These Are the Best Shows on Netflix Right Now
Have you become bored with the drama series and movies aired on your favorite TV channel? Do you wish to spend the weekend or a regular Tuesday night with a bang? Then, you’ll need to stay tuned to what we’ve got for you in our carefully curated list of the best shows on Netflix right now!
It’s important to watch something you’d love, fear not — we’re here to help. Below we’ve put together a comprehensive list of highly recommended TV shows available on Netflix right now. It’s a rich collection that covers a myriad of genres, lengths, countries of origins, and a whole lot more. They’re very intriguing movies that’ll keep you on your seat and glued to the TV.
Bodyguard
Creator: Jed Mercurio
Cast: Richard Madden, Keeley Hawes, Gina McKee, Sophie Rundle, and Paul Ready
Bodyguard should come with a viewer’s discretion warning, as there are several stretches of anxiety-inducing, with such unbearable tension, that can make anyone jump out of their seats and leave the room. In fact at some point during the movie, I actually turned between pausing or discontinuing the movie altogether. My heart kept pounding as I attempted to rationalize whether or not the story could really do this or that, right?
The 6-episode Netflix’s series is produced by Jed Mercurio and was first aired on the BBC (before staggering viewership numbers). In the movie, the metropolitan police officer who is known as David Budd (Richard Madden), a renowned war veteran who uses his special skills while off-duty in diverting a major terrorist attack in the first fifteen minutes of the series. Though Bodyguard is in no way interested in becoming Jason Bourne or Jack Ryan, what makes this series stand out — despite all of those super-tense moments — is how well Madden sells his badass character as someone who also has deep emotional connections and is compassionate towards many. David, on the other hand, is tasked with being the bodyguard for a Conservative Home Secretary-Julia Montague (Keeley Hawes), the show really gets intriguing and ramps up its tension (and sexiness). Ultimately, the show offers viewers an exhilarating ride that truly showcases Madden as a major talent to look out for, one who will stop at nothing and is capable of not just leading Winterfell bannermen in Game of Thrones, but leading the Bodyguard series as well as others.
Mad Men
Created By: Matthew Weiner
Cast: Jon Hamm, January Jones, Elisabeth Moss, John Slattery, Vincent Kartheiser, Christina Hendricks, Robert Morse, Kiernan Shipka, Jared Harris, Rich Sommer, and Aaron Staton
This action-packed series may not have gained recognition much with the Emmys in recent years; however, it remains one of the best shows ever aired on television. The final episode of the series gave the show a near-perfect ending that is worth the watch.
Matthew Weiner- the creator of the show used his years of experience on The Sopranos in producing much of Mad Men’s episodes which took the form of short novels. For Weiner, a character is king, and that was the approach he took in creating Mad Men, which means sometimes we might not necessarily need to focus on all the characters in a given episode. Weiner was also able to capture the story using different seasons in each episode allowing for the full thematic weight of each installment to sink in, and connecting the dots from one event to the next.
It’s difficult to mention those standout episodes as the list is endless, so if you’ve been putting off watching this new classic you might want to reconsider. Check it out on Netflix right now and you won’t be disappointed. – Adam Chitwood
The Haunting of Hill House
Creator: Mike Flanagan
Cast: Carla Gugino, Michiel Huisman, Kate Siegel, Mckenna Grace, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Elizabeth Reaser, Victoria Pedretti, Lulu Wilson, Timothy Hutton, Violet McGraw, Julian Hilliard,
The creator Mike Flanagan the popular game filmmaker for Hush and Gerald brings one of his best Netflix projects yet with The Haunting of Hill House.
Inspired by Shirley Jackson’s seminal ghost story, most of the series carries none of Jackson’s narrative (though occasionally too much of her prose), instead, it focuses more on the haunted lives of the withering Crain family. The Crain’ spent their summer in the haunted titular mansion which saw them endure years of grief and trauma as a result. Flanagan’s previous works show how much fondness he has for upsetting visuals and well-composed scares, but he was able to successfully balance that out in The Haunting of Hill House by creating a rich and intertwining tale of the family life with so much tragedy. It was brilliantly led by a spectacular ensemble, with a good mix of emotional revelation and moments of horror capable of giving anyone full-body chills. It’s been referred to as the most moving and honest portrayal of mortality and grief this side of Six Feet Under, but then, you should be expecting a night filled with more nightmares. — Haleigh Foutch
The Office (U.S.)
Created by: Greg Daniels
Cast: Steve Carell, John Krasinski, Jenna Fischer, Rainn Wilson, B.J. Novak, Melora Hardin, Mindy Kaling, Angela Kinsey, Phyllis Smith, Craig Robinson, Ellie Kemper, B.J. Novak, Oscar Nunez, Paul Lieberstein, Amy Ryan, James Spader, and Ed Helms
The American version of The Office wasn’t so great after all, this is actually no surprise since most U.S. remakes of U.K. TV shows aren’t so good. Although it may not have been one of the best shows on Netflix at the time, the 6-episode first season showed much promise with Steve Carell’s committed performance, though the story was seriously lacking from a story and character point of view.
Most parts of the last few episodes focused more on what was working, leading to the show’s second season, which stands as one of the best Netflix series 2018 and the best seasons of comedy ever aired on television. From there, the show was golden, despite it being new on Netflix, it witnessed the launching of a terrifically involved will they/won’t they with Jim and Pam, and unveiling Michael Scott as an incredibly frustrating yet human character.
