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What are your favorite series that are not from the US or UK and also not popular anime?
I'm looking for more tv series that I haven't already found and preferably that show cultural difference than what I am used to.
In the last four years I have watched and am rewatching the Japanese slice of life series Midnight Diner.
In the past I have enjoyed Kim's Convenience and Corner Gas from Canada and Derry Girls from Ireland, all comedies. I also loved the crime drama Giri Haji that is set in Japan and the UK.
I don't know where to start with korean or indian content, but I am open to anything you enjoyed that I might not have heard of. If it's obscure enough and from the UK or US, I'll take that also. Please share.
Try the German show DARK. It is a most excellent mindfuck.
I loved Dark! I binged all of season 1 on new years days with few friends as we tried to ease our hangovers. It was such a great way to start the year.
Seconding DARK. Incredibly atmospheric, clever, and strategically written with mind boggling good casting. The 3 season run is tightly plotted with little to no cruft. It may take a while to catch on to what's going on but there's no shame in supplementing with online explainers. Just don't spoil anything for yourself. Encountering the various twists and turns in the plot is so good here.
Netflix even created a pretty great, very slick website that explains the plot and characters if necessary. Even let's you pick the season and episode you're on so it doesn't spoil anything for you.
DARK was fantastic! I really loved that show.
The creators of DARK also did a show for Netflix called 1899. Also a mindfuck, but Netflix canceled it after the first season and no one else has picked it up. A real shame, because it’s great.
I'll never forgive them for that, and canceling Mind Hunter...
(It was not as good as Dark... The first few episodes were nice but it got bad halfway in...)
Casa de Papel (Money Heist) is a Spanish series that had a successful run on Netflix and a spin off. It has a decent english dub+subtitles. It's a little cheesy in the stereotypical way but features a fun story
Also originally came here to recommend DARK, it's quite good
You said youre open to UK series so Ill recommend Dead Set. It's a BBC mini-series that tackles the idea, what if a zombie outbreak happened during a season of Big Brother? If you're familiar with the reality format or like zombie content, you may enjoy this one
I would like to add to this that with Casa de Papel the first and second season are probably the most enjoyable. It seems (as with many stories) that when a certain group of people do something incredible that it has to be repeated again and again and again losing some of its credibility and likeliness of it succeeding. This ever increasing treadmill of greater and greater heists seems unbelievable hence I personally felt after season two it lost it's momentum.
IIRC it was originally created in Spain as a two season show; it should have ended there. Netflix bought the rights and commissioned more seasons. It doesn't need them. It's an excellent show if you stop at two!
I enjoyed Lupin on Netflix quite a bit, although I'm currently bogged down on Part 3. Omar Sy is fantastic in it.
For Spanish, also on Netflix, La Casa de las Flores. Very funny and plenty of drama. Cecilia Suárez steals the show. Her laconic delivery is arresting and hilarious.
The Extraordinary Attorney Woo, about a young autistic woman woman who becomes an attorney for a big law firm in Seoul, I belive. It's absolutely delightful and gracefully rises above the Korean romcoms.
Fisk is a comedy about another attorney. But since it's in Australia, it's quite different. Finally Heartland, a long running Canadian family drama, is absolutely gorgeous.
All these are Netflix which is the only thing I stream, frugal I am.
Another excellent show with an autistic protagonist is Move To Heaven (just one season).
Thank you. Just saw this, I'll check it out!
Deadloch is Australian and excellent dark comedy take on the Nordic Crime genre
Small correction to your original post though - Derry Girls is a UK show, not Irish. It was made by a UK TV channel and production company, and Derry is a city in the UK (full title being The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland). Anecdotally because it's not a universal feeling by any means - but everyone I know from Derry considers themselves British. That is only four people though, one of whom was born in England.
Totally agree on Deadloch. That was a hoot.
Oops. Sorry.
Looks like I can't change it now
Ooh, I’ll add Deadloch to my list too!
