Copyright © 2026 OyList. All Rights Reserved.
Share
Items21
1
Unit One (2000)
8.1/10on IMDb
First aired
Denmark, Best Drama Series 2002.
Long before Nordic noir had a name, this was the Danish crime show that set the template. An elite mobile police unit travels around the country helping local forces with their worst cases, so every story drops you into a different town. Charlotte Fich leads, and a pre-Hollywood Mads Mikkelsen co-stars as one of the sergeants. Four seasons and 32 episodes, mostly built around their own cases, which makes it easy to dip into rather than a binge you have to commit to.
More about Unit One2
Berlin, Berlin (2002)
7.3/10on IMDb
First aired
Germany, Best Comedy Series 2004.
A sweet, scrappy early-2000s comedy about Lolle, who follows her boyfriend to Berlin, finds out he has cheated and decides to stay anyway, moving in with her cousin Sven. Felicitas Woll carries it with real charm, and the city itself is half the appeal: this is Berlin when it was cheap, messy and full of possibility. It ran on the public network Das Erste for four seasons and 86 episodes, and if you get attached, a sequel film followed on Netflix in 2020.
More about Berlin, Berlin3
The Newsroom (1996)
8.0/10on IMDb
First aired
Canada, Best Comedy Series 2005.
Not the Aaron Sorkin drama: this is Ken Finkleman's acid Canadian satire, which got there first. Finkleman created it and stars as George Findlay, the vain, image-obsessed executive producer of a never-named TV station's nightly newscast, and the show skewers everyone in the building. It aired on CBC across three short seasons and 32 episodes between 1996 and 2005. It can take some finding now, which is exactly why it belongs on a list about tracking things down; fans of The Larry Sanders Show will feel right at home.
More about The Newsroom4
Life on Mars (2006)
8.3/10on IMDb
First aired
United Kingdom, Best Drama Series 2006 and again in 2008.
Sam Tyler, a modern Manchester detective, is hit by a car and wakes up in 1973, working under the gloriously unreconstructed DCI Gene Hunt. John Simm plays the confusion straight, Philip Glenister steals every scene, and the mystery of whether Sam is mad, in a coma or really back in time gives every case a second layer. Two series and 16 episodes tell a complete story, and Ashes to Ashes carries Gene into the 1980s if you want more. Winning twice puts it in rare company: only The Street has matched it in this category since 2002.
More about Life on Mars5
The Street (2006)
8.3/10on IMDb
First aired
United Kingdom, Best Drama Series 2007 and again in 2010.
Jimmy McGovern's drama visits the residents of one ordinary, unnamed Manchester street, and turns their small crises, debts, affairs and grudges into something close to tragedy. The cast is extraordinary, with Timothy Spall, Jim Broadbent, Bob Hoskins, David Thewlis and Stephen Graham among those who pass through. Three series and 18 episodes on BBC One between 2006 and 2009, with most episodes centered on a different household, so you can watch them in almost any order. It can be hard to find on streaming, but it is the most moving British winner here.
More about The Street6
The Returned (2012)
8.0/10on IMDb
First aired
France, Best Drama Series 2013.
In a quiet Alpine town beneath a huge dam, the dead start walking home, not as zombies but as themselves, expecting dinner and their old bedrooms. The Returned is less a horror show than a slow, eerie study of grief, and it is the most beautiful-looking series here. Fabrice Gobert created it from the 2004 film They Came Back, and Mogwai's score does a lot of the haunting. Two seasons of eight episodes each; be warned that the second, which arrived in 2015, answers fewer questions than you might hope.
More about The Returned7
Moone Boy (2012)
8.1/10on IMDb
First aired
Ireland and the United Kingdom, Best Comedy Series 2013.
Chris O'Dowd's warmest work: he created and co-wrote this comedy and plays Seán Murphy, the imaginary friend of 12-year-old Martin Moone. Martin grows up in Boyle, County Roscommon, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, in a chaotic family where Seán is the only one who really listens. It is gentle, silly and quietly touching, and an easy one to share with older kids. Three series and 18 episodes, made for the British channel Sky One.
