BestSeries

How the collection is arranged

BestSeries keeps a slim dark header with its green and white logo at the left, a menu beside it and a search box and a green My List button at the right. The home page opens with a wide still, darkened so that the heading can sit across its centre, and a green outline button that leads to the full list of series. Beneath it run rows of posters: Popular Series, Top Rated, In English, In Spanish, From France, Quebec and Italy, From Brazil and Portugal, and From northern Europe. Each poster shows its title and year underneath, and a round green button and a score out of ten appear when the pointer rests on it. The heading of every row is a link to the full list.

The lists by language are the main way through the catalogue: English-language, Spanish-language, France, Quebec and Italy, Portuguese-language and Northern Europe. Five more sort the series by kind: Comedy, Drama, Family, Adventure and fantasy and Classics. Four lists divide the catalogue by year, and Top rated gathers the forty-four with the strongest scores.

Every series page follows one pattern. The poster stands beside the title, the year of the first episode and the score; a line of labels says whether the series is complete and how many episodes it has; the story follows in a paragraph, and the leading cast are named. Under the Watch now button and its country selector, each season is listed with its episodes and their dates. Choose your country once and the site remembers it. Press the button and JustWatch opens with the subscription, rental, purchase and free services that carry the series where you live.

Denmark, Sweden and Norway

The small countries of the north have had an influence on television out of all proportion to their size. Borgen (2010) is the best example on BestSeries. Its title is the nickname of the palace in Copenhagen that houses the Danish parliament, and its heroine, Birgitte Nyborg, is the leader of a small centre party who finds herself, after an election that surprises everyone, forming a government. Sidse Babett Knudsen plays her as a decent, clever woman learning what power costs at home as well as at work, and the series is equally good on the journalists and advisers around her. It was shown in more than seventy countries and made coalition politics exciting to audiences who had hardly heard of it.

Danish television is just as strong in a gentler mood. Seaside Hotel (2013) begins in the summer of 1928 at a small hotel among the dunes of the North Sea coast, where the same guests arrive each July, a merchant, an actor, a count, and the same staff look after them. Each season covers one summer, so the ten seasons carry guests and maids alike through nearly twenty years of Danish history. Rita (2012) is a comedy-drama about a schoolteacher who is wonderful with pupils and rather less good with their parents, her colleagues and her own grown children; Mille Dinesen makes her irresistible. The New Nurses (2018) is set in 1952, when a Copenhagen hospital admits men to its nursing school for the first time, and Carmen Curlers (2022) tells, with some invention, how a Danish businessman of the 1960s made a fortune from heated hair rollers. Better Times (2004) follows two families through the years in which television itself arrived in Denmark.

Sweden contributes ten series. Real Humans (2012) imagines a present day in which lifelike robots called hubots work as drivers, carers and housekeepers, and asks through three families what people owe to the machines they live with; it was remade in English and is best suited to teenagers and adults. Solsidan (2010), named after a prosperous suburb of Stockholm, is the country's favourite comedy of the past two decades: a dentist moves back to the street where he grew up with his partner, who is expecting their first child, and meets his old friends as they are now. Summer with the Family (2017) sends an extended family to share a house in the archipelago. Gösta (2019), written and directed by Lukas Moodysson, is about a young child psychologist in a country town who tries to be kind to absolutely everyone, with predictable results.

The Best Intentions (1991) stands apart. Ingmar Bergman wrote it about the courtship and early marriage of his own parents, a poor theology student and the daughter of a wealthy family, and gave the script to the Danish director Bille August; Samuel Fröler and Pernilla August play the couple. It is one of the summits of Scandinavian television and can be watched in four evenings. Fröler returns in Skärgårdsdoktorn (1997), about a doctor who takes over a practice among the islands off Stockholm. Macken (1986) is a musical comedy set at a country petrol station, Börje - The Journey of a Legend (2023) tells the life of the ice hockey player Börje Salming, and Love Me (2019) follows three generations of one Stockholm family in and out of love.

