151 Best TV Shows Similar to Breaking Bad
Dark Matter
SimilarA League of Nobleman, And Then There was One Yuriko, Anna Karenina, Arrow,
Battlestar Galactica Birds of Prey, Blake's 7, Captain Star, Cooking Crush, Dark Winds, Dinner Mate,
Earth 2 Firefly Hero Return,
Justice League Longing Heart, Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Miss Marple: The Body in the Library, My Fantastic Mrs Right, Mystery Science Theater 3000, Percy Jackson and the Olympians,
Pride and Prejudice Project Thouser, Quark, Spider-Man: The New Animated Series, Spies of Warsaw,
Star Trek Star Trek: Strange New Worlds,
Star Trek: The Next Generation Star Trek: Voyager Sweet Tooth,
Tales from the Neverending Story The 100, The Brothers Karamazov, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Incredible Hulk, The Irresponsible Captain Tylor OVA, The Jungle, The Killing Kind, The Ordinary World, The Rainbow, The Umbrella Academy, The Woods, ThunderCats, X-Men: Evolution,
In reviewing Dark Matter, it feels fitting to follow the moral of the show’s story. While it is easy to get lost in forever puzzling over details, the far more useful—and rewarding—path is to take a step back and fully appreciate a thing. There are elements in creator/showrunner Blake Crouch’s adaptation of his own work that do not work, especially concerning pacing. And yet, by the time the credits roll on the final episode, one is largely left satisfied and, perhaps, a bit exhilarated.
The temptation to dwell on each choice at the expense of the larger picture is something Jason Dessen (Joel Edgerton) knows well. But we’re already getting ahead of ourselves.
Dark Matters begins with the Jason I’ll christen “our Jason” for clarity. Our Jason is a Physics professor living in Chicago with his wife Daniela (Jennifer Connelly), a former artist who now focuses more on the administrative and business sides of art, and their son Charlie (Oakes Fegley). One night, Jason meets up with his friend Ryan (Jimmi Simpson) to celebrate the latter’s academic success. The vibe is strained, with parties seemingly aware that Jason should’ve received the same award, if not over Ryan, then certainly before him. Continue Reading →
The Tattooist of Auschwitz
NetworkPeacock,
SimilarA League of Nobleman, And Then There was One Yuriko, Anna Karenina, Annika, Återkomsten, Atomic Train, Blackeyes, Bodies, Christopher Columbus, Close Relations, Dark Winds, Dexter, Fallen, Fearless, G.B.H., Game of Thrones, Genesis, Gossip Girl, Jekyll, Long Time No See, Miss Marple: The Body in the Library, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Power Rangers Dino Force Brave,
Pride and Prejudice Quatermass II, Rebus,
Scully Spies of Warsaw,
Tales from the Neverending Story Tales of the South Seas, The Brothers Karamazov, The House in the Woods, The Inspector Lynley Mysteries, The Killing Kind, The Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Die Neue These, The Ordinary World, The Quatermass Experiment, The Serial Killer's Wife, The Singing Detective, The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty, The Sun Also Rises, The Woods, Tira, Troubles, Ultraviolet, World War II: When Lions Roared,
The Tattooist of Auschwitz opens on Lale Sokolov (Harvey Keitel in the 2000s “present-day” sequences) living in Australia. He's decided the time has come to commit his life story to paper. A nurse with writing aspirations Heather Morris (Melanie Lynskey), (the real-life writer behind the inspired by actual events but labeled historical fiction source material) is referred by someone in the community to help. With little prologue, he dives in, describing how he "volunteered" for a program about defending Jewish communities. Unfortunately, it was a trap. The train ride takes him to Auschwitz instead.
While imprisoned there, he (Jonah Hauer-King in flashbacks) became one of the tattooists. The position leads him to meet the love of his life, fellow prisoner Gita Furman (Anna Próchniak). Additionally, the position gave him a certain level of consideration not accorded to others, including access to medications. On the other hand, he faces resentment among the prisoners and decades of survivor’s guilt.
The book—and its two subsequent spinoffs/sequels—has a certain amount of controversy surrounding it. While I’m not an expert on the Holocaust, I feel it is at least important to acknowledge that fact. Wanda Witek-Malicka from the Auschwitz Memorial Research Center publicly worried that the book engaged in excessive “exaggerations, misinterpretations and understatements” that could render its text “dangerous and disrespectful to history.” Continue Reading →
Conan O'Brien Must Go
NetworkMax,
SimilarA Dance to the Music of Time, Power Rangers Dino Force Brave,
Scully The Wimbledon Poisoner, Tiger Lily, 4 femmes dans la vie, Troubles,
It's been four long years since Conan O'Brien has graced our television screens, ever since his late-night TBS show, Conan, ended in 2021. Since then, he's kept busy, of course, with podcasts like Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend and guest spots on shows like Murderville. But the late-night legend couldn't possibly keep away from the limelight for long; even at the ripe age of sixty, the guy is still the same spry, lanky chaos demon he always was, a tall column of Irish awkwardness more than willing to play the fool for a laugh. That's most acutely felt in his remote travel segments, like Conan Without Borders, where he travels everywhere from Finland to Ireland to suss out the sights, tastes, and people of Earth. Think of him like Anthony Bourdain, with absolutely zero shame or culinary knowledge.
