Even when the outcome has been less than enjoyable, there’s something consistently beguiling about how Netflix goes about its programming business. The quality is, on the whole, much better than most cable networks, even when the formula allows for the production of something so profoundly false and rigid as, say, The Ranch. That being said, it’s not completely unique in this regard: FX has a similarly superb programming department, which has allowed new classics like Archer, The Americans, and Louie to flourish. There’s also, of course, HBO, with the invaluable Last Week Tonight, Silicon Valley, Insecure, Big Little Lies, Girls, and, for better or worse, Game of Thrones.
Still, there’s something just a bit brasher about Netflix. House of Cards is a grand, theatrical political melodrama draped in the icy imagery of David Fincher, the visionary that set the visual and narrative tone for the series in his opening act. He also directed the series’ first two episodes with his customary tinted, gorgeous view of Washington’s power elite as homicidal lunatics and profoundly corrupted representatives. (For what it’s worth HBO has bungled two attempts to give Fincher the reins as of late). Orange is the New Black, as well -- for all its flaws -- is at once the world’s biggest no-brainer and requiring of boldness and faith to get that initial green light. The same could be said of such minor miracles of programming as Master of None, BoJack Horseman, and Netflix’s mightiest Marvel programs, Daredevil and Jessica Jones.
Mind you, not everything works so well. The bloated Marco Polo, the innocuous Club de Cuervos,the timid Santa Clarita Diet, and the overly convoluted Sense8 are all thorough disappointments, strewn with more overt creative ambitions than actual clever execution and imaginative visuals. Still, it's not every channel or even every streaming service that would give the Wachowskis the chance to push their politically tinged action-melodramas into the serial format, and not hamper them with unending compromises, even if such things might very well be for the best in this case.
With the recent debut of one of their fourth Marvel property, Iron Fist, and the upcoming bow of 13 Reasons Why, we thought we’d get a definitive listing of where all the Netflix originals rank, from worst to best. We decided to leave kids programming out of this, so as good as A Series of Unfortunate Events, Voltron: Legendary Defender and Trollhunters are, you won't see it here. Nor will you see worthwhile acquisition titles like Happy Valley, Peaky Blinders, or River; we're just thinking about original comedies and dramas that Netflix has produced. Check back for updates when new shows premiere, including anticipated series on the horizon, such as Five Came Back and Fincher's Mindhunter. On the evidence of these decisions, made by the same powers that be that put money into another Bong Joon-ho movie, it’s not exactly hard to have faith that the streaming service will continue to air on the side of being a bit more outlandish and daring in their work. - Chris Cabin
30. 'The Ranch'
I’ll make this brief. This rather blatant attempt to rip-off the structure of Chuck Lorre’s reprehensible Two and a Half Men attempts to splice the formula with a more middle-America vibe. It comes off as half-measured, unthinking, and occasionally simply abhorrent, and stars Danny Masterson and Ashton Kutcher show minimal interest in the characters they are playing or the lines they are saying, as if they were asking for change from the bank. Sam Elliot and Debra Winger similarly feel at quite a distance from the story and action of the series, and it’s incredibly hard not to empathize with that level of disinterest, even if it is, ya know, their job. - Chris Cabin
29. 'Fuller House'
Who knew nostalgia could go so wrong? The revival of beloved late-80s, early-90s syrupy family comedy Full House attempted to recapture the style and sensibility of another time, without any of the original charm or sweetness. Inverting the genders might have worked as a fresh way to bring the series back to life, but its execution was brought down by aggressively lazy and offensively boring writing. Though there was some meta humor to be found in the pilot episode that contained most of the original cast, the ill-conceived series quickly settled into a retro sitcom pattern peppered with raunchy jokes, creating a modern rebrand that misses the point entirely. A funny cast and a decent conceit wasted. — Allison Keene
28. 'The Characters'