From Norway come seven series. Home Ground (2018) follows Helena Mikkelsen, who becomes the first woman to coach a men's team in the top division of Norwegian football and has to win over a dressing room and a town. The Architect (2023), four short episodes set in an Oslo of the near future, is a dry comedy about a young architect who proposes turning empty car parks into flats. So Long, Marianne (2024) tells the story of the Canadian poet Leonard Cohen and Marianne Ihlen, the Norwegian woman he met on a Greek island in 1960. Rådebank (2020) is set among young car enthusiasts in the countryside, Brødrene Dal og Spektralsteinene (1982) is a much-loved adventure comedy for children, and Fleksnes fataliteter (1972) and Karl & Co (1998) are two of the longest-running Norwegian comedies.

The Netherlands, Belgium and Poland

Eleven series are in Dutch, from both the Netherlands and Flanders. Floris (1969) has a place in film history: this adventure serial about a knight who returns from his travels to find his castle occupied was the first collaboration of the director Paul Verhoeven and the actor Rutger Hauer, then twenty-five, and it remains great fun for children. De Zevensprong (1982), from a famous novel for young readers, follows a village schoolteacher drawn into a plot to free a boy held in a strange house. De Luizenmoeder (2018), a satire set among the parents and teachers of a primary school, drew some of the largest audiences in the history of Dutch television. Oogappels (2019) follows four families whose teenage children attend the same school, and Vrienden voor het Leven (1991) is a comedy about a young couple and their neighbours.

Two Dutch series are drawn from life. Turbulent Skies (2020) tells of the airline founder Albert Plesman and the aircraft builder Anthony Fokker, rivals and partners in the early days of flight. Máxima (2024) follows Máxima Zorreguieta from Buenos Aires and New York to her engagement to the Dutch crown prince. From Flanders come Het Eiland (2004), an office comedy with a devoted following, Quiz Me Quick (2012), about five strangers who meet at a pub quiz and decide to enter the national championship, Uncles (2022), about three brothers and an unexpected guest, and Safety First (2013), about a small firm of event stewards.

Poland has seven series, four of them classics. Wojna domowa (1965) is a comedy about two teenagers and their bewildered parents in a Warsaw block of flats, and is as fresh as when it was made. Janosik (1974) tells the legend of the highland outlaw of the Tatra mountains, a Robin Hood of the Carpathians. Far from the highway (1976) follows a village boy who falls in love with a student and decides to change his life, and Kariera Nikodema Dyzmy (1980) is a celebrated satire about a small-town clerk who rises by accident to the top of society. The newer series are 1670 (2023), a comic chronicle of a vain nobleman and his village filmed in the style of a documentary, Project UFO (2025), and The Mothers of Penguins (2024), in which a professional fighter discovers that the school gate is harder than the ring.

Spain

Spanish television has enjoyed a decade of worldwide attention, and BestSeries keeps to its warmer side. The historical drama is a national speciality. Isabel (2012) follows Isabella of Castile from a girl kept far from court to the queen who married Ferdinand of Aragon, united the crowns and sent Columbus west; Michelle Jenner plays her across three seasons, and the production filmed in the real palaces and cathedrals. Carlos, rey emperador (2015) continues the story with her grandson, the emperor Charles V. Boundless (2022), with Álvaro Morte and Rodrigo Santoro, tells in six episodes of the voyage of Magellan and Elcano, who left Seville with five ships in 1519 and completed the first journey around the world. The Lady's Companion (2025) is a romantic comedy set in the Madrid of the 1880s, where a professional chaperone is hired to find husbands for three sisters.

La Fortuna (2021), directed by Alejandro Amenábar, is an adventure of the present day: a young Spanish diplomat and a veteran American lawyer take a treasure-hunting company to court over the cargo of a frigate sunk two centuries ago. Cristóbal Balenciaga (2024) follows the great couturier from his arrival in Paris in 1937 through thirty years at the head of his house, and Alberto San Juan is superb in the part. Between Lands (2023) is a drama of the 1960s in which a young woman from Andalusia agrees to a marriage in La Mancha to save her family.

Comedy is well served. Paquita Salas (2016) is a talent agent whose best years were the 1990s and who refuses to notice; the series began on a small web channel and became a national favourite. The Countryside (2019) sends a group of city people to repopulate an almost empty village in Soria, where the few remaining inhabitants have their own views. Little Faith (2023) observes a quiet married couple through a year of small embarrassments, a month to each episode. The Neighbor (2019) gives superpowers to a man who can barely pay his rent, and Atasco (2024) tells a different story in every car of an enormous traffic jam outside Madrid. Her Majesty (2025) stars Anna Castillo as a carefree princess who has to stand in for the king.