For those who missed those segments, rest easy, as Max has gifted us with four episodes of full-length travelogue mayhem in the form of Conan O'Brien Must Go. Each installment, funny enough, spins off from an episode of his podcast, Conan O'Brien Needs a Fan: He speaks to an interesting new guy or gal from a foreign country, then flies out to meet them and take in the surrounding environs. Of course, he does this the only way he knows how: By making a complete spectacle of himself.
Conan O'Brien Must Go (Max)
In the show's opening minutes, a deceptively Werner Herzog-ian voice purrs to us that to appreciate the grandeur of our mother Earth, you must sometimes defile it. Cut to Conan: "Behold the defiler." That's the tack Must Go takes in its exploration of countries as exotic and beautiful as Norway, Argentina, Thailand, and Ireland: Let Conan loose in these nations, sometimes (but not always) with a game companion or fan along the way, and witness the devastation. One week, he'll make a Norwegian hip-hop song with an enthusiastic fan; the next, he'll try to help another fan get his podcast from four listeners to a whopping five -- all through the power of aggressive ad reads for yerba mate. Continue Reading →
Franklin
SimilarA Fortunate Life, A League of Nobleman, A Little Princess, A Respectable Trade,
Agatha Christie's Poirot And Then There was One Yuriko, Anna Karenina, Återkomsten, Atomic Train, Babel, Chicken Nugget, Cleopatra, Cooking Crush, Dark Winds, Dead by Sunset, Dexter, Fallen, Faraway Downs, Game of Thrones, Genesis, Good Morning Children, Gossip Girl, Heidi, Howards End, I Just Want To See You, Intruders, Jack the Ripper, Jewels, Long Time No See, M*A*S*H, Miss Marple: The Body in the Library, Monarch of the Glen, Murder in the Heartland, My Fantastic Mrs Right, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Ordeal by Innocence, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Peter and Paul,
Planet of the Apes Pope John Paul II, Power Rangers Dino Force Brave,
Pride and Prejudice Quatermass II, Rebus, RUSH: Inspired by Battlefield,
Scully Sherlock Holmes Son of the Morning Star,
Tales from the Neverending Story Tales of the South Seas, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The 100, The Brothers Karamazov, The Far Pavilions, The Fire Next Time, The High School Heroes, The House in the Woods, The Irresponsible Captain Tylor OVA, The Jungle, The Killing Kind, The Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Die Neue These, The Lost World, The Murder of Mary Phagan, The Ordinary World, The Phantom of the Opera, The Quatermass Experiment, The Serial Killer's Wife, The Shining, The Strain, The Sun Also Rises, The Witness for the Prosecution, The Woods, Tiger Lily, 4 femmes dans la vie, Unterleuten: The Torn Village, Wedding Impossible, Wycliffe,
StudioApple Studios,
Michael Douglas's career so deeply connects him to as specific kind of late 20th/early 21st Century man. As a result, throwing him back to the 18th Century and into the body of Benjamin Franklin feels deeply counterintuitive. It is not surprising that Franklin—an adaptation of the book A Great Improvisation by Stacy Schiff—is one of the few period projects Douglas has done, joining the likes of The Ghost and the Darkness and those flashback scenes in the Ant-Man films. What is surprising, and to the series’ credit, is how quickly that strangeness recedes. It isn’t that Douglas manages to fade into the role of Franklin until he disappears entirely, but he does manage to recede enough that he doesn’t disrupt the show’s reality.
In some ways, Douglas proves a surprisingly apt selection. No stranger to playing womanizers on screen, Douglas easily finds the correct valence to portray Franklin’s specific flavor of late 18th-century skirt chaser. The metacommentary works in his favor as well, an aging icon who retains much of his skill but perhaps can no longer command the same buzz or box office returns embodying an aging icon whose mind remains sharp but whose body—and possibly will—has been beaten up by life and time. While almost a decade older than the Franklin he’s portraying, Douglas also excels at the moments where the audience witnesses the statesman energized like old times.
