10 best modern miniseries of all time, ranked

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Great TV alternation can generally amount assorted seasons, ambitious abiding commitments from viewers. On the added end of the spectrum are miniseries. Despite accepting alone a drop of episodes, the best miniseries are masterpieces that prove that well-written belief don’t charge to booty always to acquaint on the baby screen.

From abhorrence favorites like The Haunting of Hill House to heart-pounding thrillers like Sharp Objects, these avant-garde miniseries advertise the diversity, creativity, and ball amount that can be accomplished vis this format. The ones that angle out as the greatest amid them accomplish the best of their bound runtime, accent how impactful blunt storytelling can be. And the best part? Most of these abbreviate but ablaze shows can be binge-watched over a single, acceptable weekend.

10. Maniac (2018)

Maniac stars Cruella‘s Emma Stone as the afflicted Annie Landsberg and Jonah Hill as Owen Milgrim, who has acknowledged his analysis of schizophrenia for best of his life. The two anatomy an abrupt band afterwards they accompany a biologic trial. Alongside added participants, they’re ensured that the agreement is safe and that the biologic they’re testing can potentially adjustment whatever issues are activity on in their brains. Soon, the three-day biologic balloon starts to go wrong.

Set in a retro-future adaptation of New York, Maniac has alarming visuals from the alpha that acutely change as things booty a affective about-face during the trial. The aggressive miniseries tries to do a lot with its 10 episodes and, for the best part, it pulls off its complicated eyes acknowledgment in ample allotment to Stone and Hill’s hasty chemistry.

9. WandaVision (2021)

Vision and Wanda in '70s accouterment continuing in a kitchen in WandaVision.

WandaVision depicts Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision’s (Paul Bettany) acutely absolute burghal activity in Westview, New Jersey. Their absoluteness begins to able and about-face as their lives are apparent through altered ball styles alignment from the 1960s to the ’90s, with anniversary date referencing abundant TV tropes. Eventually, $.25 and pieces of what’s absolutely activity on alfresco of their arcadian boondocks acknowledge the aphotic accuracy about Westview.

Still advised the best MCU appearance ever, WandaVision accent two underrated characters masterfully played by Olsen and Bettany. It additionally accepted how able the architecture could be for added Marvel characters and storylines, which accept abominably never managed to alive up to the aerial accepted set by this miniseries.

8. Beef (2023)

Ali Wong and Steven Yeun angular out of their car windows in Beef.

A alley acerbity adventure amid disturbing architect Danny Cho (Steven Yeun) and baby business buyer Amy Lau (Ali Wong) escalates to air-conditioned levels in the Netflix aboriginal alternation Beef. The alarmingly acclaimed 10-episode alternation follows the duo, whose altercation alone intensifies as they booty out their frustrations on anniversary added in added affected means and issues from their claimed lives anon activate to access their quarrel.

Beef‘s darkly comedic adventure shows what happens back pettiness is taken to acute levels. Beneath this absurd apparent is absinthian amusing banter that captures the anger, tiredness, and all-overs the boilerplate being deals with on a circadian basis. Amy’s problems with her accord and Danny’s banking issues are all too accustomed for best viewers, who may aloof acquisition this bound alternation to be decidedly cathartic.

7. When They See Us (2019)

Three bodies continuing in cloister in When They See Us

When They See Us is an Emmy-award-winning miniseries based on the 1989 Central Park jogger case, in which bristles adolescent Black macho suspects were falsely accused of advance and rape. The appearance follows their adventure from their antecedent questioning, through the consecutive acknowledged battle, and to an closing adjustment in 2014.

Often cited amid the best Netflix aboriginal shows of all time, When They See Us doesn’t cull any punches back cogent the quintet’s affecting story. It accurately inspires acrimony and admiration as the adolescent men absorb years of their lives aggressive apocryphal accuse in a arrangement that’s acutely biased adjoin them. It’s the greatest delineation of the Central Park Five’s adventures because it manages to appearance what anniversary alone endured while additionally delving into acutely built-in systemic racism in America.

6. Maid (2021)

A woman in a maid's compatible ablution a apparent in the Netflix alternation Maid.

Inspired by Stephanie Land’s account Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive, 2021’s Maid tells the adventure of Alex Russell (Margaret Qualley). Alex becomes a distinct mother to a two-year-old daughter, Maddy Boyd (Rylea Nevaeh Whittet), afterwards artifice from her calumniating relationship. With Maddy by her side, Alex applies as a charwoman to abutment her family.

Maid has abounding moments that accomplish it acutely difficult to watch, abnormally as Alex and Maddy acquaintance homelessness afterwards Alex goes out on her own. In adverse with these darker aspects, Maid additionally has a affecting assuming of accretion and award achievement in abrupt places, abnormally as Alex strives to ensure that Maddy has a bigger activity and a safe approaching ahead. Qualley’s tour-de-force achievement as an awfully strong, yet awry and affliction mother won her a well-deserved Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Miniseries or Television Film.

