6 Best Netflix Shows Released Since 2013, Ranked

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Millie Bobby Brown in Stranger Things Season 5

Published Oct 9, 2026, 5:17 PM EDT

Netflix has produced plenty of shows people watched because the app put them six inches from the Play button. These are the ones people went looking for. The ones that turned Wednesday-night episodes into group-chat emergencies, made entire seasons disappear over weekends, or left viewers googling timelines, character theories, soundtrack songs, and whether the next season had started filming yet. That difference is everything because it’s almost as if these shows made Netflix mainstream.

And the strangest thing is how little these six resemble one another. Netflix has spent years trying to manufacture the next phenomenon but these are the shows that became phenomena before anyone could reduce them to a formula. Let’s figure out how.

6 'Mindhunter' (2017–2019)

Jonathan Groff in a suit and tie walking through a prison in Mindhunter.

Mindhunter follows FBI agents Holden Ford (Jonathan Groff) and Bill Tench (Holt McCallany) as they begin interviewing imprisoned serial killers in the late 1970s, hoping that understanding how these men think can help law enforcement identify patterns before future killers strike. Holden approaches the work with almost reckless curiosity, Bill brings the skepticism of somebody who knows monsters rarely arrive with useful labels, and psychologist Wendy Carr (Anna Torv) helps turn their disturbing conversations into actual behavioral science.

The show’s nerve is that it understands a man sitting across a table can be scarier than a murder scene. Ed Kemper (Cameron Britton) casually explaining how he killed people is horrifying because he is articulate, polite, even weirdly accommodating. Holden gradually becomes too comfortable in those rooms, and that is where the danger shifts. He starts believing access equals understanding. The Atlanta child murders later punish that confidence brutally because real investigations contain politics, frightened families, racial tension, incomplete evidence, and no guarantee of closure. David Fincher helped establish the show’s clinical visual language as a director and executive producer, but the thing I miss most is simpler — television almost never trusted silence this much.

5 'BoJack Horseman' (2014–2020)

BoJack Horseman on the phone with the full moon in the background

BoJack Horseman is about a washed-up sitcom star who happens to be an anthropomorphic horse, living in Hollywood decades after the show that made him famous while cycling through addiction, damaged relationships, failed attempts at reinvention, and the exhausting hope that becoming a better person might still be possible. BoJack (Will Arnett) is funny enough to keep people around and destructive enough to make you understand why they eventually leave.

I still think the show pulled off one of television’s greatest bait-and-switches. Early episodes look like an adult cartoon full of animal jokes and celebrity satire. Then suddenly “The Telescope” happens, Herb refuses to forgive BoJack, and the series makes a point it never backs away from: feeling guilty does not entitle you to absolution. Later, “Free Churro” gives BoJack almost an entire episode to talk at a funeral, while “The View from Halfway Down” turns death into something genuinely terrifying. Raphael Bob-Waksberg created a comedy where background signs can contain elaborate jokes and one quiet sentence can ruin your evening. I recommend it carefully because people hear “sad horse cartoon” and laugh. Then six seasons later they are emotionally negotiating with a horse cartoon.

4 'Dark' (2017–2020)

Louis Hofmann as Jonas wearing a yellow jacket on a road in Dark

Dark begins when a child disappears from the German town of Winden, leading several interconnected families toward a cave system, a nuclear plant, and a time-travel mystery stretching across multiple generations. Jonas Kahnwald (Louis Hofmann) becomes central to a story where parents become children, children become ancestors, and knowing the future often makes characters more responsible for creating it. Yes, you may need the family tree. No, that is not a criticism.

What makes Dark extraordinary is that the complexity eventually becomes emotional rather than merely clever. The first time you learn who certain characters really are, you reach for the timeline. Later, the names alone hurt. Jonas keeps trying to prevent suffering and repeatedly discovers that his attempts are embedded inside the suffering he wants to erase. Michael’s story is especially devastating once the full causal loop becomes clear. Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese created a show obsessed with determinism, but they never let the philosophy swallow the families. “What we know is a drop. What we don’t know is an ocean” sounds grand. Dark spends three seasons showing how terrifying that ocean becomes when everyone you love is already inside it.

Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes Which Netflix Character Would Be Your Best Friend? Dustin · Emily · Wednesday · Gi-hun

Some friends drag you out of the house. Some sit with you on the worst night of your life. Netflix has written both, plus the one who tells you the truth you have been avoiding all week. Answer eight quick questions about how you actually do friendship, and find out which of them was always going to end up in your corner.

🧢Dustin(Stranger Things)

🗼Emily(Emily in Paris)

🕷️Wednesday(Wednesday)

🟢Gi-hun(Squid Game)

FIND YOUR BEST FRIEND →

How do you usually end up making a new friend? The origin story says a lot about the friendship that follows it.

AWe got loud about the same obsession and never stopped. BThey invited me somewhere before we had properly met. CWe bonded over disliking exactly the same thing. DThey noticed I was struggling and stayed with me.

NEXT QUESTION →

What is a perfect Saturday with your best friend? Friendship is mostly built out of very ordinary hours.

AA ridiculous plan neither of us should attempt. BSomewhere new, photographed heavily, ending very late. CSomewhere quiet, few people, zero small talk. DSomething simple, and a conversation that actually matters.

NEXT QUESTION →

You call them at two in the morning. What happens? This is the real test of a friendship, and everybody knows it.

AThey are already putting their shoes on. BThey answer instantly and turn it into a plan. CThey answer and say something unflattering and true. DThey listen for an hour and never check the time.

NEXT QUESTION →

What do you want from them when you are clearly wrong? The best friendships are the ones that survive being corrected.

ASupport first. We can review the mistake later. BA relentlessly positive reframe of the entire disaster. CThe blunt version. Do not soften it for me. DPatience, and no judgment about how I got here.

NEXT QUESTION →

What do your friends actually value about you? The friend you attract says something about the friend you are.

AI am all in, always, about everything. BI can turn almost any situation into a good time. CI say the thing nobody else in the room will. DI look after whoever is having the worst day.

NEXT QUESTION →

You have a falling out. How does it go? How a friendship repairs itself matters more than how it breaks.

ALoudly, briefly, then back to normal by Tuesday. BThey apologise first, enthusiastically, with a gift. CCold silence, then one dry joke that fixes everything. DWe talk until we both understand what actually happened.

NEXT QUESTION →

What do you actually need a best friend for? Everybody is missing something. The right friend fills that gap.

ATo make my life bigger than it would be alone. BTo push me out of the house and into my own life. CTo catch me when I start lying to myself. DTo be the person who never gave up on me.

NEXT QUESTION →

Ten years from now, what keeps the two of you close? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides who you get.

AWe would still drop everything for each other, instantly. BWe still make plans, and we still actually go. CWe still cut through each other's nonsense in one sentence. DThey stood by me once when it cost them something.

REVEAL MY BEST FRIEND →

The Group Chat Has Spoken Your Best Friend Is…

Four Netflix characters, four completely different ways of showing up for somebody. This is the one who fits how you actually do friendship, and what having them in your life would be like.

Dustin Henderson

You do not do friendship at half volume, and neither does he. What you want is somebody who says yes to the plan before you have finished describing the plan.

Dustin is the friend the entire show runs on: loyal past the point of sense, enthusiastic about everything, and incapable of leaving anybody behind.
You have the same instinct. Your friendships are loud, specific and slightly ridiculous, and they last for decades because of it.
He is also the one person who would take your strangest interest completely seriously, which is far rarer than it sounds.
You would have a group chat. It would never once be quiet.

Emily Cooper

You are the friend who makes things happen, and so is she. Together you would be mildly exhausting to everyone around you and completely delighted with yourselves.

Emily treats an ordinary Tuesday as something that could be turned into an occasion, which is either the best or the worst quality in a friend depending on your energy levels.
You share her refusal to sit still. Neither of you has ever accepted a night in when something was happening somewhere else.
She is far more loyal than people give her credit for. She defends her friends loudly, publicly, and occasionally before checking the facts.
She would post the photo without asking. You would forgive her, because it is a very good photo.

Wednesday Addams

You have no patience for pleasant lies, and she has no ability to tell them. What looks like coldness from the outside is the most reliable friendship on this list.