Thibault de Montalembert has neither the time nor the interest in your lame attempts at Call My Agent/Dix pour cent joke attempts. (AppleTV+)
Still, the script too frequently hamstrings the actor. Not bad by any means, the writing still suffers for trying to match Franklin’s reputation. It’s the old conundrum of trying to build a series, film, or play around a singular piece of art. How does a creator convince the audience that someone is singing the most fantastic song ever without truly writing the most fantastic song ever? Similarly, how do writers provide dialogue to what is, by historical reputation, one of the greatest wits in American History without simply quoting his greatest hits? Continue Reading →
The Sympathizer
SimilarA Dance to the Music of Time, A Fortunate Life, A League of Nobleman, A Little Princess,
Agatha Christie's Poirot Amnesia, Anna Karenina, Annika, Återkomsten, Atomic Train, Babel, Blackeyes, Bodies, Christopher Columbus, Close Relations, Cooking Crush, Dark Winds, Dead by Sunset, Dexter, Elizabeth R, Faraway Downs, Fearless, G.B.H., Game of Thrones, Good Morning Children, Gossip Girl, Heidi, Hero Return, Howards End, I Just Want To See You, Intruders, Jack the Ripper, Jekyll, Jewels, Knuckles, La Femme Nikita, Long Time No See, Love You Just as You Are, M*A*S*H, Miss Marple: The Body in the Library, Moeder, waarom leven wij?, Monarch of the Glen, Murder in the Heartland, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Peter and Paul,
Planet of the Apes Pope John Paul II, Power Rangers Dino Force Brave,
Pride and Prejudice Quatermass II, RUSH: Inspired by Battlefield,
Scully Sherlock Holmes Son of the Morning Star, Spies of Warsaw,
Tales from the Neverending Story Tales of the South Seas, The 100, The Brothers Karamazov, The Chestnut Man, The Fire Next Time, The House in the Woods, The Irresponsible Captain Tylor OVA, The Jungle, The Killing Kind, The Lost World, The Murder of Mary Phagan, The Ordinary World, The Phantom of the Opera, The Rainbow, The Shining, The Singing Detective, The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty, The Sun Also Rises, The Wimbledon Poisoner, The Witness for the Prosecution, Tiger Lily, 4 femmes dans la vie, Tira, Troubles, Ultraviolet, Unterleuten: The Torn Village, Viso d'angelo, Witchcraft, World War II: When Lions Roared, Wycliffe,
"All wars are fought twice. The first on the battlefield. The second time in memory." This line, emblazed in Vietnamese and English in the opening moments of The Sympathizer, is taken right from Vietnamese-American author Viet Thanh Nguyen's bestselling novel of the same name. Fittingly, it also serves as the thesis statement for Max's adaptation of the sprawling work, a fleet-of-foot miniseries that explores the malleability of identity and perception through the lens of the Vietnam War, and the dynamic lenses through which our lives and conflicts can be viewed.
That duality is encapsulated in the titular character, a French-Vietnamese biracial protagonist known only as The Captain (Hoa Xuande). From his childhood in Vietnam, he was always ostracized for being neither white nor Asian enough; his only solace came from his two friends, Bon (Fred Nguyen Khan) and Man (Duy Nguyen), who instead frame his heritage as being "twice of everything." Cut to Vietnam in the '70s, in the days leading up to the Fall of Saigon: He works for the Vietnamese Secret Police, interrogating Viet Cong prisoners at the behest of his arrogant martinet of a boss, The General (Toan Le). But he's also a communist mole, feeding information back to Man, who's now his North Vietnamese Army handler, and his daily life is a struggle to reconcile all of these varying identities.
That struggle is further compounded after the Fall of Saigon (an escape attempt rendered in the first episode as an exciting, terrifying barrage of booming explosions and a foot race to a fleeing cargo plane). The Captain and Bon make it to America, though not without some heartbreaking losses for the latter; now, the two are alone, the Captain still required to report on the General's activities while laying low for both his CIA handlers and the LA cultural figures who treat him as an object of curiosity. Continue Reading →
RIPLEY
SimilarA Fortunate Life, A League of Nobleman, A Little Princess, A Respectable Trade,
Agatha Christie's Poirot Amnesia, And Then There was One Yuriko, Anna Karenina, Annika, Återkomsten, Atomic Train, Blackeyes, Christopher Columbus, Cleopatra, Cooking Crush, Dark Winds, Dead by Sunset, Dexter, Elizabeth R, Faraway Downs, G.B.H., Game of Thrones, Good Morning Children, Gossip Girl, Heidi, Howards End, I Just Want To See You, Intruders, Jack the Ripper, Jekyll, Jewels, Kidnapped, Love You Just as You Are, M*A*S*H, Moeder, waarom leven wij?, Monarch of the Glen, Murder in the Heartland, My Fantastic Mrs Right, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Ordeal by Innocence, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Peter and Paul,
Planet of the Apes Pope John Paul II, Power Rangers Dino Force Brave,
Pride and Prejudice Quatermass II, Rebus,
Scully Sherlock Holmes Son of the Morning Star, Spies of Warsaw,
Tales from the Neverending Story Tales of the South Seas, The 100, The Brothers Karamazov, The Buccaneers, The Chestnut Man, The Far Pavilions, The Fire Next Time, The Gold Robbers, The High School Heroes, The House in the Woods, The Inspector Lynley Mysteries, The Jungle, The Killing Kind, The Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Die Neue These, The Lost World, The Murder of Mary Phagan, The Ordinary World, The Phantom of the Opera, The Quatermass Experiment, The Serial Killer's Wife, The Singing Detective, The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty, The Wimbledon Poisoner, The Witness for the Prosecution, The Woods, 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 →
Parish
NetworkAMC+,
StarringGiancarlo Esposito,
Theoretically, Parish is an adaptation of the three-episode British series The Driver. In practice, the similarities boil down to “What if there was a driver who used to do crime and might start again?” Considering how standard the plot is—a reformed criminal pushed back into a life of crime—it seems strange to call it an adaptation.
