Netflix miniseries are common, but a rare few can be called masterpieces. Whether it’s a thriller, drama, or comedy, a blend of all three, or a fifth, weird thing, some Netflix original miniseries are just plain amazing. Streaming services have upped their game with original content recently, but let’s face it—Netflix kind of started the trend.
Despite lots of controversial decisions, such as one-season wonders and premature show cancellations, Netflix still has the ability to grab people’s attention and deliver stellar content. Some of these shows are still widely discussed and considered the GOATs. Grab some popcorn, settle in, and get your remotes ready—here are the 10 greatest Netflix original miniseries that can be called masterpieces.
10
‘Baby Reindeer’ (2024)
Created by Richard Gadd
Richard Gadd‘s autobiographical miniseries Baby Reindeer swept award shows, critics, and audiences off their feet with its tragicomical story. Gadd portrays a fictionalized version of himself called Donny Dunn, an aspiring stand-up comedian from Scotland looking to make it big in London. The series is pivotal, a pop culture game-changer, but it can also be very difficult to watch, especially for those suffering from PTSD or any kind of sexual trauma.
Baby Reindeer was based on Gadd’s one-man show of the same name and is based on true events; it follows Donny Dunn, an aspiring comedian and writer, who works at a London pub. When a woman named Martha (Jessica Gunning) sits at the bar and Donny treats her kindly, she begins coming back more and more, leading up to stalking. Baby Reindeer won numerous awards, including those for writing, but the standout actor of the series isn’t Gadd but Gunning, who portrays Donny’s stalker, Martha. Her incredible and immersive performance wowed everyone, opening more doors for Gunning despite her having a long-lasting career.
Baby Reindeer
- Release Date
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2024 – 2023
- Directors
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Weronika Tofilska, Josephine Bornebusch
- Writers
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Richard Gadd
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Jessica Gunning
Martha Scott
9
‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ (2023)
Created by Mike Flanagan
The most recent Mike Flanagan miniseries on Netflix is The Fall of the House of Usher, a series that would undoubtedly make Vincent Price proud. Price was the lead in most of the Edgar Allan Poe book-to-screen adaptations during the ’70s, becoming a real horror king with an undeniable legacy, and watching Flanagan’s skillful and powerful adaptation of various Poe stories into one series would likely be his cup of tea. This adaptation is named The Fall of the House of Usher, but each episode depicts one of his other stories, like Masque of the Red Death, Black Cat, and The Pit and the Pendulum, among others.
The show follows Roderick and Madeline Usher (Bruce Greenwood and Mary McDonnell), wealthy corporate bosses with a large family; Roderick has six children, and all die within two weeks under strange circumstances. Each of their deaths represents one of Poe’s stories, so, for example, Napoleon Usher (Rahul Kohli) dies because of a black cat (“Black Cat”), while Camille L’Espanaye (Kate Siegel) dies at the hands of a chimpanzee (“The Murders In the Rue Morgue”). It’s an elaborate and visually beautiful miniseries; if you like horror fantasy, this is the perfect show for you.
8
‘Maid’ (2021)
Created by Molly Smith Metzler
Maid feels like an underrated Netflix miniseries, but it was the fourth most-watched show on the streaming service in 2021. Granted, it should have been number one, but it still gained a lot of attention and praise for its moving and emotional story. The show is an adaptation of Stephanie Land‘s memoir, depicting the life of a woman who runs away from her abusive boyfriend with their toddler daughter to a safe house and starts working as a maid.
In the show, the events follow the book; Maid is about Alex (Margaret Qualley), who runs away from her emotionally abusive boyfriend, Sean (Nick Robinson). Alex settles into a safe home with her baby daughter and starts working as a maid in Seattle, frequently taking the ferry to a fictional nearby island, Fisher Island. Maid received numerous accolades, especially Qualley for her starring role; it’s a moving drama about a woman starting over, and it doesn’t dive into awkward and difficult topics haphazardly. Created with lots of care and attention, Maid is a must-watch Netflix miniseries.
