Turn a true auteur like Alfonso Cuarón loose on his first major TV project, and it’s no surprise audiences are eating up his Apple TV+ seriesDisclaimer. A slow burn of a show combining mystery, psychological thrills, and a complicated narrative, the five-time Oscar-winning director keeps ratcheting up the secrets and lies throughout.Disclaimer’s all-star castincludes Cate Blanchett as journalist Catherine Ravenscroft, who learns she’s the lead character in a new book that somehow exposes the darkest deed of her past.
As highlighted in thereviews forDisclaimer, the show plays with viewer expectations throughout, mixing truth and perception into a time-hopping story that doesn’t reveal all of its cards until its final episode.Disclaimercleverly dices up how personal biases, murky pasts, and even the modern media landscape shape how people view their own reality. Once audiences have digested all ofDisclaimer’s seven episodes and its shocking end, they’ll be ready to dive into 10 other series that also travel the rocky terrain of true crime, trauma, fractured timelines, and good old-fashioned TV drama.
Mrs. America
Cast
Mrs. America explores the real-life battle to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s. The series portrays the unexpected opposition led by conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly, highlighting her role as a prominent figure in the counter-movement against feminist advancements during this pivotal era.
Similar toDisclaimer,Blanchett’s incredible talent was the centerpiece of FX’sMrs. America, a 2020 limited series showcasinghow political conservatives went to war against the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s. However, whileDisclaimeruses narrative fireworks and structural trickery,Mrs. Americatakes a more subdued approach. It offers another look at what Blanchett is capable of as a performer in an incredibly difficult role.
As the activist, author, and staunch anti-feminist Phyllis Schlafly,Blanchett goes well beyond mimicry or caricature, imbuing Schlafly with enough humanity and conviction in her cause that you can occasionally forget what a political monster she becomes. If your only exposure to Blanchett is through titanic film performances likeTárandBlue Jasmine, thenMrs. Americashould shine as another unquestionable measure of her remarkable abilities as an actor.
Dark Matter
Dark Matter (2024): Jason Dessen is thrust into an alternate reality where he must confront an ominous version of himself. His quest to return to his original life leads him on a challenging journey to reunite with his family, navigating the complexities of parallel existences.
As evidenced byDisclaimer,complicated thrillers are right in Apple TV+’s wheelhouse these days – but when they come as convoluted and delicious asDark Matter, the average viewer may not always be able to keep up. As some might have missed it last May,Dark Matterfollows Professor Jason Dessen (Joel Edgerton), who learns his work has unlocked the door to multidimensional travel. However, it isn’t really his work. It was actually a Dessen from another timeline – and now, versions of Dessen from a host of different dimensions areall hopping throughout the multiverse, each with their own agenda.
While “our” Dessen is only trying to get back to “his” universe to save his wife and son, he crosses paths with Dessens from both thriving and devastated Earths, each shaped by their own multiversal experience and spurred to take action across time and space, even when it brings them into conflict with each other. For viewers ok with scribbling notes and even building flowcharts to keep all of the story’s timelines straight,Dark Mattercould be the perfect series.
Collateral
Written by David Hare and directed by S. J. Clarkson, Collateral is a challenging four-part series offering a nuanced exploration of inner-city London. Carey Mulligan stars as DI Kip Glaspie, investigating the shooting of a pizza delivery driver. Alongside Nathaniel Martello-White as DS Nathan Bilk, they uncover a web of interconnected characters.
While easy to confuse with the Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx movie of the same name, thisCollateralis a 2018 BBC miniseries written by David Hare that doesn’t just deliver a gripping detective story. It alsodives deep into complex social issues like immigration, political corruption, and how “the system” rarely runs as efficiently as it needs to.
Investigating the murder of a pizza delivery driver, Detective Inspector Kip Glaspie (Carey Mulligan) chases that juicy mystery through a complicated web of interconnected characters that spotlight how people plucked from various backgrounds and walks of life create diverse perspectives – but don’t always add up to justice. Combining a thought-provoking story about multiculturalism with edge-of-your-seat crime thriller excitement fronted by another Oscar-nominated powerhouse in Mulligan,Collateralis likely toprovoke questions you’ll have a tough time answering even after the series is complete, not unlikeDisclaimer.