To get specific, Gray Parish (Giancarlo Esposito) is a former wheelman who left crime a long time ago. In the time since, he met and married Ros (Paula Malcomson) and started a livery service. He and Ros had two children together as well, Maddox (Caleb Baumann) and Makayla (Arica Himmel). A year before the show’s story begins, Maddox was shot to death, and the killer remains at large. Gray has particularly struggled with the fallout. Additionally, his business is falling apart, seemingly from a combination of his grief and the economy.
Into this precarious situation arrives Colin (Skeet Ulrich), a friend of Parish’s from the old days. Colin, barely out of prison, has already gotten in trouble with The Horse (Zackary Momoh), leader of an increasingly powerful New Orleans gang, The Tongais. To keep himself alive, he needs Parish’s help in cleaning out a safe. Out of a mix of loyalty and his own financial desperation, Parish agrees. Unfortunately, one job is never just one job. Continue Reading →
Palm Royale
SimilarA League of Nobleman, A Respectable Trade, And Then There was One Yuriko, Anna Karenina, Annika, Återkomsten, Blackeyes, Bodies, Brides of Christ, Cooking Crush, Dark Winds, Dead by Sunset, Dexter, Fallen, Fearless, Game of Thrones, Gossip Girl, Hero Return, Jewels, KONOSUBA – An Explosion on This Wonderful World!, Monarch of the Glen, My Fantastic Mrs Right, Oh, Doctor Beeching!, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Ordeal by Innocence, Percy Jackson and the Olympians,
Planet of the Apes Pride and Prejudice Rebus, Spies of Warsaw,
Tales from the Neverending Story Tales of the South Seas, The Brothers Karamazov, The Chestnut Man, The Far Pavilions, The Inspector Lynley Mysteries, The Irresponsible Captain Tylor OVA, The Jungle, The Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Die Neue These, The Ordinary World, The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty, The Strain, The Sun Also Rises, The Wimbledon Poisoner, The Witness for the Prosecution, The Woods, Tira, Troubles, Unterleuten: The Torn Village, Wedding Impossible, Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty, Witchcraft,
StudioApple Studios,
There’s something undeniably inspired about casting Kristin Wiig as Maxine Simmons in Palm Royale. A social climber attempting to ingratiate herself into late 60s Palm Beach high society, Simmons shares with Wiig a certain constant desire to change herself. The actor's years at Saturday Night Live and subsequent film roles have established her as a chameleonic performer. She has enough versatility to play everyone from the painfully grounded to live-action cartoon characters. In this case, Wiig pours that talent into a woman trying desperately to be a different version of herself.
As a kind of middle-aged conservative version of Tom Ripley, Wiig does indeed excel. The actor invests a mix of brute force cunning and barely hidden desperation in Simmons. That makes the would-be social maven compelling and repulsive in equal measure. Her machinations are too intriguing to ignore, but her very presence can be almost unendurable, especially for viewers with an overactive sense of vicarious embarrassment.
Kristen Wiig and Allison Janney try to hash it out. (AppleTV+)
The show also adds an interesting layer to her performance of wealth and class. Simmons’ claims often sound outlandish, the scrambling lies of someone trying to stay one step ahead of being exposed. However, Palm Royale slowly confirms a great many of them. Unlike Ripley or Saltburn’s Oliver Quick, she’s not a total fabrication. She has the credentials for the inner circle, but can’t stomach the time it takes. Continue Reading →
X-Men
Regardless of what one thinks of nostalgia—a toxic force or a pleasant refuge from the chaos that is existence—there’s no denying its significant role in shaping and guiding our pop culture. Rather than simply rallying against it, we must, from time to time, acknowledge it and evaluate its accuracy. The launching of X-Men ’97 gives The Spool a unique opportunity to look back at ’97’s progenitor, the early 90’s series X-Men, also commonly known as X-Men: The Animated Series.
However, this is not a task for one person. An objective of this size requires a team-up, in the Merry Marvel Tradition. Tim Stevens, The Spool’s steadfast TV Editor, whose stoicism conceals a maelstrom of doubt and rage, much like ruby quartz holds back optic blasts, tackled the first half of the series. Then, Justin Harrison, our near-feral writer with a gift for mentorship and a head full of implanted memories, closes things down with his take on the second half of season 3 and all of seasons 4 and 5.
