The Best International TV Shows on Netflix

14. Cable Girls

Country: Spain
Category: Telenovela

Whatever you’re in the mood for—corporate intrigue, romance, family drama—Cable Girls is bound to have it. The Spanish series, which ran from 2017 until 2020, is set in Madrid in the late 1920s and follows the lives of four switchboard operators as they attempt to overcome the many barriers that make women answerable to men. Lidia (Blanca Suárez), a woman who’s been burned by life and whose real name is Alba, has taken a job at the telephone company with the intent to rob it only to discover the love of her life now runs it, significantly complicating matters. Meanwhile, Carlota (Ana Fernández) is a high society woman desperate to escape her controlling father, Marga (Nadia de Santiago) is from a small town and striking out on her own for the first time, and Ángeles (Maggie Civantos), the longest tenured and best operator at the company, is working to provide for her family. Over the course of the series, the show skillfully tackles relevant topics like LGBTQ rights and spousal abuse through the lens of the 1920s and what women went through in order to survive in a patriarchal society. But at its heart, Cable Girls is ultimately a powerful story about the strength of female friendship and women’s collective fight for power and independence. The fact that the costumes are excellent is simply an added bonus. —Kaitlin Thomas

13. Hellbound

Country: South Korea
Category: Supernatural Thriller

A blockbuster out of South Korea, Hellbound is based on Yeon Sang-ho’s webcomic and asks what would happen if angels started appearing on earth and telling humans that they were soon going to be dragged to hell by ultra-violent smoke demons, while all of Seoul—and the world—looked on. The pilot is more intriguing than the premise should be, as the show wrestles with questions of faith, judgment, and redemption in the face of undeniable evidence. Yoo Ah-in stars as the charismatic cult leader of the New Truth Society, and Yang Ik-june is the detective still treating the mysterious deaths as murders, while his daughter (played by Lee Re) becomes involved with the cult. —Josh Jackson

12. All of Us Are Dead

Country: South Korea
Category: Zombie Drama

If you like your zombie dramas more modern, you can check out All of Us Are Dead, one of Netflix’s most popular TV shows of all time. The 2022 adaptation of popular webtoon All of Us Are Dead follows a group of teenagers at Hyosan High School, ground zero for a zombie outbreak. Thematically, the coming-of-age drama is about the failure of the adult generations to protect young people, which makes it both topical and incredibly depressing. You have been warned.

Note: Traditionally, most K-dramas have only one season, but this is slowly changing, presumably because of the influence of Netflix and other international streamers. All of Us Are Dead will return for a second season. —Kayti Burt

11. The Law According to Lidia Poët

Country: Italy
Category: Legal Drama

A lush period piece with a distinctly modern heart, The Law According to Lidia Poët is one part legal procedural, one part family drama, and one part feminist manifesto—with a little bit of will they/won’t they romance thrown on top. The series is roughly based on a true story; the real Lidia Poët is generally acknowledged as Italy’s first female lawyer, and her determination to practice law kicked off a nationwide debate about the role of women in both the legal profession and public life. The Netflix version adds a more procedural element to her story, dividing its narrative between specific cases of the week even as it follows its heroine’s quest to live life on her own terms, from her choice of career to her no-strings-attached fling with a handsome friend. And yet, despite its determinedly feminist point of view, the show handles issues of gender politics with a surprisingly light touch, content to show its viewers the ways that capable and exceptional women are all too often held back by a society that sees them as second class citizens rather than spout platitudes about oppression. Its narrative style will feel deeply familiar to anyone that’s ever watched an episode of Miss Scarlet & the Duke or Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, which both feature similar themes and stories of uber-capable women forging new paths through a male-dominated world. And it features a star-making turn from actress Matilda De Angelis, whose fierce, feisty Lidia is tremendously likable and easy to root for. —Lacy Baugher Milas