More about Moone Boy8
Utopia (2013)
8.4/10on IMDb
First aired
United Kingdom, Best Drama Series 2014.
Four strangers who met online get hold of the manuscript of a cult graphic novel, and suddenly a secret organization wants them dead. Dennis Kelly's thriller is violent, blackly funny and shot in saturated yellows and greens that still look like nothing else on television. It ran for two series and 12 episodes on Channel 4 before being canceled in 2014, so it ends on unfinished business. The 2020 Amazon remake exists, but the British original is the one that won.
More about Utopia9
Spiral (2005)
8.5/10on IMDb
First aired
France, Best Drama Series 2015.
The great French police drama, and a proper long haul: eight seasons from 2005 to 2020. It opens with the body of a young woman found on a Paris dump and follows detectives, prosecutors, judges and defense lawyers as the case spreads into corruption. What sets Spiral apart is that the legal system gets as much screen time as the police, and nobody in either keeps clean hands. The early seasons are a little rough around the edges; by the middle run it is as good as any crime series anywhere.
More about Spiral10
Deutschland (2015)
8.0/10on IMDb
First aired
Deutschland 83, the first season, Germany, Best Drama Series 2016.
Martin Rauch, a 24-year-old East German border guard, is sent west as a Stasi spy inside the West German army in 1983, at one of the tensest moments of the Cold War. Jonas Nay plays him as a frightened kid in over his head, and a soundtrack packed with 1980s pop, from Nena to New Order, makes it a lot more fun than a spy drama has any right to be. It was the first German-language series to air on an American network, SundanceTV, and the story continues in Deutschland 86 and Deutschland 89, ending with the year the Wall came down.
More about Deutschland11
Mammon (2014)
6.8/10on IMDb
First aired
Mammon II, the second season, Norway, Best Drama Series 2017.
A tight Norwegian conspiracy thriller with a gut-punch setup: newspaper journalist Peter Verås gets an anonymous tip about fraud in the financial world, and the trail leads straight to his own brother. Jon Øigarden is excellent as a man whose scoop costs him everything. It is far less known abroad than the Danish and Swedish crime hits, which is the point of including it. Two seasons, six and then eight episodes, made by the public broadcaster NRK; the second is the one that won, but start with the first, which sets up everything.
More about Mammon12
Delhi Crime (2019)
8.4/10on IMDb
First aired
India, Best Drama Series 2020, the first Indian series to win the award.
Richie Mehta's police procedural on Netflix follows the Delhi police as they investigate the city's most notorious crimes, and its first season, about the 2012 gang rape case that shook the country, is as harrowing and as restrained as television gets. Shefali Shah anchors it as the deputy commissioner leading the hunt, and the show is far more interested in exhausted, under-resourced police work than in heroics. Three seasons so far, the latest in November 2025. The first is the one that won, and the one to start with.
More about Delhi Crime13
Nobody's Looking (2019)
7.7/10on IMDb
First aired
Brazil, Best Comedy Series 2020.
A Brazilian Netflix comedy with a lovely conceit: Uli is the first new guardian angel to join the Angelus System in 300 years, and he immediately starts asking why the bureaucracy of protecting humans works the way it does. Victor Lamoglia gives it a sweet, slightly baffled center, and the office satire of heaven's paperwork is very funny. There is only one season of eight episodes, since a second was canceled, so it is a short, complete-feeling watch you can finish in a weekend.
More about Nobody's Looking14
Tehran (2020)
7.6/10on IMDb
First aired
Israel, Best Drama Series 2021.
A Mossad hacker-agent born in Iran and raised in Israel is sent to Tehran under a false identity on her first mission, and when it goes wrong she is stranded in the city where she was born. Niv Sultan's Tamar is a terrific lead: clever, cornered and never quite sure whom to trust. The dialogue moves between Hebrew, Persian and English, and the tension rarely lets up. It was made for Israel's public channel Kan 11, and Apple TV holds the rights outside Israel; three seasons are out, the third reaching Apple in January 2026.
More about Tehran15
Call My Agent! (2015)
8.3/10on IMDb
First aired
France, Best Comedy Series 2021, for its fourth season.