With that, there’s no time to waste. Hop in the Blackbird and come with us for a look at the highlights—and occasional lowlight—of the X-Men! Continue Reading →
X-Men '97
SimilarAshes to Ashes, Batman, Batman: The Animated Series, Birds of Prey, Blitz!! Strada 5, Captain Midnight, Captain Star, Constantine: City of Demons, Deadly Class, Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes,
Flash Gordon Gekisou Sentai Carranger, GoGo Sentai Boukenger, Happiness Charge Precure!, Inazuman, Invincible,
Justice League Longing Heart, Mirai Sentai Timeranger, Ninpuu Sentai Hurricaneger, Power Rangers, Power Rangers Dino Force Brave, Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, Seijuu Sentai Gingaman, Shuriken Sentai Ninninger, Silver Surfer, Sonic the Hedgehog, Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, Spider-Man: The New Animated Series, Suicide Squad ISEKAI, Super Crooks, Sweet Tooth, Tales from the Crypt, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Amazing Spider-Man, The Avengers: United They Stand, The Fantastic Four, The Flash, The Incredible Hulk, The Umbrella Academy, Uchuu Sentai Kyuranger, X-Men: Evolution,
As the saying goes, only '90s kids will remember the severe cultural impact X-Men: The Animated Series had on a particular strain of latchkey millennials. For many, the show, which ran from 1992-97 on the Fox Kids programming block, was the arguable apex of the Marvel superhero team's on-screen representations. It was thrilling, exciting, and for the time, surprisingly mature in its handling of the sociopolitical issues that spawned the comics in the first place -- racism, xenophobia, homophobia. It carried an element of serialized storytelling that was rare for kids' TV and took its characters and their respective issues seriously. Plus, that theme song just slammed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQjdm8BdJO4
Disney+, in its infinite wisdom, knows how to keep the franchise going while they anxiously figure out how to incorporate the X-Men into the Marvel Cinematic Universe (Deadpool & Wolverine should give us a portent, however grim) -- and to keep the '90s kids satiated with a heaping helping of nostalgia while we wait. So goes X-Men '97, a straightforward continuation of The Animated Series that updates its "too sophisticated for kids" remit all the way to the present day and lands on something interesting, if far from perfect, in the process.
Picking up months after the original series' finale, X-Men '97 shows a world reeling from the death of Charles Xavier in the final episode of the animated series: Mutants are mistrusted more than ever, and a growing fifth column of right-wing human militants called the Friends of Humanity are gathering up mutants and taking them down with stolen Sentinel technology. Naturally, it's up to the X-Men to stop them -- if they can pull themselves together and work as a team. Scott Summers (Ray Chase) is the next natural choice for leader, but he's torn between his duty to his fellow X-Men and his desire to start a family with Jean Grey (Jennifer Hale), a move that has ol' Wolverine (Cal Dodd) itching with jealousy. Continue Reading →
Manhunt
SimilarA Respectable Trade,
Agatha Christie's Poirot American Gothic, American Horror Story, Anna Karenina, Babel, Dark Winds, Dexter, Erased, Fallen, Fate/Apocrypha, Fearless, Game of Thrones, Gossip Girl,
Hilda Furacão Jack the Ripper, Jewels, Kidnapped, La Mante,
Little Women M*A*S*H, Miss Marple: Nemesis, Moeder, waarom leven wij?, Monarch of the Glen, More Tales of the City, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Ordeal by Innocence,
Planet of the Apes Pride and Prejudice Sherlock Holmes Soul Land 2: The Peerless Tang Clan, Super Pumped,
Tales from the Neverending Story The 100, The Buccaneers, The Far Pavilions, The Jungle, The Lost World, The Strain, The Sun Also Rises, The Wimbledon Poisoner, The Witness for the Prosecution, Tientsin Mystic, Troubles, Twin Peaks, Unorthodox, Viso d'angelo, Witchcraft, World's End Harem, Wycliffe,
Studio3 Arts Entertainment, Apple Studios,
Making Abraham Lincoln or Hamish Linklater the least interesting thing about your television series is no easy feat. That's especially the case when it features Linklater playing the 16th President of the United States. Yet, somehow, the Monica Beletsky-created MANHUNT, adapted from the James L. Swanson tome of the same name, manages to do just that. And that is 100 percent a compliment.
Often forgotten is that Lincoln was not John Wilkes Booth (Anthony Boyle) and his co-conspirators’ only target. The schemers also marked Vice President Andrew Johnson (Glenn Morshower, an acting veteran turning in his best work.) and Secretary of State William Seward (Larry Pine) as targets. (The series additionally implies that the show’s lead, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton (Tobias Menzies), may have been on that list, but that doesn’t appear in historical texts.) By opening on the far larger plot that almost immediately unraveled due to bungling and cold feet, MANHUNT quickly asserts its intentions. While catching Booth is the series’ splashiest element, it is certainly not all it has on its mind.
