Patrick Melrose (2018)

Five episodes, one for each of Edward St Aubyn's five Melrose novels, adapted by the novelist David Nicholls. Benedict Cumberbatch plays a wealthy, witty Englishman working through addiction and a monstrous childhood, and the dialogue keeps St Aubyn's savage, elegant jokes. Each episode jumps to a different year, so it plays almost like five short films. The first, a drug-fueled spiral in New York, is the most frantic; the second, set in his childhood, is the hardest to watch because of the abuse it depicts. Stay for the later episodes, where the humor and recovery arrive.