One Of Netflix's Best Miniseries Takes Less Than 4 Hours To Binge

Published Oct 21, 2026, 8:00 PM EDT

Cathal Gunning has been writing about movies, television, culture, and politics online and in print since 2017. He worked as a Senior Editor in Adbusters Media Foundation from 2018-2019 and wrote for WhatCulture in early 2020. He has been a Senior Features Writer for ScreenRant since 2020.

One of Netflix’s best must-watch dramas is a mere four episodes long, but that doesn’t mean that the viral 2025 series is an easy watch by any means. The brevity of a TV or streaming series is not always a guarantee of its tonal levity. Just because a show is short doesn’t mean it won’t take a while to digest, as evidenced by Netflix’s gripping true crime drama When They See Us.

Based on the infamous Central Park Five case, director Ava DuVernay’s show chronicles the horrifying miscarriage of justice that saw five young Black teenage boys sent to prison for a crime they didn’t commit. Although the entire miniseries consists of only four episodes, each a little over an hour long, When They See Us is still a sobering show that lingers with the viewer long after the closing credits roll on the finale.

Similarly, the British crime drama Adolescence, created by Jack Throne and Stephen Graham and directed by Boiling Point’s Philip Barantini, tells a self-contained story that will not leave its audience for a long time. Adolescence focuses on Owen Cooper’s Jamie Miller, a 13-year-old boy who is charged with the murder of a classmate in the show’s first episode. As the series unfolds, viewers learn more about Jamie and his family, and slowly the series works its way toward the terrible event and its aftermath.

Adolescence Is A Quick Watch (But Not An Easy One)

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Each episode of Adolescence is shot in one continuous take, an approach that reaches its most audacious and impressive in episode 3’s instantly iconic extended psychiatrist interview. In a star-making turn, Adolescence’s Cooper vacillates wildly between vulnerability, aggression, manipulation, and strange moments of detached humor as he explains everything to Erin Doherty’s enraptured Briony.

While the entire series is well-paced and written, this standout episode is a true high point. Adolescence was a massive success upon release, earning an astounding 13 nominations at the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards and winning nine of them.

The show’s co-creator, British character actor Stephen Graham, shines as Jamie’s confused, heartbroken father, but Adolescence is ultimately Cooper’s calling card. Without such a strong central turn, Adolescence could easily have felt like an exploitative, ripped-from-the headlines crime procedural, but Cooper brings heart and humanity to a deeply complicated role.

Adolescence’s Audacious One-Take Approach Is Borrowed From Its Creator’s Earlier Movie

While The Haunting of Hill House’s one-take episode remains more impressive from a purely technical standpoint thanks to its many moving parts and ambitious blending of different time periods, Adolescence’s one-take approach still stands out as more than a mere gimmick. The show’s smooth camerawork and slow pacing jar with its emotional intensity, creating a strange dissonance that makes the story feel both urgent and oddly cold.

This fits the story of a character who bounces between moments of simmering, feral rage and moments of hopeless, clinical calm. However, it isn’t the first time that director Barantini experimented with the approach. The 2021 movie Boiling Point, set entirely in the chaotic kitchen of a high-end restaurant, was an earlier one-take effort from the director that also hinged on a killer central turn from Graham as head chef with anger issues.

While Boiling Point feels more like a dark episode of The Bear than a precursor to Adolescence, the movie did prove that Barantini had the technical skill to pull off the immersive Netflix drama series. Thanks to Graham and Cooper’s deservedly celebrated performances, Adolescence is a must-watch with as much style as it has substance. That said, viewers should only seek out the four-episode Netflix series if they are prepared for a brutal emotional workout, since Adolescence is no walk in the park in terms of its dark tone and grim content.