7
‘Godless’ (2017)
Created by Scott Frank
One of the best Western shows of the past decade (and potentially this century) is Godless, led by Michelle Dockery and Jack O’Connell. It’s also one of the greatest seven-episode miniseries ever, and it shares that title with some other exceptional series, too. Godless has a lot of great things going for it: a visually stunning setting, a superbly talented cast, and a wild card moment—the power of a women’s ensemble. Let me tell you: the show thrills and turns into a highly rewatchable Western when women are at the forefront.
Godless is set in 1884 and follows Alice Fletcher (Dockery), a widow living with her mother-in-law and teenage son and running a small ranch in the town of La Belle. La Belle is unique because most of its residents are women, which is the result of a major mining accident that made them widows. When outlaw Roy Goode (O’Connell) arrives in La Belle, running from his vicious mentor, he stumbles into Alice’s ranch, and she nurses him back to health. Because Godless has only one season and seven episodes, the best thing to do is rewatch it whenever you want a great Western series; besides everything, the story is also completed with an outstanding musical score.
6
‘The Queen’s Gambit’ (2020)
Created by Scott Frank and Allan Scott
The Queen’s Gambit is one of the most influential miniseries of all time and, simply, one of the greatest. This seven-episode wonder gave Anya Taylor-Joy an extra boost that her career deserved, but it also did something incredibly interesting—sparked a greater interest in chess among women across the globe. In 2020, when the show came out, it was the most-watched show on Netflix, and none came close. Another accolade The Queen’s Gambit can be proud of is being the first streaming-service series to win the Emmy for Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series.
The Queen’s Gambit was based on the 1983 novel by Walter Tevis and follows the fictional chess prodigy, Beth Harmon (Taylor-Joy), throughout her teen years and adulthood. It begins in the 1950s and extends to the 60s, showing Beth’s journey as a woman in chess, including substance and alcohol abuse, and growing up an orphan. The show’s name refers to an opening move in chess, and every part of the production, from the incredible writing and performances to the musical score and costumes, is just perfection.
5
‘The Haunting of Hill House’ (2018)
Created by Mike Flanagan
Another Flanagan series here—and not the last—but it’s so hard not to put his work in the GOAT category because all of his miniseries are GOAT. The Haunting of Hill House is proof that horror is an emotional journey and often a reflection on the inner state of its protagonists; the miniseries was based on the same-named novel by Shirley Jackson, depicting the mental and emotional decline of the Crain family after moving into a haunted home. Flanagan often works with the same cast, and so Henry Thomas and Kate Siegel are in this show, too; Siegel is his wife, so that collaboration feels natural, but Flanagan really helped Thomas become a prominent horror king with Hill House specifically.
The Haunting of Hill House follows Hugh Crain (Thomas) and his wife Olivia (Carla Gugino) moving into Hill House with their five children to renovate and sell the home. However, the longer they stay, the house takes them in and makes their reality blurred; two decades later, the Crain kids return to the house that took a heavy toll on them. The particularities in Hill House are incredible, and every aspect of the show was thought out to minute detail, from wardrobe shifts to sudden background characters, color grading, and musical score. Hill House is a perfect miniseries to help you get over fear, too, because by the end of it, you’ll be sobbing.
4
‘Beef’ (2023)
Created by Lee Sung-jin
Creator and showrunner Lee Sung-jin really changed Netflix when he made Beef. This chaotic, thought-provoking miniseries sometimes delves into the surreal, but it focuses on the mental and emotional shift in two adults living completely different lives—a wealthy businesswoman and a working-class man. Ali Wong and Steven Yeun are the stars, and the rest of the cast is predominantly Asian; it’s the show that put Young Mazino, The Last Of Us‘ father of the year, on the map. Technically, OK, technically, Beef is an anthology series because Season 2 is being made as we speak, but until then, we’ll count it as a miniseries.
