Netflix wants to be your television home, and it’s been remarkably successful in that endeavor. The streamer features an amazing lineup of excellent shows, but when it’s time to find something to watch, you might be at a bit of a loss over what to pick.
Thankfully, that’s where we come in. We’ve pulled together a lineup of underrated series that are available on the streaming service, whether you’re looking for something that will be over relatively quickly or a much longer commitment. These are three underrated shows on Netflix you should make time for this weekend.
We also have guides to the best movies on Netflix, the best movies on Hulu, the best movies on Amazon Prime Video, the best movies on Max, and the best movies on Disney+.
The show that justifiably became Issa Rae’s calling card, Insecure chronicles a very specific slice of modern black female life. Crucially, the show is always rooted in the perspectives of its two deeply flawed central characters, Issa and Molly, both of whom deal with a variety of major and minor crises over the course of several years in their lives.
Insecure is funny, real, and remarkably open-hearted even about its more objectionable characters. Featuring an outstanding array of Black talent, the series deserved every bit of acclaim it received and its extended run on HBO.
You can watch Insecure on Netflix.
A brilliant, sensitive look at Hasidic Judaism in the United States, Unorthodox tells the story of a woman who flees from an arranged marriage in Brooklyn in order to find a new life. When the past starts to catch up, she faces hard choices about what her future should be.
Unorthodox features a stunning central performance from Shira Haas, and it’s one of the best Netflix miniseries to fly entirely under the radar. It might not be focused on true crime, but Unorthodox will leave you on the edge of your seat.
You can watch Unorthodox on Netflix.
A spiritual sequel to Band of Brothers, The Pacific focuses on troops stationed on the other major front of the war. This series was every bit as gripping and acclaimed as its predecessor, but it hasn’t had the same staying power. Based on true accounts of Pacific soldiers, the series chronicles their journey from Guadalcanal to Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and ultimately to their return home in the aftermath of V-J Day.
Produced by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, the series is a brilliant reflection of the joys and immense sorrow of being a soldier in one of the bloodiest conflicts in human history.
You can watch The Pacific on Netflix.
China just gave Hollywood a cautionary tale about AI filmmaking. Sanxingdui: Future Past, billed as the country's first fully AI-generated movie, hit theaters on October 23 and bombed at the box office.
According to Futurism, the film's reported $1.5 million production budget landed on more than 10,000 screens. Yet it pulled in only about $181,000, averaging roughly $20 per screen, making the budget difficult to recover.
Some of the best shots in Grok Imagine’s AI-made Odyssey don’t contain actors. Ancient landscapes stretch into the distance. Close-ups of grimy hands suggest people who have touched something rougher than a keyboard. For a few seconds, the illusion holds.
https://twitter.com/imagine/status/2113712964419063911
YouTube videos could soon look better without eating quite so much data, right? Thankfully, the platform plans to introduce a new video format called AV2 on its web player in early 2027, promising more efficient streaming and potentially fewer playback hiccups on slower internet connections. The big headline is a roughly 30% improvement in compression efficiency over AV1, YouTube's existing video format. That doesn't guarantee every video will use 30% less data, but it could make streaming a little easier on both internet connections and data allowances.
What is AV2, and why should viewers care?