Three further Spanish series deserve a mention. The Time It Takes (2021) tells of the year after a separation in ten very short episodes, each a little more in the present and a little less in the past than the one before. HIT (2020) follows an unconventional teacher called in to help a troubled secondary school, and Land of Women (2024), with Eva Longoria and Carmen Maura, brings three generations of women from New York to a wine town in Catalonia.

Mexico, Colombia and Argentina

Mexican comedy is represented first by Eugenio Derbez, whose La familia P. Luche (2002) takes place in a town where everything, clothes, cars, furniture, is covered in plush; the family of Ludovico, Federica and their children became part of the language. Nosotros los Guapos (2016) pairs two well-known comic characters as reluctant flatmates. Ana (2020), created by and starring Ana de la Reguera, is a comedy about an actress in her forties who starts again, and LaLola (2024) is the story of a vain executive who wakes one morning as a woman and sees his office from the other side. Between Walls (2025) is a romantic comedy about two new neighbours.

Mexico also makes strong drama. Every Minute Counts (2024) is set in the hours and days after the earthquake that struck Mexico City on the morning of 19 September 1985, and follows doctors, reporters and volunteers as they search the ruins; it is a serious series for older viewers, told with great respect. Midnight Family (2024) follows a medical student who spends her nights working in the private ambulance her family runs through the streets of the capital. DOC (2026) is a hospital drama about a senior doctor who loses twelve years of memory and returns to his ward as a beginner, and The Simulators (2008) is an ingenious comedy in which four specialists solve ordinary people's problems by staging elaborate deceptions. Hasta que te conocí (2016) tells the life of the singer and songwriter Juan Gabriel, from a childhood in Ciudad Juárez to the stage of the Palace of Fine Arts.

From Colombia comes one of the highest-rated series in the catalogue, Eva Lasting (2023). It is 1976, and a girl arrives as the first female pupil at a boys' school in Bogotá, with a suitcase of books and opinions of her own; the friends who fall under her spell tell the story. Always a Witch (2019) brings a young woman from the seventeenth century to modern Cartagena. Two Colombian series are musical lives, Celia (2015), about the Cuban singer Celia Cruz, and El Rey, Vicente Fernández (2022), about the great voice of Mexican ranchera, and Kdabra (2009) is a youth mystery about a boy surrounded by strange events.

Argentina sends five series. Bellas artes (2024), by the film-makers Gastón Duprat and Mariano Cohn, stars Oscar Martínez as an art historian of the old school who becomes director of a museum of modern art in Madrid and is baffled by everything in it. Almost Happy (2020) is a gentle comedy about a radio host in Buenos Aires, his former wife and their two children. Protectors (2022) follows three football agents who join forces, Planners (2023) a woman who builds an events business after her marriage ends, and O11CE: New Generation (2026) returns to a sports academy well known to young viewers. 100 días para enamorarnos (2020), made for Spanish-speaking audiences in the United States, gives two couples a hundred days to decide their future.

France and Quebec

Fifteen series are in French, eight from France and seven from Quebec. H (1998) was the comedy that introduced a generation of French comedians, Jamel Debbouze, Éric Judor and Ramzy Bedia among them, as the hopeless staff of a hospital on the edge of Paris; its seventy-one episodes are still repeated constantly. Culte (2024) dramatises the spring of 2001, when a small production team had four months to put the first French reality programme on the air and had little idea what they were about to set off. Past Forward (2023) stars Kev Adams as a man of thirty who sends a message to his first email address and receives a reply from himself at fifteen.

Three recent French series are about illness met with courage. Everything Is Fine (2023), with Virginie Efira and Nicole Garcia, follows every member of a Parisian family through the months in which a child is in hospital, and finds a surprising amount of comedy there. All the Blue in the Sky (2025), from a best-selling novel, sends a young man who has learned that his memory is failing on a journey by camper van through the Pyrenees with a companion found through an advertisement. Irresistible (2023) is a romantic comedy about a woman whose body reacts very strangely to falling in love. Young Millionaires (2025) gives four teenagers from Marseille a winning lottery ticket, and Love (and Trouble) In Paris (2022) follows a woman of thirty-six who decides to reinvent herself.