It's natural that Netflix would want to dip its toe into the sketch game in a more longterm format than something like W/ Bob and David, which only offered four episodes. Their answer is The Characters, a showcase of a variety of comedic minds which features one main entertainer per week who creates their own episode full of comedy sketches. It's a great concept that, as one might expect, yields an incredibly mixed bag of comedic work. The dig at reality television that opens the series is a particular low point, an easy, toothless criticism of the lowest of hanging fruit, but there are a handful of high points, including appearances of at least one veteran of Broad City. Still, the highs are incredibly few in count in comparison to the amount of mediocrities, strained awkwardness, and outright duds. If anything, The Characters ends up being an inadvertent reminder of the importance of television as a collaborative process to help mold a vision. - Chris Cabin
27. 'Club de Cuervos'
There's more than a little ambition to this Mexican comedic melodrama, which details the changing of hands for the titular football team in Nuevo Toledo from a family's late paterfamilias to his children. There's clearly a bit of traditionalism in the concept, but this is essentially a daytime soap for the home-at-midnight crowd. There's an exorbitant amount of nudity for no reason other than to keep you watching for the next instance, and most of the characters are only envisioned as types - the greedy one, the smart one, the violent one. Even worse, the show only gives a vague sense of interest in the sport it depicts, and the administrative types and trained professionals that make football work so well and remain so lucrative. In other words, Club de Cuervos is like a Mexican version of the latter seasons of Entourage, with football replacing moviemaking. That is not meant as an endorsement, though it might very well seem like one for others. - Chris Cabin
26. 'Flaked'
It’s great to see Will Arnett try to expand his range and depth as Chip, a convincing speaker in self-reinvention, on the down and out in Venice, California. There’s plenty to play up here, and the series aims largely for melodrama, ranging from addiction to love triangles to faith. It’s not all that bad, but there’s not all that much fun had either. Wally Pfister, of Transcendence fame, directs four of the first season’s episodes, and there’s a resounding feeling of the same self-importance that plagued that film’s unwieldy, pretty silly plot. Again, it’s a pretty painless affair, with thoughtful work from the likes of Primer’s David Sullivan and Ruth Kearney, but considering the lofty subject matter, and a pretty disappointing lack of overall visual invention beyond a few pretty sunsets, one feels a distinct deficiency in personal insight and laughs early on. Conditions do not improve from there, but it’s clear that Arnett, aided by co-creator Mark Chappell, of Todd Margaret fame, had something introspective to say here. Still, you feel like someone’s holding back. - Chris Cabin
25. 'Sense8'
If sheer creativity in visuals were the only measure of a good film, the Wachowskis’ stock post the first Matrix film would have remained high. It’s the writing that’s always killed them: the preposterously convoluted storylines, the neverending character histories, the deeply conventional trajectories only slightly augmented to seem different. The same issue comes up with Sense8, about a global group of gifted people who are linked mentally and have different powers, but the budget differences between what a movie calls for and a season of television become obvious immediately. Sense8 doesn’t even sport the basic wonder that even the Wachowskis’ weakest material retains, a feeling of being transported into the realm of the impossible. As headed by Lilly Wachowski, Sense8 is easily the most visually bland, self-righteous, and politically inept work in the oeuvre of the sibling filmmakers, and makes a master confection like Speed Racer seem like something of a masterpiece in contrast. - Chris Cabin
24. 'Marco Polo'
Oh Marco Polo, you beautiful mess. A tale of action and adventure featuring Marco Polo and Kublai Khan should not be boring. And yet, this was. The ambitious, big-budget spectacle sought to be a throwback to sweeping historical storytelling, but it wastes its international cast (including Benedict Wong, Zhu Zhu, Olivia Chang and Joan Chen) with muddled plotting and lack of a central, driving narrative. A hodgepodge of regional accents, poor pacing, and characters whose stories and motivations were hard to care about left this spectacle as largely forgettable. But Netflix doesn’t mind — it’s been renewed for Season 2. — Allison Keene
23. 'Santa Clarita Diet'
