Ben Stiller's Star-Studded 2018 True Crime Miniseries Is A Hit On Netflix

Showtime

The nepo baby discourse as it pertains to the arts is typically a grievance-driven undertaking that allows low- to no-talent individuals the opportunity to blame someone other than themselves for their lack of success. Though there have been instances of celebrity-adjacent people receiving seemingly undeserved gigs, these are usually one-and-not-too-many-more-done deals undone by the recipient's profound absence of skill.

While Ben Stiller certainly had a leg up thanks to his showbiz parents Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, he very quickly proved to be a top-notch satirist via his short films for "Saturday Night Live" and as the producer of the brilliant yet short-lived "The Ben Stiller Show" (which helped launch the careers of Bob Odenkirk, David Cross, Janeane Garofalo, and Judd Apatow). For those who've followed his career from the start, he's more than earned his bites at the apple, which includes his transition to movie star thanks to hits like "There's Something About Mary," "Meet the Parents," and "Zoolander." (You can find /Film's ranking of Ben Stiller's best movies here.) But he's been at his very best off-camera, particularly as a director of films (especially "Tropic Thunder" and "The Cable Guy") and television series ("Severance," as well as quite possibly the greatest rejected pilot of all time, "Heat Vision and Jack"). And Stiller's finest work to date in TV, the 2018 Showtime series "Escape at Dannemora," is currently burning up the charts on Netflix.

Showtime

Whether it's fictionalized or a straight-up documentary, the true-crime genre seems to reign supreme in the streaming wars. All you have to do is hook into an intriguing real-life subject and viewers will binge-watch their hearts out.

Stiller's contribution to this genre is the excellent drama "Escape at Dannemora," an account of an upstate New York prison break engineered by two convicted murderers, Richard Matt (Benicio del Toro) and David Sweat (Paul Dano), and aided by penitentiary employee Joyce "Tilly" Mitchell (Patricia Arquette). It's a gripping seven-episode series written by Brett Johnson and "The Player" scribe Michael Tolkin (read our interview with him about the show here) that'll have you pinned to your couch, so keep that in mind when you hit play on that first chapter. There's no way you'll check out of this sucker. Right now, "Escape at Dannemora" is hovering at the number 5 spot on Netflix's TV charts, indicating yet again how a series on a lesser-watched channel like Showtime can become a big hit when it debuts on the world's biggest streaming service.

Though the real-life Joyce Mitchell has expressed vehement displeasure with Stiller's depiction of the events, that's par for the course when people have their lives turned into entertainment (especially the lurid kind). You can determine for yourself if she was ill-served by Stiller, but what's not up for debate are the phenomenal performances of the three leads (Arquette won a Screen Actors Guild Award for her work) and the crackerjack supporting cast that includes Bonnie Hunt, Jeremy Bobb, Eric Lange, and David Morse. This is terrific, deep-dish entertainment, so settle in and know that you're in expert hands with film-and-television legacy Ben Stiller.