Quebec has a television tradition of its own, written in a French full of local colour. Les Invincibles (2005) begins with four friends of thirty who make a pact to change their lives on the same day, and became one of the most admired series in the province. Les Beaux Malaises (2014) stars the comedian Martin Matte in a version of his own family life, built from the awkward moments that everyone recognises. Plan B (2017) offers its characters a telephone number that lets them go back in time and try again. Audrey's Back (2021) is a comedy-drama about a woman who wakes after many years in a coma and has to grow up all at once; it won prizes at the Cannes series festival. Empathie (2025) follows a psychiatrist in her first weeks at a Montreal institute, and Outbreak (2020) follows the head of a public health laboratory during an emergency.

Italy

Italian television has changed a great deal in ten years, and twenty-two series show both the old and the new. Call My Agent: Italy (2023) moves the famous French comedy about a talent agency from Paris to Rome and invites Italian stars, Paolo Sorrentino, Paola Cortellesi, Pierfrancesco Favino, to play exaggerated versions of themselves. A Professor (2021) stars Alessandro Gassmann as a philosophy teacher at a Roman secondary school who takes a different thinker as the theme of each episode and applies him to the troubles of his pupils and his own son. Hearts (2021) is set in a Turin hospital in the 1960s, in the years when heart surgery was being invented.

Comedy comes in many forms. Vita da Carlo (2021) has the actor and director Carlo Verdone playing himself, a man who is stopped by admirers every time he crosses a Roman street. Generation 56k (2021), set between Naples and the island of Procida, tells a love story in two periods, 1998 and the present, and Pesci Piccoli: Un'agenzia, molte idee, poco budget (2023) is an office comedy from the same group of Neapolitan comedians. Everyone's Crazy About Love (2008) is a family comedy in which the characters burst into well-known songs. The Betrothed (1990) is a famous parody of the great Italian novel by a trio of comedians, Mario (2013) and Dov'è Mario? (2016) are two inventive satires, and Complicated matters (2024) sends the comedian Valerio Lundini around the country to make very odd documentaries.

For younger viewers Italy offers The Cave of the Golden Rose (1991), the fairy tale of Princess Fantaghirò, who would rather fight than marry and wins both a kingdom and a prince; it was shown at Christmas across Europe for years. The Swan Company (2019) follows seven teenagers in the orchestra of the Milan conservatory, RIV4LRIES (2025) is set in a middle school in Pisa, and Zero (2021) is about a shy boy from the outskirts of Milan who can turn invisible.

Lives and period pieces complete the Italian list. Miss Fallaci (2025) follows the journalist Oriana Fallaci to America at the start of her career. Fabrizio De André: Free Prince (2018) is a two-part portrait of the Genoese singer-songwriter, played by Luca Marinelli, and One Captain (2021) recalls the last season of the footballer Francesco Totti with a good deal of humour. The Lady with the Black Veil (2015) is a romantic mystery set in the Trentino at the end of the nineteenth century, Un Amore (2024) reunites two people who met on a railway journey twenty years before, and I wanted to be a rock star (2019) and Antonia (2024) are comedy-dramas about young women at a turning point.

Brazil and Portugal

Brazil is one of the great television countries, and its comedies have a style of their own: fast, theatrical and affectionate. Toma Lá, Dá Cá (2007), written by and starring Miguel Falabella, concerns two couples in facing flats of the same building, each husband being the former husband of the other's wife. A Diarista (2004) follows Marinete, a cleaner in Rio de Janeiro who goes to a different house every day and leaves each one in cheerful confusion. Os Aspones (2004) is set in a government office that has been forgotten by the government, where three clerks work hard at seeming busy. TV Pirata (1988) was a sketch programme that changed Brazilian humour, and Escolinha do Professor Raimundo (1990) set the comedian Chico Anysio in front of a classroom of grown-up pupils played by the best comic actors of the day. Armação Ilimitada (1985) was an adventure comedy for the young that looked unlike anything else of its time.

