Need a Netflix Original? These are the best vintage shows to bingewatch
Remember when summer meant journeying outside your front door, enjoying the warm weather, and stuffing your face at BBQs? Nowadays we eschew the mosquito- and sunburn-strewn outside stuff to stare at our beloved rectangular displays.
We’re about to reach content overwhelm. We’ve loved, then hated, Game of Thrones, we’ve cruelly had Shadowhunters, One Day at a Time, and Gotham taken away, and we’ve donned spandex and made like the girls of GLOW more than we care to remember.
Come with us on a trip down memory lane as we celebrate the vintage Netflix Originals you need to bingewatch. Get ready to journey into the Ozarks & the black heart of Rome and time travel all the way back to 1983 Indiana in our lineup of the best vintage Netflix Originals ever.
Ozark
Money: some people can never get enough. Jason Bateman (Juno, Horrible Bosses) stars as Marty Byrde, a financial advisor laundering money for a drug kingpin on the sly. But when $8 million disappears into thin air and Byrde’s partner goes with it, he must relocate the operation to the Ozarks in a bid to save the life of his family.
Jason Butler Harner (Ray Donovan), Sofia Hublitz (Louie), Laura Linney (The Truman Show), Skylar Gaertner (The Ticket), and Julia Garner (The Americans) star alongside Bateman.
Read Film Daily’s review here.
Daughters of Destiny
Daughters of Destiny chronicles the lives of five young girls from Indian families among the so-called “Dalit” caste. The Netflix Originals documentary series, filmed over a period of seven years, witnesses the girls being raised at Shanti Bhavan, a co-ed residential school in Tamil Nadu.
Academy Award-winning filmmaker Vanessa Roth (Freeheld) highlights their struggles as they attempt to redefine both gender and class. The four-part series has been dubbed a story of “family, love, loss, hard work and courage” by Netflix.
Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later
David Wain and Michael Showalter, creators of the cult-classic film Wet Hot American Summer (2001) return to Camp Firewood once again. The eight-part limited series focuses on the ten-year reunion bash at the summer camp. Paul Rudd (Role Models), Michael Ian Black (This Is 40), Janeane Garofalo (Dogma), Elizabeth Banks (The 40-Year-Old Virgin), Chris Pine (Wonder Woman), and Amy Poehler (Parks and Recreation) are set to return.
They are joined by newcomers to the camp including Alyssa Milano (Charmed), Mark Feuerstein (Defiance), Marlo Thomas (Nobody’s Child), Jai Courtney (Insurgent), Dax Shepard (The Judge), and Adam Scott (Step Brothers). Be sure to bingewatch Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp ahead of time.
Atypical
Created by Robia Rashid (How I Met Your Mother), Atypical is a coming-of-age story with a twist. The Netflix Originals series follows Sam, an 18-year-old on the autistic spectrum, as he searches for love & independence. Sam’s funny yet emotional journey of self-discovery upends the lives of the rest of his family as they ponder the question: what does it really mean to be normal?
Stars Keir Gilchrist (It’s Kind of a Funny Story), Jennifer Jason Leigh (The Hateful Eight), Michael Rapaport (The 6th Day), Brigette Lundy-Paine (Irrational Man), and Amy Okuda (How to Get Away with Murder).
The Defenders
Marvel’s The Defenders sees Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist unite to save New York City from its biggest threat yet: Academy Award and Emmy nominee Sigourney Weaver (Alien, Avatar, Working Girl). The most ambitious project to come out of Netflix’s partnership with Marvel, even the streaming giant itself is claims “this is a big one”.
Marco Ramirez (Fear the Walking Dead) and Douglas Petrie (American Horror Story) were behind this crossover of epic proportions. Charlie Cox (The Theory of Everything), Krysten Ritter (Breaking Bad), Mike Colter (Million Dollar Baby), and Finn Jones (Game of Thrones) return to reprise their roles in this Netflix Originals miniseries.
Disjointed
Academy Award-winner Kathy Bates (Misery) stars in the lead as Ruth Whitefeather Feldman, a lifelong advocate for the legalization of pot. Finally living the dream of running her own LA-area cannabis dispensary, Feldman hires her twenty-something son, a deeply troubled security guard, and a team of “budtenders” to help run the business. There’s but one problem: they’re all constantly high.
A stoner comedy from executive producer Chuck Lorre, the mastermind behind The Big Bang Theory and Two and a Half Men. Aaron Moten (Ricki and the Flash), Tone Bell (Whitney), Dougie Baldwin (Nowhere Boys), and Elizabeth Alderfer (Orange is the New Black) star alongside Bates.
Suburra
Suburra is a journey into the black heart of Rome itself. The series uncovers how the Church, the state, local gangs, and real estate developers collide and blur the lines between the legal and illicit in their quest for power. In the middle of it all are three young men who forge an alliance to achieve their deepest and darkest desires.
Directed by Stefano Sollima (Gomorrah), Suburra is based on the novel of the same name by Giancarlo De Cataldo and Carlo Bonini. Stars Pierfrancesco Favino (World War Z), Jean-Hugues Anglade (Betty Blue), Greta Scarano (Scattered Cloud), Alessandro Borghi (Don’t Be Bad), Giulia Gorietti (Caterina in the Big City), and Lidia Vitale (The Double Hour).
