Ryan Heffernan is a Senior Writer at Collider. Storytelling has been one of his interests since an early age, with his appreciation for film and television becoming a particular interest of his during his teenage years. This passion saw Ryan graduate from the University of Canberra in 2020 with an Honours Degree in Film Production.
The onset of streaming platforms and growing audience interest in shorter television dramas that don’t demand years of commitment to watch in their entirety have seen the miniseries format soar in recent years as one of the most popular and prestigious forms of entertainment.
Such iconic hits as Chernobyl and The Queen’s Gambit have defined the format’s ability to appeal to the masses in recent years, while enduring triumphs like Band of Brothers and Roots illustrate the rich history of limited-series drama in decades gone by. However, with such a vast array of adored and acclaimed titles, it stands to reason that there have also been a litany of miniseries masterpieces that have faded from memory despite their excellent storytelling, absorbing performances, and impeccable production value. Ranging from HBO hits that have drifted out of mainstream conversations to 70s gems that have been forgotten over the years, and even to some modern gems that simply never got the praise they deserved, these underrated miniseries are near-perfect examples of the art form, and they warrant far more of a discussion than they seem to get. 5 'John Adams' Epic and sprawling, John Adams stands as a sensational biographical miniseries documenting the political career of one of the most influential and defining figures in American history. Featuring an incredible ensemble cast and a keen interest in prying deep into the lives and ideologies of the Founding Fathers rather than simply regurgitating fables of their achievements, the series follows John Adams from his time as an idealistic lawyer in 1770, through his involvement in the American Revolutionary War, his tenure as the U.S. President, and delves into his instrumental impact on American politics in his senior years up to his death in 1826. The fact that it is able to examine over 50 years of American history in just seven episodes while still paying mind to the personal costs Adams and his family endure throughout his career is a feat to be admired. Through handheld cameras, tight close-ups, and stirring performances, John Adams is able to immerse viewers with a sense of intimate intensity and emotional rawness, while its stunning and intricately detailed production design and adherence to historical facts make its period setting completely enthralling, a strength only bolstered by the series’ basis on David McCollough’s biography. Granted, the pacing of the series is slow at times, but its patience lends itself to an air of gravitas, one that is only amplified by the philosophical might and conviction of the dialogue and the ever-present sense of grit that wisely prevents the series from being a glamorous, fist-pumping rendition of the earliest decades of America as a republic. 4 'The Little Drummer Girl' A simmering and slow-burn espionage thriller that thrives on the back of Park Chan-wook’s bold and immersive direction and the work of actors Florence Pugh, Alexander Skarsgård, and Michael Shannon in the major roles, The Little Drummer Girl presents a spellbinding and smoldering story of high-stakes spycraft and infiltration. Unfurling over the course of six episodes, and based on John le Carré’s novel of the same name, it follows a young English actress whose radical left-wing ideals see her recruited by a Mossad agent to go undercover and gain intel on a terrorist network responsible for a recent bombing in the late 1970s. With its meticulous sense of suspense underlined by a budding love triangle, the miniseries offers a thrilling descent into the nature of real-world spy work steeped in an atmosphere of relentless danger and urgency. Park Chan-wook received praise from critics for his ability to faithfully adapt le Carré’s novel to the small screen while incorporating flourishes of style and seduction, making for a triumph of spy intrigue that is both compelling and exciting. Despite his monumental accomplishment and the soaring popularity of Pugh in the years since it was released, The Little Drummer Girl has drifted from the public consciousness, becoming a largely forgotten gem of television intensity. While it does have some flaws, namely its occasionally hostile narrative complexity, the BBC miniseries stands tall among the greatest spy series television has seen, and it deserves to be heralded as such by the masses.Is Your Perfect Movie? Parasite · Everything Everywhere · Oppenheimer · Birdman · No Country Five Oscar Best Picture winners. Five completely different visions of what cinema can be — and what it can do to you. One of them is the film that was made for the way your mind works. Ten questions will figure out which one. 