colter) makes some serious statements about racism, and it was so buzzy it crashed Netflix for more than two hours with its debut. It can be slow-moving, but those impressive fight scenes will sneak up on you as Cage nonchalantly saunters into battle on the streets of Harlem (which actually look like real Harlem), with only a car door as a weapon.

Ryan Murphy’s fingerprints are all over this creepy thriller, an adaptation of a true-life tale of a family in suburban New Jersey harassed by an unseen stalker placing vaguely threatening letters in their mailbox. It contains Murphy’s signature sense of camp and OTT digressions, yet still manages to crawl under the skin and produce a legitimate sense of creeping dread. But let’s be real: you’re mostly here for Jennifer Coolidge as Karen, a real estate agent who fully lives to her name.   

It’s no secret that deep down we’re all a little obsessed with serial killers. This fact-based show from The Social Network and Zodiac mastemind David Fincher doesn’t just look at why these monsters kill, but also highlights how, in some ways, we’re all very similar. It’s a slow burner, but this just builds the tension for an edge-of-your-seat finale. The second season, which follows the Atlanta child murders of 1979 to 1981 is equally thrilling. As it stands, a third season is looking increasingly unlikely, but never say never. 

Four years after Game of Thrones ended with a wet dragon fart, showrunners David Benioff and DB Weiss returned with this heady sci-fi series, and the groans of disappointment that greeted their previous show’s finale clearly hasn’t shaken their ambition. A neat plot synopsis is almost impossible, but it involves a secret government project to contact alien life, virtual reality, complex scientific theorem and a mistake that puts the future of humanity at risk — and dang it if the first season didn’t hook us. Let’s hope they stick the landing this time.

Initially adapted as a forgettable Anne Hathaway film, David Nicholls’ time-jumping 2009 romantic novel found itself much better suited to a streaming TV series. A posh party boy (The White Lotus’s Leo Woodall) meets a working-class Leeds girl (Ambika Mod) at an Edinburgh graduation party on St Swithin’s Day in 1988. While sparks don’t immediately fly, the two forge a connection that will bond them for 14 years – and 14 episodes, each set exactly one year apart. At turns funny, swooning and absolutely devastating, it’s one of the best modern love stories on television. 

Mike Flanagan's gothic horror anthology – based first on the works of Shirley Jackson, then Henry James – has its lulls, often stumbling deep into melodrama. But when it's operating in horror mode, the series is a top-tier funhouse, one in which every shot becomes a game of Where's Waldo to spot the ghouls lurking by the dozens in the shadows as the family drama plays out. 

Every few decades the cobwebs get blown off The Addams Family, and this reboot may just be the coolest makeover the ooky-spooky franchise has ever received. Set at private reform school Nevermore Academy, it flips the offbeat family comedy into a YA mystery series, putting the focus on the magnetic Jenna Ortega as the titular sullen teen. It turned out to be a winning formula: aided by a viral dance scene that did for the Cramps what Stranger Things did for Kate Bush, the first season was viewed in an estimated 150 million homes, making it the second-most watched English-language show on Netflix.  

‘Likeable serial killer’ is a tough balance to pull off. With due respect to the charms of Hannibal Lector, Patrick Bateman and Dexter Morgan, none of them deliver it half as smoothly as Penn Badgley’s Joe Goldberg. Like an escapee from a romcom who’s woken up with a taste for murder, he’s matinee-idol handsome and FBI-most-wanted dangerous in a horribly moreish Netflix series that sees him adopting a series of cunning disguises to avoid detection (ie: a baseball cap). It’s daft, sure, but it’s held the world in the palm of its clammy hand since 2018 for a reason. 

On the surface, this very dark comedy reads like another series in which sympathetic characters wind up connected to a dead body and make a series of horrible mistakes attempting to cover it up. But Dead to Me is elevated by fantastic performances from Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini as two women whose complicated but often moving relationship is linked by shared grief. 

Much more than just a French Entourage, this champagne cocktail of broad comedy, pin-sharp satire, character drama and glossy glamour goes down so easily, you’ll be tempted to race through its four seasons following the highs and lows of the Parisian talent agency ASK in one big gulp. It’s worth taking a little time over, though, as its savvy and emotional depths reveal themselves in subtle increments. The regulars – spearheaded by the zero-BS, serial vaping super agent Andréa Martel (Camille Cottin) and slippery, high-strung alpha male Mathias Barneville (Thibault de Montalembert) – are terrific, and you may have heard about the big-name cameos too. Not to be missed.

She’s an alcoholic sex addict with a penchant for causing chaos wherever she goes. He’s a neurotic aspiring screenwriter with high emotional needs and a martyr streak. That doesn’t read like a successful couple on paper, nor one many of us would be inclined to spend much time with. But over the course of Love’s three seasons, co-stars Gillian Jacobs and Paul Rust somehow make them easy to root for, in part because anyone who’s ever spent time in the muck of the dating pool can recognise the messiness of their relationship. 

The dark drama let Netflix redeem Daredevil from the uneven 2003 Ben Affleck film. Charlie Cox steps into the role of the blind crime fighter who takes on the legal system by day and the criminals who hide in the shadows by night.Cox is rumored to be resurrected in the Marvel Cinematic Universe at some point, and one look at Daredevil's iconic bruiser of a hallway fight should show you why they want more. 

Spike Lee takes his 1986 eponymous film and turns it into a show for Netflix, directing the production himself. The great DeWanda Rise plays Nola Darling, whose life in Brooklyn takes center stage throughout each episode. Dissecting the experiences of a young Black woman in New York, the series —which was cancelled after two seasons — was certainly undersung.

The hook for this crime drama is that the episodes are designed to be watched in any order – with the exception of the finale – the idea being that the perception of the characters and their roles in an elaborate heist changes depending on how the viewer chooses to watch. If that’s all the series was, though, the show would simply be an interesting novelty whose shelf life would quickly fade. But Kaleidoscope would be worth a watch even if it was told linearly, thanks in large part to the always engaging Giancarlo Esposito as Leo Pap, orchestrator of a long-gestating plan to steal $7 billion from a seemingly impenetrable vault.