33 Best Releases Similar to Game Of Thrones on Netflix
RIPLEY
SimilarA Fortunate Life, A Little Princess, A Respectable Trade,
Agatha Christie's Poirot Anna Karenina, Återkomsten, Atomic Train, Blackeyes, Christopher Columbus, Cleopatra, Dark Winds, Dead by Sunset, Dexter, Elizabeth R, G.B.H., Game of Thrones, Gossip Girl, Heidi, Intruders, Jack the Ripper, Jewels, Love You Just as You Are, M*A*S*H, Moeder, waarom leven wij?, Monarch of the Glen, Murder in the Heartland, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Peter and Paul,
Planet of the Apes Pope John Paul II,
Pride and Prejudice Scully Sherlock Holmes Son of the Morning Star, Spies of Warsaw, Tales from the Neverending Story, The 100, The Buccaneers, The Chestnut Man, The Far Pavilions, The Fire Next Time, The Gold Robbers, The Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Die Neue These, The Lost World, The Murder of Mary Phagan, The Phantom of the Opera, The Serial Killer's Wife, The Singing Detective, The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty, The Wimbledon Poisoner, Tientsin Mystic, Tiger Lily, 4 femmes dans la vie, Tira, Troubles, Ultraviolet, Unterleuten: The Torn Village, Viso d'angelo, Wedding Impossible, Witchcraft, World War II: When Lions Roared, Wycliffe,
StudioShowtime Networks,
Tom Ripley doesn't exist. Not just in the sense that he's a fictional creation of thriller novelist extraordinaire Patricia Highsmith, no; as a man, Ripley is a chimera, a shadow, a formless void that hungrily sucks in whatever nourishment it can from whatever or whoever is around him. Damn the consequences. He's one of literature's (and, in the case of several cinematic adaptations, moviedom's) greatest conmen, a remora with nothing behind the eyes except the next game, the next mark, the next place to flee when suspicions run too high. Now, writer/director/showrunner Steven Zaillian has adapted the first of Highsmith's novels into an eight-episode miniseries for Netflix (it was originally slated for Showtime before they sold it), and by virtue of those pedigrees, it's maybe the best original series the streamer has put out all year.
When we first meet Tom Ripley (Andrew Scott), he's a low-level grifter eking out a living with some street-level mail fraud in New York City. But one day, a private dick (Bokeem Woodbine) taps him on the shoulder and hauls him in front of a wealthy shipping magnate (filmmaker Kenneth Lonergan) for a special mission: travel to Italy on his dime to find his layabout painter-wannabe son Dickie Greenleaf (Johnny Flynn) and bring him back home to fulfill his business responsibilities. Ripley doesn't know the man, but he agrees -- the chance to start all over somewhere else (and be bankrolled for it) is too great. So he swans off to Atrani, a small beachside villa where he ingratiates himself to the pampered Dickie and his writer girlfriend, Marge (Dakota Fanning), two people as insulated by their wealth as they are by their respective artistic mediocrities.
