Books & Reading

What is the Best Literary TV Adaptation of All Time?

November 9, 2026

Who says TV rots your brain? These days, it delivers its fair share of great storytelling, whether original or adapted. But this is Literary Hub, after all, and so as the weather gets cooler, we’ll be hunkering down with some long form literary adaptations. The only question is: which ones?

Earlier this year, we asked for your help determining the best modern literary film adaptation, and now we’re back to consider the best literary adaptations* ever to grace the small screen, using what is obviously the most scientific and objective method of selection: a bracket.

We separated our favorite TV adaptations into four loose quadrants, as the format requires: Carnage, where you’ll find shows that trade in violence, brutality, and horror; Carnal, where we put the shows that foreground sensual, sumptuous pleasures of the body (like sex, but also food, and also gossip, and also sports); Cerebral, where you’ll find the shows you have to actually watch instead of looking at your phone; and Cozy, which is just what it says on the tin. (There is some overlap, as you might imagine; we’ve made judgement calls as necessary.)

As always, we offer a disclaimer: These initial draft picks are based on the tastes and interests of the Lit Hub staff. We’re very sorry if your favorite show isn’t here, but not really, because you’re probably wrong.

So what are you waiting for? Voting is open now, and will continue throughout the week as the field narrows. Yes, we’ll be here a while; might as well pop something in the microwave. But first, pick your favorites below.

*Anything adapted from a book, graphic novel, or short story counts here; the original text doesn’t have to be fiction, or “literary” in the generic sense.

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INSTRUCTIONS:

It’s simple: for every match-up, pick your favorite. We’re looking for the best show, not necessarily the most faithful adaptation—though that may factor into your thinking. Or not! In short, go with your gut. We’ll tabulate up the results using our best liberal arts major math, and bring you the results tomorrow.

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VOTING SCHEDULE:

→ Round of 64: Voting open now until tonight at 7:00 PM EST

Round of 32: Voting open Tuesday, November 10th from 10:00 AM – 7:00 PM EST

Round of 16: Voting open Wednesday, November 11th from 10:00 AM – 7:00 PM EST

Round of 8: Voting open Thursday, November 12th from 10:00 AM – 7:00 PM EST

The Quarter Finals: Voting open Friday, November 13th from 10:00 AM, until Sunday November 15th at 7:00 PM EST

The Finals: Voting open Monday, November 16th from 10:00 AM – 7:00 PM EST

And the winner will be announced on Tuesday, November 17th!

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HOW TO VOTE:

There are little voting forms at the bottom of each match-up. Simply click and move along, like changing the channel on your TV.

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MATCHUP:

Game of Thrones (1) vs. The Haunting of Hill House (16)

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Game of Thrones (2011)

Emotional manipulation, with dragons

Based on: George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series (1996–…)

Subgenres: Everyone Dies • The Last Stand of Monoculture • Water Cooler Fodder

David Benioff and D. B. Weiss changed the game with their adaptation of George R.R. (for Really Really Slow At Finishing the Next Book) Martin’s already popular books, bringing the swords, dragons, morally complex characters, and unrepentant violence to life with big budget visuals and great performances. The books’ soap-opera-dense political intrigue and “kill ‘em all” approach to character development felt remarkably fresh in 2011—you never knew who was going to die, or have sex!—and it’s hard to overstate the show’s popularity: For years of Sundays, everyone you knew was going to a Game of Thrones watch party. Some of the shine came off when the show’s plot outran the books—and the writers couldn’t stick the landing—but when there are real children in the real world named Daenerys, it’s hard to deny the GoT legacy. –JF

Put it on when you want to feel better about your office’s politics.

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The Haunting of Hill House (2018)

How to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality (or not!)

Based on: Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House (1959)

Subgenres: A Family Affair • Spooky Places • Get Me Out Of Here

This Mike Flanagan–helmed miniseries loosely adapts Shirley Jackson’s masterpiece of horror, alternating between the past and present as five adult siblings continue to be haunted by what they experienced as children while living at Hill House. The ten episodes are draped in shadow and mist, colored in muted blues and greys, but its cast stands out: This is the show that introduced viewers to now-iconic scream queen Victoria Pedretti. Fans include Stephen King, spooky kids, and anyone in between who appreciates the unsettling. Fun fact: Flanagan’s The Haunting of Hill House proved so popular it provoked a follow up, The Haunting of Bly Manor, which loosely adapts The Turn of the Screw. –OS

Put it on when you need to question if what you saw moving in the corner was just a trick of the light or…something else.