The Brazilian miniseries is often a biography. JK (2006) tells the life of Juscelino Kubitschek, the country doctor who became president and built the new capital, Brasília, in four years. Maysa: When the Heart Sings (2009) is a portrait of the singer Maysa, directed by her son, and has the highest score of any Portuguese-language series here. Hebe (2019) follows the television presenter Hebe Camargo through six decades on the air, and The Adventures of José & Durval (2023) tells how two brothers from the countryside of Paraná became one of the best-loved singing duos in Brazil.

Among the dramas, Second Call (2019) is set in a night school for adults in São Paulo, where the teachers are as tired as the pupils and every lesson is a small victory; it is a fine, humane series. Iron Island (2018) takes place on an oil platform far out to sea, Old Friends (2018) follows three women through a long friendship, and Psi (2014) is about a psychoanalyst who is forever stepping into his patients' lives. Sound & Fury (2009) follows a theatre company in São Paulo as it rehearses Shakespeare, and Soap Opera (2023) is a comedy in which a screenwriter finds herself inside her own story.

Younger viewers have Juacas (2017), set at a surf school on the coast, Julie and the phantoms (2011), the original Brazilian series about a girl whose band is made up of three friendly ghosts, and Aruna's Magic (2023), about a teenager and three witches from the past. It’s a Match (2019) is a romantic comedy with Tatá Werneck, #NoFilter (2023) follows a student who decides to become an influencer, Reporting for Duty (2023) puts a timid man in charge of a police station, and It's All Right! (2023) is a short musical romance.

Portugal contributes five series. 1986 (2018) is a comedy of school life set during the presidential election of that year, seen through the eyes of a boy more interested in a girl in his class and in the pop music of the time. Pôr do Sol (2021) is an affectionate parody of the family saga, played with a perfectly straight face. Odisseia (2013) follows two comedians on a road trip, Sara (2018) is about a film actress famous for her tears who discovers that she can make people laugh, and Until Life Do Us Part (2021) concerns three generations of a family who run a wedding business together.

English-language series since 1990

The sixty English-language series divide almost evenly between classics and more recent work. The outstanding title of the 1990s is From the Earth to the Moon (1998), produced by Tom Hanks after his experience of making a film about Apollo 13. Its twelve episodes each take a different part of the story, the engineers who built the lunar module, the wives who waited, the geologists who trained the astronauts, and a different style to tell it. It won the Emmy award for outstanding miniseries and remains the best dramatic account of the moon landings.

British television of the same years is represented by The House of Eliott (1991), in which two sisters left with little money in the London of the 1920s build a fashion house; by Pie in the Sky (1994), with Richard Griffiths as a police inspector who would much rather be running his restaurant and is rarely allowed to; and by The Detectives (1993), a spoof with Jasper Carrott and Robert Powell. My Hero (2000) is a comedy about a superhero from another planet living quietly in a London suburb, Robin Hood (2006) is a lively retelling for a family audience, and Cuckoo (2012) stars Greg Davies as a father whose daughter comes home from her travels with a husband. The Essex Serpent (2022), with Claire Danes and Tom Hiddleston, is a period drama of the 1890s about a widow and naturalist who goes in search of a legendary creature on the marshes.

From Canada come Little Mosque on the Prairie (2007), a warm comedy about the Muslim community of a small prairie town and its neighbours, Republic of Doyle (2010), in which a father and son run a detective agency in St. John's, Newfoundland, with more charm than method, and Arctic Air (2012), about a small airline in the far north. Australia sends Offspring (2010), a comedy-drama about an obstetrician and her chaotic family in Melbourne, and Police Rescue (1991), about a rescue squad in Sydney.

The American series since 1990 include Once and Again (1999), an admired drama about two divorced parents who fall in love, and the comedies Herman's Head (1991), Dave's World (1993), The Hughleys (1998), Living with Fran (2005) and Playing House (2014). Monday Mornings (2013) is a hospital drama built around the weekly meeting at which surgeons answer for their decisions. Bel-Air (2022) retells a famous comedy of the 1990s as a drama, following a gifted teenager from west Philadelphia to his uncle's house in Los Angeles. National Treasure: Edge of History (2022) is a treasure hunt for a family audience, Happy's Place (2024) stars Reba McEntire as the new owner of her father's restaurant, Rescue: HI-Surf (2024) follows the lifeguards of the north shore of Oahu, and PULSE (2025) is set in the emergency department of a Miami hospital.