10. Casa de Papel (Money Heist)

Country: Spain
Category: Heist Drama

A blockbuster ensemble drama with a broad demographic appeal, Casa de Papel (AKA, Money Heist) is likely the one international Netflix Original you don’t need us to tell you to watch, given that 2020 saw it hit the Top 10 in a whopping 92 countries. Still, in case you’ve yet to hop the Money Heist train, the deal is this: A kind of serialized Ocean’s Eleven, the show follows a group of criminals as they launch a mad plan to rob the Spanish mint. Like in Ocean’s Eleven, most of the ne’er-do-wells involved in the series’ titular heist are strangers to one another before being tapped by El Profesor (Álvaro Morte); unlike in Ocean’s Eleven, El Profesor works hard to make sure it stays that way. Thus we get a narrator (Úrsula Corberó, Snatch) known only as Tokío, a baby-faced tech genius (Miguel Herrán, Élite) known only as Río, a sociopathic ringleader (Pedro Alonso) known only as Berlín, and so on down the line, as well as the show’s signature red jumpsuit+Dalí mask aesthetic, which both the thieves and their hostages wear throughout the series. In combination, these details effectively anonymize them both to each other, and to hostage negotiator Raquel Murillo (Itziar Ituño), whose team El Profesor spends the first season working to infiltrate from outside the building—though whether that anonymity serves the heist’s purpose in the long run, you’ll have to watch to find out.

There’s a lot going on in Casa de Papel—as a serialized drama with a love for mystery-box storytelling and an ensemble cast that starts big and just gets bigger, it’s as interested in being a character study and exploring interpersonal relationships as it is in thrilling the audience with its own cleverness—but stretched across five seasons, it never feels like Too Much. So whether you’re jonesing for more heist action after Lupin, or in the mood for more Spanish melodrama after Élite, Casa de Papel might be for you. —Alexis Gunderson

9. Norsemen

Country: Norway
Category: Comedy

Is there comedy to be found in the saga of bloodthirsty and loot-hungry pillagers like the vikings? As it turns out, yes, and the vehicle for this comedy is Netflix’s Norsemen. Here, you can see a chieftain force his warriors to give up the metal from their weapons so a slave with artistic pretensions can build a sculpture, all of which leads to the clan getting captured by their enemies while the chieftain is in a dress (long story). What makes Norsemen so funny is the very modern human sensibilities pasted onto these marauders, so that along with brutality of every kind, you have an insecure warrior like Arvid whose bullies him for not understanding poetry. The best character of all, though, is Rufus, the enslaved (bad) actor who refuses to accept that he’s a slave and manages to carve out a small sphere of influence for himself among constant threats of death and people who largely hate him. Despite the ubiquity of death, Rufus’ chief concerns are the slights he must bear as an artist among rubes. It’s a brilliant role, totally contradictory, and the highlight of this endlessly hysterical satire. —Shane Ryan

8. Crash Landing on You

Country: South Korea
Category: Romantic Comedy

This 2020 romance is maybe a perfect show—that intangible blend of clever writing, cast chemistry, and timing that comes together to create something magical. Crash Landing on You aired in Korea and on Netflix at the end of 2019 and into 2020, which means it was available in its entirety in that first, awful phase of the pandemic when most people were at home, distanced from many of their loved ones. In other words, if this ends up being your gateway K-drama, you’re in good company.

This story about a chaebol heiress and entrepreneur (the incomparable Son Ye-jin) who crash-paraglides into the DMZ and into the life of the North Korean soldier (the iconic Hyun Bin) who decides to hide her became an escapist fantasy for many Americans stuck at home. Like other best K-dramas, Crash Landing on You doesn’t just rely on its central romance (which, to be clear, is so, so good); it’s also a story about family, community, severe depression, childhood trauma, independence, and the choices we make within the commitments we make to each other and to ourselves. No notes. —Kayti Burt

7. Élite (E L I T E)