Tobias Menzies has hat, will travel. (AppleTV+)
If anything, the eponymous search provides the show a means of taking stock of America immediately after the Civil War. Ping-ponging around in time, Manhunt provides a glimpse of how a collection of Americans experienced life after General Lee’s surrender. The derailing of a far more extensive restructuring of America feels every bit as mourned here as the fallen President. Continue Reading →
Apples Never Fall
NetworkPeacock,
SimilarA Fortunate Life, A Little Princess, A Respectable Trade,
Agatha Christie's Poirot Amnesia, Anna Karenina, Annika, Återkomsten, Atomic Train, Babel, Blackeyes, Bodies, Brides of Christ, Chicken Nugget, Christopher Columbus, Cleopatra, Close Relations, Cooking Crush, Dancing on the Edge, Dead by Sunset, Dexter, Elizabeth R, Fallen, Faraway Downs, Game of Thrones, Good Morning Children, Gossip Girl, Heidi, Howards End, I Just Want To See You, Intruders, Jekyll, Jewels, Kidnapped, Love You Just as You Are, M*A*S*H, Miss Marple: Nemesis, More than Blue: The Series, Murder in the Heartland, My Fantastic Mrs Right, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Peter and Paul,
Planet of the Apes Pope John Paul II,
Pride and Prejudice Quatermass II, Queer as Folk, Rebus, RUSH: Inspired by Battlefield,
Scully Sherlock Holmes Soul Land 2: The Peerless Tang Clan,
Tales from the Neverending Story Tales of the South Seas, The 4400, The Brothers Karamazov, The Buccaneers, The Far Pavilions, The Inspector Lynley Mysteries, The Jungle, The Killing Kind, The Lost World, The Murder of Mary Phagan, The Quatermass Experiment, The Rainbow, The Shining, The Singing Detective, The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty, The Sun Also Rises, The Witness for the Prosecution, The Woods, Tira, Unterleuten: The Torn Village, Wedding Impossible, World War II: When Lions Roared, Wycliffe,
The expression, “The book was better,” has become a truism in adaptation, an assumption where the few exceptions only prove the rule. But what’s a creator to do when the source material is deeply flawed?
If you’re Apples Never Fall creator Melanie Marnich, you make several cosmetic changes to Liane Moriarty’s novel. The drama moves from Australia to West Palm Beach. The four Delaney children—Troy (Jake Lacy), Brooke (Essie Randles), Amy (Alison Brie), and Logan (Conor Merrigan Turner)—are no longer uniformly tall and olive-skinned. Quite the opposite, really, on the skin tone front. Relationships are shuffled a bit. Unfortunately, these changes fail to elevate the series.
The broad strokes of the plot itself are intriguing. The Delaney parents Joy (Annette Bening) and Stan (Sam Neill) have finally retired from a lifetime of running a tennis center, including their own stints as players and coaches. Rather than a delightful occasion, it churns up all manner of unprocessed relationship issues. Stan is cantankerous and competitive, oscillating between diminishing everyone around him with words and beating them all over the court. Joy, on the other hand, expected to spend her golden years catching up with her children, who lack the time or interest in doing the same. Continue Reading →
Far North
NetworkAMC+,
StarringTemuera Morrison,
The New Zealand crime dramedy can’t wrangle its disparate tones into a satisfying whole.
In some ways, Far North offers viewers three shows in one. There’s the harrowing tale of a quartet of Chinese women, Bi (Xana Tang), Jin (Xiao Hu), Hui (Nikita Tu-Bryant), and Ling (Louise Jiang), trapped in a boat off the coast of New Zealand. They’re under the thumb of Cai (Fei Li), a capricious crime middle manager whose corner-cutting and incompetence have left them stranded and facing death by dehydration and starvation. Unfortunately, rescue is almost as unpleasant a prospect as dying. To be saved, Cai demands they either “pay” for the rescue by sinking themselves deeper into debt and servitude or killing one of their own.
On the mainland, a different kind of crime story is unfolding. A group of less-than-competent criminals working for Blaze (Fay Tofilau) believe they’re about to get the score of their lives. Employed by her to take in the meth the Chinese women are transporting, they think it’ll be as easy as loading up a camper and driving it a few towns away. Alas, between the delays and their lack of skills, complications rapidly arise. Continue Reading →
The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That!
NetworkPeacock,
Similar'Allo 'Allo!, Batfink, Family Guy, Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, Gekisou Sentai Carranger, KONOSUBA – An Explosion on This Wonderful World!, Mystery Science Theater 3000, Tales from the Crypt, The Wallflower, Thunderbirds,
StarringJ. Smith-Cameron,
Peacock’s claymation sitcom is at its best when it skips the satire for the strange, but “best” is grading on a curve.
