We’ve all been overwhelmed by streaming TV choices, only to give up and watch something you’ve already seen. But this curated list of the best shows on Netflix is here to narrow down your choices and help you figure out exactly which titles you want to sample next. 

Band Of Brothers (2001)

After collaborating on both the wildly popular miniseries From The Earth To The Moon and the feature film Saving Private Ryan, Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg re-teamed as executive producers on HBO’s Band Of Brothers. Based on Stephen E. Ambrose’s nonfiction book of the same name, this scripted miniseries tells the story of “Easy Company,” a parachute infantry regiment, from training through the end of the Second World War. The writing staff includes future Justified EP Graham Yost; the cast includes such not-yet-famous faces as Damian Lewis (Billions), Ron Livingston (Search Party), Matthew Settle (Gossip Girl), and Michael Cudlitz (The Walking Dead). The miniseries would go on to be nominated for 20 Emmy awards, winning 7; we’ll see if Hanks and Spielberg can repeat this success with Masters Of The Air, starring Austin Butler, premiering this month on Apple TV+.

Beckham (2023)

Though Fisher Stevens is best known to some TV fans as Succession’s intermittently competent comms pro Hugo, he also has a thriving career as a documentarian. The subject of his new four-part docu-series (thanks to matchmaking by Stevens’s former collaborator Leonardo DiCaprio, apparently) is world-famous soccer star David Beckham, who gives Fisher and his crew unprecedented access to tell the story of his life—and of his love, wife Victoria Beckham. It’s one of the best documentaries on Netflix.

Black Mirror (2011)

Comedy writer Charlie Brooker stepped out of his primary genre for this sci-fi anthology series. In the style of The Twilight Zone, each episode tells a self-contained story, generally about a dystopic application or evolution of technology we are familiar with. (The titular Black Mirror refers to the look of a TV, computer, or phone screen when it’s turned off.) What if you lived in a bunker and pedaled a stationary bike for hours on end to earn “merits” for your food and entertainment? Can a computer simulation permit our consciousness to outlast our physical forms? What if a popular streaming platform eavesdropped on your phone and turned your life into a drama series starring a CGI Salma Hayek? These are just a few questions raised over Black Mirror’s run, which will continue soon: in November, the show was picked up for a seventh season.

Carol & The End Of The World (2023)

Many stories that speculate about what the apocalypse may be like revolve around characters whose proximity to annihilation decide not to go out without attempting experiences that have always scared them. In Carol & The End Of The World, from Rick & Morty producer Dan Guterman, the titular Carol (voice of Martha Kelly) would actually prefer it if she could ignore external realities such that her life doesn’t really change at all. The voice talent in this quietly beautiful dramedy includes Beth Grant as Carol’s mother, Bridget Everett as her sister, and Michael Chernus as a potential love interest.

Crashing (2016)

Though American audiences may know her best from Fleabag, Phoebe Waller-Bridge had, by then, already created and starred in another TV series: Crashing, a hit on Britain’s Channel 4, now one of the best comedy shows on Netflix. Here, she plays Lulu, one of several twentysomethings whose precarious finances have led them to precarious accommodations: living cheaply as property guardians in a former hospital. Waller-Bridge’s castmates include Susan Wokoma (the just-ended 16th series of Taskmaster) and Jonathan Bailey (the just-ended Fellow Travelers).

The Devil’s Plan (2023)

Producer/director Jeong Jong-yeon would already be a reality TV legend if all he’d done was The Genius, a fiendishly complex game of skill, strategy, and insight. But we’re lucky he’s gone on from fiendish to diabolical with The Devil’s Plan. Twelve extremely impressive contestants—including an MIT-trained lawyer, a professional poker player who studies biomedical sciences on the side, and an actor/inventor/MSc in evolutionary psychology—face off in tests of their intelligence…but there’s a social game too. Watch along with one of the best reality shows on Netflix and ponder how far YOU might get.

Élite (2018)

Gossip Girl and Euphoria are so local. If you’re looking for a scandalously sexy teen drama, you need Élite. Set at and around fictional high school Las Encinas, in Madrid, the show follows three scholarship students as they mix and mingle with their rich peers. And if you also miss Pretty Little Liars, good news: there’s a mystery story, too. The seventh season just arrived October 20.

Girlfriends (2000)

One of the shows that put UPN on the map and survived to the CW era, Girlfriends—created by award-winning Moesha producer Mara Brock Akil—revolves around four friends in Los Angeles. Lawyer Joan (Tracee Ellis Ross) is the hub to whom the other characters are all connected. Toni (Jill Marie Jones) is a real estate agent who’s been Joan’s friend since high school; Lynn (Persia White) roomed with Toni and Joan at UCLA, and despite her five post-graduate degrees has struggled to zero in on a career; and Maya (Golden Brooks) starts out as Joan’s assistant. If you’ve never watched the show, or just haven’t revisited it since its series finale in 2008, dig in: there are eight big seasons of this outstanding comedy series waiting for you.

