Ten series that thrilled us in 2024 – from “Sugar” to “Shōgun”.
1. Ripley
This is what Netflix has given itself, whether it finds an audience or not, and we are grateful. Sometimes you just have to make things last forever when the opportunity presents itself. Like here, in this third film adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s legendary novel “The Talented Mr. Ripley”, conceived and brilliantly stretched to 8 x 60 minutes, which always goes its own way under the supervision of Steven Zaillian and with pictures for bathing in by Robert Elswit and detours, with Andrew Scott at the center as a man without (good) qualities.
2. Mr. & Mrs. Smith
Nobody really wanted to imagine how the bright blockbuster from 2005 with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie would work as a series. And then you are flattened by how Donald Glover puts the premise through the meat grinder and reinvents it as a big spy saga about two spies who have to find their way in an arranged marriage.
Has whistle and lots of drive. And Maya Erskine simply blows you away.
3. Time crimes
A strong piece. The successful “Zeit” podcast is elevated to a work of art as a four-part mini-series, finding the creativity in journalism in four very different cases and films that always clearly bear the signature of their makers: Jan Bonny, Helene Hegemann, Mariko Minoguchi and Faraz Shariat.
4. Shogun
The winner at the Emmys. And actually a remarkable piece of television that turns James Clavell’s novel 180 degrees and now actually shows it from the right perspective with muscular images and a very unique atmosphere.
5. The Diplomat (Season 2)
The best series to binge-watch this year, with the same outstanding quality of the first season as Keri Russell and Rufus Sewell fight their way through a minefield of diplomatic meltdowns and clusterfucks.
6. Slow Horses (Season 4)
Few series can claim to be getting better with each new season. But “Slow Horses” shows how it’s done: with somnambulistic aplomb, the challenges for Gary Oldman and his squad become even more electrifying.
7.Sugar
The first series with Colin Farrell this year – the man is on a roll: In the best Chandler style, a stylishly dressed private detective fights his way through an obscure criminal case.
There’s a reason why everything feels a bit weird, as we learn…
8. The Penguins
The second series with Colin Farrell this year – the man is on a roll: The spin-off of “The Batman” is a pitch-black crime opera that gets better with every episode and reveals new depths. Great cinema.
9. The Sympathizer
Korean master director Park Chan-Wook can also watch television. This is of course not an everyday occurrence, but in the film adaptation of the novel by Viet Thanh Nguyen, American history is told as a spy thriller from a Vietnamese perspective.
10. Murder At The End Of The World
A whodunnit of a special class, whose resolution ultimately doesn’t quite live up to what the brilliant structure promises.
Doesn’t matter. You remain fascinated when Emma Corrin has to solve a series of murders in the isolated high-tech ice palace.