I won’t spoil much, because the whole thing was lots of fun, but I’ll definitely recommend Glitch! It’s an Australian drama set in a fictional rural town. Borrowing some synopsis from the Wikipedia page, the first episode shows people coming back from the dead, just crawling out of their graves, perfectly healthy but with no memory. Possible trigger warnings, we eventually learn the method of death for most of these characters.
I had a great time watching Glitch, but I’ll admit that part of the pull for me after the first episode was realising that lots of footage was filmed in the same part of the country that I grew up, so there were lots of settings I recognised.
Glitch is an australian show circa 2015 about several people getting resurrected and dealing with the weirdness that results from that.
Travellers is a canadian show about time travel. It's pretty good, but it's also not really all that culturally different than a US show.
Signal is a korean tv show about two detectives that can communicate through time via a walkie talkie. I enjoyed it quite a bit.
I wish they'd reboot or continue Travelers. It has endless potential. I've heard some talk about S4, but obviously nothing materialized since.
I really loved the premise, and season 1 was incredible, but I really felt like it was losing the thread during season 2, and I never picked it up for 3. Is it worth picking back up and finishing?
Honestly, no. I enjoyed it, but if it didn't hold your interest then I can't recommend picking it back up.
Just binged it. 1 is great, and it goes downhill from there. 3 is very bad.
I was surprised that the Canadian shows Kim's Convenience and Corner Gas both felt culturally different to me, at least as different as Derry Girls. I loved all of them.
Thanks for the recs!
Seconding the earlier suggestions for DARK, Casa de Papel, and Lupin and throwing in a few others:
Rita is a Danish series about a teacher navigating her teaching relationships (students/other teachers), home life, and romantic life. Her sense of humor and the way they navigate serious topics and humor is fantastic.
Young Royals was another one I didn't expect to like but got pretty invested in. It's about the prince of Sweden exploring his sexuality at boarding school. This has an extra layer of interest for me as one of my close friends works at the school that the show is based on.
Home for Christmas ended up being a pretty funny Norwegian Christmas series about being single in your 30s during the holidays. What makes it even funnier is that it has been remade almost word for word in both Italy and South Africa. It's fun to watch episode in each country as the dialog is identical but the settings change (a mall in Norway vs a church in Italy). It gives fun insight into the priorities and cultural differences in each country.
The South African version of Home for Christmas was actually made to replace the other local series How to Ruin Christmas . It isn't exactly the greatest holiday fiction, but it tackles topics of class, tradition and family politics. It was a fun holiday watch and we'd occasionally catch them filming around town. Unfortunately the lead actress Busi Lurayi passed in 2022 and they were put in a horrible position to completely rework the third season part way through filming.
ooh my wife and I watch Home For Christmas every year (she's Norwegian so it popped up on our radar pretty early) but I had no idea it was remade in other places! Very curious to compare the cultural changes, since the original has such strong Norwegian vibes.
I would absolutely recommend "Kingdom" (the Korean historical-horror drama on Netflix, not one of the myriad other shows with that or a similar name). As the description belies, it winds up being a zombie show, but in a way that doesn't feel tired or trite, and within the context of an extremely well-done historical setting.
My partner and I are partway through Deadloch, a black comedy murder mystery from Australia. Would recommend!
+1 for DARK, too, that show rules.
I second Deadloch, it's black comedy done very well. I hope we get another season!
The best my country has to offer is probably Borgen, a political show, and Broen, a crime show (also Swedish). I haven't seen either one of them as I just can't stand the way Danish actors speak in tv and movies like this where it's a sort of prestige piece but these two shows are usually highly recommended.
Anyway the best show I can think of that is neither anime, from the US, or from the UK is Le Bureau des Légendes - it's about secret agents of a French intelligence agency. It is very easy to get immersed in its world so yeah, highly recommend
Pachinko has also not been mentioned yet. It follows a Korean family through the generations. A definite must watch if you are wanting to learn more about cultural differences!
