8 Netflix Shows That Deserve a Place Among TV's All-Time Greatest, Ranked
Jiminna Shillingford is an avid reader and a passionate storyteller. She is obsessed with all things TV, from anime and romantic fantasy to action-packed series. With that deep affection, Jiminna longs to share her excitement with all her readers through the Collider platform as a TV author. Through her writing she has created stories and blog posts of amazing book recommendations, showcasing her love of writing. Jiminna's goal is to inspire others to discover and embrace their love of stories in all of its forms.
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Among some of Netflix's finest releases, there are a select few that truly stand out, solid gems that are often discussed alongside some of TV's all-time greatest. The streaming platform's select few go way beyond being simply popular or binge-worthy — they offer unforgettable characters, sharp writing, bold visuals, emotional depth, and a truly impressive level of storytelling that lingers with viewers long after the credits roll.
Netflix series like the video game adaptation Arcane, which stuns with its epically beautiful visuals, and the brilliant but terribly bleak animated icon BoJack Horseman, which is just as darkly humorous as it is devastating, are two gems on the platform that prove that streaming television can stand among some of the most respected shows ever created. Compiled on this list are some of Netflix's finest all-time greats that definitely deserve a place among TV's best. The shows are ranked based on the strength of their writing, performances, visual identity, cultural impact, consistency, and overall contribution to Netflix's reputation for prestige television.
8 'Blue Eye Samurai' (2023–Present)
Blue Eye Samurai is one of Netflix’s more recent animated masterpieces that already stands as one of the platform’s greats. Blue Eye Samurai is set in 17th-century Edo-period Japan, following the sword master, Mizu (Maya Erskine), who is traveling disguised as a man as she pursues foreign men who may be connected to her birth.
Blue Eye Samurai earns its place in this discussion of TV’s all-time greatest because it transforms revenge into something beautiful, emotionally captivating, and extraordinarily brutal. The series masterfully connects action to shame, identity, rejection, and survival. Blue Eye Samurai may essentially be the “new kid” on the block, but it's definitely left its mark on those who have happened across the incredibly entertaining action series. Its composition borrows from Japanese art, chanbara, westerns, graphic novels, and live-action blocking, all without ever settling into imitation, marking it as one of the most powerful viewing experiences that masterfully carries the weight of classic samurai storytelling.
7 'Sense8' (2015–2018)
Sense8 easily makes this list, even when it's one of Netflix’s most underrated sci-fi gems. The series follows eight strangers across the globe — police officer Will Gorski (Brian J. Smith), DJ Riley Blue (Tuppence Middleton), hacker Nomi Marks (Jamie Clayton), actor Lito Rodriguez (Miguel Ángel Silvestre), pharmacist Kala Dandekar (Tina Desai), businesswoman and fighter Sun Bak (Bae Doona), safe-cracker Wolfgang Bogdanow (Max Riemelt), and bus driver Capheus Onyango (Toby Onwumere) — as they realize they share a connection that allows them to experience one another’s memories, skills, emotions, thoughts, languages, and danger.
From epic visuals to a masterful action story, Sense8 stands as a quality series that is far too rarely talked about. The show lingers among the greatest of TV because it's genuinely one of Netflix’s most ambitious works of art. Very few television shows even come close to matching its boldness and sincerity. With its premise exploring love, culture, sexuality, and identity across different lives and countries, Sense8 earns its status as a rare great that is worthy of all-time recognition.
6 'Ozark' (2017–2022)
This crime drama leaves its mark on its viewers because it consistently builds tension. Ozark centers around Marty Byrde (Jason Bateman), a financial adviser, who moves his family to the Missouri Ozarks after a money-laundering scheme for the Mexican drug cartel goes wrong and forces him to launder millions more, while desperately trying to keep himself and his family safe.
Ozark is one of the best crime series produced by Netflix, and it has earned its spot in discussions regarding the platform’s all-time greatest because it transforms what could have been a pretty generic crime premise into a relentless story about survival, family, and moral collapse. The show is a bundle of tension as it makes every choice feel dangerous, even when characters are in mostly quiet moments, biding their time. Ozark is quite the thrilling watch that Netflix subscribers have frequently praised for its efforts in showcasing an intense and incredibly unpredictable crime story, easily making it a genuinely fantastic all-time great among TV’s best, for that alone.