RIPLEY. (L to R) Dakota Fanning as Marge Sherwood and Johnny Flynn as Dickie Greenleaf in RIPLEY. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2024
Unlike previous adaptations of the material, Zaillian barely (if ever) clues us into any kind of deeper humanity lurking under the surface for Tom Ripley. Matt Damon's version from The Talented Mr. Ripley was motivated by emotional impulse; here, Scott plays him like a reptile. There's something downright alien about his cold tilt of the head, those shark-like eyes (aided by Robert Elswit's chiaroscuro photography, which we'll get to later), the way his delivery teeters between blase deference and a flat, manipulative affect. He seems less like a desperate hanger-on than a predator, one all too happy to take rich people for everything they've got and discard them when he's sucked all the meat off their bones. He doesn't covet the lifestyles of the rich and famous, and even the script's frequent allusions to Ripley's subtextual lust for Dickie don't seem to fully account for his motivations. Continue Reading →
Goosebumps
Similar2Moons: The Series, A Dance to the Music of Time,
Agatha Christie's Poirot Akashic Records of Bastard Magic Instructor, Amazing Stories, Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Babel,
Black Books Brimstone, Cruel Summer, Cybersix, Dark, Dark Winds, Dexter, Fate/Apocrypha, From, Further Tales of the City, Game of Thrones, Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, Gossip Girl, Hero Return,
HIStory M*A*S*H, Metal Hurlant Chronicles, Miss Marple: Nemesis, Monarch of the Glen, More Tales of the City, Mr. Mercedes, Murder Most Horrid,
Planet of the Apes Sherlock Holmes Soul Land 2: The Peerless Tang Clan, Tales from the Crypt, Tales from the Neverending Story, Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters from Beverly Hills, The 100, The 4400, The Alienist, The Family Game, The Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Die Neue These, The Moon Embracing the Sun, The Serial Killer's Wife, The Shining, The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty, The Strain, The Twilight Zone, The Wimbledon Poisoner, ThunderCats, Tientsin Mystic, Troubles, Wedding Impossible, Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty, Witchcraft,
Do we need another live-action Goosebumps adaptation? After a ’90s Fox Kids series and a pair of 2010s films, one would assume that the ground of turning Slappy the dummy and other frightening beings into flesh-and-blood creations has been well-trodden. Continue Reading →
Everything Now
Similar3rd Rock from the Sun, American Horror Story, Buffy the Vampire Slayer,
Eureka Seven Further Tales of the City, Gossip Girl,
HIStory Hospital Playlist Little Women Love, Victor, Loveless, More Tales of the City, Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide, Noah's Arc, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Out of This World, Ravenswood, Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, Sentimental Journey, Stand Up!!, That '70s Show, The Alienist, The Nanny, The Wallflower,
As the TV series Everything Now begins, Mia (Sophie Wilde) is eager for freedom. After spending months in a hospital undergoing treatment for her anorexia, her supervisor, Dr. Nell (Stephen Fry), has decided she’s well enough to return to school with her best friends Becca (Lauryn Ajufo), Cam (Harry Cadby), and Will (Noah Thomas). Cooped up inside for what seemed like an eternity, Mia is bursting with enthusiasm about finally undergoing many teenage rites of passage like first dates and big parties. Continue Reading →
The Fall of the House of Usher
SimilarA Little Princess, Alias Grace, American Horror Story, Angel, Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Birds of Prey, Brides of Christ, Brimstone, Christopher Columbus, Dancing on the Edge, Elizabeth R, From, Further Tales of the City, Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, Golden Years, Heidi, House of Cards, Kamen Rider, Love You Just as You Are, Millennium, Miss Marple: Nemesis, More Tales of the City, Nightmares & Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King, Peter and Paul, Pope John Paul II, Power Rangers Dino Force Brave,
Pride and Prejudice Queen Cleopatra, Rescue Me,
Scully Spies of Warsaw, Tales from the Crypt, The Buccaneers, The Dead Zone, The Far Pavilions, The Gangster Chronicles, The Gold Robbers, The Shining, The Singing Detective, The Strain, The Sun Also Rises, The Wallflower, Three Days of Christmas, Tiger Lily, 4 femmes dans la vie, Ultraviolet, Unorthodox, White House Plumbers, World War II: When Lions Roared,
