Genre: Crime, Drama
Actor: Ashley Madekwe, Edgar Ramírez, Gustaf Hammarsten, Luke Kirby, Mandy Moore
Whether you’re planning a TV marathon or bored in lockdown, nothing whiles time away like a bingeable show. Since it’s not always obvious what’s worth investing all that time in, here’s a list of the most binge-worthy shows to stream.
Genre: Crime, Drama
Actor: Ashley Madekwe, Edgar Ramírez, Gustaf Hammarsten, Luke Kirby, Mandy Moore
Deadloch begins like any other self-serious police procedural. A body washes up on shore, sparking widespread fear and a twisty mystery that eventually and intriguingly reveals layers of itself. Local officer Dulcie Collins (Kate Box) takes to it like it’s the most important case in the world, and for some reason, everything we see onscreen is tinged in gray, as if the town is set under a perpetual stormcloud.
Then a joke finds its way into the dialogue, followed by another, and another. The show, it turns out, is as much of a sitcom as it is a mystery, with Dulcie acting as the straight man grounding us through the kookiness of it all. The rest of the characters are actual characters, wonderfully zany and larger-than-life as they bumble around and commit small-town gaffes. A hearse screeches to a halt when a random passerby yells, “You’re going the wrong way!”, and a millennial policewoman exclaims, “I can’t believe I’m on a stakeout! It’s so aggressively police-y.”
It’s quite the risk to be both funny and serious, to dole out this many jokes while solving multiple murders, but Deadloch pulls it off with so much charm to spare. It’s a refreshing take on the buddy-cop series, ambitious and modern and unafraid to laugh at itself every once in a while.
Genre: Comedy, Crime
Actor: Alicia Gardiner, Harvey Zielinski, Kate Box, Kris McQuade, Madeleine Sami, Nina Oyama, Pamela Rabe, Shaun Martindale, Tom Ballard
Director: Beck Cole, Ben Chessell, Gracie Otto
After being released on BBC in July 2023, Champion made it across the Atlantic and has been recently released globally through Netflix. The family rivalry might be something familiar, but the way they go about it sounds so different, pulling in various genres from Black British music, compiling a striking soundscape that hasn’t been heard from similar shows. Along with the lovely soundtrack, the show has familiar story beats, but it’s well paced, excellently written, and maintains its slick rhythm without compromising any of its tunes. Champion might have dropped on Netflix without much noise, but the show has a voice and a story worth watching.
Genre: Drama
Actor: Cosby Prawl, Déja J. Bowens, Kerim Hassan, Nadine Marshall, Ray Fearon
After a whole pandemic, rising inflation, and a whole climate crisis the world hasn’t yet resolved, it can be hard to feel hope towards a new day. However, the third collaboration between director Oh Choong-hwan and screenwriter Park Hye-ryun feels like a reminder to keep hope despite life’s circumstances. Castaway Diva has the classic manic pixie dream girl, but you have to admit that Seo Mok-ha’s optimism and survival instincts despite serious life circumstances makes it easy for her to root for. The way she appreciates what modern life has to offer makes it easy to appreciate how much good came up even just within 15 years. And with an unexpected mix of ecology and abuse themes, it stands out from other dramas, even when it gets instantly and unexpectedly serious.
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Actor: Cha Hak-yeon, Chae Jong-hyeop, Kim Hyo-jin, Kim Joo-heon, Park Eun-bin
Director: Oh Choong-hwan
After his team loses in the prefectural tournament finals, Yoichi Isagi is invited to join an isolated training program designed to create the best striker in the world in hopes of Japan winning the World Cup. The program's designer believes that great strikers are selfish and egoistic players. As a more intense sports anime, the stakes of becoming the best striker in Japan (and the world) or never playing football again keeps the suspense high. The series does a great job of balancing the action and taking the time to develop the characters and their motivations. Blue Lock is a solid, high-concept anime for the world's most beloved sport.