5 'Stranger Things' (2016–2025)
This extremely iconic sci-fi series is so deserving of its spot among TV’s finest because it’s somehow so much more than one of Netflix’s biggest hits — it became one of the shows most tied to the platform itself. Stranger Things follows the disappearance of Will Byers (Noah Schnapp), which leads his friends, local cops, mother, and brother to a mysterious girl with supernatural abilities called Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown).
Stranger Things is a sci-fi experience unlike any other. It’s a brilliant mixture of coming-of-age drama, sci-fi, horror, and 1980s nostalgia. The show has impressive cultural reach for a series that initially started out as a small-town mystery, only to explode into a massive sci-fi horror adventure that viewers find difficult to turn away from. Stranger Things definitely belongs on this list of Netflix's greatest because it helped define what a modern streaming icon could look like on TV.
Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes Which Netflix Character Would Be Your Best Friend? Dustin · Emily · Wednesday · Gi-hun
Some friends drag you out of the house. Some sit with you on the worst night of your life. Netflix has written both, plus the one who tells you the truth you have been avoiding all week. Answer eight quick questions about how you actually do friendship, and find out which of them was always going to end up in your corner.
🧢Dustin(Stranger Things)
🗼Emily(Emily in Paris)
🕷️Wednesday(Wednesday)
🟢Gi-hun(Squid Game)
01
How do you usually end up making a new friend? The origin story says a lot about the friendship that follows it.
02
What is a perfect Saturday with your best friend? Friendship is mostly built out of very ordinary hours.
03
You call them at two in the morning. What happens? This is the real test of a friendship, and everybody knows it.
04
What do you want from them when you are clearly wrong? The best friendships are the ones that survive being corrected.
05
What do your friends actually value about you? The friend you attract says something about the friend you are.
06
You have a falling out. How does it go? How a friendship repairs itself matters more than how it breaks.
07
What do you actually need a best friend for? Everybody is missing something. The right friend fills that gap.
08
Ten years from now, what keeps the two of you close? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides who you get.
The Group Chat Has Spoken Your Best Friend Is…
Four Netflix characters, four completely different ways of showing up for somebody. This is the one who fits how you actually do friendship, and what having them in your life would be like.
Dustin Henderson
You do not do friendship at half volume, and neither does he. What you want is somebody who says yes to the plan before you have finished describing the plan.
- Dustin is the friend the entire show runs on: loyal past the point of sense, enthusiastic about everything, and incapable of leaving anybody behind.
- You have the same instinct. Your friendships are loud, specific and slightly ridiculous, and they last for decades because of it.
- He is also the one person who would take your strangest interest completely seriously, which is far rarer than it sounds.
- You would have a group chat. It would never once be quiet.
Emily Cooper
You are the friend who makes things happen, and so is she. Together you would be mildly exhausting to everyone around you and completely delighted with yourselves.
- Emily treats an ordinary Tuesday as something that could be turned into an occasion, which is either the best or the worst quality in a friend depending on your energy levels.
- You share her refusal to sit still. Neither of you has ever accepted a night in when something was happening somewhere else.
- She is far more loyal than people give her credit for. She defends her friends loudly, publicly, and occasionally before checking the facts.
- She would post the photo without asking. You would forgive her, because it is a very good photo.
Wednesday Addams
You have no patience for pleasant lies, and she has no ability to tell them. What looks like coldness from the outside is the most reliable friendship on this list.
- Wednesday never says a kind thing she does not mean, which makes the rare ones count for an enormous amount.
- You would rather be told the truth than be made comfortable. She is constitutionally incapable of offering you anything else.
- Underneath all of it she is ferociously protective. She simply refuses to make a performance out of caring.
- Do not expect a birthday message. Do expect her to ruin anyone who wrongs you.
Seong Gi-hun
You look after whoever is having the worst day. So does he. It is the least strategic way to move through the world and the best possible quality in a friend.
- Gi-hun is not the strongest player in Squid Game, or the cleverest. He is the one who keeps choosing to protect somebody else, over and over, at genuine cost to himself.
- You have the same instinct. You notice who is struggling and you stay with them, long after anybody would blame you for leaving.
