Netflix Miniseries – Sometimes all you truly want in the Peak TV world of limitless options is something concrete. Even if “miniseries” has lost ground to “limited series” (mainly to make room for more seasons), those of us who grew up with the latter name are aware that it typically refers to a brief, superbly produced event viewing. Whatever name you wish to give them, the 11 series listed below more than satisfy that requirement.
The Haunting of Hill House/Bly Manor, American Crime Story, American Horror Story, and Black Mirror are some notable programmes that we did not include since they are anthologies (either episodic or seasonal) rather than mini/limited series. Check those out as well after finishing the list below.
Godless
Created by: Scott Frank
Stars: Jack O’Connell, Michelle Dockery, Scoot McNairy, Merritt Wever
Original Network: Netflix
La Belle, New Mexico serves as the No Man’s Land where the phenomenal seven-part Western Godless is set. The majority of the town’s males have passed away in a terrible accident, and the ladies seem largely unconcerned about it. Now, I need to go off topic for a second and remark that a resurrection of the Western genre would certainly make for at least a master’s thesis in a time when gun violence is a particularly contentious subject. There, I’ve made that official. Right now: “Bingeable” is the dictionary term of this programme.
I’ll go over the details and just say that the cast is fantastic in this seven-hour film (which is literally what it is; wow, Merritt Wever! Just fantastic), Sam Waterston, Kim Coates, and Scoot McNairy, and, like in many of the finest Westerns, the setting itself serves as one of the main characters. A grandiose and exquisitely captured depiction of Santa Fe in the 1880s. I mean, stunning. Howard Hawks would watch it and say, “Yup,” for example. This is undoubtedly a Western to try if you enjoy them. If not, check it out nevertheless because it will probably lure you.
Alias Grace
Created by: Sarah Polley, Mary Harron
Stars: Sarah Gadon, Edward Holcroft, Rebecca Liddiard, Zachary Levi, Kerr Logan, David Cronenberg, Paul Gross, Anna Paquin
Original Networks: CBC/Netflix
This excellent Canadian limited series is a masterful feat of tight construction, adapted by Sarah Polley from Margaret Atwood’s historical novel and helmed by Mary Harron with honest shudders of psychological dread. Alias Grace is a riveting mystery, an intricate biographical portrait, a lavishly decorated period drama, and a ferocious examination of the gap between what “the world at large” deigns to call harm and the myriad ways men cause it. It is set in Canada in 1859 and stars the brilliant Sarah Gadon as “celebrated murderess” Grace Marks. It is directed by Edward Holcroft.
Wild Wild Country
Created by: Maclain Way, Chapman Way
Original Network: Netflix
Some documentaries are committed to conveying a tale from several, conflicting angles more than others. The main interview subjects for Wild Wild Country—some cult members, some locals, and law enforcement officers in the Oregon county where the Rajneeshpuram commune was situated—appear to have lived in two distinct realities:
There would be hardly no overlap if you created a Venn diagram. The followers of guru Bhagawan Sri Rajneesh still seem to live in a different universe even forty years later. even those who ran away from the cult. including those who were charged with attempted murder, voting fraud, and even biological warfare. A guru with an ashram in Poona, India moved to an 80,000-acre ranch outside the little town of Antelope, Oregon, in the early 1980s.
From that point on, he continued to make headlines frequently for one strange act or another. They split up by the middle of the 1980s, following a string of bizarre to horrifying legal scandals. Since they were such a media curiosity at the time, there is an extraordinary abundance of archive film with which to work, and Wild Wild Country portrays their story in sumptuous detail.
It is a disjointed but mostly comprehensive account of an odd historical occurrence. It has been mostly narrated by those who were present, who rarely take sides and give room for interpretation as to which version of events is more accurate. The key insights from Wild Wild Country are absolutely pertinent:
How do we manage immigration and integration as a country? More significantly, why do we choose what we do in that environment? When a religion is permitted to establish its own government and arm its own military, what happens to the unwavering constitutional justification for the division of church and state? Is being under investigation for a murder you really tried to commit religion persecution? Does one side’s complaints invalidate the other’s concerns?
The fact that falsehoods are frequently just as harmful as salmonella or the bacteria-vectoring beavers that the cult supposedly attempted to introduce into the Antelope reservoir becomes abundantly evident. It becomes challenging to portray yourself as either a victim of persecution or an enlightened person once there is actual and symbolic poison in the well.