Wednesday never says a kind thing she does not mean, which makes the rare ones count for an enormous amount.
You would rather be told the truth than be made comfortable. She is constitutionally incapable of offering you anything else.
Underneath all of it she is ferociously protective. She simply refuses to make a performance out of caring.
Do not expect a birthday message. Do expect her to ruin anyone who wrongs you.

Seong Gi-hun

You look after whoever is having the worst day. So does he. It is the least strategic way to move through the world and the best possible quality in a friend.

Gi-hun is not the strongest player in Squid Game, or the cleverest. He is the one who keeps choosing to protect somebody else, over and over, at genuine cost to himself.
You have the same instinct. You notice who is struggling and you stay with them, long after anybody would blame you for leaving.
He is a flawed friend, and that is part of why it lands. He lets people down, then comes back and tries again, which is more than most manage.
He would give you his last chance and never once mention that he had done it.

↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ

3 'Arcane' (2021–2024)

Arcane follows sisters Vi (Hailee Steinfeld) and Powder after a childhood tragedy tears them apart in the divided cities of wealthy Piltover and oppressed Zaun, with Powder eventually becoming Jinx (Ella Purnell) while technological breakthroughs, political conflict, and old wounds push both cities toward war. Vi spends years trying to recover the sister she remembers. Jinx has spent those same years becoming somebody that memory cannot simply restore.

That relationship is why I stopped caring whether somebody had ever played League of Legends. The series does not ask you to admire adaptation accuracy. It asks you to watch two sisters repeatedly reach for versions of each other that no longer exist. Jinx lighting the flare Vi gave her as a child is devastating because for one moment she is still Powder waiting to be found. Then Silco, Caitlyn, Vander, Jayce, Viktor, and an entire political conflict keep complicating the reunion. And the animation is doing emotional work constantly: Jinx’s scribbled hallucinations, Ekko and Jinx’s bridge fight briefly becoming the childhood game they once played, Viktor’s body changing alongside his ambition. Plenty of animated shows look beautiful. Arcane makes beauty feel like part of the wound.

2 'Squid Game' (2021–2025)

Squid Game follows heavily indebted Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae), who enters a secret competition where hundreds of financially desperate contestants play children’s games for an enormous cash prize and discover that losing a game means being killed. What initially looks like an escape from debt becomes a system deliberately designed to turn desperation, friendship, and inequality into entertainment.

The first “Red Light, Green Light” massacre made the premise famous. The marble episode made the show impossible to dismiss as a gimmick. Players are told to pair up before learning that one member of each pair must die. Ali (Anupam Tripathi) trusts Sang-woo (Park Hae-soo) because Sang-woo has helped him. Gi-hun realizes Oh Il-nam (O Yeong-su)’s memory is failing and briefly exploits it. Those choices are awful because the show gave everyone understandable reasons to make them.

1 'Stranger Things' (2016–2025)

Noah Schnapp in Stranger Things Season 5

Stranger Things had you from the first day. It starts when twelve-year-old Will Byers (Noah Schnapp) disappears from Hawkins, Indiana, leading his friends, his mother, and the local police chief toward a secret government laboratory, a mysterious girl named Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), and a parallel dimension known as the Upside Down. What begins as one missing-child story keeps expanding until those kids are teenagers carrying years of supernatural trauma while Hawkins itself becomes the battlefield.

The show became so culturally huge that it is easy to forget how intimate its best moments are. Joyce (Winona Ryder) communicating with Will through Christmas lights. Steve Harrington (Joe Keery) somehow evolves from disposable high-school jerk into the guy swinging a nail-studded bat because protecting these children has quietly become his life. Max (Sadie Sink) escaping Vecna while “Running Up That Hill” plays became a massive pop-culture moment because the spectacle was attached to something painfully specific: a girl choosing to run back toward people after grief convinced her to withdraw from them. The Duffer Brothers created a show full of monsters, telekinesis, government conspiracies, malls, mixtapes, and enough ’80s references to stock a video store. The reason Stranger Things became Netflix’s defining show is much less complicated. You wanted these kids to make it home.