The most gripping moment in 2022’s Academy Award-winning documentary All the Beauty and the Bloodshed is when members of the now disgraced Sackler Family, whose pharmaceutical company manufactured and marketed the highly addictive painkiller Oxy-Contin, are ordered to attend a virtual hearing in which they're confronted by families who had been impacted by the drug. Listening to tragic stories of accidental overdoses, birth defects, and young men cut down in their prime due to a prescription medication that had been promoted as safe and non-addicting, the Sacklers could not look more bored, even slightly annoyed. It’s a chilling reminder that extreme wealth often results in a loss of empathy, if not one’s entire soul. Continue Reading →
Survival of the Thickest
SimilarAgatha Christie's Poirot Akashic Records of Bastard Magic Instructor, Animated Classics of Japanese Literature, Fallen, Fate/Apocrypha, Fearless,
Hilda Furacão In the Land of Leadale,
Little Women M*A*S*H, Monarch of the Glen, Mr. Mercedes, No Escape,
Pride and Prejudice Sherlock Holmes Tales from the Neverending Story, The Buccaneers, The Far Pavilions, The Lost World, The Moon Embracing the Sun, The Strain, The Sun Also Rises, Word of Honor, Wycliffe,
StudioA24,
In 1995, way back last century, I went shopping for a dress to wear to my cousin’s wedding. Accompanied by my mother, it soon became apparent to us both that I, both a big and tall girl, wouldn’t be able to buy a dress in the Juniors section. My options eventually whittled down to one adult black velvet dress that, while the saleswoman assured us was totally chic for weddings, nevertheless showcased to the world that I could not fit into a fun or stylish dress for someone my age and that’s rough. It’s very rough. Continue Reading →
The Witcher
Similar2Moons: The Series, Animated Classics of Japanese Literature, Des, Dexter, Game of Thrones, Gossip Girl, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Lupin, Masters of the Universe: Revelation, Ninja Sentai Kakuranger, Out of This World,
Planet of the Apes Pride and Prejudice Sám vojak v poli,
Sherlock Holmes Tales from the Neverending Story, The Buccaneers, The Dawn of the Witch, The Slime Diaries: That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime,
The Witcher returns for its third season, Henry Cavill’s final run as Geralt of Rivera, Witcher, before Liam Hemsworth steps into the White Wolf’s big boots. Showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich introduces yet another tonal shift to the series, which has suffered a bit of an identity crisis since its bombastic first season. After the uneven season two and the head-scratching prequel spinoff Blood Origins, Season three takes a step back from intricate political intrigue to deliver a more straightforward narrative. Continue Reading →
Unstable
Unstable appears to be a deeply personal show for lead actor and co-creator Rob Lowe. After all, it revolves around a father/son duo played by Lowe and his real-life son, John Owen Lowe. Rob Lowe’s headlined worse stuff than this, for sure. Nonetheless, you’d think a series that seems rooted in something this personal would be more engaging to watch. At least, it might take some bold swings. Tragically, Unstable is a mostly just average comedy that leaves little in the way of an impression for good or ill. Continue Reading →
School Spirits
Some pray high school will never end. Some feel like it goes on for a painful forever. For Maddie Nears (Peyton List), those desires and hyperbolic thoughts may have become quite literal. If you die on her high school’s campus of unnatural causes, you apparently hang around with the other ghosts until you figure out how to move on. Imagine finding out the afterlife is real and you’ll never leave your high school again in the same moment. Continue Reading →
Madoff: The Monster of Wall Street
Gordon Bennett just wanted to have some stability for the future. So after selling his chain of grocery stores in the 1990s, Bennett turned to the stock market. Looking around for the right people to work with, he chose Bernie Madoff. Over a decade later, Bennett would become one of the countless lives rocked by the reveal that Madoff had been orchestrating the biggest Ponzi scheme America has ever seen. The emotional trauma experienced by Bennett and other victims of Madoff’s wickedness deserved a more consistently engaging docuseries than Madoff: The Monster of Wall Street. Continue Reading →
The Witcher: Blood Origin