As a critique of modern superficiality, Santa Clarita Diet is woefully late to a party that ended about 13 years ago. The familiar joke that “no one would really care if you were a killer as long as you don’t rub it in their face” is employed here, but it’s only part of a whole problem that inflicts this show about a realtor (Drew Barrymore) who suddenly turns cannibalistic. There is a constant instability in the series, as much in the narrative as in the performances. When Barrymore’s husband, Joel, played by Justified‘s Timothy Olyphant, goes down on her, Barrymore purposefully makes a face as if she’s trying to remember the exact recipe for her Aunt Mildred’s Apple Crumb Cake. The dialogue is clunky and obvious but also often bewildering in its tonal shifts and this lack of cohesiveness leaves Olyphant’s straight man looking increasingly out of place and innocuous. The same could be said of Barrymore's audacious but ineffective comedic performance. The show makes clear, decisive moves to make sure you’ll never care about these characters, but refuses to counter that element with bigger ideas about modern living, white society, or the increasingly problematic upper-middle class. - Chris Cabin
22. 'Iron Fist'
Oh Iron Fist … you had the chance to be Marvel’s boldest Netflix series to date, weaving in a mystical story and supernatural elements to really augment The Defenders into something great. Yet … you didn’t. Instead, Iron Fist is a mess, not only stretching a 5-6 episode arc out for 13 episodes in almost ludicrous fashion, but by taking what is a fantastic origin story for Danny Rand (Finn Jones) and somehow making it boring. Hammy writing, inconsistent directing, and shockingly poor editing (particularly for the fight scenes) sealed the show’s fate, even if there was some good drama to be mined from the Meachums, The Hand, and a fighting female team-up between Colleen Wing (Jessica Henwick) and Claire Temple (Rosario Dawson). A gigantic missed opportunity. — Allison Keene
21. 'Grace and Frankie'
Grace and Frankie is fluff, but it's delightful fluff. The tale of two women thrown a curve ball late in life, the series stars Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin as the titular duo who form an unlikely bond after finding out their husbands aren't just coworkers, but secret lovers...for the last 20 years. Truth be told, we should all be grateful for every dose of Lily Tomlin we get, and she is turned up to full-blast as Frankie Bergstein, the hippy-dippy yin to Grace Hanson's (Fonda) A-type yang. As any 9 to 5 fan can tell you the two are a formidable on-screen force together (and yes, we're still waiting for a Dolly Parton appearance), and while their talents are occasionally underutilized in favor of maintaining a light, palatable tone, there's an extreme pleasure in watching two venerated screen veterans have so much damn fun. It's also a refreshing inclusion of an under-represented on-screen demographic, namely women over 50 who are allowed to be complex, self-motivated characters. It's lean and light entertainment, but it also has an endearing compassion for all its characters and a cheery impishness befitting the moment you realize it's never too late to start over again. -- Haleigh Foutch
20. 'F Is for Family'
There’s surprisingly very little syrupy nostalgia to F Is for Family, Bill Burr’s animated take on the family sitcom, where he casts himself as the voice of the paterfamilias of a suburban family, circa 1975. The show exhibits more than a little fascination with the ins and outs of the union at Frank’s (Burr) airport job, and the familiar formula of bawdy family comedies like Married With Children and All in the Family is given a stronger, more turbulent emotional undercurrent. That being said, the series would benefit from a more free-form, episodic format, where the scene-to-scene observations, jokes, and design were more the focus than the overarching story, which is intermittently compelling but lacks nuance, the feeling of memory and intimate experience. Still, there’s something unmistakably personal about the show, in the way that Burr and his creative team detail the unexpected warmth and uproarious arguments that occur between Frank and his teenage son, voiced by Justin Long. Excellent supporting vocal work from Sam Rockwell and Laura Dern certainly adds a kick of personality to the show, but at the center of the show is an endearing fascination with how family bonds and strife, both major and minor, feels on the small screen, as compared with real life. And that’s enough to make F Is for Family a worthwhile addition to the modern animation canon. - Chris Cabin
19. 'Hemlock Grove'