Lilyhammer is an American + Norwegian show so maybe it counts as foreign enough? It's not that good but it's a fun watch.
Also from Norway is Skam which I haven't seen but it was extremely popular.
Borgen was great. It's like a Danish House of Cards but relatable and grounded.
Since you're mostly talking about Scandinavian productions I'll hook onto your post with another northern production: Norsemen. Think Viking communities with the social interaction rules between people of today.
Ever wondered how a modern day Norwegian man would awkwardly stumble themselves through a serious conversation about pillaging? This is your show. It's humorous and clever. Occasionally a bit childish and over the top, but nonetheless a great watch.
It was filmed twice, both in Norwegian and English so there's no dubbing or odd lip sync going on. The English version has them hamming up their Norwegian accents for (very effective) comedy.
With Norsemen I was a bit disappointed that the third season is a prequel instead of a continuation. Fantastic show though.
You missed the most important part about Lilyhammer - it stars Steven Van Zandt, guitarist from Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band!
As far as acting, he's also best known for playing Silvio in Sopranos. And he's basically playing the same character in Lilyhammer. I even enjoyed imagining they actually are the same character, and Lilyhammer takes place after Silvio finally woke up from his coma then had to go into witsec. It was way more fun watching it that way. :P
Broen/Bridge was excellent from an english subtitles perspective.
I really enjoyed Katla, an Icelandic mystery show from 2021 on Netflix. It mixed elements of the supernatural with beautiful but desolate scenery after a volcanic eruption. Felt very much the way the current season of True Detective (Night Country) does.
Spiral is a french tv series about police. It's like a french version of The Wire (although not as good, but that isn't a knock on the show because The Wire is one of the top 10 tv series of all time, imo).
Also, The Returned is a french tv show about people being resurrected suddenly and a town dealing with the weirdness that results from that.
To continue the French thread, I recommend Black Spot/Zone Blanche which is French-Belgian
Visually, it reminded me a lot of DARK, being immersed in the forrested, mountainous setting of its small, remote town. It's got mystery, characters, and police procedural roots... Very enjoyable.
Hotel del Luna (2019) is a great K-drama that is on Netflix. The premise of the show is that the show is about hotel manager gets roped into a hotel that is meant for ghosts, so that they deal with what is still tying them to the mortal realm, by the hotel owner.
Another great one is Tomorrow (2022), also on Netflix. This one is about grim reapers trying to keep people from committing suicide, mostly because to many people are doing that. So it is a lot heavier than Hotel.
Vincenzo (2021), is arguably my favorite K-drama that Netflix has. It is about a mafia lawyer that was adapted by members of the Italian mafia, had went back to Korea to get gold that was hidden in the building that is the focal point of the show. The ending is really great.
Mr. Queen (2020) is another great one, again on Netflix. This one is interesting because a womanizing chef from modern day Korea wakes up as a queen (hence the name) in Joseon-era Korea. And it is really funny.
I would have recommend some older ones, but they are very much a product of their time. Such as Coffee Prince, which people consider a classic (for some reason) with a great cast (the only good casting was the dog (fight me, I will gladly die on this hill)).
Want some cultural differences ?
Try Kaamelot, a French 2005-2009 retelling of the Arthurian myth.
It starts as a humorous sitcom, but as the series progresses the episodes gets longer (from 3 minutes capsules to 7 minutes short to your long features) and the time and themes gets more serious (without being devoid of humor). Relatively recently a bona fide movie sequel for released (and expand on a like 15 years old cliffhanger).
The director (Alexandre Astier) is a polymath (musician by training, but also director, writer and actor (he pLays Inc Arthur)) with a strong theater background and it shows: There's a theatrical rhythm and speech archaism (for the lack of better term) that adds to the humor. The humor stems not only from situational comedy (like King Arthur being thrown in a ridiculous situation), but from some sort meta textual humor: the subject matter of is often mundane (life at the castle, eating habits, weekly work meeting) which is out of place for heroic figure for the like of Arthur and Lancelot. And to add to this, the theatrical speech is also out of place for discussion about midnight snack in bed with the Queen. It's not quite like "what if Shakespeare wrote about dinner with the in-laws" (it's still modern French), but close in spirit.