The English Game
Created by: Julian Fellowes, Tony Charles, Oliver Cotton
Stars: Edward Holcroft, Kevin Guthrie, Charlotte Hope, Niamh Walsh, Craig Parkinson, James Harkness
Original Network: Netflix
The timing of The English Game was relatively ideal, as sporting events were being postponed due to the coronavirus outbreak. Additionally, the great sports movies that dominated the 1980s and 1990s have been sorely underrepresented in the 21st century. So why not relax and enjoy what is effectively Chariots of Fire: The Series while some pale but fit English boys sprint about the field?
The six-part drama, from Julian Fellowes of Downton Abbey, is set in the 1870s and tells the actual story of two players from opposite sides who fundamentally alter the game. The Old Etonians, a squad that has won four FA (Football Association) cups to this point, are led by the brazenly attractive Arthur Kinnaird (Edward Holcroft), who has dominated the field for years.
In addition, the Old Etonians’ board members and chairman are also FA members. (You already recognise the issues.) The second player, Fergus Suter (Kevin Guthrie), is a little but mighty Scotsman who was recruited to play for Darwen FC, a mill town team in the north, before being courted by Blackburn. Inclusion is the most important issue that The English Game addresses (partial pun intended). This game is for whom? Although it was created by affluent Englishmen, are they its future?
Even though we are aware that the answer is “no,” it wasn’t quite evident in the 1870s. Two of the game’s top players, Fergus and Love, are Scottish and from the working class. Already a revolution, this. However, they are also changing from the Old Etonians’ playing style.
Fergus pushes his teammates to take greater risks and pass more, two things that Spanish players have developed to a high level just in the past ten years. The English Game is a simple investment and one that everyone can enjoy while under quarantine or after because of its brief run and miniseries structure (one that is a genuine miniseries, with a very obvious finale). But it’s also a tale whose issues are still prevalent in our day and age (regarding hooliganism, playing for money versus pride, the role of amateur clubs). Its responses are as well.
Who is the game aimed at? Anyone who adores it, as that should be evident. Characters frequently mention that it “gives them hope and pride and so much more” when describing the swelling crowds of fans in the stadium or those impatiently waiting for scores at bars. And for that reason, it is not only The English Game but also the beautiful one.
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Maid
Created by: Molly Smith Metzler
Stars: Margaret Qualley, Andie MacDowell, Nick Robinson, Rylea Nevaeh Whittet, Anika Noni Rose, Tracy Vilar, Billy Burke, Raymond Ablack, BJ Harrison
Original Network: Netflix Miniseres
One’s life might abruptly alter or be defined by it. This specific kind of cost-benefit analysis permeates the mind in Maid, a powerful drama on Netflix. Each quarter is important because of the little computations running in the upper right corner. Missing a dollar, though? Young mother Alex (Margaret Qualley) walks a tightrope between smiling at her daughter Maddy (Rylea Nevaeh Whittet) and maintaining a fleeting troubled frown about money. Her tightrope walk must be completed correctly to avoid alarming Maddy about how serious their stakes really are.
With a plot spread across ten one-hour episodes, Maid pays homage to its inspiration, Stephanie Land’s New York Times best-selling book Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive, thanks to the astute direction of Molly Smith Metzler. There’s a simple way to depict poverty in America that’s all shock value stills and clichés, but Maid opts for the gradual build-up, a Tetris-like operation of stacking roadblock after roadblock, with a dash of generational trauma that subtly influences characters’ decisions before they even realise it. Disasters are crafted over a long period of time.
Alex’s escape from disaster demands not just an in-depth comprehension of herself but also the ability to master the explicit survival strategies (shelter, food, gas, childcare, government programmes, protection from abuse, flexible work hours).
In Alex’s whole arc, there is a tonne of grit on display. But Maid muddies the waters of American bootstrapping myths by repeatedly highlighting how a network of assistance is necessary for one person’s survival. Beyond merely establishing a relationship, Maid demands open transparency about what it’s like to live in poverty in this country—a game of stringing together unachievable triumphs until your body gives out or you get fortunate.
Similar to how Lenny Abrahamson’s natural light pervades the play, this fragility gives it an achingly beautiful feel. But much like the programme, this light only makes Alex visible and safe while she is residing in a mansion. Visibility and attractiveness have a cost. Alex’s face is always doing the survival math, and Maid never lets the spectator forget that. The terrible mess of poverty therefore becomes the duty of the spectator, and it becomes a collective need to remove such a stain from the American story.
