While considered one of the most important novels in world literature, One Hundred Years of Solitude was never adapted due to the author’s belief that the time limit of a feature film was too short for his sprawling, seven generation novel. Luckily, more than half a century later, streaming television garnered enough prestige and profit to finally adapt the classic, with support from the author’s family. It’s perhaps that support that made this adaptation work. The series stuck to the wishes of having it filmed in Spanish, in Colombia, with Colombian actors, and Netflix was happy to do so, being no stranger to working internationally. But Cien años de soledad doesn’t just work– it’s excellent, sticking closely to most of the layered text, while ensuring the series gives justice to it with compelling performances and cyclical symbolism the novel is known for.

The series mostly sticks to the novel, but it does expand on the text in ways video can only do so– like fleshing out the story visually and aurally, taking advantage of editing and an omniscient narrator, and expanding on characters when necessary.