Country: Spain
Category: Teen Drama

A spiritual (though sexier and more diverse) successor to both The O.C. and Gossip Girl, with just a touch of SKAM thrown in for good measure, Netflix’s Spanish-language original Élite is a teenage-class-warfare-lover’s dream. Featuring a sprawling ensemble cast of attractive Spanish twentysomethings, Élite follows a trio of working class public school kids—one of them, a hijabi from an immigrant Palestinian family—as they transfer to Las Encinas, an academically elite (and extremely expensive) private school on a kind of “whoops, my bad” scholarship sponsored by some of the rich parents whose cost-cutting construction business was found to have been at fault for their public school literally collapsing. The class tensions and psychosexual dramas this move provokes would be more than enough to fill any sexy, A+ teen series with (Riverdale truly wishes). Élite, however, is nothing if not expert in raising the stakes, each season framing these more quotidian (if highly stylized) teen dramas with a more explosive mystery—a brutal murder of a central member of the ensemble in Season 1, the bloody disappearance of another in Season 2, and the even bloodier death of a third in Season 3. As the show has progressed, alliances have swapped, ‘ships have been thoroughly mixed up, and allegiances have been pinned in every possible configuration. The only thing we can really be certain of is that nothing at Las Encinas will ever be boring. —Alexis Gunderson

6. Squid Game

Country: South Korea
Category: Thriller

Honeyed snacks, candy-colored walls, and a larger-than-life doll all sound like a child’s fantasy come to life. But inside the world of Squid Game, innocent nostalgia comes with a body count as 456 individuals compete to the death in playground games for $45.6 billion Korean won (or $38.6 million American dollars). All on the brink of financial ruin and desperate for a way out, the players are pitted against each other by the rich and powerful for entertainment, until there’s just one victor left standing.

Created by genre-spanning filmmaker Hwang Dong-hyuk, Squid Game’s plot line will feel familiar to anyone who’s seen The Hunger Games or Battle Royale, the Japanese cult favorite that popularized the battle royale genre. Yet rather than take place in any dystopian landscape, Squid Game grounds its premise through a real-world, contemporary setting. The “last-man-standing” hook means there’s a predictability to how it all plays out, but Hwang is less concerned with subverting the battle royale formula as much as digging into the human stakes that make it tick.

Manipulated by fine print, the Squid Game competitors aren’t initially aware of the life-or-death consequences they’ve signed up for. After the first game’s mass casualties, a loophole gives them the chance to opt out from playing and return safely to their empty bank accounts. The choice seems like a no-brainer from an outside perspective. But as the essential second episode reveals, there are no good options for those on society’s margins, and a worry-free existence where money isn’t a daily stressor seems impossible to obtain. The games are bad—but who’s to say the real world isn’t worse? —Annie Lyons

5. Lupin

Country: France
Category: Mystery / Thriller

Lupin is a show about a boy named Assane who becomes a thief, and may have some identity crisis issues in that he seems to believe he is—and I mean “is” in a literal sense—a gentleman thief named Arsene Lupin (Omar Sy) from a series of stories by the writer Maurice Leblanc. There are some family issues at play; he and his father were Senegalese immigrants, and the old man was accused of stealing a valuable necklace when Assane was a child, which provided the seed for how his entire life unfolded. From that tragic backstory, a sort of comic book hero emerges, and his superpower is legerdemain: the artistry of the thief.

In style, Lupin bears some similarity to the BBC’s Sherlock, at least in the frenetic worship of cleverness that makes an hour-long show feel like 10 jam-packed minutes. Sherlock is the smarter show, Lupin the more outlandish, even though Benedict Cumberbatch’s detective is a wilder character by far. In both shows, though, the viewer is taken into the labyrinth of the mind, where the resolution of a thorny puzzle functions as the pounding impulse behind every plot device. With all its bells and whistles, Sherlock is still the more grounded show, and as mentioned above Lupin is never afraid to veer off the rails, but the pleasures of the unraveling mystery are the same, even if the protagonists operate on opposite sides of the law.