Giri/Haji
Created by: Joe Barton
Stars: Takehiro Hira, Kelly Macdonald, Yosuke Kubozuka, Will Sharpe
Original Network: Netflix
One of the finest shocks is Giri/Haji. The worldwide drama begins when a famous Yakuza criminal family, working with the police, assigns a Tokyo investigator named Kenzo Mori (Takehiro Hira), to covertly travel to London in pursuit of his brother Yuto (Yosuke Kubozuka), who he believed had passed away a year prior.
It is hoped that bringing Yuto back will put an end to the protracted battle that he assisted in starting between the Yakuza factions. However, Giri /Haji is full of unanticipated turns, both in its plot and in its structure, much like Kenzo’s probe into Yuto’s disappearance and feigned death. It has moments of darkness and violence, but it also has humour and compassion.
The tale of two brothers is at the heart of the narrative, but it also deals with constructed families and self-discovery. The plot is framed by a gang battle, which unfolds in many respects similar to Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels (in terms of many criminal leaders marching in the same direction); nonetheless, one of its most affecting passages occurs during a private, impromptu Yom Kippur dinner contemplating atonement.
Simply said, the series is breathtaking. And most importantly, humorous. There is a tangible and lovely sense of healing that has finished this one, even if it would be nice to spend more time in this universe with a second season.
Bodyguard
Created by: Jed Mercurio
Stars: Richard Madden, Keeley Hawes, Gina McKee, Sophie Rundle
Original Network: ITV
There are no rooftop chases, ticking clocks, or altercations with the villain’s goons in Jed Mercurio’s magnificent action film. The six-part series instead finds suspense in vigilant camerawork and precise pace, and it’s this meticulous control that makes Bodyguard deserving of becoming your next TV obsession:
It denies shortcuts and rejects ellipses until it begins to have the impact of real time. Richard Madden and the film’s Thomas Vincent and John Strickland, however, employ the approach to powerfully evoke the nation’s and protagonist David Budd’s painful vigilance rather than viewing it as a gimmick.
David, an Afghan War veteran, is given the task of defending Home Secretary Julia Montague (Keeley Hawes), a rising political star with her sights set on 10 Downing Street and a reputation as a hardliner on national security. The series is less 24 or House of Cards than Homeland at its most significant, stripped of everything save its hero’s capacity to see what others miss. The result is an inventive stacking of form atop function, all within the backdrop of a gripping political thriller.
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Unorthodox
Created by: Anna Winger, Alexa Karolinski
Stars: Shira Haas, Amit Rahav, Jeff Wilbusch
Original Network: Netflix
Unorthodox is a brief, captivating German-American television series that centres on Esty Shapiro’s (a radiant Shira Haas) flight from her Hasidic Jewish community in New York to Berlin. Esty, who is 19 and unhappy about being forced into an arranged marriage where being pregnant is the primary aim, decides to venture outside of her Williamsburg neighbourhood to discover what her future could hold. Esty starts to learn about herself, including embracing her hitherto shunned musical abilities, as she searches for her estranged mother and cautiously dabbles with secular life.
Esty is finally given the option of continuing to go forward and battle for her independence alone, or giving up and accepting a comfortable, safe life that is not her own, as her young, naive spouse Yanky (Amit Rahav) pursues her with the assistance of his disturbed cousin Moishe (Jeff Wilbusch). The four-part television series, which is based on Deborah Feldman’s 2012 autobiography Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots, is a sensitive, expertly written emotional work that is both profound and gorgeously leisurely as it progresses.
When They See Us
Created by: Ava DuVernay
Stars: Asante Blackk, Caleel Harris, Ethan Herisse, Jharrel Jerome, Marquis Rodriguez, Felicity Huffman, John Leguizamo, Michael K. Williams, Vera Farmiga
Original Network: Netflix
You are unable to turn away from When They See Us or hide from the glaring reality. Trisha Meli, then 28 years old, was viciously raped while running in Central Park on April 19, 1989, and was then left for dead. After being in a coma for 12 days, Meli was unable to recall what had happened to her or identify her assailant or assailants. The horrors of what occurred to Meli are not downplayed in the series. New York City was not pleased to see a successful white woman left for dead in the most well-known public area in America. Everyone wanted her perpetrators to be apprehended, including the mayor, district attorney, and police force.
However, somewhere along the way, Manhattan District Attorney Linda Fairstein (Felicity Huffman, in her first role since the scandal) and NYPD detectives determined to solve the crime by whatever means necessary instead of just trying to discover the real offender. The narrative itself is quite moving. But When They See Us becomes one of the year’s, if not the decade’s, greatest programmes thanks to a number of crucial choices made by Ava DuVernay. One of them is the choice of five comparatively unheard-of actors as the lads.