🪜Parasite 🌀Everything Everywhere ☢️Oppenheimer 🐦Birdman 🪙No Country for Old Men FIND YOUR FILM → QUESTION 1 / 10TONE 01 What kind of film experience do you actually want? The best movies don't just entertain — they leave something behind. ASomething that pulls the rug out — that makes me think I'm watching one kind of film and then reveals I'm watching another entirely. BSomething overwhelming — funny, sad, absurd, and genuinely moving, all at once. CSomething grand and weighty — a film that makes me feel the full scale of what I'm watching. DSomething formally daring — a film that pushes what cinema can even do. ESomething lean and relentless — pure tension with no wasted frame. NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 2 / 10THEME 02 Which idea grabs you most in a film? Great films are driven by a central obsession. What's yours? AClass, inequality, and what people are willing to do when desperation meets opportunity. BIdentity, family, and the chaos of trying to hold your life together when everything is falling apart. CGenius, moral responsibility, and the catastrophic weight of a decision you can never take back. DEgo, legacy, and the terror of becoming irrelevant while you're still alive to watch it happen. EEvil, chance, and whether moral order actually exists or if we just tell ourselves it does. NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 3 / 10STRUCTURE 03 How do you like your story told? Form is content. The way a story is shaped changes what it means. AGenre-twisting — I want it to start in one lane and migrate into something completely different. BMaximalist and genre-blending — comedy, action, drama, sci-fi, all in one ride. CEpic and non-linear — cutting between timelines, building a mosaic of cause and consequence. DA single unbroken flow — I want to feel like I'm living it in real time, no cuts to safety. ESpare and precise — every scene doing exactly what it needs to do and nothing more. NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 4 / 10VILLAIN 04 What makes a truly great antagonist? The opposition defines the protagonist. What kind of opposition fascinates you? AA system — invisible, structural, and almost impossible to fight because it has no single face. BThe self — the ways we sabotage, abandon, and fail the people we love most. CHistory — the unstoppable momentum of events that no single person can stop or redirect. DThe industry — the machinery of culture that chews up talent and spits out irrelevance. EPure, implacable evil — a force so certain of itself it becomes almost philosophical. NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 5 / 10ENDING 05 What do you want from a film's ending? The final note is the one that lingers. What do you want it to sound like? AShock and inevitability — a conclusion that recontextualises everything that came before it. BEarned emotion — I want to cry, laugh, and feel genuinely hopeful, even if the world is a mess. CDevastation and grandeur — an ending that makes me sit in silence for a few minutes after. DAmbiguity — something that leaves enough open that I'm still thinking about it days later. EBleakness — an honest refusal to pretend the world is tidier than it actually is. NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 6 / 10WORLD 06 Which setting pulls you in most? Where a film takes place shapes everything — mood, stakes, what's even possible. AA gleaming modern city with a hidden underside — beauty masking rot, wealth masking desperation. BA collapsing suburban life that opens onto something infinite — the multiverse of a single ordinary person. CThe corridors of power and science at a world-historical turning point — where decisions echo for decades. DThe grimy, alive chaos of New York and Hollywood — fame as both destination and trap. EVast, indifferent landscape — desert and highway where violence arrives without warning or reason. NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 7 / 10CRAFT 07 What cinematic craft impresses you most? Every great film has a signature — a technical or artistic element that makes it unmistakable. AProduction design and mise-en-scène — every frame composed to carry meaning beneath the surface. BEditing and tonal control — the ability to move between registers without losing the audience. CScore and sound design — music that becomes inseparable from the dread and awe of what you're watching. DCinematography as performance — the camera not recording events but participating in them. ESilence and restraint — what's left unsaid and unshown doing more work than any dialogue could. NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 8 / 10PROTAGONIST 08 What kind of main character do you root for? The protagonist is the lens. Who you choose to follow says something about you. ASomeone smart and resourceful who makes increasingly dangerous decisions under pressure. BSomeone overwhelmed and ordinary who turns out to be capable of something extraordinary. CA brilliant, tortured figure whose gifts and flaws are inseparable from each other. DA self-destructive artist whose ego is both their superpower and their undoing. EA quiet, principled person trying to make sense of a world that has stopped making sense. NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 9 / 10PACE 09 How do you feel about a film that takes its time? Pace is a choice. Some films sprint; others let tension accumulate slowly, deliberately. AI love a slow build when I know the payoff is going to be seismic — patience for a devastating reveal. BGive me relentless momentum — I want to feel breathless and emotionally spent by the end. CEpic runtime doesn't scare me — if the material demands three hours, give me three hours. DI want it to feel propulsive even when nothing is technically happening — restless energy throughout. EDeliberate and unhurried — I want dread