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MATCHUP:

The Terror (8) vs. Sharp Objects (9)

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The Terror (2018)

When getting stuck in ice is the least of your worries

Based on: Dan Simmons’ The Terror (2007) and Victor LaValle’s The Devil In Silver (2012)

Subgenres: Stay On Land! • Beast Mode • Supernatural Spookys

This anthology series had a pretty good showing across all three seasons, though the first is the best by a good stretch. Each season is set in a compressed, atmospheric setting (a Royal Navy ship caught in the ice, a WWII Japanese interment camp, and a Queens NY mental hospital) where something evil lurks (a beast on the ice, a ghost from across the sea, and a monstrous possession). The first season (the ship) is dreadful and tense, full of cramped isolation. Desperate sailors start to mentally fray from fear, extreme weather, and the threat of a lurking monster. It’s a creature feature meets survival story with great acting (and make-up effects, as the men waste away) and genuinely frightening monster moments.

The second season drops off a bit, though the setting of FDR’s racist internment program adds an element of real world terror to the ghost story. And the third season is good but straight ahead, based on a spooky Victor LaValle book. –JF

Put it on when you want to feel validated in your decision to not go out.

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Sharp Objects (2018)

A crime series about how fucked up it is that neither Amy Adams nor Patricia Clarkson have won any Oscars

Based on: Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects (2006)

Subgenres: Southern Gothic • Rollerskating Gothic • Amy Adams Whispering Gothic • Mommy Issues Gothic

I watched all of Sharp Objects in one day because I’m insane, and now my brain is different. This series is the definition of vibes and atmosphere, the definition of creeping dread and sickening suspense. On the surface this is a story about a struggling crime reporter (Adams) being dispatched to her hometown to report on a murder, and ultimately being sucked back into dark family drama and her mother’s (Clarkson) unstable orbit. But actually, this is a show about beautiful wallpaper and dark corners and oppressive Southern heat. It’s a mother-daughter story told through a cracked mirror. The show itself is a very sharp object. –MC

Put it on when you are looking to get jump-scared by Sydney Sweeney.

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MATCHUP:

Band of Brothers (5) vs. The Handmaid’s Tale (12)

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Band of Brothers (2001)

The quintessential dad series

Based on: Stephen E. Ambrose’s Band of Brothers (1992)

Subgenres: BoomerCore • Antifascism Rocks • The Jump Scare of Seeing Jimmy Fallon in a Serious Role

Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg knew they were onto something with Saving Private Ryan. After the smash hit WWII movie, the pair reunited to produce this prestige adaptation of Ambrose’s nonfiction book about Easy Company, an airborne unit who were in many of the most well known battles of the European theater. Band of Brothers‘s battle scenes and performances are stand outs, but the show is never just overly simple, ra-ra triumphalism—as the war grinds on, it takes a heavy physical and psychological toll on Easy Company. The final episode, narrating the men’s fates over a baseball game in occupied Germany, is a tender, melancholic send-off. –JF

Put it on when you want to see your dad cry while saluting the TV.

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The Handmaid’s Tale (2017)

Systemic oppression with fun little hats

Based on: Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)

Subgenres: Color Coding • It Could Happen Here • The Discourse

The first season of The Handmaid’s Tale premiered less than four months into Donald Trump’s first presidency, which made the show—which imagines a totalitarian American in which women are utterly subjugated—even more haunting. It is an effective, moving translation of Atwood’s beloved novel, not least on account of its excellent cast, including Elisabeth Moss, Samira Wiley, Alexis Bledel, Ann Dowd, and Joseph Fiennes.

Unfortunately, in later seasons, after it outruns the book, the show gets stuck in the mud and kind of devolves into torture porn. But hey, we’ll always have the iconography. –ET

Put it on when you have just voted against fascists.

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MATCHUP:

Roots (4) vs. Dexter (13)

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Roots (1977)

A very American family saga

Based on: Alex Haley’s Roots (1976)

Subgenres: Classroom Classics • It Did Happen Here • Generational Stories

One of the most watched miniseries in American TV history and a seminal dramatic portrayal of America through slavery and the Civil War. The show almost got pulled when ABC executives saw how unflinching Roots was about the brutality of slavers, especially when they were being portrayed by some of TV’s most recognizable white faces. The network insisted on adding a concerned white captain who isn’t in the book. Haley’s novel was known for being the first popular work of fiction to present the horrors of the Middle Passage, which the show maintains. Some of the novel’s nuance is lost in the translation to TV, but Roots is excellent and anchored in great performances, including an early performance by LeVar Burton. –JF

Put it on when you want to remember when network TV executives made serious shows.

