Top 10 Netflix Miniseries Ranked
Watching a show can be a big commitment. Sometimes, you just want to finish a series in a single weekend, without being kept on the hook for months or even years.
If you’re in the mood for the top ten best Netflix miniseries that all neatly conclude their stories in the first season - a list including both Netflix originals and syndicated shows - read on.
But make sure to watch them soon because they might be on the list of what's leaving Netflix in May 2024.
Top 10 Netflix miniseries ranked
Netflix
Based on real events, this controversial series stars Evan Peters as Jeffrey Dahmer, a convicted killer who murdered 17 people in grisly ways. Queasy and at times veering into the exploitative, it nonetheless became Netflix's second most-watched English-language series of all time within 28 days. Thankfully, since it's a miniseries, you don’t have to spend a second season with the maniac.
Netflix
Speaking of maniacs, Cary Joji Fukunaga’s psychological drama was one of the most original shows of 2018 due to its trippy exploration of mental health. It stars Emma Stone and Jonah Hill as two strangers who participate in an experimental drug trial that sees them enter hallucinatory worlds offering insights into their own subconscious.
Netflix
In this 2023 one-season drama, two strangers get tangled up in an escalating conflict following a minor traffic incident, showing the depths you can sink when neither party is prepared to let it go. The ensuing fallout effects not just the pair involved in the incident, but soon, their entire communities. There are rumors of a second season, but apparently it won’t directly follow the first, so for now you can treat Beef as a meaty one-off.
Netflix
Harlan Coben is the master of the miniseries. From The Stranger to Stay Close, the crime writer has had eight of his novels adapted for Netflix so far, each one a taut, tense drama that can be finished in an evening or two and doesn’t outstay its welcome. Murder/mystery Fool Me Once is Coben’s latest. It follows Maya (Michelle Keegan), a widow who sees her dead husband (Richard Armitage) on a nanny cam.
Netflix
A horror miniseries masterpiece by Mike Flanagan (Doctor Sleep, The Haunting of Hill House), Midnight Mass follows a young man (Zach Gilford) who’s just finished his prison sentence. Upon returning to his hometown, he crosses paths with a mysterious new preacher (Hamish Linklater) whose motives don’t seem entirely virtuous. Also, his arrival seems to coincide with frightening omens.
Netflix
A courtroom thriller that doesn’t demand hours of your time, Anatomy of a Scandal centres on British politician James Whitehouse (Rupert Friend) who’s accused of a horrible crime. The ensuring trial turns into a media circus that dominates discourse in the country. In examining privilege and public scrutiny at both a national level and a domestic one, Anatomy of a Scandal is a true discourse generator.
Netflix
There’s one good reason this Netflix miniseries isn’t getting a follow-up: it’s based on a one-off short story by 19th-century author Edgar Allan Poe. This adaptation relocates the gothic drama to modern day, and charts the rise of powerful pharmaceutical CEO Roderick Usher followed in turn by the tragic deaths of all six of Usher’s children.
Netflix
A chronicle of the United States’ ongoing opioid crisis that takes aim at the major players. One of those is the Sackler family, founders of pharmaceutical company Purdue Pharma which manufactured and sold OxyContin (Matthew Broderick is on slimy form as Purdue exec Richard Sackler). The six-episode series doesn’t feel sensationalized, instead spotlighting the many, many victims of OxyContin addiction.
Netflix
Ever the innovator, Guillermo del Toro presents this eight-episode collection of supernatural tales, each one a standalone story with a different director at the helm. That means every episode has its own unique flavour. In Lot 36, for instance, Tim Blake Nelson plays a right-wing military veteran who discovers a book on demon summoning in an abandoned storage lot. Graveyard Rats, meanwhile, concerns a grave robber inadvertently encountering the vast underground network of a horde of rats.
Netflix
Anya Taylor-Joy achieved superstardom with her starring role in this Netflix miniseries, winning a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild Award. An adaptation of Walter Tevis’ novel of the same name, Taylor-Joy plays Beth Harmon, a troubled chess prodigy who rises through the competition to achieve international dominance. As her wins rack up, however, her unresolved trauma combined with her alcohol dependence worsens.
