Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) is a gambling addict crushed both by his personal debt, and by his daughter’s imminent move to the US with his ex and her new husband. When a mysterious stranger approaches him, seemingly by chance, and offers him the opportunity to play a series of games with the possibility of winning an unimaginable cash prize, it seems too good to be true. Turns out: It is! The first season was a massive ratings and critical hit and spun off an unscripted competition show, also on Netflix; the third and final season premiered June 27.
Thirteen years after launching the eternally buzzy Girls on HBO, creator Lena Dunham is back with her first series on Netflix. Megan Stalter (Hacks) stars as Jessica, languishing in New York after a devastating breakup with Zev (Michael Zegen, somehow out-worming his own performance as The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’s ex). Jameson (Andrew Rannells), both Jess’s colleague and her former brother-in-law, recommends her to relocate to London for six months to join the team producing a high-profile Christmas commercial. On her first night, she meets musician Felix (Will Sharpe), and the two fall in love, taking turns being cautious and reckless. With a genuinely engrossing relationship at its center—and recurring guest stars including Richard E. Grant, Emily Ratajkowski, Andrew Scott, Naomi Watts, Rita Wilson, and Dunham herself as Jess’s sister Nora, this is by far one of the best romcom series on Netflix.
After Kevin Williamson became a mid-’90s sensation for writing the feature film Scream, his next move was the teen drama Dawson’s Creek, loosely based on his own adolescence as a movie fanatic and filmed in his native North Carolina—though that show is set in Massachusetts. The Waterfront, Williamson’s Netflix debut, returns him to Wilmington, and apparently hews even closer to his real life. Harlan Buckley (Holt McCallany) saw what the criminal life did to his family, and never wants to end up like his drug-smuggling father. But after he steps back from his legitimate fishery business, leaving his wife, Belle (Maria Bello), and son, Cane (Jake Weary), in charge, he has no idea that financial desperation has pushed them into using their fishing boats to transport narcotics. Savage performances by Bello and McCallany and some of the most shocking violence on TV this year make this one of the most gripping crime dramas on Netflix.