Woof, what a drag. Of all the shows that have absolutely whiffed it in the end, Hemlock Grove is a title champion. Backed by Eli Roth and pulled from the pages of Brian McGreevy's industrial gothic novel of the same name, the series started out in its first season as a bit of a Twin Peaks pretender with just enough chutzpah and indecorous charm to occasionally pull it off. It took a few episodes to get the gears turning, but once Hemlock Grove established the lay of the land, it was easy to get sucked into the sleazy, pulpy intrigue of the titular town overrun with vampires, werewolves, and Frankenstein monsters. Or, as they're called in the show, Upirs, Vargulfs, and Shelley. A fun inversion of conventional gothic tropes, Hemlock Grove had a strong undercurrent of mythology and lineage at play, but unfortunately, it became ever more clear that was owed largely to the source material. Without that blueprint, and under a new creative team,Hemlock Grove leaned into its campy smuttiness for an entertaining, if uneven second season before completely devolving into a mess of incomprehensible and ill-fitting storylines in its third and final season. Ignoring the established mythology and undoing hard-earned character development, Hemlock Grove went out with a fizzle in an inexplicable finale that seemed intent on resolving every arc in the least satisfying way possible and left you wondering what it was all for. -- Haleigh Foutch
18. 'The OA'
As it so often is with the creative collaborations between Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij, The OA has a great premise that never quite gets beyond the imaginative touches on its narrative scaffolding. The story of Prairie (Marling), a once-blind twenty-something who becomes a leader of sorts for a group of gifted outcasts and brilliant scientists, has plenty of imagined nuance in its world-building and plot turns, enough to get audiences quickly fascinated by Prairie’s evolution into her titular role. And the vast, varied cast, which includes Brooklyn breakout Emory Cohen, Jason Isaacs, Alice Krige, Phyllis Smith, musician Sharon Van Etten, and the great Scott Wilson, renders even the most pestering and thin sequences involving. And yet, the series never seems to coalesce, never feels as if the emotional weight of these characters and their actions is explored beyond how they lend a certain measure of personality to the increasingly coy plotting. A second season could very easily fix this, if that’s the goal, but right now, The OA feels strung together by nothing more than the talents of its cast and the compositional know-how of those creating its occasionally haunting imagery. - Chris Cabin
17. 'Narcos'
Depictions of Pablo Escobar in film and on television have largely been hard to stomach, with the notable exception of Benicio Del Toro’s fantastic work in the otherwise mind-numbing Escobar: Paradise Lost. Wagner Moura’s take on the drug kingpin in Narcos, however, remains my favorite study of the face of modern drug-dealing. Creators Carlo Bernard, Chris Brancato, Doug Miro, and Jose Padilha split the narrative between Escobar’s ascension and the doings of those who are tracking him, the most prominent of which is Boyd Holbrook’s Steve Murphy. The pacing could be a bit zippier, a less plot-driven thrust in the Murphy storyline, would help, but Narcos works for the most part. The humanistic, largely convincing perspective that the creators take gives the film a shaggy feel, one that fits perfectly with the looseness in the dialogue and gorgeous images of the drug-world happenings of the 1980s. The series is imperfect for sure, but what the darker, more complicated vision it offers puts nearly all network crime shows and period dramas to total shame. - Chris Cabin
16. 'Lady Dynamite'
Like very few other series that carry the Netflix banner, Lady Dynamite takes a little while to warm to. What Maria Bramford has done here is completely dismantle the concept of a comedian’s “personal” sitcom. It’s a subject that she addresses with friend Patton Oswalt in the first episode of Lady Dynamite, and there’s a feeling that Bamford is indeed touching on the expected totems of the sitcom: relationships with family, work life, and personal feelings. But where most shows grind these elements down to a fine, evenly-mixed blend, Lady Dynamite lets them all hang out disjointed, more tangled than blended. The show deals openly with Bamford’s admitted mental illness, and the unhinged structure and chaotic tone of the show feel like an expression of her own personal discordance. The result is a show that is often very funny, vaguely moving, and consistently surprising, a distinct view of the intersection between personal problems and professional opportunity. - Chris Cabin
15. 'W/ Bob and David'
