Lists · 9 picks
The 9 Best Non-English TV Series
A list by sufferwithme
Dekalog
I have never watched a more dramatic series. This series Kieślowski made for Polish television fills the viewer's heart with pain and takes it captive; it searches for the meaning of life. I recommend this series, which Kubrick especially praised, to everyone. Each of the ten episodes starts from one of the Ten Commandments and tells the moral dilemmas of people living in the same housing estate in Warsaw. Two of the episodes were also shot by Kieślowski as feature films.
Bron/Broen
Another good detective series. The series, which begins with a body found right in the middle of the Öresund Bridge, on the border between Sweden and Denmark, forces the police of the two countries into a joint investigation. The contrasts between Malmö detective Saga Norén and Copenhagen's Martin Rohde are at the center of the story. The series, which lasted four seasons, was remade in the US as The Bridge and in the UK and France as The Tunnel.
Le Bureau des Légendes
A detective, drama and thriller series examining the French secret service's relations with Syria, America and Russia. Created by Éric Rochant, the series tells of the unit that runs agents working undercover in the French foreign intelligence service DGSE. It begins with the return to Paris of Guillaume Debailly, who lived for years in Syria under a false identity. Praised for its realistic depiction of intelligence work, the series lasted five seasons.
Hagane no Renkinjutsushi 2 (Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood)
This series, an anime with a beautiful plot structure, a certain depth and very fluid pacing, is one of the best anime series. The 64-episode series, adapted from Hiromu Arakawa's manga, tells the journey of the Elric brothers, Edward and Alphonse, who lose their bodies while trying to resurrect their mother with alchemy. The story, built on the principle of "equivalent exchange," questions war, crime and cost. This second adaptation, which stays faithful to the manga, is a separate production from the first series from 2003.
Death Note
A good anime series. The 37-episode series, adapted from Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata's manga, tells of high school student Light Yagami, who finds a notebook that kills whoever's name is written in it. The battle of wits between Light's killings in the name of "justice" and the detective L, who tries to catch him, is at the center of the series. The one who dropped the notebook into the human world is the death god Ryuk.
Unsere Mütter, unsere Väter
A good series about the Second World War that portrays war psychology, the situation of women and families, and friendship very beautifully. The three-part German miniseries tells how five young friends who say goodbye in Berlin in 1941 are changed by the war: two brothers go to the Eastern Front, one becomes a nurse, one wants to be a singer, and a Jewish friend is forced into hiding. Broadcast on ZDF, the series sparked a wide debate in Germany about the responsibility of the war generation. Its English title is Generation War.
Das Boot
An impressive and realistic miniseries about what mostly novice soldiers experience in war on a German submarine in the Second World War. It is the long television version of the production Wolfgang Petersen shot from Lothar-Günther Buchheim's novel. It tells the U-96 submarine's patrol in the Atlantic with tension in cramped and suffocating interiors. It shows the war through the eyes of the German crew, not as heroism but as a struggle to survive.
Sa-rang-eui Bul-shi-chak (Crash Landing on You)
A beautiful series that shows North Korean details by consulting defectors from North Korea. One of the highest-rated series in Korean TV history. It tells the story of South Korean businesswoman Yoon Se-ri, who is caught by the wind while paragliding and lands in North Korea, and North Korean officer Ri Jeong-hyeok, who hides her. The sixteen-episode series, broadcast on tvN in 2019–2020, opened to the world through Netflix.
Umbre
A good drama, action and thriller series. Shot by HBO Europe in Romania, the series tells the two lives of family man Relu, who works as a debt collector for a local crime organization in Bucharest. As Relu hides his work from his family, he is drawn further and further into violence. Adapted from the Australian production Small Time Gangster, the series lasted three seasons.