15 Highest-Rated Miniseries on Amazon Prime

Olivia Colman and Hugh Laurie (House) star in this espionage mini-series based on a John le Carré novel.

A quick mini-series that spans six episodes, it’s about a former soldier (Tom Hiddleston) who, while working as a night manager for a hotel in Cairo, Egypt, ends up getting hold of very sensitive information. He is then recruited by an intelligence officer (Olivia Colman) to bring down a corrupt businessman (Hugh Laurie.)

A highly-acclaimed TV show not to be missed by lovers of spy stories, John Le Carré films (A Most Wanted Man, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy), or just anyone who appreciates excellent acting.

Something happens in Forever episode three that I can’t tell you about. If I did it, I would spoil the show up for you. I don’t want to do this. So I will try very hard to sell you on the first two episodes, just remember, the show gets very different afterward. Both in premise, general vibe, and humor.

Here’s my best pitch: Fred Armisen. That face, that tone, that voice. How can you resist a TV show that doesn’t have many characters and yet he’s the main one.

Pitch No. 2: Maya Rudolph. She is funny, expressive, and whenever she looks at something, that thing instantly gains a lot of interest. This is the best performance of her career so far, I would wager.

Over the Garden Wall consists of 10 episodes that together run just under two hours. While each episode stands alone, it’s easy to watch the entire series in one sitting. The story beckons you to go deeper into its fantastical forest called the Unknown, at the center of which lies a dark mystery, and two boys on a quest to return home.

Wirt (Elijah Wood) and his younger half-brother Greg (Collin Dean) are lost in these enchanted woods. Beatrice, a talking bird, befriends the boys and offers to guide them home. Here, the trio encounter singing frogs, beastly creatures, and sinister forces hidden in the shadows.

There is no other series quite like Over the Garden Wall, which so perfectly balances its comedic and melancholic moments. If you’re looking for something a little bittersweet, musical, and fun, this miniseries will surely hit the spot—that is, if you’re brave enough to enter its Unknown.

As is only appropriate for a limited series about such a horrific period in human history, The Underground Railroad isn’t meant to be easy viewing. Thanks to uncompromising direction from Barry Jenkins (the director of the Best Picture Oscar winner Moonlight) and unforgettable images from cinematographer James Laxton, this approaches a level of confrontational storytelling that almost seems inappropriate for the comforts of television. But it’s essential viewing nonetheless, and Jenkins makes sure to transform this into a much stranger, more thought-provoking tale beyond the brutality of its first episode.

The Underground Railroad is speculative fiction: instead of being a historical account of the real-life network of routes to help free African-American slaves, it imagines a literal train that swiftly transports Cora (a powerful Thuso Mbedu) from one dystopian vision of white America to another. With every new setting, Jenkins doesn’t just talk about slavery; he talks about how America talks about slavery, and how the stories of these Black slaves are constantly reappropriated by white supremacists.

Leo Tolstoy’s most famous book, on which this was based, defies summarization but this powerful, sumptuous, and head-spinning BBC production might have done just that.

In 1805 St. Petersburg, the illegitimate son of the richest man in Russia (played by Paul Dano) finds himself at the center of his country’s downfall as it faces another Napoleonic invasion. As it follows several interconnected characters, romance intertwines with war, tragedy, and greed.

Directed by Tom Harper (Peaky Blinders), this series has it all: great acting, beautiful locations, and breath-taking action. It also stays true to the philosophical nature of the written material, capturing the glamour, deceit, and insanity of its time – as well as the sweeping scope of the original Tolstoy tome. This is TV of cinematic proportions!

Long Strange Trip was originally a four-hour movie before Amazon cut it to a six-part TV show. Produced by Martin Scorcese, it tells the full story of the band The Grateful Dead. It’s an account so detailed that it will satisfy the biggest Deadheads, but it also can be appreciated by anyone. The focus is the band, but it’s also the band’s significant impact on Rock history, and by extension, on American culture. I didn’t know much about the band and I couldn’t stop watching.

This six-chapter British miniseries stars the ever-reliable Stellan Skarsgård as an erratic London police detective. He starts seeing visions or “manifests” of his recently murdered colleague and tries to solve her case even though he was excluded from it. River blends reality and illusion in a thoughtful and original police thriller.

This impressive body of work defies any classification: it’s a collection of five films that have been put together into a miniseries. Director Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave) collected a timeless set of stories set from the ‘60s to ‘80s about London’s West Indian community and their struggle with rampant racism.

The first film, Mangrove, bears the name of the restaurant at the center of the story. As a sanctuary for the community, the restaurant quickly becomes the target of a racist police division that employs various tactics to disrupt  its popularity. The local chapter of the Black Panthers and its charismatic leader (played by Letitia Wright) get involved.

Mangrove and Lovers Rock, the next episode, were in the selection of the Cannes Film Festival that got canceled because of the pandemic.

