- Netflix has made dozens of original drama series for its subscribers to stream.
- INSIDER ranked shows rated by critics on Rotten Tomatoes to see which is the best.
- “When They See Us,” “Mindhunter,” and “Alias Grace” are the top Netflix dramas.
- The shows at the bottom include “Between,” “Marseille,” and “Iron Fist.”
- Visit INSIDER’s homepage for more stories.
Netflix’s library of original content has grown exponentially since it released its first big show, “House of Cards,” in 2013. With so many drama series on the service, however, it can be hard to keep up with which shows are worth watching.
To create a cheat sheet for you, we turned to review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes to rank all of Netflix’s original drama series by their composite critical ratings. The shows had to have at least one season designated “Fresh” or “Rotten,” to ensure they had a high enough number of reviews. We excluded shows that were continuations from other networks, like Channel 4’s “Black Mirror.”
Here are Netflix’s original drama shows, ranked by their Rotten Tomatoes critic score from lowest to highest (if there was a tie, we used the audience score to break it.
SEE ALSO: 31 great Netflix shows you might have missed but should definitely watch
47. “Between”
Critic score: 22%
Audience score: 73%
Netflix description: “After a mysterious disease kills every resident over 22 years old, survivors of a town must fend for themselves when the government quarantines them.“
46. “Marseille”
Critic score: 33%
Audience score: 65%
Netflix description: “The longtime mayor of Marseille is preparing to hand over the reins to his protégé when a sudden and ruthless battle erupts for control of the city.“
45. “Hemlock Grove”
Critic score: 38%
Audience score: 64%
Netflix description: “Secrets are just a part of daily life in the small Pennsylvania town of Hemlock Grove, where the darkest evils hide in plain sight.”
44. “Iron Fist”
Critic score: 39%
Audience score: 73%
Netflix description: “Danny Rand resurfaces 15 years after being presumed dead. Now, with the power of the Iron Fist, he seeks to reclaim his past and fulfill his destiny.”
Read more: Why Netflix’s ‘Iron Fist’ is a disappointing failure
43. “Gypsy”
Critic score: 39%
Audience score: 85%
Netflix description: “Therapist Jean Holloway develops dangerous and intimate relationships with the people in her patients’ lives in this simmering psychological thriller.”
42. “13 Reasons Why”
Critic score: 52%
Audience score: 66%
Netflix description: “After a teenage girl’s perplexing suicide, a classmate receives a series of tapes that unravel the mystery of her tragic choice.”
Read more: Netflix has edited the graphic ’13 Reasons Why’ suicide scene that created controversy 2 years ago
41. “Bloodline”
Critic score: 62%
Audience score: 76%
Netflix description: “When the black sheep son of a respected family threatens to expose dark secrets from their past, sibling loyalties are put to the test.”
40. “Anne With an E”
Critic score: 62%
Audience score: 81%
Netflix description: “A plucky orphan whose passions run deep finds an unlikely home with a spinster and her soft-spoken bachelor brother. Based on ‘Anne of Green Gables.’“
39. “The Punisher”
Critic score: 63%
Audience score: 82%
Netflix description: “A former Marine out to punish the criminals responsible for his family’s murder finds himself ensnared in a military conspiracy.”
38. “Damnation”
Critic score: 64%
Audience score: 91%
Netflix description: “During the Great Depression, a stranger with a violent past poses as a preacher and rallies farmers to mount a strike in a rural Iowa community.”
37. “Altered Carbon”
Critic score: 67%
Audience score: 90%
Netflix description: “After 250 years on ice, a prisoner returns to life in a new body with one chance to win his freedom: by solving a mind-bending murder.”
Read more: REVIEW: ‘Altered Carbon’ is an expensive and sex-filled dystopian TV drama from Netflix that falls flat
36. “Marco Polo”
Critic score: 67%
Audience score: 94%
Netflix description: “Set in a world of greed, betrayal, sexual intrigue and rivalry, ‘Marco Polo’ is based on the famed explorer’s adventures in Kublai Khan’s court.”
35. “Lost in Space”
Critics score: 68%
Audience score: 72%
Netflix description: “After crash-landing on an alien planet, the Robinson family fights against all odds to survive and escape. But they’re surrounded by hidden dangers.”