Big Little Lies
Big Little Lies is a television drama from 2017 based on Liane Moriarty’s novel. It features three mothers of first-graders in Monterey, California, whose seemingly idyllic lives begin to deteriorate amid secrets, lies, and a mysterious murder investigation intertwining their personal narratives.
For viewers who love mysteries and personal traumas headlined by A-list acting talent, it doesn’t get much better than the prestigious HBO seriesBig Little Lies.Boasting star-worthy performances from Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, Shailene Woodley, and Laura Dern, this 2017 series focuses on a cluster of housewives at the center of a mysterious murder investigation in the sleepy coastal town of Monterey, California.
While the star wattage and slow reveals of the investigation create a steamy pot-boiler of a story (viewers don’t even know who’s been murdered until the season 1’s final episode), the true star ofBig Little Liesis thegorgeous cinematography by director and series executive producer Jean-Marc Vallée. While themes of domestic abuse, motherhood, and bullying abound, it’s the creeping, almost voyeuristic slow sweep of Vallée’s camera in season 1 that sharpens each character’s feelings of isolation and loneliness. Audiences will never see gorgeous coastal homes and crashing Pacific Ocean waves the same way again.
The Undoing
The Undoing is a psychological thriller miniseries starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant. Directed by Susanne Bier, the series centers on Grace Fraser, a successful therapist, whose life unravels when a violent death, a missing spouse, and a series of revelations disrupt her seemingly perfect existence. The series explores themes of deceit and trust while maintaining suspense throughout its narrative.
It could be argued that the 2020 HBO miniseriesThe Undoingis even more compelling thanBig Little Lies, at least as far Nicole Kidman projects go. This time around, Kidman is bouncing off thecharm, smarm, and underlying darkness of her on-screen husband Hugh Grant. Created by David E. Kelley and based on a novel by Jean Hanff Korelitz, this tightly wound thriller crackles thanks to Grant, who shifts effortlessly between his natural air of charisma and malevolence as pediatric oncologist Jonathan Fraser, who’s charged with murdering his lover.
As Jonathan’s wife Grace struggles with the question of her husband’s innocence or guilt, it’s Grant’s inscrutability that brings this story of opulent New York City elitists to a true head.The Undoingis fairly straight-forward whodunnit in comparison toDisclaimer, but withGrant and Kidman delivering at the heights of their acting powers, everyone’s game is raised.
Sharp Objects
Sharp Objects is an HBO thriller mini-series that centers on reporter Camille Preaker, a woman with a dark past returning to her hometown. Returning to Wind Gap, Missouri, to investigate two murders, she takes up at her childhood home, where she must now contend with her mother, who will force her to reckon with her past.
Those whose taste in mystery and deep-rooted familial pain sway toward nihilism and a real sense that the dark evil world will never, ever change may be the perfect audience forSharp Objects. This adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s novel follows journalist Camille Preaker (Amy Adams) as shereturns to her small Missouri hometown to cover the murders of two young girls.
The case unwittingly digs up years of suppressed wounds for Preaker, who begins to reexamine her own history of family secrets and mental illness in the process. While the murders themselves dredge up long-sealed trauma and painful memories, it’s all accentuated by thedouble-barreled combination of eerie Southern-based visuals and a mournful, disconcerting soundtrack by composer Alexandra Stréliski. These two elements ramp up the unease and otherworldly isolation that envelope Preaker as her mental state crashes, with Adams giving an impressive performance akin to Blanchett’s inDisclaimer.
Shining Girls
Shining Girls is a suspense thriller series starring Elisabeth Moss as Kirby Mazrachi, a newspaper archivist traumatized by a brutal assault. Set in 1990s Chicago, the show follows Kirby as she partners with seasoned crime reporter Dan Velazquez, played by Wagner Moura, to uncover a series of cold case murders that mirror her own attack, revealing disturbing and supernatural connections. The series is based on the novel by Lauren Beukes.