Adam Chitwood sees it as a crime that Carell never won an Emmy for his phenomenal performance and role all through the course of the show’s run, and while the series itself may have overstayed its welcome by two or three seasons, it still remains a positive, delightful, and worthwhile watch at just about any time for everyone.
Breaking Bad
Created by: Vince Gilligan
Cast: Bryan Cranston, Anna Gunn, Aaron Paul, Dean Norris, Betsy Brandt, RJ Mitte, Bob Odenkirk, Jonathan Banks, and Giancarlo Esposito
It’s not impossible for Breaking Bad to gain the spot as the most influential TV drama ever or the best Netflix series 2018. Creator Vince Gilligan did an excellent job in making a single story arc over the course of five seasons: This had chemistry teacher Walter White (Bryan Cranston) from Mr. Chips to Scarface. That arc tracks, but brings about an engaging, twisty, and character-rich story with a good mix of deeply emotional and edge-of-your-seat thrilling entertainment. New on Netflix, the show begins with the gentle White receiving a terminal cancer diagnosis report and opting to go into the crystal meth trade to put together enough money to leave behind for his beloved family. But as the story unfolds and obstacles arise, Walter White then becomes far more dangerous and terrifying—or perhaps he had always been that way, bubbling under the surface? – Adam Chitwood
Friends
Created by: Marta Kauffman and David Crane
Cast: Jennifer Aniston, David Schwimmer, Courteney Cox, Matthew Perry, and Matt Le Blanc
Friends show is one of the most watchable series ever aired. When it first launched in 1994, it marked a groundbreaking series. Typically most sitcoms at the time were mostly about families or workplaces, but Friends was one of the first TV shows that dared to zero in on the relationships between a number of friends who were then exploring adulthood. The chemistry between them was killer right off the bat, despite the changing roles of the characters evolving and shifting over the first couple of seasons, the comedy started out incredibly early—which is a rare event in the world of sitcoms. Audiences easily grew to love these characters, and the writers did an incredibly well in ensuring that the show remained fresh for 10 seasons. While most of these jokes were written about 2 decades ago, they still appeal to today’s audience. However, the characters aired in the series made this one of the best TV shows ever made. – Adam Chitwood
Documentary Now!
Created by: Fred Armisen, Bill Hader, Seth Meyers, and Rhys Thomas
Cast: Bill Hader, Fred Armisen, and Helen Mirren
One of the remarkable surprises of 2015 was the IFC comedy series-Documentary Now! This had the ensemble of the brainchild of Bill Hader, Fred Armisen, Seth Meyers, and Rhys Thomas. The series had something of a mockumentary anthology, with each half-hour episode took the format of a famous or groundbreaking documentary genre where Hader and Armisen gave it a comedy twist. The audience was entertained with a series of hilarious installments that saw acts from Grey Gardens to The Thin Blue Line to Behind the Music, and the show’s magnum opus-the tremendous VICE-spoofing installment “DRONEZ: The Hunt for El Chingon.” Documentary Now! Remains a must-watch for everyone, it’s that simple, especially if you happen to be of the cinephile persuasion. – Adam Chitwood
GLOW
Created by: Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch
Cast: Alison Brie, Betty Gilpin, Sydelle Noel, Britney Young, Marc Maron, Britt Baron, Kate Nash, Gayle Rankin, Kia Stevens, Jackie Tohn, and Chris Lowell
We know the best shows on Netflix and those that are new on Netflix, but Netflix original series like GLOW has had one of the most original premises in recent TV history: It records the chronicles of the life of a fledgling professional wrestling promotion known as the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling. Many aspiring actresses and women auditioned for various roles and agreed to take up a new challenge at a wholly new field. Marc Maron the schlock B-movie director is bent on turning GLOW into a show, while Alison Brie was featured as a theater nerd and aspiring actress taking things all way too seriously, and Betty Gilpin the Brie’s former friend and soap opera star become the centerpiece of the wrestling event. Season 1 is intriguingly delightful, but Season 2 has a lot more for the audience making it one of the best shows on Netflix TV ever produced.
It’s purely joyous, focused, character-rich, and wildly entertaining, and did I mention the banging’ 80s soundtrack? – Adam Chitwood
Mindhunter
Created by: Joe Penhall
Cast: Jonathan Groff, Holt McCallany, Anna Torv, Hannah Gross, and Cotter Smith
Executive produced and run by David Fincher, the Mindhunter is still fairly new on Netflix but has one of the best TV shows of 2017. The series is actually based on true-life events that followed right from the early days of the FBI’s criminal profiling unit in the late 1970s. Two special FBI agents Holden Ford (Jonathan Groff) and Bill Tench from the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit, were saddled with the duty of interviewing imprisoned serial killers to understand why they committed such crimes, this, in turn, was to help in creating a profile for the FBI to catch these kinds of killers. This methodical, wildly engrossing, yet surprisingly funny show had Fincher himself direct four out of the season’s 10 episodes, resulting in another terrific piece of filmmaking. It’s definitely an addictive series and one to watch which refuses to go down easy, instead has succeeded in finding brand new ways of telling old stories have been told countless times, and as a result, offers wholly insights into human behavior. Oh yeah, in case you didn’t know, it’s deliciously entertaining. – Adam Chitwood