Genre: Action & Adventure, Animation, Drama
Actor: Aoi Ichikawa, Eri Yukimura, Hiroshi Kamiya, Junichi Suwabe, Katsuyuki Konishi, Kazuki Ura, Kazuyuki Okitsu, Kenichi Suzumura, Koki Uchiyama, Masatomo Nakazawa, Natsuki Hanae, Nobunaga Shimazaki, Shinnosuke Tachibana, Shoya Chiba, Shugo Nakamura, Soma Saito, Takahiro Sakurai, Yoshitsugu Matsuoka, Yuki Ono, Yuma Uchida
A lot of things are at play in The Other Black Girl, a 10-part series adapted from the novel of the same name. The first half is a workplace horror that cleverly sets Nella’s career ambitions against the racial microaggressions she endures daily, while the second half is more of a mystery, with Nella digging deeper into Hazel’s sketchy past. At the same time, The Other Black Girl is also a comedy, a social thriller, and a revealing satire about the state of the publishing industry and companies at large. It doesn’t always succeed in balancing all the things it tries to be, but when it does, it soars; it becomes an exciting and meaningful piece of work you can’t stop watching. And even when it falters (it’s not as good at mystery as it is at commentary), The Other Black Girl remains largely enjoyable—addicting, even, since each episode runs for a breezy 30 minutes. Anchored by an extremely likable performance by Daniel and a chilling one from Murray, The Other Black Girl is easily one of the best multi-genre shows to come out in a while.
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Actor: Ashleigh Murray, Bellamy Young, Eric McCormack, Garcelle Beauvais, Hunter Parrish, Sinclair Daniel
Genre: Action & Adventure, Comedy, Crime
Actor: Daniel Ings, Giancarlo Esposito, Joely Richardson, Kaya Scodelario, Theo James, Vinnie Jones
The Dropout is an eight-part series about disgraced biotech entrepreneur Elizabeth Holmes, played here to eerie perfection by Amanda Seyfried. The show follows Holmes as she drops out of Stanford and pursues her dream to be rich and famous at any cost—even if it means swindling her way to the billion-dollar finish line.
With the facts of the case publicly available and a plethora of scammer shows already streaming on the internet, it's a small miracle that The Dropout is still able to stand out as a compelling series. This is thanks in large part to Seyfried: she plays Holmes as a shaky, self-conscious, and hyper-ambitious magnate with little to no remorse, and it works. Even though Holmes is pretty much a cautionary household name at this point, The Dropout is still worth watching if only to see Seyfried's thoughtful portrayal.
Genre: Crime, Drama
Actor: Amanda Seyfried, Bill Irwin, Dylan Minnette, Elizabeth Marvel, Laurie Metcalf, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Naveen Andrews, Sam Waterston, Stephen Fry, Utkarsh Ambudkar, William H. Macy
The initial charm of Hacks is in watching sparks fly between its sharp-tongued leads. Neither the elderly Deborah nor the young Ava holds back the digs, both of them cutting to the core of their insecurities. Part of what makes their tension so watchable is that they’re stand-ins for different generations. Deborah represents the all-hustle culture of the boomers, while Ava represents burned-out millennials. Lock them in a scene together and you get endless (and endlessly funny) observations about the modern world.
Eventually, however, their relationship deepens into something more meaningful than that. As Deb and Ava bond over their shared hopes and flaws, the show transforms into a clever and tender two-hander about their prickly but profound relationship. They’re two sides of the same coin, and even though no one can bring them down like the other can, the opposite is also true: no one else can lift them and push them to new heights like the other can.
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Actor: Carl Clemons-Hopkins, Hannah Einbinder, Jean Smart
This eight-part horror anthology is curated by the titular director, renowned as a trusted authority in telling tales of the Gothic and in creating wondrous practical creatures. So just like his work for films like Pan's Labyrinth, The Shape of Water, and Hellboy, Cabinet of Curiosities is also filled with frightful beings ranging from reanimated corpses to bloodthirsty aliens—and should make for a staple Halloween binge. Aside from a star-studded cast, the series is also co-helmed by some noteworthy directors, including Jennifer Kent (The Babadook), Catherine Hardwicke (Twilight), and Ana Lily Amirpour (A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night).
Genre: Drama, Horror, Mystery
Actor: F. Murray Abraham, Guillermo del Toro, Rupert Grint, Tim Blake Nelson
TV nerds know that Orange is the New Black, as much as it’s hailed in the U.S. for being 'crazy’, doesn’t deserve that title. It’s only a mellow take on the women prison genre that was perfected outside the States. The Australian show Wentworth is one example and Vis a Vis (or Locked Up) is another. The show starts with an inmate being boiled alive.
Macarena Ferreiro is set up by her boss/lover and ends up in prison for tax crimes. First naive and used to luxury, she has to adapt to harsh prison conditions, and harsher inmates. On the outside, her parents try to secure a large sum to pay her bail.