Good Girls (2018)

Three Michigan moms—sisters Beth (Christina Hendricks, whose Apple TV+ series The Buccaneers just wrapped its first season) and Annie (Mae Whitman); and Ruby (Retta), their friend since all three were teens—run into pressing financial difficulties at the same time. What if they solved all their problems at once by robbing the supermarket where Annie works? Seems like a winning plan until they find out the store is entangled in a complex criminal operation, and that the only way they can avoid disaster is to let themselves get recruited to work in it themselves. Treat yourself to four seasons of one of Netflix’s best crime dramedies.

Hilda (2018)

Hilda (voice of The Last of Us’s Bella Ramsey) used to live in a forest cabin with her mother Johanna (Daisy Haggard) and deerfox Twig; then that home was destroyed by a cabin, so the family has moved to the walled city of Trollberg. Hilda soon finds out that the city is full of unusual characters of all kinds—including a bureaucratic elf named Alfur (Rasmus Hardiker) who becomes a friend. If your kids need a break from Bluey, give this, one of the best family series on Netflix, a shot. If you don’t have kids…you might still enjoy its beautiful animation and soothing rhythms. The third and final season premiered in December.

Holey Moley (2019)

The goofy obstacles of a typical miniature golf course are fun—but wouldn’t they be more fun if they weren’t quite so miniature? Of course they would: that’s just math. This is the premise behind Holey Moley, from Chris Culvenor, the prolific EP behind such reality shows as Stars On Mars and Farmer Wants A Wife. Each week, real sportscaster Joe Tessitore and fake sportscaster Rob Riggle call the action as golfers test their skills against gigantic fish, windmills, and in the first season, executive producer Steph Curry. The combination of actually talented contestants and the charming interplay between Riggle and Tessitore make this, by far, one of the most crowd-pleasing and best game shows on Netflix.

Insecure (2016)

If you’re curious about President Barbie’s exploits before she took office, look no further than this HBO original sitcom, recently arrived on Netflix. Issa Rae adapted her web series, Awkward Black Girl, into this sitcom about Issa (Rae), a non-profit staffer stumbling through her post-college years in Los Angeles. Yvonne Orji, currently on Hulu in Vacation Friends 2, is Issa’s best friend Molly, who seems to have her life together as a successful attorney, but still has as much to learn about love as her less polished pals.

The Magicians (2015-2020)

Lev Grossman’s novel series provides the basis for this long-running fantasy series, which originally ran on Syfy, and revolves around the Brakebills University for Magical Pedagogy. But this is no Hogwarts: though Quentin Coldwater (Jason Ralph) enrolls with the simple goal of learning to use magic, he soon finds out that the Fillory And Further novel series he’s loved all his life is no mere story: it’s based in true events, and offers a warning about other worlds that could impinge on his. Fortunately, his classmates are smart and talented, and maybe they can triumph if they combine all their powers.

Maid (2021)

Stephanie Land’s memoir Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, And A Mother’s Will To Survive provided the source material for this limited series. Alex (Margaret Qualley) is a young mother whose decision to leave her abusive boyfriend Sean (Nick Robinson) is fraught with peril: severely limited finances, a Kafkaesque bureaucracy, and insufficient support from the people closest to her. Alex’s determination to create a safe and happy life for her daughter Maddy (Rylea Nevaeh Whittet) and to become a writer keep her pushing through extremely challenging obstacles.

Mindhunter (2017)

The 1995 non-fiction book Mindhunter: Inside The FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit provides the inspiration for this scripted series, created by playwright Joe Penhall and executive-produced and frequently directed by David Fincher. FBI agents Holden Ford (Jonathan Groff, currently on Broadway in Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along) and Bill Tench (Holt McCallany) partner with psychologist Wendy Carr (Anna Torv) to pioneer the Bureau’s Behavioral Science Unit. As part of their work, they visit prisons to interview some of the era’s incarcerated serial killers, most notoriously Ed Kemper (Cameron Britton), David Berkowitz, aka the Son of Sam (Oliver Cooper), and Charles Manson (Damon Herriman). Though we only got two seasons, true crime fans will call this one of the best crime shows on Netflix.

Mo (2022)

Comic Mo Amer re-teamed with Ramy Youssef—the star and creator of Ramy, in which Amer plays the titular Ramy’s cousin—to co-create Mo. In this semi-autobiographical dramedy, which has never felt more urgent, Amer plays Mohammed “Mo” Najjar, a Palestinian refugee seeking asylum as a path to U.S. citizenship, and navigating life in Houston, Texas. As with Ramy, Mo comes from beloved indie production company A24.