The “Central Park Five” were between the ages of 14 and 16 in 1989, and Rodriguez, Herisse, Jerome, Blackk, and Harris not only appear young but also convey the extreme fright and vulnerability that their real-life counterparts must have experienced. Additionally, we got to observe their relatives, who fiercely struggled for their offspring. As Korey’s mother Delores, Niecy Nash. While Raymond is abroad, Raymond’s father, played by John Leguizamo, remarries and tries to juggle his two families.
The only parent who knew enough about the system to make sure their kid didn’t sign a fake confession was Sharon Salaam, played by Aunjanue Ellis. None of them are transformed into saints by DuVernay. They all make tough choices and terrible blunders. But there is never any question about their affection for their kids. It is quite difficult to watch When They See Us. It deeply wounded me. I’m certain it will affect you similarly when you see it.
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Unbelievable
Created by: Susannah Grant, Ayelet Waldman, Michael Chabon
Stars: Toni Collette, Merritt Wever, Kaitlyn Dever
Original Network: Netflix
Unbelievable has a subtly revolutionary quality. Even though it is a narrative about rape, it is occasionally tough to watch since it is the type of series that will stick with you long after it has ended. Although its three outstanding lead actors do a superb job, their performance is not very original; other films and television programmes have also used excellent actors to portray similar tales. Instead, Unbelievable sets itself apart by making the one very important assumption that everyone watching already understands that rape is a terrible crime. It entails that you’ve taken care of that.
It’s assumed you’ve seen The Handmaid’s Tale, Boys Don’t Cry, or most recently The Nightingale and have plenty of experience witnessing rape represented in media in a visceral, nightmare-inducing manner. It is well aware that one in six women and one in 33 males on the opposite side of the screen will have personally gone through a rape or an attempted rape in their lifetimes. It has no desire to subject its audience to distress or exploitation. You are aware of how awful rape is, which is unbelievable.
It doesn’t behave voyeuristically. It is much more focused on the perspective of the survivor under the direction of showrunner Susannah Grant; on what happened to her, yes, and how it affects her, but also on the abuses that followed.
Unbelievable is a television series that is based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning piece of journalism by T. Christian Miller and Ken Armstrong (of ProPublica and The Marshall Project, respectively). Because of this series’ quiet strength, its full impact might not be felt until the episode’s finale.
The Queen’s Gambit
Created by: Scott Frank, Allan Scott
Stars: Anya Taylor-Joy, Bill Camp, Moses Ingram, Marielle Heller, Harry Melling, Thomas Brodie-Sangster
Original Network: Netflix
You may be excused for assuming that The Queen’s Gambit is based on a genuine chess player, possibly exposing us to a little-known but important player. Thank goodness it isn’t, releasing it from what may be stodgy biopic pitfalls. However, the seven-episode limited series, which is based on the same-titled 1983 novel by Walter Tevis, positively soars.
The Queen’s Gambit, an exquisitely created film set in the late 1950s and early 1960s, centres on Beth Harmon, a teenage chess prodigy (Anya Taylor-Joy). In Scott Frank’s screenplays, tragedy and fantasy dance inextricably together as Beth, an eight-year-old, is administered tranquillizers (and swiftly becomes addicted to them),
a thing that broadens her thinking but (obviously) stays with her throughout her adolescence.
The Queen’s Gambit is actually a sporting narrative, though. Never before has chess been more kinetically captivating. The manoeuvres that come so naturally to Beth are not readily explicable to viewers due to the deft editing and gorgeous montages. Although there is a depth of information that beyond common comprehension, it is never a hindrance. Beth is almost supernaturally talented; she is a master at chess but is constrained by a mind that also seeks comfort in a variety of addictions.
The Queen’s Gambit is a narrative that is typically told about a male, although despite a few of passing remarks, it’s not particularly about Beth being a woman (or more accurately, a girl). No remark has to be made by the programme.
The Queen’s Gambit delivers the captivating character narrative it wants to in an engaging way because it is a work of fiction (that title, by the way, is mentioned 33 minutes into the first episode before being dropped). Even while it might seem clear, it’s a big deal. The Queen’s Gambit is a piece of art that has good pace and a strong feeling of itself right away. It is gripping, dazzling, and completely mesmerising. Similar to Beth, it succeeds through being devoted to a passion of the game.
These are the top list of Netflix Miniseries to watch now.
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