34. “Ozark”
Critic score: 73%
Audience score: 92%
Netflix description: “A financial adviser drags his family from Chicago to the Missouri Ozarks, where he must launder $500 million in five years to appease a drug boss.”
33. “Safe”
Critics score: 77%
Audience score: 77%
Netflix description: “After his teenage daughter goes missing, widowed surgeon Tom Delaney (Michael C. Hall) begins unearthing dark secrets about the people closest to him.“
32. “Watership Down”
Critics score: 77%
Audience score: 82%
Netflix description: “A warren of rabbits battles many threats on their daring journey to find a new home in this adaptation of the classic novel by Richard Adams.“
31. “Seven Seconds”
Critic score: 77%
Audience score: 85%
Netflix description: “The death of a 15-year-old African American boy in Jersey City sets off a police cover-up and a search for the truth.”
30. “The Umbrella Academy”
Critics score: 77%
Audience score: 86%
Netflix description: “From the minds of Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá, ‘The Umbrella Academy’ is the story of a super-dysfunctional family of superheroes who have eight days to get it together and save the world.”
29. “Collateral”
Critic score: 78%
Audience score: N/A
Netflix description: “Investigating the murder of a pizza delivery man, a London detective uncovers a tangled conspiracy involving drug dealers, smugglers and spies.”
28. “The Defenders”
Critic score: 78%
Audience score: 75%
Netflix description: “Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist join forces to take on common enemies as a sinister conspiracy threatens New York City.“
27. “House of Cards”
Critic score: 78%
Audience score: 76%
Netflix description: “A ruthless politician will stop at nothing to conquer Washington, D.C., in this Emmy and Golden Globe-winning political drama.”
Read more: 7 people and shows, including ‘House of Cards,’ who don’t deserve their Emmy nominations
26. “Black Earth Rising”
Critics score: 79%
Audience score: N/A
Netflix description: “From London, to Paris to Rwanda, ‘Black Earth Rising’ is a deeply personal journey about one woman’s persistent exploration to uncover her hidden past, at whatever the cost.”
25. “The Mechanism”
Critic score: 80%
Audience score: 68%
Netflix description: “A scandal erupts in Brazil during an investigation of alleged government corruption via oil and construction companies. Loosely inspired by true events.”
24. “The Get Down”
Critic score: 81%
Audience score: 91%
Netflix description: “In 1977 New York City, the talented and soulful youth of the south Bronx chase dreams and breakneck beats to transform music history.”
23. “Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City”
Critics score: 82%
Audience score: N/A
Netflix description: “Mary Ann returns to present-day San Francisco and is reunited with her daughter Shawna and ex-husband Brian, 20 years after leaving them behind to pursue her career. Fleeing the midlife crisis that her picture-perfect Connecticut life created, Mary Ann is quickly drawn back into the orbit of Anna Madrigal, her chosen family, and a new generation of queer young residents living at 28 Barbary Lane.”
22. “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina”
Critics rating: 82%
Audience Score: 70%
Netflix description: “It’s a wicked world out there, and Sabrina is brewing up trouble. After signing her name in the Book of the Beast, Sabrina struggles to find the balance between her place in the mortal world and her new darker side.”
21. “The Rain”
Critics score: 82%
Audience score: 62%
Netflix description: “After a brutal virus wipes out most of the population, two young siblings embark on a perilous search for safety.“
20. “Jessica Jones”
Critic score: 83%
Audience score: 78%
Netflix description: “Haunted by a traumatic past, Jessica Jones uses her gifts as a private eye to find her tormentor before he can harm anyone else in Hell’s Kitchen.“
19. “The OA”
Critic score: 84%
Audience score: 83%
Netflix description: “Seven years after vanishing from her home, a young woman returns with mysterious new abilities and recruits five strangers for a secret mission.”
Read more: ‘The OA’ season one finale is leaving fans either frustrated or in love
18. “The Society”
Critics score: 85%
Audience score: 74%
Netflix description: “When everyone else mysteriously vanishes from their wealthy town, the teen residents of West Ham must forge their own society to survive.”