To its credit, In The Know resists dropping the term “woke” to describe its characters. Unfortunately, in a fairly disastrous opener, that’s the only “those silly sensitive liberals” signifier it lets go past. The premiere’s big joke, one it repeats OFTEN, centers on the proper terminology for someone without a place to live. Because, of course, it's a goofy waste of time to worry about language. Only Zach Woods’ ever-increasing profane frustration at being corrected by Fabian (Caitlin Reilly) saves the bit. His voice performance as “NPR’s third most popular host” Lauren Caspian is just sly enough to make it unclear if his anger comes from his inability to remember the correct term, someone having the nerve to interrupt him, or the thought that someone in the office might be more progressive than him.
It isn’t that mocking blowhard radio hosts can’t be a rich comic vein. Just check out the original Frasier series, a show with a strangely intense cross-generational appeal that persists even over 19 years after the final episode aired. It’s centering that mockery on NPR, particularly an NPR that has more in common with a conservative’s fever dream of what the company is like rather than anything resembling reality, feels like a weak tea. Fortunately, things improve for In The Know as it quickly moves beyond what initially seems like an exercise in sticking it to those caricatures of public radio employees. Continue Reading →
True Detective
SimilarA League of Nobleman,
Agatha Christie's Poirot Amazing Stories, American Gothic, American Horror Story, Angel, Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Ashes to Ashes, Babel, Bates Motel, Brimstone, Broadchurch, Brotherhood, Cruel Summer, CSI: Miami, Deadly Class, Dexter, Erased, Genesis,
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Sherlock Holmes Tarzan, The Chestnut Man, The Inspector Lynley Mysteries, The Murder of Mary Phagan, The Singing Detective, The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty, The Twilight Zone, The Witness for the Prosecution, The Woods, Viso d'angelo, Wheel of Fortune, Wycliffe,
Jodie Foster and Kali Reis shine as a pair of detectives investigating an increasingly surreal crime.
In Sara Gran’s Claire DeWitt mysteries, the title character is a brilliant, eccentric detective haunted by the unsolved disappearance of one of her closest friends. Her cases are vitally recognizable and beautifully surreal. When The Infinite Blacktop, the most recent entry in the series, was released in paperback, Gran held a giveaway, including a copy of the book and some fun feelies. On one of those, a pen, the following was printed: “Open your eyes and learn to see that truth lives in the ether.” In the course of thinking about Issa López (Tigers Are Not Afraid)’s excellent True Detective: Night Country, it’s a line that’s been on my mind.
It's the end of 2023. In Ennis, Alaska, the eccentric scientists of the Tsalal research station vanish just as the long polar night sets in. Ennis police chief Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster) and detective-turned-trooper Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis) know that something is not right. Though bitterly estranged, the former partners share a drive to discover what happened at Tsalal and why. Their need to get to the truth only intensifies after the scientists are discovered in a ghastly, bizarre state—a collective corpsicle, all of them nude and visibly terrified. Continue Reading →
빨간풍선
Albert Lamorisse's flights of fancy come to Criterion courtesy of a gorgeous new box set.
There are few things more wondrous than a child's imagination -- its capacity to uplift itself beyond the pain and doldrums of everyday life to see the world through new eyes. One of cinema's greatest chroniclers of that imagination is French filmmaker Albert Lamorisse, a contemporary of the French New Wave who literally went high where his peers went low. His domain was in short, charming, powerful films often linking child protagonists to wonders both terrestrial and supernatural: an animal that captures their heart, or the unyielding power of flight. Now, Criterion has captured that magic in a new two-disc Blu-ray set containing the bulk of Lamorisse's flashes of cinematic whimsy.
The crown jewel of the pack, of course, is 1956's The Red Balloon, the only short film to ever receive a major Academy Award (for Best Original Screenplay; no small feat, considering the film, like many of Lamorisse's, relies on very little dialogue). It's a simple, elemental tale of a boy (Lamorisse's son, Pascal, a frequent star of his works) walking the grey, rundown streets of postwar Paris -- the Ménilmontant neighborhood, to be specific -- only to find himself befriending a bright red balloon that follows him everywhere. The two seem to build some ineffable connection, a bond that plays out through the streets of Ménilmontant. The boy's parents and teachers don't understand their friendship. His peers envy it, chasing them through the streets to tragic ends. Continue Reading →
Jul i Blodfjell
When you’re done watching the usual stuff, consider one of these very bizarre attempts at holiday cheer.
When AMC released their holiday programming lineup this year, it seemed like an attempt at a joke: in addition to a handful of aging comedies that have nothing to do with Christmas (or any other holiday for that matter), like Uncle Buck and Caddyshack, the now-ubiquitous Elf was scheduled to air no less than sixteen times in thirty days, and that wasn’t counting the December 2nd “anniversary celebration” marathon. Second to Elf was National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, scheduled to air twelve times. Filling out the remaining time not occupied by Elf or National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation was woeful C-tier fare nobody enjoyed the first time around, like Christmas With the Kranks and Fred Claus.
