Streaming giants like Netflix, Hulu, Apple TV+, and more are constantly dropping so many new TV shows and movies on us from one week to the next that it sometimes feels a little impossible to keep up with it all. So many shows and movies slip through the cracks, such that both ordinary viewers and writers who cover this space are often unaware that they exist.
We cover a lot of those kinds of streaming titles here on a regular basis, but in this post, I want to spotlight a group of them — specifically, nine titles from a selection of streamers (Netflix, Peacock, Hulu, and Apple TV+) that I’ve gotten hooked on myself and that I think more people ought to know about. The shows and movies include:
Here’s what to know about each of those titles, grouped by streamer, starting with Netflix.
Five underrated Netflix series
We all know the biggies on Netflix that get the lion’s share of attention, everything from Squid Game to The Crown, Stranger Things, and the like. Hidden Netflix gems that I wish more people were streaming include the following Korean reality series.
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The Devil’s Plan: This is a game show in which 12 contestants — who include poker players, gamers, actors, and even one K-pop idol — live together in a swanky house while trying to outwit each other in a series of extremely complicated games. In addition to the games, they also collect and trade gold pieces, form alliances, and work toward building up a pot of money that one winner will eventually go home with. Warning: This is a highly, highly addictive series.
Image source: Netflix
Love After Divorce: Despite whatever preconception you might have about this next Korean gem, based on the fact that it has the word divorce in the title, this is actually one of the most feel-good titles I think I’ve ever streamed on Netflix. It features a group of divorcees who live together in a house and who interact and slowly fall in love with each other.
The cherry on top is the panel of MCs/hosts who offer commentary as they watch the show along with us. It’s never mean-spirited, and they get super-into the burgeoning relationships, cheering and applauding when it seems like couples have formed, the first time they kiss, and the like.
Snabba Cash: I can’t get enough of gritty crime dramas on Netflix, and this next release is a great example of the best of the genre. Snabba Cash, the title of which is Swedish for fast cash/easy money, is sort of like a mashup of Breaking Bad and The Wire.
The protagonist here is a wannabe entrepreneur named Leya, who has an abundance of pluck and smarts, minus the privilege that makes this show’s swaggering business titan who she idolizes able to deliver cringey proclamations like “I am the system.” In the Sweden of Snabba Cash, life is a hustle that never ends, and entrepreneurs like Lena are always after the big score — even if it means she has to step over the line to attain it. In that sense, her hungry startup founder is no different from the ruthless drug dealers portrayed in the show, all of whom are doing whatever it takes to win.
Evin Ahmad as Leya in “Snabba Cash.” Image source: Gustav Danielsson/Netflix
Kodachrome: This next underrated streaming gem is actually a Netflix movie, starring Mr. Ted Lasso himself.
It’s a drama about the complicated reunion of a son with his dying, cranky jerk of a father. Ed Harris plays the father, a celebrated photographer now dying of cancer. His big idiosyncrasy is that he only shoots on outdated Kodachrome film. The father decides to enlist his estranged son to drive him to the last photo store in the last town anywhere in the world, where he can bring the handiwork of his craft to fruition.
Image source: Christos Kalohoridis/Netflix
The Parades: This next streaming gem is a Japanese Netflix movie that offers a dreamy, heartbreaking story about a group of lost and wandering souls in the afterlife. It starts with a mother who dies and becomes concerned for her son’s whereabouts; in looking for him, she links up with a group of souls who wander in a monthly “parade,” a journey in which they try to reconnect with people on the other side with whom they still have unfinished business.
Image source: Netflix
Hidden gems on Peacock, Hulu, and Apple TV+
We turn next to several smaller streamers, all of whom are jam-packed with must-watch gems of their own — which include underrated streaming delights that I think many people have either overlooked or just don’t know anything about. First up, Peacock, with a British comedy from the director of Polite Society.
We Are Lady Parts: This six-episode British comedy from creator Nida Manzoor is a near-perfect streaming TV series. The story unfolds from the perspective of Amina Hussain — “a geeky microbiology PhD student,” Peacock explains, “who’s on the lookout for love” and who the band recruits to be its unlikely lead guitarist when Lady Parts‘ intimidating frontwoman sees something in Amina.
“Amina has never met girls like this before, and she’s soon swept up in their joyful, anarchic energy and punk spirit. But she becomes torn and caught up between two different worlds — that of her more strait-laced university friends led by her bestie Noor and the world of Lady Parts.”
Image source: Laura Radford/Peacock
No Man’s Land: This next Hulu series is an action-packed French drama that quickly turns into a geopolitical, espionage-adjacent thriller. Its protagonist is Antoine, a young Frenchman whose sister (everyone is led to believe) died in a terrorist bombing. Eventually, Antoine comes to suspect that she may not actually be dead — that, in fact, she might somehow have hooked up with a group of female Kurdish fighters who are ISIS’ biggest nightmare.
Image source: Sife Elamine/Hulu
Drops of God: We have two more streaming series to spotlight, and both of them are can’t-miss Apple TV+ standouts.
The first is a breathtaking drama about the death of a wine expert, who lives behind a valuable collection of wines that’s believed to be the most expensive such collection in the world. His will stipulates a series of tests to be administered to his estranged daughter and his devoted student. To the winner goes the spoils. From the sumptuous vistas of European vineyards to the father-daughter relationship at the heart of this story, Drops of God was one of the best releases of 2023 across any streaming platform.
Image source: Apple TV+
Pachinko: Finally, we come to Apple’s Pachinko, a beautiful, swoon-worthy adaptation of Min Jin Lee’s magisterial novel of the same name.
The story here spans several decades (and generations!) as we follow the impact on one family of long-ago tension between Korean and Japanese societies. There are subtitles throughout, gracefully switching between English, Korean, and Japanese, but not only are they not distracting — they help immerse you more completely into this story that’s built around protagonist Kim Sunja. She’s a Korean woman, portrayed at different ages and different stages of the narrative by Minha Kim and Yuh-Jung Youn.
As an aside: One of my favorite TV scenes of all time comes in the fourth episode of Pachinko. It’s the scene featuring Solomon, in a moment of euphoria, dancing in the rain to the song “In Between Days.”