Money Heist (2017)

If you love the meticulous plotting and split-second timing of a heist movie, but wish you could see more of how the plan actually came to be: this series, among the best crime shows on Netflix, is for you. The Professor (Álvaro Morte) assembles a crew of thieves, each of whom has been carefully selected for their specific skills, and spends months training them to pull off a huge job: they’re going to barricade themselves in Spain’s Royal Mint and print their own Euros to steal. But even a mind as brilliant as The Professor’s can’t anticipate everything that might go wrong. One of Netflix’s biggest-ever global hits, the show was followed by a Korean remake in 2022; a prequel, Berlin, premiered in December.

My Next Guest Needs No Introduction With David Letterman (2018)

If the recently-concluded WGA strike left you with an appetite for TV chat that not even the return of Stephen, Seth, John, and the Jimmies can sate, Netflix has you covered with this multiply Emmy-nominated talk show. For each short season of what is practically an event series, David Letterman—the original host of both Late Night and The Late Show—curates a tiny group of guests with whom he spends an entire episode for an in-depth conversation. Past guests include Tina Fey, Jay-Z, Howard Stern, and Barack Obama, giving his first interview after leaving office. The rhythms are definitely different from what you’re used to seeing Dave do, but it’s still a joy to see it done by one of the greats.

Narcos (2015)

How did Pablo Escobar go from a comparatively low-level smuggler to one of the world’s most notorious drug kingpins to…uh, his death at the hands of an international law enforcement task force (spoiler)? Steve Murphy—a real DEA agent, since retired, who worked on the case—is portrayed here by Boyd Holbrook, who also narrates the story of the DEA’s investigation into Escobar (Wagner Moura); Murphy’s DEA colleague Javier Peña is played by future Mandalorian star Pedro Pascal. The series was followed by a companion series, Narcos: Mexico, in 2018.

Neon (2023)

Shea Serrano, formerly a journalist and critic at Grantland and The Ringer, has had a big year as a TV creator: his semi-autobiographical sitcom Primo premiered on Freevee this spring and delighted everyone to whom I evangelized about it. His film Miguel Wants To Fight dropped on Hulu in the summer. And in October, he expanded his reach into Netflix with the comedy series Neon. Co-created by Serrano and Max Searle, it revolves around three friends who move from Fort Myers to Miami with the goal of breaking into the world of reggaeton music; Tyler Dean Flores crosses over from embodying the titular character in Miguel to play Santi, the aspiring musical artist whose friends Felix (Jordan Mendoza) and Ness (Emma Ferreira) believe in him enough to try to help him make it.

Salt Fat Acid Heat (2018)

Samin Nosrat’s cookbook Salt Fat Acid Heat was a runaway bestseller, a critical hit, and a multiple award winner. Turning her framing device into a documentary series was the logical next step. Each of the four episodes in Netflix’s take covers one of the titular topics, and doubles as a travelogue: “Fat” brings Nosrat to Italy; “Salt” to Japan; “Acid” to Mexico; and closes with “Heat” in Berkeley, California, and at the legendary Chez Panisse, where Nosrat’s career began. Even if you don’t have the resources to take similar journeys yourself, there’s still lots to learn for the home cook; it’s one of the best educational shows on Netflix.

Seinfeld (1989)

Comedian Jerry (Jerry Seinfeld) lives on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, endures the unpredictable antics of his across-the-hall neighbor Kramer (Michael Richards), and shares the minute details of his life with his high school best friend George (Jason Alexander) and unusually friendly ex-girlfriend Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus). It’s a show about dating mores, cult favorite New York delicacies, and surviving office jobs…but mostly, it’s about nothing. Watch this to prepare for the imminent final season of its spiritual cousin, Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Six Feet Under (2001)

American Beauty screenwriter Alan Ball followed the triumph of that film’s reception with another domestic drama. In Los Angeles, Nathaniel Fisher (Richard Jenkins) and his son David (Michael C. Hall) work together in the family business: a funeral home. When Nathaniel suddenly dies, his prodigal son Nate (Peter Krause) returns to pay his respects; his sense of duty overcomes his reluctance, and he stays to work with his brother, who’s not especially thrilled about it. A centerpiece of HBO’s golden years, Six Feet Under is one of the most acclaimed shows on Netflix.

Squid Game (2021)

Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) is a gambling addict crushed both by his personal debt, and by his daughter’s imminent move to the U.S. with his ex and her new husband. When a mysterious stranger approaches him, seemingly by chance, and offers him the opportunity to play a series of games with the possibility of winning an unimaginable cash prize, it seems too good to be true. Turns out: it is! The first season was a massive ratings and critical hit; the second is in the works, and Squid Game: The Challenge—an unscripted game show adaptation—premiered in November.

Verified Stand-Up (2023)

Since its inception as a streaming destination, Netflix has been on the cutting edge of breaking comedians. The latest showcase for standup comedy is Verified Stand-Up, a 10-episode series, with each episode dedicated to a short set by a different comic on the rise. Performers include Sabrina Wu (Joy Ride), Dulcé Sloan (The Daily Show), Nimesh Patel (the first Indian-American writer on Saturday Night Live), and many more. Get on board with them early and impress your friends by being on the cutting edge of the comedy scene!