The agents at the Paris talent agency ASK spend every episode keeping famous clients happy, and those clients are real French stars playing themselves, which is half the fun: you get to watch major actors happily send up their own vanity. Underneath the cameos is a genuinely good workplace comedy about loyalty, ambition and a business always one disaster from collapse. Four seasons and 24 episodes, first shown on France 2 and on Netflix under this English title. It spawned remakes from Britain's Ten Percent to South Korea's Behind Every Star, but none matches the original's bite.
More about Call My Agent!16
Vigil (2021)
7.4/10on IMDb
First aired
United Kingdom, Best Drama Series 2022.
A death aboard HMS Vigil, a Royal Navy nuclear missile submarine, sends DCI Amy Silva down to investigate in the most claustrophobic crime scene imaginable, while a missing fishing trawler and the security services complicate things on land. Suranne Jones is great as a detective cut off from all backup. The first episode drew 10.2 million viewers in a week, making it the BBC's most watched new drama of 2021. Series two leaves the sea for a land-based story about drone technology; the submarine run is the one that won.
More about Vigil17
The Empress (2022)
7.8/10on IMDb
First aired
Germany, Best Drama Series 2023.
A German Netflix drama about the young Elisabeth, the Bavarian duchess better known as Sisi, who falls for Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria when he was meant to marry her older sister. Devrim Lingnau plays her as headstrong and modern without turning the Habsburg court into a costume party, and the politics of Vienna get as much weight as the romance. Seasons arrived in 2022 and 2024, and the third and final season premieres on Netflix on November 12, 2026. It is a richer, darker take on the story than the cozy Sissi films many viewers grew up with.
More about The Empress18
Drops of God (2023)
8.0/10on IMDb
First aired
France and Japan, Best Drama Series 2024.
A French-Japanese co-production on Apple TV, adapted from the manga by Tadashi Agi and Shu Okimoto, about the world of fine wine. When the renowned wine authority Alexandre Léger dies, his estranged daughter Camille must beat his protégé Issei in a series of wine tests to claim his collection. Fleur Geffrier and Tomohisa Yamashita make the rivalry gripping, and it is the rare show that makes the sense of smell feel cinematic. Dialogue switches between French, English and Japanese. A second season arrived in early 2026.
More about Drops of God19
Community Squad (2023)
7.5/10on IMDb
First aired
Argentina, Best Comedy Series 2024, and nominated again in 2026.
Known at home as División Palermo, after the Buenos Aires neighborhood where it is set, this Argentine Netflix comedy starts with a police image campaign: a new division of the Urban Guard made up of minorities, created more for the photos than for any real policing. Creator Santiago Korovsky also stars, and the jokes about tokenism and good intentions land on everyone, including the audience. Two seasons and 14 episodes, short enough to finish quickly and sharper than its sunny look suggests.
More about Community Squad20
Rivals (2024)
7.9/10on IMDb
First aired
United Kingdom, Best Drama Series 2025.
Jilly Cooper's bonkbuster adapted with a wink and a big budget: it is 1986, the Cotswolds are booming, and the war for a regional television franchise is fought in boardrooms and bedrooms alike. At its center is the rivalry around Rupert Campbell-Black, the nobleman and Member of Parliament every woman in the county seems to want. David Tennant and Aidan Turner lead a cast clearly having a ball. It streams on Disney+: the first series arrived in October 2024, a second began in May 2026 and a third has been ordered. It is the most purely entertaining winner here.
More about Rivals21
Ludwig (2024)
8.1/10on IMDb
First aired
United Kingdom, Best Comedy Series 2025.
David Mitchell plays John Taylor, a reclusive puzzle setter who publishes under the pen name Ludwig, and also his identical twin James, a Cambridge detective chief inspector who vanishes. To find him, John takes over James's identity, and his job, and starts solving murders as if they were crosswords. Anna Maxwell Martin is a perfect foil as James's wife. It is a cozy mystery with real wit, ideal for anyone who likes their detective shows clever rather than grim. It began on BBC One in September 2024, a second series followed in 2026, and a third has been commissioned.
More about Ludwig