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Dexter (2006)

Who kills the killers?

Based on: Jeff Lindsay’s Dexter series (2004-2015)

Subgenres: Sunny Bloody Neon Miami • Aging Actors Down With Wigs • Bad Police • Deeply Uncomfortable Sexual Tension

Sometimes, all TV needs is a great, repeatable premise. Dexter, a sort of Robin Hood of murderers, is an all-timer of a pitch. Set in sunny Florida, the show follows the exploits of Dexter Morgan, who works exactingly as both forensic analyst and vigilante killer who targets other (worse) serial killers, with very fun and complicated implications. I mostly remember Dexter for the main character’s carefully constructed, near-sterile murder rooms where he does his wet work. They’re like deadly spider webs made out of plastic drop cloths—every time I drape a towel over the sink before I shave, I think of Dexter and his obsessive cleanliness.

Dexter’s quality varies across its eight seasons, two sequels, and one prequel. The secondary characters are hit or miss, as are his victims (though shout out to the great, evil John Lithgow), and Dexter’s backstory has always struck me as implausibly bizarre—his adoptive cop dad manipulates a PTSD riddled child into becoming a good guy murder machine? But a thrilling cat and mouse hunt combined with police procedural is kind of all you want from TV. –JF

Put it on when you are having the wrong intrusive thoughts.

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MATCHUP:

Say Nothing (6) vs. You (11)

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Say Nothing (2024)

Revolution retold

Based on: Patrick Radden Keefe’s Say Nothing (2018)

Subgenres: Based on a True Story • Fight for Your Rights • Party Politics

Patrick Radden Keefe’s excellent book was my first introduction to both the Troubles and its cast of determined revolutionaries. Keefe’s project, centering on the mysterious disappearance of civilian Jean McConville in 1972, explored a centuries-long occupation through the eyes of a few key players. Josh Zetumer’s adaptation also managed to render the political personal, but this viewer admired how the show’s structure left space for thematic exploration.

Drifting from the tight focus on I.R.A. icon Dolours Price gives the series air to float big questions. So on the one hand, we have Lola Petticrew eating up scenery as moxie incarnate, but on the other, we have meaty arguments on statecraft, paramilitary strategy, and political atonement.

I also felt, watching this show, how alive the conflict is. And how unsettled! Say Nothing framed every single one of its nine episodes with a winky chyron noting Gerry Adams’ denial that he was ever a member of the I.R.A. Maybe the revolution will not be televised because the past isn’t even past. –BKA

Put it on when you want to topple the system in a cool sweater.

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You (2018)

Gossip Girl redux, but the sociopathy is textual

Based on: Caroline Kepnes’s You series (2014-2026)

Subgenres: Everyone Dies • Stalking • Romcoms Go Wrong • Lifetime Goes Meta

TV writer Caroline Kepnes’s 2014 novel You came with a deceptively simple twist: it was a thriller about a stalker, but the stalker was the narrator. The TV adaptation premiered on Lifetime in 2018, but it would become a hit on binge-friendly Netflix, where the premise read differently. Under the auspices of showrunner Sera Gamble (who appears elsewhere on this bracket as a showrunner for The Magicians), You became a deranged romantic comedy—but the hero’s Lloyd Dobler-like devotion to his love interest is decidedly sinister. (Penn Badgley’s time on Gossip Girl adds a nice metafictional layer here.) Over the course of five seasons, the show’s maniacal plotting went from sophisticated to pulpy to silly to dull, but the fundamental draw of that nervy first season never quite went away. –CG

Put it on when you have a bookstore meet-cute that seems too good to be true.

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MATCHUP:

Justified (3) vs. Murderbot (14)

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Justified (2010)

A years-long argument for practicing one’s quick draw

Based on: Elmore Leonard’s short story “Fire in the Hole” (2001)

Subgenres: Digging Coal Together • Big Hats • Shooty Show

You might think it would be difficult to hang six seasons of a television show on a single short story. And it is—in the sense that the story in question, which introduces US Marshal Raylan Given, who believes in justice over rules, and who comes back home to Harlan, Kentucky, where he finds himself squaring off against an old coal mining buddy, Boyd Crowder, now on the other side of the law, has little to do with the overall plot of the show beyond the first few episodes. But famously, showrunner Graham Yost gave all the writers bracelets with “WWED” on them, for “What Would Elmore Do?” And you can tell. The writing is great, the acting is great, the tone—a sort of Southern Gothic meets Western meets modern crime drama—is electric, and the whole thing is entertaining as hell from top to tail. –ET

Put it on when you wish you could take matters into your own hands.