This could have gone so wrong. From the start, the idea of bringing David Cross and Bob Odenkirk’s hugely influential Mr. Show formula back to life had the sound of opportunism over inspiration. Who wouldn’t want to see Saul Goodman (Sorry: Jimmy McGill) and the guy from Arrested Development together as a duo? Mr. Show is too delicate a thing, too important a comedic showcase, to ever be redeployed without good reason. But as it turns out, most of those fears were unjustified. Though the comedy has grown a bit more observational and less wild, there’s still a uniquely skeptical and wise mindset behind it all, and when they get absurd, the show hums like the best of Mr. Show and feels like an unbound work of mad invention. - Chris Cabin
14. 'Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp'
This prequel story to the 2001 satirical cult movie about a fictional Jewish camp in 1981 stars the same (even older) adult cast in teenage roles, creating an even more ludicrous visual joke to rest the story on. The series mostly managed to channel the quirky appeal of the movie, giving origin stories to most of the leads (played by Paul Rudd, Bradley Cooper, Amy Poehler, Michael Showalter, Elizabeth Banks, Christopher Meloni, and many more), while also introducing a few new additions that fit in seamlessly (including cameos from Mad Men alums John Slattery and Jon Hamm). It’s a little insidery for those who aren’t already fans of the movie, and some of the subplots focusing on actual kids languish alongside other bizarre storytelling choices. But ultimately, First Day of Camp is a fun, offbeat entry that is probably Netflix’s best revival. — Allison Keene
13. 'Luke Cage'
Netflix’s third Marvel series, Luke Cage starts out with a familiar character (Mike Colter first appeared in Jessica Jones) in a new setting (Harlem) and with a new sense of purpose. The first few episodes are pointed, emotional, stylish, and unique both within current Marvel storytelling and superhero series on TV at large. But as soon as a key character exits the show, Luke loses its focus and one of its best features, leaving the back half of the season an overly long and muddled mess. Still, its early ambitions are enough to win it back some points even as it falls prey to the recurring issues of Marvel’s other Netflix series. — Allison Keene
12. 'Bloodline'
The highs and lows of the Rayburn family chronicled in the gorgeously atmospheric Bloodline is an acting tour de force. When black sheep Danny (Ben Mendelsohn) returns to shake things up with his siblings (Kyle Chandler, Linda Cardellini, and Norbert Leo Butz) at their family inn in the Florida Keys, things get very dark, very fast. The show’s flash-forwards in Season 1 gave a distinct sense of urgency to the narrative, but it also eliminated its most fascinating character. Season 2 abandoned the conceit, as well as almost any sense of plotting, to its detriment. But the acting remained top-notch even when the story foundered, and almost no current series crafts such a visceral sense of location as this one. The heat and humidity, the briny air, the crunch of sand on concrete — there are all part of the immersive storytelling experience of a show that is by no means bad, but has done some bad things — Allison Keene
11. 'Love'
Judd Apatow’s collaboration with Paul Rust tells the story of TV production from the other end, focused on a tutor who yearns to be a real-deal television writer, and the troublesome woman he comes to adore. Gillian Jacobs’ performance as Mickey Dobbs, who works for a randy radio personality, is the kind of startling character work, rambunctious yet empathetic, that seems to come built-in to every Apatow project, even the ones that are inexplicably derided. Rust, alongside co-creator Lesley Afrin, give the series a buzzing feeling of youthful ambition still humming along -- even when its clear that those who have it don’t have the disposition required for the work. But the series gets its heart from the courtship between Rust’s nerd-hero and Jacobs’ wild-card heroine. The worst-date-ever episode is a low point, but is incorporated into the rest of the rambling narrative which details corners of the television and radio industries that reverberate with experience. The series finds a remarkable balance between a complicated love affair between two strange, irrepressible people, a relationship wrecked by incalculable, illogical desires, and the world of television, ruled by an almost instinctual set of professional rules and kinds of behavior. The result is an endlessly fascinating comedic melodrama, like a long-form Paul Mazursky riff colored with a more immediate, impactful feeling of the modern day, and well versed in how we meet each other these days. - Chris Cabin