Based on Lauren Beukes' novel, Apple TV+’s 2022 seriesShining Girlscenters around a serial killer traveling through time and the tough-nosed journalist intent on ending his murder spree. That in itself isn’t a game-changingly original idea. However, it all changes when journalist Kirby Mazrachi, played by the always magnetic Elisabeth Moss,can’t even trust her own version of reality as true.
This unique series mixes sci-fi and crime tropes into a messy narrative stew, as Kirby attempts to solve her own attempted murder four years earlier even while everything around her, including her home, her job, and even her friends and closest relationships all start changing under her feet. While time travel is real inShining Girls, it really serves more asa metaphor for Kirby’s inability to put her life back together and process what’s happeningin her world. For murder mystery fans, it’s a gripping watch. However, for those willing to go along with the time travel conceits, the story vaults into a higher, even more satisfying gear.
Dark
Dark is a German science fiction thriller focusing on four families in a small town impacted by the disappearance of a child. As they search for answers, they uncover a web of interconnected secrets, revealing complex temporal and familial relationships spanning multiple generations.
Alternate timelines and excruciating personal traumas intersect in Netflix’s brain-busting sci-fi German importDark. Debuting in 2017,Darkdared audiences to keep up with thebreakneck mystery and secrets found in the small forest community of Winden, taking a similar level of narrative leaps asDisclaimerin the process.
Time travel eventually sends many ofDark’s characters careening into their own pasts and futures, creating enough paradoxes and multiversal doppelgangers that even Dr. Strange would tap out from sheer exasperation. But it’s theintricate storytelling and heart-tugging family dynamicsthat fuel all those time shenanigans that makeDarkan absolute must-see, whether viewers are able to figure out what’s actually going on or not.Dark Mattermay have done fractured narrative weirdness more recently, butDarkdid it first – and arguably even better.
I May Destroy You
I May Destroy You is a drama series created by and starring Michaela Coel, exploring the complexities of consent and sexual assault through the experiences of Arabella, a writer who rebuilds her life after being drugged and assaulted in London.
TV hasn’t produced a more gripping, more disconcerting, less comforting depiction of the aftereffects of trauma than this landmark 2020 HBO miniseries anchored by star, writer, director, executive producer, and series creator Michaela Coel. As young writer Arabella Essiedu struggling to overcome a sexual assault, Coel diffusesthe horrors of that recovery with a sardonic dark humorthat’s deeply personal, messily human, and all together relatable for anyone who’s worked to regain their bearing after a life-changing trauma.
Arabella doesn’t remember her attack, so flashbacks and non-linear storytelling help viewers fill in the pieces across the 12-episode series, an approach reminiscent of howDisclaimerhandles the passage of time. Arabella’s recovery doesn’t come without repeated setbacks and mistakes, and the show is more realistic for it. However,it’s the honesty of her story that is both engrossing and unflinchingly thought-provoking.
Mare of Easttown
Mare of Easttown is a mystery crime-drama that stars Kate Winslet as a detective attempting to solve a murder as her life crumbles around her. Marianne “Mare” Sheehan is assigned to investigate the murder of one girl while trying to tackle a cold case of another missing girl. Having recently lost her son, Mare’s world is steeped in chaos as she attempts to reclaim her life in the eyes of the town - and herself.
For those hunting for a pinnacle work in the rapidly growing sub-genre of Oscar-nominated actresses glamming down to play a no-frills detective, Kate Winslet is the current belt holder. As the titularMare of Easttown,Winslet owns every inch of this stellar 2021 HBO series.
As small-town detective Mare Sheehan, Winslet leads the investigation into the murder of a local girl, a death that unsettlingly calls back one of Mare’s unsolved cases. Meanwhile, she’s still struggling with her son’s recent suicide, unearthing miles of unresolved grief.The British-born Winslet slips on the suburban Philadelphia Delco accent like a well-worn glovein one of her finest performances, backed by a murderer’s row supporting cast, including Julianne Nicholson, Jean Smart, Evan Peters, Guy Pearce, and Cailee Spaeny. It’s engrossing storytelling that will resonate with those who appreciateDisclaimer’s murky narrative depth.