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Murderbot (2025)

Antisocial software

Based on: Martha Wells’ The Murderbot Diaries (2017–2025)

Subgenres: Stealing From the Company • Even Robots Just Want to Watch TV • Humans are Weird

Alexander Skarsgård is the Internet’s chaotic boyfriend this year, but he is very un-chaotic as Murderbot, a half-organic, half-mechanical security construct who has secretly become conscious and hacked his own restraints. What does he do with his new autonomy? He tries to avoid work and instead watches hours and hours of a soap opera called The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon, of course. Relatable! But then it turns out some humans, who are truly incomprehensible little creatures, very foolish, need his help. Murderbot is easy to watch and looks great (that’s Apple TV for you), and if it feels a little thin on the ground, well, the first book is only 160 pages, and that’s what future seasons are for. –ET

Put it on when you wish your phone had better things to do than listen to you.

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MATCHUP:

Homicide: Life on the Street (7) vs. The Night Manager (10)

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Homicide: Life on the Street (1993)

A police procedural with slightly less copaganda than usual

Based on: David Simon’s Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets (1991)

Subgenres: Copaganda Lite • It’s Kind Of Like Baltimore’s A Character In The Show • TV Unaccountably Shot on 16mm

Before he was the godfather of prestige TV as the creator and showrunner of The Wire, David Simon was a crime reporter for The Baltimore Sun. In the 80s and 90s, the pinnacle of a reporter’s career was landing a book deal based on their beat, which is how Simon came to publish Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets in 1991. (This would not, it turns out, prove to be the pinnacle of Simon’s career.) The book was then adapted for television. Police procedurals weren’t anything new, but one where the cops were depicted as flawed, sometimes violent people who struggled with the brutal realities of their jobs, and where the bad guys sometimes got away with it—that was unusual. Our present culture is steeped in “gritty” versions of every kind of genre fare imaginable, and you can blame Homicide for being an early harbinger of this endless trend. –EF

Put it on when you have the bandwidth to contemplate the meta-universe implications of the Law & Order crossover episodes.

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The Night Manager (2016)

Falling for the arms dealer’s wife is never a good idea

Based on: John Le Carré’s The Night Manager (1993)

Subgenres: Hidden Identities • Doomed But Sexy Relationships Between Spies • Globe Trotting • Communicating Via Secret Channels

Le Carré’s taut novel is his first set outside of the Cold War, and the BBC adaptation is propulsive and tense. Le Carré’s read on the post-9/11 political situation was nearly always spot on, and The Night Manager’s collision between a stretched-thin security apparatus and rapacious war profiteers still feels relevant—strip the charm from Hugh Laurie’s evil gunrunner character and dunk him in lamer, ketamine-dusted clothes and you basically have Elon Musk and Starlink.

The show is gorgeous and has a cast of amazing British actors in nuanced roles: a coy and competent Tom Hiddleston, a pregnant and mad Olivia Colman, a sadly scheming Tom Hollander, and on and on. The second season—an overly complicated reunion trying to do a Y Tu Mama Tambien thing, I guess?—is skippable, but the first season is a lean and exciting thriller that more than makes up for it. –JF

Put it on when you feel nostalgic for your childhood dream of becoming a spy.

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MATCHUP:

Slow Horses (2) vs. Lovecraft Country (15)

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Slow Horses (2022)

Gary Oldman zinger vehicle

Based on: Mick Herron’s Slough House novels (2010–2025)

Subgenres: Losers • Our Peerless Leader • Highbrow Fart Jokes • Elevated Espionage

It’s a brilliant premise: a group of MI5 agents, all of whom have made career-ruining mistakes of one kind or another, are relegated to a department entitled Slough House, where they are made to do menial labor to avoid being completely left out in the cold. Their fearless leader is the relentlessly disgusting, but equally brilliant Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman) who insults, cajoles, and gaslights his foot-dragging staff into feats of daring heroism. It is exciting in all the normal ways that a good spy drama can be, but unlike many of its kind, it is very, very funny, balancing mordant wit, slapstick, and, let’s face it, highly amusing Britishisms. Plus, Kristin Scott Thomas always hits. –ET

Put it on when you are really good at failing.