Astier also have a huge respect for its actor and often writes character with specific actor in mind to play with their strength. It shows throughout the series and every character (even minor and guest character) are memorable not only in how they're written but also how they are played.
Astier is a geek back when being a geek wasn't fashionable and while there's the usual pop culture references (Star Wars, role playing games, etc), he does not hesitate to not dumb down some stuff and find some humor in it. There's a memorable episode about music theory (and the distate of the local priest to "modern music with those crap interval") that manages to be funny even without any musical notion, but also put a very nice and specific joke (the priest faints when he ears a tritone; also known as the devil interval). There's also some surprisingly accurate usage of some characters (more often than not they all appear in the actual tales) and setting (it's wasn't that well known that the Arthurian myth is supposed to take place near the end of the Roman Empire). But it's not something that aims to be "aschctually accurate", everything serves the plot.
Overall, a very enjoyable series (it's a cult classic amongst French millenials).
The whole thing is available on YouTube (legally?), and with English subtitles. But since most of the enjoyment comes from the meticulous writing and acting, you're probably going to loose something when reading the subtitles (I haven't assessed it's quality, but there's a lot of subtlety to convey).
Anne+ is a lovely low-key Dutch show about a woman in her twenties living in Amsterdam. Each episode is quite short (around 10 mins) and focuses on her relationship with a different woman.
Please Like Me is an Australian comedy drama about a guy realising he's gay and exploring his sexuality. It's really heartfelt but also quite dark so TW for suicide/ self-harm.
Outrageous Fortune is a great New Zealand family drama. It's got Anthony Starr (Banshee/ Homelander) playing twins. Although the plot is crime-adjacent is much more focused on relationships and how they develop over the course of the series.
And for a sneaky UK recommendation, I'm going to throw in Stath Lets Flats which feels like the child of The Office and Peep Show set in a London letting agency. It's one of the few things that can make both me and my partner laugh uncontrollably, it's just excellent.
Some Korean shows I've enjoyed were Taxi Driver, Prison Playbook, and Reply 1988.
Taxi Driver is an action-crime show where the main character works for a company disguised as a premium taxi company that offers a revenge service to clients who have been wronged and helps them exact vengeance. What I found really crazy about this show was the fact that some of the story lines are based on real-life crimes that were committed in Korea.
Prison Playbook is a comedy slice of life around the lives of convicts, their families and the officers working in the prison. The show revolves around a superstar baseball player who, after trying to protect his sister from sexual assault, gets convicted after the jury determines he used too much force on the assailant. He's given a 1-year sentence and must adapt to the prison life. While this synopsis sounds a bit dark, the show is actually pretty lighthearted and I really enjoyed the comedy.
Reply 1988 is the third and final installment of the Reply series. The whole series is the definition of a slice-of-life, showing the day-to-day of a group of friends and the shenanigans they get up to. Reply 1988, set in Seoul during 1988, follows 5 high-school friends and their families, who all live in the same neighborhood and shows what they get up to from day-to-day. While the storylines between the characters are interesting in their own right, I was more fascinated by the portrayal of Korea in 1988. The country went from being war-torn to hosting this international event in just 35 years and the show portrays the sense of national pride and optimism people had.
Reply 1988 is also sort of the odd one out of the Reply series. The other two shows, Reply 1997 and Reply 1994 go back and forth between the present day (well present-day when they were airing) and their namesake year. As a result, the stories are told in an unlinear fashion. Reply 1988 on the other hand is told linearly, starting in September 1988 and going until April 1989. The show does then do some time skips to Jan 1990, Oct 1994, Dec 1994, late 1995 and eventually present day but it does an amazing job showing the growth of the characters. I found the present day timeskip to be really memorable since they show the characters and their nostalgia for the old days and their old neighborhood. It made me think back to the old neighborhoods I used to live in and the friends I had back then.
