From Wednesday to Alias Grace, here are the best miniseries on Netflix to add to your watchlist.
Miniseries have become one of the most popular storytelling formats in recent years, all thanks to streaming platforms like Netflix. In an era when social platforms like Tiktok entice us to consume media in a very rapid manner, our brains are way more susceptible to binge-watch series that don’t require that much of our free time. There’s an overwhelming number of new movies and TV shows coming out every month, hence why we’re more likely to choose a limited series to watch next, in order to keep up with everything.
In this regard, Netflix is one of the leading providers of miniseries that are binge-worthy. Indeed, every month, the streamer continuously adds new TV series just as quickly as it cancels them. As such, there's virtually no shortage of stuff to watch. Let's take a look at Netflix miniseries that you should definitely watch next, if you haven’t already.
It's been a few weeks since its release on Netflix, and Wednesday has already managed to surpass Dahmer's streaming numbers as the second most popular English-language series on the platform. Based upon the character of Wednesday Addams from The Addams Family, played by Jenna Ortega, this time, the coming-of-age mystery horror series was created by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar. Four out of the eight episodes are directed by Tim Burton. The plot follows the titular character as she attempts to solve a monster mystery at her new school. Ortega has already earned a Golden Globe nomination for her performance in the gothic series.
Based on the Russian film The Major, Seven Seconds is a crime drama series created, executive produced, and showrun by Veena Sud. The plot follows the aftermath tensions between Black citizens and white cops in Jersey City, after one of the cops kills a teenager in a hit-and-run accident. Clare-Hope Ashitey plays assistant prosecutor KJ, who wants to prosecute the "accident" as a hate crime. But the more the case dags on, the more tense the situation becomes. The thick Jersey accent will be stuck in your brain by the end of the miniseries, and there's a high possibility you'll cry your eyes out every other scene, but the watch is worth it.
Written and directed by Hugo Blick, Black Earth Rising is a British television series that later began streaming on Netflix. The story centers around Kate Ashby (Michaela Coel), a Rwandan-born English legal investigator, who is also the survivor of the Rwandan genocide. When her adoptive mother Eve takes a case following the prosecution of an international war criminal — a Rwandan militia leader — the story becomes personal for Kate. The miniseries takes a global approach to race, injustice, and personal intergrity. It's a wonder that the series didn't sweep every single European and American awards show.
Written and directed by Scott Frank and starring Jack O'Connell and Michelle Dockery in the main roles, Godless is a Western drama. Set in 1884, the Netflix miniseries follows a young outlaw on the run from his vengeful ex-mentor. He somehow winds up in a remote New Mexico town populated almost entirely by women. The series was named one of the year's 10 best by The Washington Post and Vanity Fair. Even if you've never watched a Western before and your only incentive is O'Connell, you'll most likely enjoy the miniseries a lot.
Unorthodox is the first Netflix series to be primarily in Yiddish. It's a German drama miniseries inspired by Deborah Feldman's 2012 autobiography, Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots, and directed by Maria Schrader. The story follows 19-year-old Esty, who lives among the Satmar sect of the ultra-Orthodox community in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Unhappy in her arranged marriage, she decides to flee from her family to Berlin, but the past seems to always catch up to her. It stars acclaimed actors that you've probably never heard of, such as Shira Haas, had extremely positive reviews from major magazines, and ended up receiving eight Primetime Emmy Award nominations. In other words: you should drop everything and watch it now.
Based on events of the 1989 Central Park jogger case, when a white woman was assaulted while jogging, When They See Us is crime drama series created by Ava DuVernay. It spans across a quarter of a century and follows five young men who were falsely accused of the crime. It centers around their lives, their fight for justice, exoneration in 2002 ,and ultimately the settlement reached with the city of New York in 2014. The cast features all Emmy nominees and winners, such as Jharrel Jerome, Asante Blackk, Jovan Adepo, Michael K. Williams, and Logan Marshall-Green. What's admirable about the retelling of the real events is that the real Central Park 5 were involved in the process of telling their own story. The five men were later interviewed by Oprah Winfrey herself in a Netflix special.
Based on the 2015 news article "An Unbelievable Story of Rape," Unbelievable is a true crime drama miniseries starring Toni Collette, Merritt Wever, and Kaitlyn Dever. It's about a series of rapes in Washington State and Colorado, specifically about a teen that reports her rape and then recants her story because no one believed her. Two women detectives take the case and do their best to reveal the truth. The amazing thing that the miniseries achieved was creating a compelling crime show without giving any recognition to the attacker. It asserts that the pathology of male psychopaths is not as interesting as the weight of trauma on the victims.
Based on Margaret Atwood's 1996 novel of the same name, Alias Grace is a Canadian miniseries directed by Mary Harron and written by Sarah Polley. It follows the character of Grace Marks (Sarah Gadon), an Irish immigrant whose job is a maid, as she gets convicted for the murder of her employer. When a psychiatrist arrives to evaluate her mental state, things get tricky. The question whether she should be pardoned due to insanity enters the case. What's interesting is that while we devour the series, we also realize that Grace is a very flawed and complex main character, who's an extremely unreliable narrator and remains an enigma until the very last scene.
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