The classics

Thirty-five series were made before 1990, and they are among the pleasures of the catalogue. The spy series of the 1960s lead the way. Danger Man (1960) starred Patrick McGoohan as John Drake, an agent who preferred his wits to a weapon, and set the tone for a decade of British adventure. The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964) paired the American Napoleon Solo with the Russian Illya Kuryakin, played by Robert Vaughn and David McCallum, and made the idea of the two working together seem natural at the height of the rivalry between their countries. The Champions (1968) gave three agents unusual powers after a crash in the Himalayas, and The Name of the Game (1968) rotated three leading men through stories set at a magazine publisher.

Adventure and fantasy of the same years are well represented. The Time Tunnel (1966) sent two scientists tumbling from one moment of history to another, the Titanic one week and the walls of Jericho the next. Tarzan (1966) starred Ron Ely, who performed his own stunts, and The High Chaparral (1967) was a western set on a ranch in the Arizona territory, admired for the care it took with its Mexican and Apache characters. Planet of the Apes (1974) continued the famous films as a weekly series with Roddy McDowall, Man from Atlantis (1977) introduced Patrick Duffy as a man who breathes under water, and Marco Polo (1982) was a lavish international production, filmed partly in China, with music by Ennio Morricone.

The American situation comedy has six classics here. The Odd Couple (1970), from the play by Neil Simon, cast Tony Randall as the fastidious Felix and Jack Klugman as the easy-going Oscar, two divorced friends sharing a flat, and is still one of the funniest series ever made. The Brady Bunch (1969) joined a widower with three sons and a mother with three daughters in one house. The Patty Duke Show (1963) gave its young star two parts, as identical cousins, Gidget (1965) introduced Sally Field, F Troop (1965) was a comedy of the frontier, and Nanny and the Professor (1970) starred Juliet Mills as a nanny with a touch of magic. From Britain comes Terry and June (1979), the model of the suburban comedy.

Family drama was a strength of American television in the 1970s and 1980s. Family (1976) followed the Lawrences of Pasadena through five seasons with a truthfulness that was new at the time and won its cast a shelf of awards. Highway to Heaven (1984), created by and starring Michael Landon, sent an angel on probation and a retired policeman from town to town to help people in trouble, and Our House (1986) cast Wilford Brimley as a grandfather who takes in his daughter-in-law and her three children. Crazy like a Fox (1984) paired a mischievous private detective with his cautious son, a lawyer, and Archie Bunker's Place (1979) and What's Happening Now!! (1985) continued two well-loved comedies.

The 1990s added a group of adventure series made for the whole family: The Lost World (1999), from the novel by Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventures of Sinbad (1996), Earth 2 (1994), about the first settlers on a distant planet, Crusade (1999), The Magnificent Seven (1998), Superboy (1988) and, a little later, She Spies (2002), Veritas: The Quest (2003), Miss Match (2003), The Triangle (2005) and Intelligence (2014). That Girl Lay Lay (2021) is a comedy for children.

Series about work

One of the things television does better than any other form is to show people at work, week after week, until the viewer knows the place as well as the characters do. BestSeries has several workplaces worth visiting. Hospitals come first: the Turin wards of Hearts, the Paris comedy of H, the Copenhagen school of The New Nurses, the Mexican teams of DOC and Midnight Family, and the American ones of Monday Mornings and PULSE. Schools are almost as popular: Rita in Denmark, A Professor in Rome, Second Call in São Paulo, HIT in Madrid, De Luizenmoeder in the Netherlands and Eva Lasting in Bogotá show six countries and six ideas of what a teacher is for.

Show business looks at itself in Call My Agent: Italy, Paquita Salas, Vita da Carlo, Culte, Sara, Soap Opera and Sound & Fury. Politics and royalty appear in Borgen, Her Majesty, Máxima and JK. Sport provides Home Ground, Protectors, One Captain and Börje - The Journey of a Legend. And the small business, with its hopes and its unpaid bills, is the setting of Seaside Hotel, Carmen Curlers, The House of Eliott, Pie in the Sky, Happy's Place, Arctic Air and Safety First.