17. “3%”
Critic score: 85%
Audience score: 89%
Netflix description: “In a future where the elite inhabit an island paradise far from the crowded slums, you get one chance to join the 3% saved from squalor.“
16. “The Innocents”
Critics score: 86%
Audience score: 78%
Netflix description: “June McDaniel has a major change in her life when she discovers that she comes from a line of shapeshifters on her mother’s side.“
15. “Godless”
Critic score: 86%
Audience score: 85%
Netflix description: “A ruthless outlaw terrorizes the West in search of a former member of his gang, who’s found a new life in a quiet town populated only by women.”
14. “Sense8”
Critic score: 86%
Audience score: 91%
Netflix description: “From the creators of ‘The Matrix’ and ‘Babylon 5’ comes this tense series in which eight people can telepathically experience each other’s lives.”
13. “Luke Cage”
Critic score: 89%
Audience score: 74%
Netflix description: “A hoodie-wearing, unbreakable ex-con fights to clear his name and save his neighborhood. He wasn’t looking for a fight, but the people need a hero.“
12. “Narcos”
Critic score: 89%
Audience score: 94%
Netflix description: “The true story of Colombia’s infamously violent and powerful drug cartels fuels this gritty gangster drama series.”
11. “Orange Is the New Black”
Critic score: 90%
Audience score: 82%
Netflix description: “A privileged New Yorker ends up in a women’s prison when a past crime catches up with her in this Emmy-winning series from the creator of ‘Weeds.'”
Read more: Here’s where all of your favorite characters end up on ‘Orange is the New Black’
10. “The Crown”
Critic score: 90%
Audience score: 95%
Netflix description: “This drama follows the political rivalries and romance of Queen Elizabeth II’s reign and the events that shaped the second half of the 20th century.”
Read more: Here’s how the cast of ‘The Crown’ compares to the real-life royals
9. “The Haunting of Hill House”
Critics score: 92%
Audience score: 91%
Netflix description: “Flashing between past and present, a fractured family confronts haunting memories of their old home and the terrifying events that drove them from it.”
8. “Daredevil”
Critic score: 92%
Audience score: 92%
Netflix description: “Blinded as a young boy, Matt Murdock fights injustice by day as a lawyer and by night as the superhero Daredevil in Hell’s Kitchen, New York City.“
7. “Stranger Things”
Critic score: 93%
Audience score: 90%
Netflix description: “When a young boy vanishes, a small town uncovers a mystery involving secret experiments, terrifying supernatural forces, and one strange little girl.”
Read more: How old the stars of ‘Stranger Things’ are compared to their characters
5. “Dark”
Critic score: 94%
Audience score: 93%
Netflix description: “A missing child sets four families on a frantic hunt for answers as they unearth a mind-bending mystery that spans three generations.”
6. “Sacred Games”
Critics score: 92%
Audience score: 95%
Netflix description: “A policeman, a criminal overlord, a Bollywood film star, politicians, cultists, spies, and terrorists — the lives of the privileged, the famous, the wretched, and the bloodthirsty interweave with cataclysmic consequences amid the chaos of modern-day Mumbai.“
4. “A Series of Unfortunate Events”
Critic score: 96%
Audience score: 85%
Netflix description: “The extraordinary Baudelaire orphans face trials, tribulations, and the evil Count Olaf in their fateful quest to unlock long-held family secrets.”
3. “When They See Us”
Critics score: 96%
Audience score: 93%
Netflix description: “Based on a true story that gripped the country, ‘When They See Us’ [chronicles] the notorious case of five teenagers of color, labeled the Central Park Five, who were convicted of a rape they did not commit.”
2. “Mindhunter”
Critic score: 97%
Audience score: 95%
Netflix description: “In the late 1970s two FBI agents expand criminal science by delving into the psychology of murder and getting uneasily close to all-too-real monsters.”
Read more: All the real serial killers featured on Netflix’s drama ‘Mindhunter’
1. “Alias Grace”
Critic score: 99%
Audience score: 88%
Netflix description: “In 19th-century Canada, a psychiatrist weighs whether a murderess should be pardoned due to insanity. Based on Margaret Atwood’s award-winning novel.”
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