Genre: Thriller
Actor: Abril Zamora, Adriana Paz, Alba Flores, Alberto Velasco, Alma Itzel, Almagro San Miguel, Ana María Picchio, Ana Marzoa, Berta Vazquez, Carlos Hipolito, Claudia Riera, Cristina Marcos, Cristina Plazas, Daniel Ortiz, David Ostrosky, Harlys Becerra, Huichi Chiu, Inma Cuesta, Inma Cuevas, Isabel Naveira, Itziar Castro, Javier Lara, Jesus Castejon, Laura Baena, Laura Baena Torres, Lisi Linder, Lucas Ferraro, Luis Callejo, Maggie Civantos, María Isabel Díaz Lago, Maria Isabel Diaz, Maria Salgueiro, Marta Aledo, Najwa Nimri, Ramiro Blas, Roberto Enríquez, Ruth Díaz, Verónika Moral
Undead Unluck is such a strange anime with such a strange duo. Named after their respective powers, the undead Andy seems familiar with his Deadpool-like regeneration, albeit with such a fast rate that he can shoot out body parts with such gruesome animation. However it’s the unlucky Fuuko that brings them to the most absurd comedic scenarios, including, but not limited to, surviving a giant truck crash, a lightning strike, and a whole meteor. In order to achieve their goal of dying, they have to build up a bond to maximize her unluck. As they learn more about Fuuko’s abilities, as well as the organization hunting them down, it’s likely that they’ll go through wackier situations that will escalate as the show progresses. It’s definitely something uniquely watchable, if you can handle the off-putting gore that’s part and parcel of Andy’s powers.
Genre: Action & Adventure, Animation, Comedy, Sci-Fi & Fantasy
Actor: Aoi Yuki, Kenji Nomura, Koji Yusa, Mariya Ise, Moe Kahara, Natsuki Hanae, Nobuhiko Okamoto, Rie Kugimiya, Rikiya Koyama, Yuichi Nakamura
Also known as Rabo de Peixe, after the real town where the series is based, Turn of the Tide follows a group of four friends, who dream of a life outside their hometown, where nothing ever happens. Except, something does finally happen, and it’s whole packs of cocaine washing up on the island’s shores. It’s a wild series, one where the show’s teen underdogs take advantage of sailing expertise and knowledge of the town in order to sell out one third of the stash from the mainland Italian mafia. And it’s one that is endlessly entertaining, as we hope for the four teenagers to succeed in their plan, and to escape for another life.
Genre: Drama
Actor: André Leitão, Helena Caldeira, José Condessa, Maria João Bastos, Rodrigo Tomás
Stills and synopses of The Summer I Turned Pretty make it seem like typical teenage fluff. It isn't. Sure, it starts off cheesy and predictable, but it quickly blossoms into something rich and earnest and far more significant than the sum of its parts. The love triangle is merely a jumping-off point to better understand these flawed characters and the people around them. Outside of Belly's coming-of-age journey, there is her brother who encounters a rude awakening on race and class, and their mother who, fresh from a divorce, attempts to establish an identity of her own. Everyone has their own thing going on in this series, so it's easy to feel invested in their fleshed-out failures and triumphs.
It also feels authentically young; the music sounds like it was curated by an actual teenager, while the performances are raw and believable, not stilted and forced as it often is with teen series. The Summer I Turned Pretty is familiar, but comfortingly so. Watch this if you're yearning to re-live the magical, heartbreaking feeling of being young and in love for the first time.
Genre: Drama
Actor: Alfredo Narciso, Gavin Casalegno, Jackie Chung, Minnie Mills, Rachel Blanchard, Sean Kaufman, Summer Madison
Shining Girls is painful to watch. How could it not be, when it follows the serial and brutal murders of female victims? Even when the series is told through the lens of sole survivor Kirby (played by the excellent Elisabeth Moss), we witness the indelible effects of assault and trauma. Kirby’s sense of reality shifts; time is circular and memories are provisional. She’s an unreliable source in her own story.
And yet Shining Girls is also necessary to watch. It’s one of those stories where pain is the point, and it brings you close enough to the scene of the crime that it feels wrong to pull away too soon--not until you pull through the ending.
As always, Moss is unrelentingly intense as she takes us through the deepest corners of the victim she portrays, but a strong supporting cast also rounds off the performances. Jamie Bell is particularly haunting as the yet-to-be-discovered killer.
Genre: Crime, Drama
Actor: Amy Brenneman, Chris Chalk, Elisabeth Moss, Jamie Bell, Phillipa Soo, Wagner Moura