I’m in the US so I’ve mostly watched US TV shows, I’ve been wanting to watch shows made by other countries as there must be some great ones that never took off in the states.
I’ve seen a few I could recommend like Alice in Borderlands (Japanese), Gangs in London (UK), Lupin (French)
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I loved Luther, although wasn’t impressed by the recent movie.
I believe the movie was, unfortunately, a rushed conclusion to what was an amazing series, because they just couldn’t get enough of Idris Elba’s time in between Hollywood flicks. His star had simply risen too far by that point.
It’s a real shame, too - we waited so long for that movie.
Kingdom (South Korea)
Derry Girls (Ireland)
Babylon Berlin (Germany)
I really liked La Casa de Papel. Netflix renamed it to ‘Money Heist,’ which is a terrible name. Still a good series though.
Life on Mars (UK)
Please tell me you watched the follow-on series, Ashes to Ashes, with Keeley Hawes. Same concept, but she goes back to the 80s, and also meets Gene Hunt. Great addition to the original series!
Wow, did I hate the sequel series.
There a lot of great kdrama shows. And no, I’m not talking about Squid Game. I can recommend Beyond Evil, D.P., and Moving.
South Korea is really uping their tv game. I really enjoy many of their shows.
Sahsiyet. It’s like Breaking Bad, but Turkish. Really well produced and binge worthy.
Dark (German). Awesome series.
Dark was great. For anyone watching for the first time, Netflix made a great website that helps you keep up with who is who with no spoilers. Select the last episode you’ve finished and it only gives information to that point.
I loved season 1, especially for the 80s look in Germany which I remember from my childhood (Gen X)
Dark lost me with season 2
Came here for this!
Dark was great, it reminded me a bit of Stranger Things in the first season. By the second season you almost need to take notes to keep up with the story line though
I need to take notes only 3 episodes in. I want to like it but it feels like tuning in to a random episode of the X-Files with no knowledge of what is going on.
It takes 4 episodes to really build into the complexity. Then season 2 turns it on its head.
It’s a bit old now, but I really liked Summer Snow from Japan. Also Hungry from Japan (similarly dated).
I was studying Mandarin a few years ago and I was suggested to watch Taiwanese dramas since they tend to speak Mandarin and to also speak at a conversational level.
There’s a lot of romantic comedies, so you can watch meteor garden, substitute princess, my queen, fated to love you, and I have found that all of these are very accessible to me as an American audience but I never got to the point where I could watch them without subtitles.
Another mostly Mandarin show that is definitely worth the watch is called nirvana in fire, and it is legitimately an amazing 40-hour long epic show that has sword fighting and wuxia and political intrigue and romantic subplots and a massive character list of all sorts of different people who all have their own thing going on all woven together into this amazing storytelling tapestry that rivals and in many ways bests anything that you can get in America or Western media.
But unless you’re already very fluent in I’m not going to say just Mandarin but in the Chinese languages, you have to watch it with subtitles and it’s definitely worth it.
I scrolled this far to say Squid Game.
Sooo good
This Country (UK) is so charming and painful at the same time. Even if you don’t like Welcome to Flatch, you might still love This Country.
Wallander is a really good Swedish crime show, if you like being depressed.
The last season hits extra deep.