No doubt Netflix’s goal in releasing the Witcher spinoff The Witcher: Blood Origin was to tide audiences over. They wanted to give the fans a little something while waiting for Henry Cavill’s final season as Geralt. Conveniently framed as a tale told to Jaskier (Joey Batey) by Elf storyteller Seanchaí (an always welcome Minnie Driver), Blood Origin finally digs into the Conjunction of the Spheres, which created the world of men and monsters we’ve already seen. Continue Reading →
The Last Kingdom
Lars Von Trier is a complicated figure. The Danish director has ardent fans, fervent critics, and a whole host of international film watchers in-between. After 25 years of varying other projects, he returns to his favorite hospital in The Kingdom Exodus, the five-episode third and final season of his acclaimed supernatural series. The sepia-toned world hasn’t changed much, though, as Von Trier has gone through several scandals, health concerns, and personal challenges over the last two-and-a-half decades. His vision remains undeterred. Continue Reading →
Chad and JT Go Deep
There’s been a recent boom in the television sphere of hybrid comedy/documentary series, ranging from altered talk shows (The Eric Andre Show) to pranks with the pals (Jackass) and cringe “reality” series (The Rehearsal). Looking to join the ranks is Netflix’s new show Chad and JT Go Deep, a comedic mockumentary series that flirts with cringe comedy, advocates for important causes, and aims to make us all members of “stokenation.” Continue Reading →
Better Call Saul
NetworkAMC+,
SimilarBates Motel, Komi Can't Communicate, Unforgettable,
StarringGiancarlo Esposito,
Better Call Saul is a tragedy. From the beginning, it focused on a rough-edged, yet decent man whom the audience knows will one day become an unrepentant merchant of death and destruction. What makes it so tragic, beyond the known destination, is that the series is riddled with missed exits. Time and again, Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk) faced situations where -- if he’d just pulled back from the brink, if he’d only taken his lumps instead of wriggling out of them, if he’d simply chosen not to push things too far -- all of this could have been avoided. Continue Reading →
Stranger Things
The one thing that no one can deny is Stranger Things Season 4 remains aggressively itself right up to the end. Its final two episodes, feature-length films onto themselves, serve everything that one could enjoy about the first seven episodes with a side of everything that frustrates and annoys. The good news is that the bad bits remain a side dish, not the main course. The better news is that ratio tips even further in favor of what’s enjoyable. Continue Reading →
Bridgerton
SimilarAround the World in 80 Days, Helltown, My Holo Love, No Escape, Santa Evita, The Summer I Turned Pretty,
Bridgerton is back this week, and yes, there will be bodices ripped, smelling salts fetched, and pearls definitely clutched. But before getting into all of that, let’s do a little housekeeping. While you’re not going to find a bigger romance fan than this reviewer, that doesn't mean this review will overlook Netflix using actors of color to bolster what are mainly white characters and storylines. Continue Reading →
Bad Vegan: Fame. Fraud. Fugitives.
The story of Sarma Melngailis seems tailor-made for tabloid headlines. The former queen of New York’s vegan scene went on the run after embezzling millions of dollars and stiffing employees and investors. A year later she was captured after the police traced an order she made to the emphatically un-vegan Domino’s pizza. Continue Reading →
Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness
Did you know that the earliest hair extensions on record are over five thousand years old? Doesn’t that just snatch your wig? That’s just one of the many facts you’ll learn by tuning into the latest arm of the Jonathan Van Ness empire, their new Netflix series Getting Curious. And it’s produced by World of Wonder – aka the company that makes the juggernaut that is RuPaul’s Drag Race. Continue Reading →
Ozark
SimilarBrimstone, Broadchurch, Jack the Ripper, Tientsin Mystic,
StudioMRC,
Previous seasons of Netflix’s Ozark followed Martin and Wendy Byrde’s (Jason Bateman and Laura Linney) quest to survive death and prove their family’s worth to the cartel and their violent rivals. Now, in the fourth and final season, the Byrdes must figure out if they can survive without their dark, criminal lives. They sacrificed a lot to get to the top—but what would they sacrifice to stay there? Thanks to this ask and its answers, Ozark Season 4 Part 1 is slow-burn suspense at its finest, with the Byrde’s maneuvering to stay on top, no matter the personal costs. Continue Reading →