Still the angloshpere so IDK if it's different enough but here a few:
New Zealand Today is a hilarious show where you learn NZ isn't that much different from Florida.
Colin From Accounts - Australian comedy that is very good.
Fisk - aussie comedy
I’m going to flagrantly violate the “Not UK” request so that I can recommend a favorite “deep cut” of mine. I’ll rationalize this because it’s set in the 1970s with a fair amount of it taking place outside the UK.
2018’s Little Drummer Girl “…is a British television espionage drama based on the 1983 novel of the same name by John le Carré. The six-episode series first aired on BBC One in the United Kingdom on 28 October 2018 and on AMC in the United States during November 2018.”
Stellar cast, incredibly well acted, tense as hell and the tension is built… I’ll say differently from how it’s often done? It is a slow burn, but worth it IMO.
Thanks for the recommendation! That recent one has been on my to-watch list forever- I’ll swap it out for the older one.
I had an ex get me into renting the Prime Suspect series way back when- I think we went through all of them. Reservation and pacing and time for character building makes things so much more rewarding. (Read: am also curmudgeon) Rock on.
Edit: loving Slow Horses and Criminal Record on Apple too - might be worth looking into if these are the kinds of things you're into.
You can't go wrong with nearly anything by Park Chan-wook. He's more known for films: Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002), Oldboy (2003), Lady Vengeance (2005) (these three are loosely known as The Vengeance Trilogy), JSA: Joint Security Area (2000), Thirst (2009), Stoker (2013), The Handmaiden (2016), Decision to Leave (2022).
Great summary! I’ve seen Oldboy. Once was plenty for that one, and I’d heard of the vengeance trilogy but didn’t know what it was, so thank you. I’ll definitely look up the others.
I can't to the quality of the second season, as I haven't watched it yet. But Upright is an absolutely wonderful bit of Australian TV. It stars and was written by Tim Minchin, who is a washed up musician travelling across Australia with a piano on the back of a truck. It's darkly hilarious, occasionally anxiety inducing, often heart-warming, and constantly, achingly sad. It is a triumph of television, and it has never failed to make me bawl my eyes out. Highly recommended.
I recommend watching 4 Blocks. It's a German show about an Arab family clan and the drug business in Berlin. It's featuring among others two German rappers as actors who also contributed to the show's great and atmospheric music. One of them plays a lead role with a really good performance especially considering it was one of his first roles as an actor.
It's a couple three years old now, but I found Sisyphus: The Myth to be one of the better Korean sci-fi shows.
I love older shows. I much prefer to find other people's favorites unless I'm really sold on the premise of a new show.
I am going to try Shogun soon, but typically I don't try the brand new shows on release.
I love Shogun and King Rat and also enjoyed Tai Pan and Noble House,
I have read some articles that suggest that the new Shogun series might be a project comparable to the Lord of the Rings films for authentic interpretation of the story. I'm prepared to be disappointed, but I'm going to risk it.
It's very well done, though I've not read the books. I also found out from watching it that I actually understand Portuguese, so that's something I can add to my CV.
I am also really enjoying the Shogun series.
As a fan of the book, it is fun to spot similarities and differences, but I think the series is excellent regardless.
I'm four episodes in to Shogun and I really like it.
I wish the pacing were slower, reflecting the book, but I haven't noticed any deviations from the plot so far. The shots are beautiful. The acting is satisfying and I am really enjoying the experience. This is good television
Dark is phenomenal but I've seen that's already been covered by another post.
A second that I've not watched myself but will be starting after I'm done with The Americans (also a fantastic show) is Mr Inbetween, an Australian dark-comedy drama. I've heard great things about it and been told it's an amazing watch so I'm looking forward to starting it soon.