Beef follows Amy Lau (Wong), a small business owner married to a famous sculptor and artist, George Nakai (Joseph Lee), as she gets into a road rage incident with Danny Cho (Yeun), a struggling contractor. The further the story goes, we realize that Amy and Danny are more similar than initially imagined, with both experiencing intense anger issues and feelings of inadequacy. Beef is philosophical, hilarious, sexy, and exciting—everything a perfect miniseries needs to be.
3
‘Midnight Mass’ (2021)
Created by Mike Flanagan
OK, the third and final Flanagan—Midnight Mass—is the best Flanagan miniseries on Netflix so far. The bar is high, considering the greatness of his other work, but Midnight Mass won the approval of Stephen King, the master of horror himself, who called it his favorite project. Midnight Mass is meditative and related to religion quite a lot, so it’s understandable why some people might find it lesser than Hill House, for example, but the terror lies in this focus on religion and the overall themes that accompany it. It’s also a moody and, frankly, terrifying show that uses a lot of cerebral scares instead of jumpscares, showing terror in anticipation.
Midnight Mass is set on Crockett Island, a small island with a tight-knit community. The show follows two protagonists, outsiders coming onto Crockett Island: one is Riley (Zach Gilford), a local who’s been in prison for the past few years for killing a woman while driving drunk; the other is the new pastor, Father Paul Hill (Hamish Linklater), there to replace the island’s missing Monsignor Pruitt. The two outsiders’ arrival stirs the island’s community, and strange events start happening over the course of a couple of weeks. Chaos, panic, and fear overcome the residents, and the show becomes a masterpiece.
2
‘Adolescence’ (2025)
Created by Stephen Graham and Jack Thorne
Adolescence is the latest Netflix masterpiece that has been as influenced by social discourse as it’s influenced it since premiering. Stephen Graham, the co-lead, friend of director Philip Barantini, and the co-creator of the show, was inspired to create Adolescence when he noticed a rise in attacks on young girls across the UK. The show blends family ties and relationships with the influence of peers, social media, and internal emotional landscapes in teenagers, showing how multiple factors play a part in specifically a teenage boy’s upbringing. Graham portrays the father, Eddie, but the lead is young Owen Cooper, who is Eddie’s son Jamie and a suspect in a murder case.
Adolescence was directed by Barantini in his recognizable style—single-take episodes. Barantini and Graham worked on Boiling Point together, a one-take movie that follows the inner workings of a restaurant kitchen on a busy night, but Barantini’s directing style really comes through in Adolescence. The show opens with detectives coming to the Millers’ home to arrest Jamie, and events unfold as we learn why Jamie is suspected and then accused of murder. Graham deserves at least an Emmy for his performance in Adolescence, and we sure hope the Emmys can hear us.
1
‘When They See Us’ (2019)
Created by Ava DuVernay
When They See Us depicts the events of the April 1989 Central Park jogger case, when a woman was murdered while jogging. Though it seems like just another mistreatment of Black people at the hands of the police, these were very young boys whose lives were indefinitely impacted by trauma. The evening that the jogger was assaulted and murdered, a group of teenagers entered Central Park, and, automatically assuming them to be guilty, the police handled five Black and Latino teens roughly, bullied them, and accused them of murder, coercing confessions out of them.
Besides the tragedies and trauma that the arrested boys experienced, the show depicts the effects of the arrest on their families, too. When They See Us was created and directed by Ava DuVernay, who brought a devastating story to life with lots of emotions, mostly anger and grief. However, there’s some hope in it, too, as Korey Wise, the oldest teen, served a sentence of 14 years before being exonerated in 2002, and he continues to be an activist. Jharrel Jerome portrays Wise in one of the most hauntingly beautiful portrayals on-screen; the final episode with Wise in solitary confinement is one that will not leave your subconscious long after you’ve seen it.