This might not apply to every work of art, but it is often the guiding principle for an exceptional miniseries. There’s more at stake in this format, as these stories demand a tighter focus with little to no filler. A shorter runtime also means the freedom to focus exclusively on character motivations, with environmental storytelling doing most of the heavy lifting.
Real-life horrors can also serve as inspiration, which is the case with HBO’s Chernobyl, which uses five harrowing episodes to examine a catastrophic tragedy and the true cost of it. At other times, an existing franchise can lead to an in-universe offshoot like Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, whose first installment is the definition of perfect storytelling. Netflix is home to a wide variety of miniseries, thanks to an audience that is increasingly partial to the binge-watch model.
Although the results have been a mixed bag, several competent miniseries are Netflix originals. Without further ado, here are 10 near-perfect Netflix miniseries with less than 10 episodes each. In Unorthodox, a young Jewish woman named Esty (Shira Haas) escapes an ultra-conservative community and unhappy marriage to seek refuge with her estranged mother in Berlin.
The adjustment period is grueling, since it isn’t easy to let go of the beliefs Esty grew up with. With her husband on the lookout for her whereabouts, Esty must outrun the life she left behind while embracing a new one. Unorthodox accomplishes a lot with only four episodes, with Haas’ lead performance creating a compelling look at one woman’s difficult internal struggles.
This is an atypical coming-of-age story about breaking free from societal shackles and living life on one’s own terms. It’s tempting to classify Bodies as a tense procedural, but this genre-hybrid whodunnit is also an enthralling sci-fi mystery. The story follows the sudden appearance of a dead body in London — not just in the present timeline, but in four different points in time.
The same body crops up in the same area, prompting four investigators to get to the bottom of the case with the fragmented facts available to them. But is carrying out a thorough investigation without good old time travel even possible? Bodies makes the most out of this fun premise, allowing each time period to approach the same dilemma through a distinct lens.
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