Led by fine-tuned performances from Ben Whishaw and Hugh Grant at the top of their game, this three-episode series dives headfirst into the sex scandal between Norman Scott and former Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe with devastating wit. Neither character is treated as morally superior over the other, as both become consumed by the media frenzy surrounding the English justice system’s thirst for controversy. And Russell T Davies’ writing and Stephen Frears’ direction allow the show’s tone to pivot from brilliantly timed notes of humor to profoundly sad stretches of tragedy and drama. Given its short length, A Very English Scandal seems to be designed for binge-watching, but it should still reward patient and attentive viewing.

Produced by National Geographic, A Small Light is a ten-part miniseries that tells the incredible true story of Miep Gies (Bel Powley), the Dutch woman who bravely hid her Jewish friends from the Nazis during World War II. Among these friends is her kindly mentor Otto Frank (Liev Schreiber) and his daughter Anne (Billie Boullet), both of whom form a tight bond with Miep. 

More than just re-adapting Anne Frank’s story to the screen, A Small Light further fleshes it out by introducing other characters in depth and giving surrounding heroes their due. In fact, it’s as much about courage as it is about survival as it highlights what it takes to lend a hand (and possibly lose it) when you don’t need to. It also helps that this noble message comes with a massive budget and excellent performers, elements that tie everything together in this high-quality series.

There is no shortage of craft and ambition in The English, a miniseries that employs tropes of classic Westerns, like the soulful anti-hero and the loyal sidekick, but also twists them enough to make them feel fresh. For instance, instead of typical cowboys, we have as our leads Cornelia Locke (Emily Blunt), an aristocratic Englishwoman, and Eli Whipp (Chaske Spencer), a native who also served in the US army. Both of them are terribly out of place in the Wild West, but they’re fueled with the kind of vengeful drive that leads to bloody outcomes, which are themselves staples of the genre.

The English is sweeping, both in scope and scenery, and solemn. Fans will appreciate how seriously the show treats the genre, and they’ll take pleasure in its familiarity, from the twisty mysteries and brutal disputes to the gritty backdrops and arid vistas. In this instance, the show’s ambition perfectly fits the genre.

Black Snow has the sleek style of a modern murder mystery, but its concern with Australia’s colonial past that sets this show apart. As a neo-noir series centered on a murder, the show has all the classic elements: the hardboiled detective, the suspicious townsfolk, and the murder. As the murder is set in 1994, nostalgic summer-tinged high school scenes make it easy to root for justice for the show’s young victim.

But the series stands out as it’s always mindful of Isabel Baker, always concerned with her and her dynamics with her friends, family, and her South Sea Islander (ASSI) community. Supported by the strong performance of newcomer Talijah Blackman-Corowa, and even consulting the ASSI community personally in the show’s development and production, Black Snow is excellent not just as a murder mystery but also as a depiction of a community that’s rarely portrayed on screen.

At a certain age, it can feel like starting over again isn’t possible, especially when all signs discourage you from ever trying again. Dr. Yehya of The Last Round knows this better than most– quitting kickboxing wasn’t an option, but a requirement, with his age and near misses and personal issues taking him out of the arena and into a low point in his life. But despite this, and despite day-to-day difficulties, The Last Round also portrays him getting back up, pursuing his dream one more time. It’s a familiar story, one we’ve seen in many sports shows, but with Ahmed Al-Sakka in the ring, and the careful characterization of the whole team that gets him there, The Last Round knocks our socks out.

Daisy Jones & The Six is riddled with rock and roll clichés—sex, drugs, and alcohol abound—but the series has enough strengths to save it from sheer banality, the most prominent of which is the music. The original songs, performed by the actors themselves, are genuinely good. They’re true to the times and recall the likes of Fleetwood Mac and Buffalo Springfield, but they also sound fresh, modern, and invigorating. The showrunners seem to know this since each performance, whether onstage or in-studio, is given ample focus in each episode, and the show is all the better for it.

Aside from the stellar music, the show also has chemistry and production quality going for it. Riley Keough and Sam Claflin as the Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham of the fictional band are fiery and magnetic, while the authentic setting feels like an old polaroid come to life. 

Daisy Jones & The Six might not be for everyone, but if you enjoy musical dramas and nostalgia trips, then the show is a sure banger. 

Before Park Chan-wook adapted her novel Fingersmith in The Handmaiden, author Sarah Waters wrote Tipping the Velvet, her debut novel that painted the life of lesbian women in Victorian London. Surprisingly, this controversial novel was produced and broadcast by the BBC in 2002, sticking faithfully to the plot, with all the racy sex scenes and relaxed depiction of lesbian life that shocked the public at the time, but over the years, the miniseries has become known as the refreshing classic that shifted the way lesbians were depicted on screen. While primarily centered on white women, Tipping the Velvet changed the way Victorian sexuality was depicted, with the joy, sensuality, and happiness in Waters’ passionate narrative.