- He is a flawed friend, and that is part of why it lands. He lets people down, then comes back and tries again, which is more than most manage.
- He would give you his last chance and never once mention that he had done it.
4 'Black Mirror' (2011–Present)
Black Mirror is Netflix's brilliant anthology sci-fi series that’s quite easy to debate, discuss, and genuinely remember. Each of the series' episodes is a complete story, which often uses technology, artificial intelligence, media, surveillance, and digital obsession to expose something quite chilling about human behavior.
Black Mirror is practically a Netflix icon, one that often delivers episodes that feel like short films which stay in the mind long after the credits roll. The anthology series may not have invented technological dystopia, but it definitely updated The Twilight Zone's model for social platforms, smartphones, virtual identity, machine learning, and platform capitalism with enough clarity that the series has become one of TV’s most unsettling and brilliantly recognizable examinations of humanity’s increasing dependence on modern tech. Black Mirror is absolutely one of Netflix’s bleakest series, but it also happens to be one of the platform's defining greats.
3 'Arcane' (2021–2024)
This Netflix animated series easily earns its place among TV’s all-time greatest. Adapted from the League of Legends universe, Arcane is set in the divided world of Piltover and Zaun, centering on sisters Vi (Hailee Steinfeld) and Powder, later known as Jinx (Ella Purnell), whose relationship is ripped apart due to tragedy as political tensions rise and conflict between the two cities threatens to change their lives forever.
Arcane is not only visually stunning, but it is also emotionally devastating. The Netflix animation is both confident and extremely controlled. There is no doubt that it's one of the streaming platform’s greatest masterpieces, which defiantly raised the bar for what animated TV and adaptations in general could achieve. Arcane is incredibly beautiful, so much so that viewers are able to pause at almost any frame and be hit with a face full of wonder. But in reality, its beauty isn’t even the show’s greatest strength; no, in fact, its most incredible achievements come from the tragedy of its characters and the consequences of their choices. Arcane is a memorable watch that lands itself on this list because, with visuals alone, it outpaces several in its genre.
2 'BoJack Horseman' (2014–2020)
BoJack Horseman masterfully mixes absurdity, sadness, emotional realism, and satire, becoming one of Netflix’s most defining animated shows. Set in a world populated by humans and anthropomorphic animals, the series focuses on BoJack Horseman (Will Arnett), a washed-up 1990s sitcom star, who is trying to reignite his fame while tackling addiction, loneliness, depression, and crippling depression.
BoJack Horseman does initially look like a pretty absurd Hollywood cartoon, but it's quite the emotional series. The show is actually extremely bleak, a mirror held up to its audience, as it doles out painfully honest examinations of depression, trauma, and the difficulty of trying to become a truly better person after repeatedly hurting those that matter. BoJack Horseman can easily claim its status as an all-time great because it’s incredibly raw and real, with a story that refuses to make light of rather serious topics and a protagonist who's extremely flawed, making it an icon in its own right.
1 'Mindhunter' (2017–2019)
This underrated masterpiece is definitely worthy of the status as one of the all-time greatest shows ever made because it transforms crime investigation into something deeply unsettling, quiet, and intelligent. Mindhunter focuses on FBI agents Bill Tench (Holt McCallany) and Holden Ford (Jonathan Groff), who begin interviewing imprisoned serial killers in the hopes of understanding how they think and using their findings to help solve ongoing murder cases.
Mindhunter doesn’t rely on constant scenes of fast-paced arrests or acts of violence, but instead spends its runtime focusing on the difficult conversations that eventually sparked change in how serial killers were being understood. The series stands out because very few Netflix dramas are as impeccably controlled or psychologically sharp, as it delivers a fantastic procedural idea but expertly elevates it with a chilling study of obsession, behavior, power, and the language people tend to use when explaining terrible deeds. Mindhunter is one of the most deserving to be recognized as an all-time great Netflix watch because there’s never a dull moment with the captivating series, with episode after episode of brilliant precision.
Mindhunter
- Release Date
- 2017 - 2019
- Network
- Netflix
- Showrunner
- Joe Penhall
- Directors
- David Fincher, Carl Franklin, Andrew Dominik, Andrew Douglas, Asif Kapadia, Tobias Lindholm
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