Short series and long ones

The series on BestSeries range from two episodes to one hundred and nineteen, and the length is worth checking before beginning. Viewers with a few evenings to spare can choose a complete story in eight episodes or fewer: The Best Intentions, The Architect, Boundless, La Fortuna, Cristóbal Balenciaga, The Essex Serpent, Marco Polo, One Captain, So Long, Marianne, Turbulent Skies, Everything Is Fine and Fabrizio De André: Free Prince are all of this kind. Each can be finished in a week, and each has a proper ending.

At the other end are the companions for a whole season of evenings. Seaside Hotel has sixty-four episodes, Solsidan ninety, The Odd Couple one hundred and fourteen and The Brady Bunch one hundred and seventeen. Comedies of this length need neither order nor patience, since almost every episode stands alone, and many households keep one going in the background of the year. The dramas reward watching in sequence: Borgen and Isabel in particular are built so that each season answers the last.

A first month

A newcomer could spend a first month with BestSeries as follows. In the first week watch the opening episodes of Borgen and, on alternate evenings, a few of The Odd Couple: one new drama and one old comedy. In the second week try a short series in a language new to you, The Best Intentions in Swedish or Boundless in Spanish. In the third week begin Call My Agent: Italy or Eva Lasting, both of which are easy to love within an episode. In the fourth, choose a summer at Seaside Hotel. By the end the five language lists will each have a familiar landmark from which to explore.

Households with children can follow a different path. The Cave of the Golden Rose, Floris, Robin Hood, The Time Tunnel, The Brady Bunch, Julie and the phantoms, Juacas, RIV4LRIES and O11CE: New Generation are all suitable for viewers from about eight years old, and National Treasure: Edge of History, The Lost World and Highway to Heaven suit the whole family together. Teenagers may enjoy Eva Lasting, Zero, The Swan Company, 1986 and Bel-Air.

Watching with subtitles

Most of the series on BestSeries are offered by the official services with English subtitles, and the more recent ones often have an English dubbed track as well. Subtitles are the better choice wherever they exist, since a performance lives in the voice. Series are in some ways easier to follow in a foreign language than films: the same characters return each week, their turns of phrase become familiar, and by the third episode most viewers have stopped noticing that they are reading.

Titles are listed under their English release name where one exists and under the original otherwise, so that Skärgårdsdoktorn, Wojna domowa and Toma Lá, Dá Cá keep their own names. The search recognises both forms, and typing Badehotellet will find Seaside Hotel just as surely as typing the English title.

How the series were chosen

The catalogue began with a search of TMDB for series in ten languages that had been rated by viewers and scored well. That search returned about fourteen hundred titles. Crime series, mysteries, reality programmes, talk shows, daily soap operas, documentaries and cartoons were set aside at once, and the remainder was read through by hand, story by story and poster by poster. Series made for adult audiences were removed, as were stories centred on cruelty, and 202 remained. Most of the best-known English-language series of recent years already belong to sister guides, and every title on BestSeries is unique to this site, which is why the English list leans towards the classics and the selection as a whole looks so widely around the world.

A few of the series kept are serious works best suited to teenagers and adults: Borgen, Real Humans, Every Minute Counts, Outbreak and Empathie among them. The descriptions on their pages make the tone clear. Scores, cast lists, seasons and descriptions come from TMDB, and the Watch now links are provided by JustWatch, which records where each series is officially available country by country.

Using BestSeries

Search is the quickest route to a series whose name you know. Begin to type in the box at the right of the header and matches appear under it at once, each with its year. The Series page lists the whole catalogue with the most popular titles first, and the A-Z page sets all 202 in alphabetical order, one letter to a page. The rows on the home page are a good way to wander, and the heading of each row opens its full list.

My List is the place for the series you are in the middle of and the ones you mean to start. A press on Add to My List on any series page puts the title there, and the green My List button in the header opens the collection. Everything is held by the browser on your own device, with neither an account nor a password, and the export button writes the titles to a small file so that the same list can be opened on a second device. People who follow several series at once find it a handy reminder of what comes next.

The help pages explain each part of the site in a few lines. How to watch describes the path from a poster to an official service, Finding titles covers the search and the lists, and My List explains the list. There are short guides to the English-language, Spanish-language and Portuguese-language series, to France, Quebec and Italy and northern Europe, to comedy, drama, family series, adventure and the classics, a note on short series, and a page that goes year by year.

Questions and answers

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