Mr Inbetween is incredible. Started to get kinda formulaic towards the end but still ended high, imo.
I hope this is obscure enough but I would like to suggest Misfits (UK, 2009). A somewhat low budget but incredibly funny and at times rough story about a group of young people who are on community service discovering they get awkward superpowers after some freak weather incident in an English suburb. Special shout out since it features then youngsters Iwan Rheon (Game of Thrones, Ramsay Bolton) and Robert Sheehan (Umbrella Academy).
As a second suggestion I would like to mention Yellowjackets (Canada, 2021). A grim story about a group of teens getting stuck in the wilderness while combating the fear of an unseen mystic force supposedly haunting them.
+1 for Yellowjackets. The theme will get stuck in your head, the characters are all great, and it’s really tense and suspenseful. Really good show.
OP didn't want UK shows.
I did say I would accept UK shows that were obscure and not widely known outside of the UK
Fair enough. I missed that line.
My wife and I have been really enjoying Class of ‘07. It’s an Australian comedy about a group of women who get stuck surviving the apocalypse together during their 10 year high school reunion. It’s really funny, and if you graduated high school around that time like I did, it’s even funnier.
Thank you! That seems like a fun premise.
30 Coins - I'm rather surprised not to see it here already. It's a Spanish HBO show that is absolutely bonkers. I feel like mentioning any of the plot does it a disservice, but it's a supernatural mystery show based around themes of the Holy See.
The best way I can describe it is this: What if the exorcist was an action movie?
I don't know which streaming platform(s) it's available on, but I recommend the French show Les Revenants, or The Returned in English. It's about a small French town where people who died years ago suddenly return, apparently now alive and well, and unaware of what has passed since they died. If you like mystery shows, this one is great.
Some of these have been mentioned before, but these are my favorite Korean shows: Goblin, Hotel del Luna, Extraordinary Attorney Woo, Weight Lifting Fairy Kim Bok Joo, and It's Ok to not be Ok.
Goblin is a fantasy story about a cursed Korean general from the Goryeo period who is given eternal life, and after many centuries, finds that he wishes to end that life. Only the Goblin's bride can lift the curse. Gong Yoo is great in the lead role (he also played the father in Train to Busan). Goblin is a mix of humor, drama and romance, and is really a great introduction to Korean tv series.
Hotel del Luna gives us another cursed figure, a woman who runs a hotel for ghosts. IU is known more for her singing career, but she does a great job as the female lead.
Extraordinary Attorney Woo treads a fine line of humor and drama as it shows us the problems faced by the first autistic attorney in Korea. Park Eun-Bin is one of the best actresses in Korea. I've enjoyed her work since Hello my Twenties, and she shines in this one.
Weight Lifting Fairy Kim Bok Joo is a coming of age story set in a college for athletes. Light-hearted, and fun romance.
It's Ok to not be Ok: Mystery, romance, and a bit of whimsical fantasy thrown in. Seo Ye-ji's performance in the female lead role is a tour-de-force.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Kingdoms_(TV_series) is China’s answer to Game of Thrones (though given that the novel it is based on dates from the 14th century maybe it’s the other way around) and I think great despite the DVD copy I have having absolutely atrocious subtitles.
I have been an anime fan since I saw Star Blazers as a kid but lately I have been getting into both Chinese pop culture and traditional mythology and it is not easy as there is not much in English translation. (Though I did have the strange experience the other day, after looking at a lot of images captioned in Chinese for a few weeks, of seeing a phrase in Chinese and immediately knowing what it meant.)
The Day - it's a Belgian show about a hostage situation with an interesting twist. The episodes are shown in two versions where the viewpoint alternates between the inside and the outside.
Madventures S1 E1
It's an old finnish travel show from the early 2000's i still watch it every now and then and while the youtube videos have better production quality these days, these two chaps have plenty of charisma and camaraderie that it's a pleasure to watch them banter. Music is also fucking amazing in the show,
Adam strange - traveller