While Lupin strains and then shatters credulity at the best of times, it’s also a pretty great way to spend an hour. Make of that conclusion what you will, but I think as long as we keep our wits about us, there’s nothing wrong with a little fun. —Shane Ryan

4. Kingdom

Country: South Korea
Category: Political Drama / Horror

American (or even just Western) zombies are almost always the driving point of the narrative—representing big nasty threats like national anxiety about disease, nuclear war, capitalism, the collapse of society, and racism—often limiting the genre’s possibilities and focusing their plots largely on external forces. By contrast, in Kingdom (transported to South Korea’s Joseon period) these stories become more interested in how existing structures (and the normal people living inside them) handle the threat, and how coping makes them better equipped for the inevitable return to normal. Western zombie shows allow their audiences to appreciate how society adapts to these monstrous allegories, forming the factional city-states of The Walking Dead (Alexandria, Hilltop, Woodbury) or the religious zeal of Santa Clarita Diet’s Anne Garcia (Natalie Morales); Korean zombies rage in a society that ultimately stays the same. The latter’s evils are amplified and exposed by the zombies, but the infected undead also catalyze a satisfying hero’s journey in the midst of misguided magistrates, fear-based isolationism, and class warfare. —Jacob Oller

3. Giri/Haji

Country: Japan / England
Category: Crime Drama

International thriller Giri/Haji starts when a Tokyo detective, Kenzo Mori (Takehiro Hira), is tasked by a prominent Yakuza crime family—in conjunction with the police force—to secretly go to London in search of his brother Yuto (Yosuke Kubozuka), who he thought died a year ago. The hope is that bringing Yuto back will stop a sprawling war that he helped kickstart among the Yakuza factions. But like Kenzo’s investigation into Yuto’s disappearance and faked death, Giri /Haji is full of unexpected twists, not just in its narrative but in its form. It’s dark and violent at times, but also funny and full of heart. At the center of the story is the tale of two brothers, yet it’s also about forged family and discovering the truth about one’s self. The gang war is the framework for the story, which plays out in many ways like Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels (as far as a variety of different crime bosses all marching toward one another); and yet, one of its most moving scenes takes place during a quiet, makeshift Yom Kippur dinner regarding atonement.

The series is just frankly stunning. And crucially, funny. Though it would be wonderful to spend more time in this world with a second season, there is a palpable and beautiful sense of healing that has ended this one. —Allison Keene

2. Call My Agent!

Country: France
Category: Comedy/Drama

A fast-paced French comedy-drama about a Parisian talent agency and the lovably infuriating folks who staff it. Created by Fanny Herrero, Call My Agent (also known as “Dix Pour Cent”—10 percent) is excellent at balancing and integrating both its character work and Actor of the Week storylines, where real French celebrities (some of whom, in later seasons, are more well-known to American audiences) play heightened versions of themselves. A behind-the-scenes look at French movie making, Call My Agent is just as focused on the various personal dramas at ASK—an agency at war first with a rival agency and then with itself—and its lopsided “work is life” mentality. With four short seasons (each running six episodes), the series is entertaining simply as a clever take on the industry, but what makes it truly great is how it grounds that storytelling in relatable characters and the neverending carousel of their triumphs and woes. In other words, oui, worth the subtitles. Allons-y! —Allison Keene

1. Borgen

Country: Denmark
Category: Political Drama

One of television’s best political dramas, Borgen was historically hard to find in the U.S., but that changed in 2020 when Netflix picked up the streaming rights for the show’s first three seasons and even signed on to produce a fourth (which is now streaming). Following Birgitte Nyborg (Sidse Babett Knudson), a minor centrist politician who, through a series of convenient circumstances, finds herself the first female prime minister of Denmark, the show is one of a handful of Danish series that helped redefine the global TV landscape in the early 2010s. Over the course of the 30 episodes that made up the show’s initial run, Birgitte struggles to hold onto power without compromising her principles and ideals, facing attacks not just from the left and the right, but from within her own cabinet and the dogged press as well.

But while the political intrigue is what ultimately keeps Borgen’s overarching narrative moving, one of the more interesting aspects of the show is its investigation of how Birgitte approaches her career and her home life, engaging with the double standard that women can’t have it all while seemingly also understanding how unfair it is that Birgitte must deal with these issues while men in her same position do not. Much like the political drama at its center, this remains messy and complicated throughout, but always makes you root for Birgitte to succeed. —Kaitlin Thomas

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