to accumulate in the spaces between the action. NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 10 / 10AFTERMATH 10 What do you want to feel walking out of the cinema? The best films leave a mark. What kind of mark do you want? AUnsettled — like I've just seen something I can't fully explain but can't stop thinking about. BMoved and energised — like the film reminded me what actually matters and gave me something to hold onto. CHumbled — like I've been in the presence of something genuinely important and overwhelming. DExhilarated — like I've just seen cinema doing something it's never quite done before. EHaunted — like a cold, quiet dread that stays with me for days. REVEAL MY FILM → The Academy Has Decided Your Perfect Film Is… Your answers have pointed to one Oscar Best Picture winner above all others. This is the film that was made for the way your mind works. BEST PICTURE 2020 Parasite You are drawn to films that operate on multiple levels simultaneously — that begin in one genre and quietly, brilliantly migrate into another. Bong Joon-ho's Parasite is a film about class, desire, and the architecture of inequality that manages to be darkly funny, deeply suspenseful, and genuinely shocking across a single extraordinary running time. Your instinct is for cinema that hides its true intentions until the moment it's ready to reveal them. Parasite is exactly that — a film that rewards close attention and punishes assumptions, right up to its devastating final image. BEST PICTURE 2023 Everything Everywhere All at Once You want it all — and this film gives you all of it. The Daniels' Everything Everywhere All at Once is one of the most maximalist films ever made: action comedy, multiverse sci-fi, family drama, existential crisis, and a genuinely earned emotional core that sneaks up on you amid the chaos. You are someone who responds to ambition, who doesn't want cinema to choose between being entertaining and being meaningful. This film refuses that choice entirely. It is overwhelming by design, and its overwhelming nature is precisely the point — because the feeling of being crushed by infinite possibility is exactly what it's about. BEST PICTURE 2024 Oppenheimer You are drawn to cinema on a grand scale — films that understand history not as a backdrop but as a force, and that place their characters inside that force and watch what happens. Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer is a film about the terrifying gap between what we can do and what we should do, told with the full weight of one of the most consequential moments in human history behind it. You want your films to feel important without feeling self-important — to earn their ambition through sheer craft and the gravity of their subject. Oppenheimer does exactly that. It is enormous, complicated, and refuses easy comfort. BEST PICTURE 2015 Birdman You are drawn to films that foreground their own construction — that make the how of the filmmaking part of the what it's about. Alejandro González Iñárritu's Birdman, shot to appear as a single continuous take, is cinema examining itself through the cracked mirror of a fading actor's ego. You respond to formal daring, to the feeling that a film is doing something that probably shouldn't be possible. Michael Keaton's performance and Emmanuel Lubezki's restless camera create something genuinely unlike anything else — a film that is simultaneously about creativity, relevance, self-destruction, and the impossibility of ever truly knowing if your work means anything at all. BEST PICTURE 2008 No Country for Old Men You are drawn to cinema that trusts silence, that refuses to explain itself, and that treats dread as a form of meaning. The Coen Brothers' No Country for Old Men is a film about the arrival of a new kind of evil — implacable, arbitrary, and utterly indifferent to the moral frameworks we use to make sense of the world. It is one of the most formally controlled films ever made, and its controlled restraint is what makes it so terrifying. You want your films to haunt you, not comfort you. You are not interested in resolution if resolution would be dishonest. No Country for Old Men is honest in a way that most cinema never dares to be. ↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ 3 'I, Claudius' While miniseries may seem like a new phenomenon—and the format has indeed experienced a massive surge in popularity with the rampant rise of streaming platforms—its history in the medium spans back decades, with the 1970s and 80s marking a definitive high point of the form with such iconic releases as Roots, Shogun, and Smiley’s People. While none of these titles are discussed as much as they ought to be in today’s world, one masterpiece that has been particularly overlooked is the BBC’s production of I, Claudius, a sweeping epic set in the early stages of the Roman Empire. Framed as the reflections of an aging Emperor Claudius , the 12-part miniseries covers the political plotting, deadly betrayals, and ambitious power plays that transpired in Rome between the years 24 BC and 54 AD. Realized with enrapturing production design which was groundbreaking for the medium at that time, a witty and richly philosophical screenplay that revels in an air of wickedly entertaining conniving, and a litany of outstanding theatrical performances—particularly from Jacobi and Siân Phillips while also featuring the likes of Sir Patrick Stewart, John Hurt, and Brian Blessed—I, Claudius is a stunning feat of ambition and absorbing historical drama that stands among the greatest triumphs in the history of British television. Even more impressively, upon reflection, it has become clear how essential it was in paving the way towards the era of prestigious drama that the medium has frequently displayed in recent decades. Even if some of its storytelling tastes and ideas tend to show their age when revisited today, I, Claudius is a monumental achievement in television production that should be highlighted more commonly today as being a pioneer of small-screen brilliance as well as a gripping, grandiose, and truly great miniseries in its own right. 