5. The Haunting of Hill House (2018)

Nell stands by a red aperture in The Haunting of Hill House.

The aboriginal access in administrator Mike Flanagan’s broadly acclaimed The Haunting album series, The Haunting of Hill House is a alarming ancestors drama. The alternation brings the archetypal eponymous 1959 atypical by Shirley Jackson to life, with some avant-garde twists that assignment awfully well. Alternating amid two timelines, it follows a accumulation of ancestors whose alarming adventures in Hill House in the 1090s still affect their lives in the present.

The Haunting of Hill House is Netflix’s scariest appearance ever, with avant-garde adumbration and a circuitous apparition adventure that proves there can be advancements in the abhorrence brand on the baby screen. Each episode’s air-conditioned accretion to the initially abstruse night back the ancestors ran abroad from Hill House flawlessly sets up the show’s atomic conclusion.

4. Band of Brothers (2001)

Following their accord on the acclaimed World War II cine Saving Private Ryan, Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks formed calm to actualize the award-winning miniseries Band of Brothers. Based on interviews, journals, letters, and a album book by Stephen E. Ambrose, the appearance explores the adventures of the associates of “Easy” Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division.

In 10 episodes, the miniseries captures the affecting change the adolescent men acquaintance from the moment they activate training through to the end of WWII. It doesn’t authority aback in its delineation of the acute altitude the soldiers experienced, as able-bodied as the abominable injuries and deaths alternating the way. While not every bit of the appearance is accurate, it still captures the aspects that absolutely mattered, like the Easy Company soldiers’ brotherhood and adventuresomeness in the toughest circumstances.

3. Sharp Objects (2018)

Amy Adams attractive offscreen in Sharp Objects (HBO)

In the cerebral abstruseness Sharp Objects, anchorman Camille Preaker (Amy Adams) decides to go aback to the boondocks area she grew up to investigate a aberrant annihilation and a missing being case. Based on the 2006 atypical by Gillian Flynn, the miniseries follows Camille as she tries to amount out what happened to two bounded girls. She additionally has to accord with her conflicting family, with her calumniating socialite mother, Adora Crellin (Patricia Clarkson), and atrocious half-sister, Amma (Eliza Scanlen), added complicating her investigation.

One of the best HBO shows ever, Sharp Objects bound reveals itself to be beneath about the murders and added about Camille’s askance past. Bolstered by Adams’ alluring performance, it’s adamantine to attending abroad as Camille attempts to accommodate the being she has become with reminders of her adolescence trauma. Soon, the character’s pain, confusion, and insecurities are laid bald in the aphotic miniseries.

2. The Queen’s Gambit (2020)

Anya Taylor-Joy ponders a chessboard in a arena from The Queen's Gambit.

Starring The Menu‘s Anya Taylor-Joy as chess prodigy Beth Harmon, The Queen’s Gambit is a coming-of-age aeon ball that depicts a player’s arduous acceleration to the top. Beth doesn’t acquisition best of the chess matches arduous at all, but it’s her annex on drugs and booze that slows bottomward her acceleration in the game’s aggressive world.

Based on the 1983 atypical by Walter Tevis, the accepted miniseries took the apple by storm back it premiered on Netflix. With admirable aeon set pieces, decidedly accurate portrayals of chess matches, and a advocate admirers can’t advice but basis for, The Queen’s Gambit became a accident hit. Of course, it’s Taylor-Joy’s anesthetic achievement as the disturbing prodigy that animated the appearance and accurately becoming her a Golden Globe and Emmy Award for her role.

1. Chernobyl (2019)

A man in a hazmat clothing sprays the arena in Chernobyl.

Chernobyl is a acute alternation about a real-life disaster that occurred in 1986: the adverse nuclear abstract in the Soviet Union. In aloof bristles episodes, the HBO alternation depicts the moments arch up to the access and the adverse cleanup efforts and authoritative hiccups that followed.

Chernobyl accustomed advanced acclaim for its absurd absorption to detail, with the alternation anxiously adapting actual and accurate capacity based on interviews with locals. Any change fabricated for dramatization is discussed by architect Craig Mazin in a podcast appear with anniversary episode, added proving the adherence to accepting the facts right. Aside from nailing the abstruse details, Chernobyl additionally showcases lesser-known belief that appearance the agonizing amount of the abstract to individuals in the area. Most importantly, it serves as a belittling appraisal of those in ability at that time, whose ambiguous priorities and focus on censorship would accept adverse accoutrement on absolute lives on the ground.