With the proliferation of streamers that exists these days, it can be hard to keep up with all the great content that’s constantly debuting on the likes of Disney+, HBO’s Max, Peacock, Apple TV+, and definitely Netflix — which by itself releases an endless flood of new movies and shows every week. I suspect that, in the case of Netflix specifically, it can be such a chore to regularly identify worthwhile new series to watch that it might even make you question every now and then whether your subscription is even worth keeping.
If that includes you, then keep reading: I’m going to point out six Netflix series that, for whatever reason, might have escaped your attention up to this point or that you might not have gotten around to watching just yet for one reason or another. Some of these series are well-known, while others are less so. In my opinion, though, any of these are perfect to add to your watch list specifically if you’re struggling to find something new to watch and are open to pretty much anything.
Snabba Cash
If you love gritty crime dramas, you can check out our picks for some of the best of those available on the streamer — or you can start with this series from Sweden, which thrusts viewers into the drugs- and gangster-ridden underworld of Stockholm.
The show, the title of which means “easy money” in Swedish, follows an aspiring entrepreneur named Leya who, let’s say, grudgingly comes into contact with the world of drug trafficking by way of a deal with the devil in order to realize her dreams. The show has an intense piece, spasms of violence, and it presents a complex-yet-fascinating portrait of Stockholm’s criminal landscape in a story about power, loyalty, and redemption.
Easily a 10/10 series.
Crash Landing on You
For me, this next Netflix series is the mother of all K-dramas. The genre just doesn’t get any better than Crash Landing on You, a series of cinematic scope and beauty that packs action, drama, romance, and geopolitical intrigue into one perfect and frustratingly single-season Netflix gem. (You’ll see what I mean after you try it and get to the end. You’ll be ready to riot in support of a second season.)
The story, in brief: A rich, spoiled, South Korean heiress is swept across the border while hang-gliding during a storm and then literally crash lands into the arms of a handsome North Korean soldier. I bet you can’t guess what happens next.
The Law According to Lidia Poet
This next Netflix series is an international release with a little bit of everything — history, romance, gender politics, and plenty of mystery. The Law According to Lidia Poet, set in Turin during the late 180ss, dramatizes the story of Italy’s first female lawyer and is set in Turin during the late 1800s.
Poet is played here by a fantastic Italian actress, Matilda De Angelis. She’s never less than utterly captivating throughout the series, which finds Poet constantly surprising her opponents with her intelligence, irony, and way with words. As for the real-life Poet, she was admitted to Italy’s bar two years after graduating from law school in 1881, much to the shock of the all-male legal establishment.
She practiced law for three months before her disbarment, which came as the result of an attorney general who believed women had no place in courtrooms. That kick-started a national controversy over the decision, which ended with Poet’s re-admittance to the bar in 1920 at age 65.
Sunderland ‘Til I Die
This Netflix docuseries about the real-life Sunderland AFC football club is a marvel for so many reasons, one of which is the way it’s so much bigger than what happens on the pitch.
Sunderland ‘Til I Die is as much about professional English football as it is about the working-class town in the north of England for whom pride in a beleaguered, underdog club is one of the few things that still binds everyone together. Sunderland is a community, I should add, that also feels beaten down and a little forgotten — and certainly abandoned by the once-mighty shipbuilding and mining industries that used to underpin its economy.
“Why is it never us celebrating?” Sunderland supporter Michelle Barraclough laments at the end of season two of the Netflix series (which returned for its third and final season in February). The camera had found her on the day of the 2019 League One playoff final, when Sunderland was facing off against another historically troubled club, Charlton Athletic.
Everything about that golden May Sunday, in the packed Wembley Stadium, seemed to shimmer with opportunity. Sunderland’s eventual eleventh-hour loss, tough as it was to bear, was part of a string of one-too-many losses that bedeviled not only the team but also its fans, and their community — making Barraclough’s rhetorical question such a heartbreaking outpouring of despair: “Why is it never us?”
Sunderland ‘Til I Die doesn’t so much try to answer that question as it does to simply celebrate the underdog spirit that’s arguably the only way forward for a club and a community like Sunderland. Even the show’s achingly beautiful theme song speaks to the losses the town has suffered: “On the river where they used to build the boats / by the harbor wall, the place you loved the most …”
Kleo
There aren’t enough quality spy shows in the world if you ask me, and there are too many that rely on silly, old, and incorrect assumptions about the secret world. The German-language Netflix series Kleo is, thankfully, not one of the latter. It combines a Killing Eve-style antihero with the rich espionage storytelling potential of Cold War Europe and a killer soundtrack to produce a can’t-miss show for fans of quality spy thrillers.
“After two years in prison,” Netflix explains, “the Berlin Wall suddenly falls and Kleo is released. But she soon realizes that the conspiracy against her is much more complicated than she thought, and that an ominous red suitcase is the key to it all. Kleo thus embarks on a revenge spree that leads her through the anarchic Berlin, improvised electro clubs and Mallorcan fincas all the way to Chile’s Atacama Desert.”
All the while, a West Berlin policeman named Sven is hot on Kleo’s trail, convinced he’s closing in on the case of a lifetime. When the first season launched back in August 2022, Glamour magazine praised it as a “must-see series,” while Stephen King likewise raved: “What a breath of fresh air!” Thankfully, Netflix ordered up a second season of Kleo which will arrive on July 25. While you wait for it, aficionados of the genre can also check out these other top-notch spy series.
Fool Me Once
The plot of this, thriller adapted from Harlan Coben’s novel of the same name, feels like the kind of story you’d find in an airport bookstore. Michelle Keegan stars as Maya Stern, a woman coming to terms with the murder of her husband. But when she installs a nanny-cam to keep an eye on her daughter, she spies none other than the husband she thought was dead.
The series, in Coben’s words, tells “a shocking story of how secrets and deceit have the power to bring people together while simultaneously tearing them apart.” And Netflix viewers ate it up. The series bagged so many hours viewed that it’s currently the #7 most-watched Netflix (English) TV series of all time, and Netflix is also working on two more Coben adaptations as a result.