2 'North & South' A key staple of BBC miniseries for many years now has been the network’s ability to adapt classic stories from English literature to the small screen with faithfulness, absorbing character drama, and rich historical production design. Such titles as 1995’s Pride and Prejudice, 1981’s Brideshead Revisited, and 2006’s Jane Eyre are just some noteworthy examples of this. However, one miniseries that has largely faded from memory despite its excellence is 2004’s magnificent adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell’s 1855 novel, North & South. Abounding with intriguing ideas of society and class, and anchored in the marvelous chemistry of leads Daniela Denby-Ashe and Richard Armitage, the four-part miniseries unfolds as the Hale family leaves their comfortable middle-class lifestyle in the southern county of Hampstead to avoid scandal and relocate to Milton, an industrial town in the north of England. As young Margaret Hale is confronted by the industrial, working-class nature of the North and how starkly it contrasts with the pastoral life she knows, she finds her initial hostility towards local mill-owner John Thornton slowly shifting towards a loving admiration for his commanding stoicism and subdued tenderness. Subscribe to the newsletter for hidden miniseries gems Dive further into miniseries mastery—subscribe to the newsletter for curated recommendations, thoughtful analysis, and overlooked classics that deserve renewed attention. Join to keep exploring the craft and impact of limited-series television. Get Updates By subscribing, you agree to receive newsletter and marketing emails, and accept our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You can unsubscribe anytime. Filled with the pressing drama of class disparity that accents many of the great stories of classical English literature, North & South excels as a sharp adaptation that honors Gaskell’s novel by aspiring to be so much more than a mere romantic epic. It delves deep into the book’s integral themes of social injustice, class conflict, and the cultural divide between southern gentility and northern entrepreneurism while conjuring an atmospherically rich period setting defined by its meticulous attention to historical detail in its sets and costuming. That North & South hasn’t endured in pop-culture circles anywhere near as well as many similar series is as confounding as it is tragic, given it marks an unmistakable high point in English television drama. 1 'The Corner' In addition to creating the iconic crime television series The Wire, David Simon and Ed Burns have overseen the creation of some of the best and most important miniseries of the 21st century. Ranging from the confronting depiction of police corruption in We Own This City, the eye-opening detail of the start of the Iraq War with Generation Kill, and even the politically pointed and thematically prescient gem The Plot Against America, their work in the format has presented essential, thought-provoking highlights of small-screen drama for well over 20 years. An early series of theirs that doesn’t get the kudos it so thoroughly deserves is 2000’s devastating drama, The Corner. Viewed by many as a precursor to The Wire, it follows a poverty-stricken family in West Baltimore as they deal with issues of heroin addiction and gang violence as a drug war rages around them. As has been the case with all the collaborations between Simon and Burns so far, The Corner’s greatest strength is its palpable sense of authenticity. With a basis on David Simon’s nonfiction book—which he researched by spending a year immersed in a drug-saturated neighborhood in West Baltimore—the miniseries exudes a devastating and hopeless realism that elevates it from being a heartbreaking drama of substance abuse and a shattering family drama to a poignant exploration of real American cultural issues that demand attention. 26 years after its release, The Corner’s thematic wrath has yet to age even a day, especially as it compounds its painful tale of urban decay with piercing observations on the failure of America’s war on drugs, the cyclical nature of addiction and poverty, and the role the lack of economic opportunities plays in enticing youths to turn to crime. The way that The Corner examines such themes with unflinching rawness while still finding a beating heart in its emphasis on familial bonds makes it a stunning masterpiece of television drama that people should still be discussing and dissecting today. Like The Corner TV-MA Crime Drama Release Date 2000 - 2000-00-00 Directors Charles S. Dutton Writers David Simon, David Mils Cast See All
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