In the era of streaming, finding Christmas entertainment now requires keeping track of who has the rights to show what special or movie at any given time. Gone are the days of CBS airing A Charlie Brown Christmas every year for decades: now it's under the sole domain of Apple TV+. Its former companion How the Grinch Stole Christmas is available only on Peacock, and all manner of Muppet-related programming is exclusive to Disney+. If the pickings aren’t slim, then they’re disbursed like so much reindeer feed across multiple platforms. Continue Reading →
American Horror Story
A quick overview of the high highs and middling disappointments in horror this year.
With the social media app formerly known as Twitter now a shell of its former self, horror fans have been forced to return to Facebook to continue such interminable debates as “What does or doesn’t qualify something as ‘horror’?” “What the hell is ‘elevated horror,’ anyway?” “Are remakes inherently bad?” “Have horror movies gotten too ‘woke’?” “Were we wrong for letting women make horror?”
In a year when both David Gordon Green and M. Night Shyamalan released new movies, the horror discourse was especially spicy, and that’s before we get to the really interesting stories, like the surprise viral success of Skinamarink, which, with the way time seems to be passing nowadays, feels like it was released five years ago. Both indie and mainstream horror made daring choices, not looking to appeal to as broad a range of audiences as possible, and treating the genre as a serious art form, as opposed to just a machine that prints money. But the biggest surprise came in October, with the release of Saw X, the tenth film in a seemingly unkillable franchise, which ended up being one of the best, most coherent entries in the entire series. Continue Reading →
Reacher
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The Prime series remains its big, fun, very violent self.
Jack Reacher (Alan Ritchson), the “has toothbrush, will travel” man, has returned to television and not a moment too soon. Reacher Season 2 is exactly the kind of low-commitment viewing one craves as the year ends and the holidays overtake everyone’s lives. While a large, jolly man busies himself filling many of our stockings, who better to enjoy than a large, angry man knocking bad guys out of their socks? Especially when, like this time, it’s personal!
Reacher and Neagly (Maria Sten, back from Season 1 and fully second on the callsheet this time, thankfully) first met when they were members of the 110, an investigative military police unit. As seen in flashback, the group is the last time Reacher had anything approaching a stable group of friends. In the present day, several team members have gone missing, suggesting that perhaps someone is targeting them. Reacher connects with Neagly and the two join up with the only other two 110 members they can find. O’Donnell (Shaun Sipos) is the unit clown and womanizer turned family man and inside the beltway fixer. Dixon (Serinda Swan) is a forensic accountant/warrior who shares an obvious but unconsummated crush with Reacher. Continue Reading →
Slow Horses
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The AppleTV+ spy series retains its humor but gives viewers its most tightly plotted effort yet.
Slow Horses Season 3 reiterates how the series differs from so many other TV shows. While critics frequently discuss film as a director’s medium, television tends to be more showrunner—and thus writer—driven. While Horses indeed derives many of its pleasures from the writers—the returning trio of Will Smith, Jonny Stockwood, and Mark Denton once again man the pens—each season’s unique tone owes to its single director.
James Hawes made the series’ debut season a workplace comedy where the occasional gun battle might break out. Season 2 darkened or ditched much of the comedy for a bleaker, higher action affair under the direction of Jeremy Lovering. In Slow Horses Season 3, Saul Metzstein doesn’t push the team back into the offices. If anything, Slough House appears even less than in Season 2. However, he does re-up some of the mismatched colleagues’ humor, particularly when it comes to the team’s most recent additions, gambling addict Marcus (Kadiff Kirwan) and drug addict Shirley (Aimee-Ffion Edwards). He also further deepens the emotional stakes with a light touch, adding depth to ever-growing complications. Continue Reading →
Fargo
SimilarAgatha Christie's Poirot Amazing Stories, Angel, Animated Classics of Japanese Literature, Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Bates Motel, Baywatch Nights, Black Scorpion, Bodies, Broadchurch, Cruel Summer, CSI: Miami, Dexter, From, Jack the Ripper, La Femme Nikita, La Mante, Luther, Miss Marple: Nemesis, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, More than Blue: The Series, Murder Most Horrid, Peep Show,
Planet of the Apes Sentimental Journey,
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StudioFX Productions,
The crime drama returns to the Land of 10,000 Lakes and rediscovers its best storytelling self.
Throughout the six episodes of Fargo Season 5 screened for critics, the series isn’t exactly subtle. From opening the season with an on-screen graphic defining “Minnesota Nice” as neighbor attacks neighbor during a school board meeting to Sheriff Roy Tillman (Jon Hamm) staring up at a campaign billboard of himself, the show loudly states its theses at the viewer over and over.
However, it never feels like creator Noah Hawley has lost control of the storytelling. It’s methodically over-the-top. The audience is on a roller coaster, but they can feel the quality of the engineering keeping them on the tracks. In other hands, this approach can feel alienating or blunting. Fargo Season 5 benefits from meeting Hawley’s signature energy with a game cast and impressively insightful art direction. As a result, the series turns in its best offering since Season 2’s near-perfect effort. Continue Reading →