Mindhunter
Set in 1979, Mindhunter follows an agent working in the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit as he pursues notorious serial killers and rapists. Netflix appears to think it has a hit on its hands with this one, proven by the streaming behemoth’s recent decision to renew the series for a second season – before the first has even premiered.
Based on the book Mind Hunter: Inside FBI’s Elite Serial Killer Crime Unit by Mark Olshaker and John E. Douglas. Stars Jonathan Groff (The Normal Heart), Holt McCallany (Fight Club), Anna Torv (The Daughter), Hannah Gross (Unless), and Cotter Smith (You Don’t Know Jack). David Fincher (Gone Girl, Zodiac, House of Cards) serves as executive producer, along with Atomic Blonde star Charlize Theron, and is set to direct three episodes.
Stranger Things
Prepare to return to 1983 Indiana for more Spielbergian and Stephen King-esque mystery. The second season of Stranger Things picks up a year after Will’s return, as everything appears to be returning to normal. But beneath the surface of the quiet town, a darkness of unfathomable proportions is about to be unleashed. A love letter to the 1980s, Stranger Things took the world by storm last summer and achieved cult status (for good reason). Haven’t seen the first season? Time to start bingewatching now.
Stars Winona Ryder (Edward Scissorhands), David Harbour (Suicide Squad), Finn Wolfhard (Supernatural), Millie Bobby Brown (Intruders), Gaten Matarazzo (The Blacklist), Caleb McLaughlin, Noah Schnapp (Bridge of Spies), Natalia Dyer (I Believe in Unicorns), Charlie Heaton (Shut In), and Matthew Modine (Full Metal Jacket).
Watership Down
That’s right, Netflix are about to unleash Watership Down on a whole new generation. In the process they will, of course, traumatize them for life. (We’re not kidding.) Based on the beloved novel by Richard Adams, the four-part animated miniseries follows a band of rabbits as they seek out a new home in the wake of the intrusion of man. The harrowing tale of adventure, courage, and survival is a must-watch.
The ensemble cast lending their vocal cords to the Netflix original includes Gemma Arterton (Clash of the Titans), Freddie Fox (Victor Frankenstein), Nicholas Hoult (Mad Max: Fury Road), Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out), Ben Kingsley (Schindler’s List), John Boyega (Star Wars: The Force Awakens), and James McAvoy (Wanted).
Dark
Two children disappear in a quaint town in present-day Germany, setting off a chain reaction exposing the double lives and fractured relationships of four families. As the community enters a frenzy, their search for a culprit unearths the sins and secrets of the small town. Netflix is promising a “supernatural twist”: the case is connected to events in the same town occurring decades earlier.
The first Netflix Originals series produced in Germany, Dark stars Louis Hofmann (Land of Mine), Oliver Masucci (Look Who’s Back), Jördis Triebel (West), Maja Schöne (Buddenbrooks), Sebastian Rudolph (Stalingrad), Mark Waschke (Summer Window), and Karoline Eichhorn (The Silence).
The End of the F***ing World
Netflix are about to bring about The End of the F***king World. Well, not quite. This adaptation of the award-winning series of comic books by Charles Forsman invites us into the dark and confusing world of two troubled teenagers: James, a potential sociopath in the making, and Alyssa, who dreams of being reconnected with her estranged father.
A cross between Badlands and Catcher in the Rye, The End of the F***king World stars Jessica Barden (The Lobster) and Alex Lawther (The Imitation Game) in the lead.
Kiss Me First
Kiss Me First tells the story of Leila, a lonely 17-year-old girl addicted to fictional online game Agora. In this virtual world, Leila meets Tess, a cool and confident party girl who harbors a dark secret. The relationship soon transitions into the real world, but as Tess suddenly disappears without explanation, Leila decides to assume her identity, and in doing so is drawn into unravelling the mystery surrounding her disappearance.
The series, written by Bryan Elsley (Skins), is based on Lottie Moggach’s best-selling young-adult novel of the same name. Stars Tallulah Rose Haddon (The Living and the Dead) and Simona Brown (Man Up).
Lady Dynamite
Created by Mitch Hurwitz (Arrested Development) and Pam Brady (South Park), Lady Dynamite tells the story of a woman who loses – and then finds – her shit. The series is semi-autobiographical and based on what actor-comedian Maria Bamford has accepted to be “her life”. It charts Bamford’s rise as an actor, her hospitalization for bipolar disorder, and her present-day life in Los Angeles where she’s reached “a middle ground and found love”.
Fred Melamed (A Serious Man), Mary Kay Place (Being John Malkovich), Ólafur Darri Ólafsson (The Missing), and Ana Gasteyer (What Women Want) star alongside Bamford.
Alias Grace
Alias Grace is based on the true story of Grace Marks, a young Irish immigrant and domestic servant, who along with stable hand James McDermott, was convicted of the brutal murders of their employer and his housekeeper in 1843. James was put to death. Grace was sentenced to life imprisonment, before being exonerated 30 years later. The question remains: was Grace involved in the murder?
Stars Sarah Gadon (A Dangerous Method), Edward Holcroft (The Sense of an Ending), Zachary Levi (Chuck), Rebecca Liddiard (Netflix’s Between), and Will Bowes (House at the End of the Street).