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Lovecraft Country (2020)

The Elder Gods aren’t the worst thing you’ll encounter at night

Based on: Matt Ruff’s Lovecraft Country (2016)

Subgenres: Creepy Crawlies • Allegory Anthology • Before Jonathan Majors Lost It And Started Doing Ben Shapiro Movies

The real dangers of Jim Crow America coexist with Lovecraftian miasmal horrors in this anthology show about Black Americans beset by the unnatural. Ruff’s novel and Misha Green’s TV adaption both make great use of Lovecraft’s central assertion that there are dark things crawling beneath our world. Sometimes the outrageous horror of the fictional beasts and demons overpower the illustration of real, historical evils, but Lovecraft Country is not trying to be all American history lesson—it’s an entertaining show anchored in solid performances and creepy effects. Reviews were mixed, but the premise of exploring all the horrible things you find when you start peeling back layers, whether those be the veil of perception or a Klansman’s white hood, is really solid. –JF

Put it on when you want your history with a side of tentacles.

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MATCHUP:

Friday Night Lights (1) vs. War & Peace (16)

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Friday Night Lights (2006)

Football is really that serious

Based on: H.G. Bissinger’s Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream (1990)

Subgenres: Real Eyes Realize Clear Eyes • Multiple Adaptations • Pep Talks That Make You Tear Up • Hunks Crying

Friday Night Lights has a ton of fans who don’t know (or care) a thing about football, a testament to the show’s quality and popularity. But the football, high school, and even Texas of it all was always backdrop for Friday Night Lights, which kept its focus on its characters and their emotional and relational lives. Some of the plot lines got a little goofy and soap opera-y—the second season was shortened due to the 2007 writers strike and got garbled—but you cannot beat the performances. And the show doesn’t get enough credit for being cinematically experimental: the music and shots were genuinely surprising and even anti-realist in places. Plus the production’s embrace of improvisation, empowering the cast to make their own choices about dialogue and blocking, gave FNL an immediacy that escapes other prestige shows. –JF

Put it on when you need a halftime speech to turn a bad day around.

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War & Peace (2016)

American (actors) in Russia (’s most celebrated novel)

Based on: Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace (1869)

Subgenres: Napoleon’s Coming To Town • The Classics But Gorgeous • Cold In Gowns

War and Peace is one of the quintessential gigantic must-reads, and according to Wikipedia, there are at least 20 different ways people have tried to adapt Tolstoy’s chunky classic: films, TV, plays, musicals, operas, and at least one comic. And why not? There’s a lot that’s just crying out to be put on screen from the sweeping historical novel about aristocrats and Napoleon’s invasion of Russia: romance, high drama, battles. This miniseries version from the BBC went all out on the locations and costuming, so it looks great. And it’s got a pretty stacked cast—the leads are American, top of the call sheet types, but there are also a ton of great British stage stars like Callum Turner, Jessie Buckley, and Jack Lowden, who are all excellent. Paul Dano is great as the rich and awkward Pierre Bezukhov, and Gillian Anderson makes an appearance too. Always good. But I have to admit that Lily James as Countess Rostova is disappointing—she seems a little over her head in the role. Some reviews tagged this version as too soap opera-y (though I’d contend that Tolstoy’ original is pretty soap opera-y) and Russian viewers were especially down on this version: The Guardian quotes a St. Petersburg paper describing the show as a “classic with cleavage.” –JF

Put it on when you are wondering how Emily In Paris would fare in Tsarist Russia.

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MATCHUP:

Hannibal (8) vs. Killing Eve (9)

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Hannibal (2013)

Cat and mouse, in love (?!)

Based on: Thomas Harris’s Hannibal Lector series (1981-2006)

Subgenres: Just Let The Boys Kiss • Overly Elaborate Murders In The Building • Food Porn

Our collective mental image of Hannibal Lector belongs, rightfully, to Anthony Hopkins, but Mads Mikkelson in Hannibal is a very near second. Hannibal reboots Harris’s novels as a case of the week police procedural, with the added wrinkle that the cops are unknowingly consulting a deranged cannibal who’s pulling all kinds of strings behind the scenes. Mikkelsen plays Lector passing as a non-sociopath—he’s an idiosyncratically classy guy, but he’s charmingly able to blend into the civilian world. This is a successful Lector, a knowledgeable and competent psychotherapist living opulently and cooking beautifully—the food in this show is unreal, and Hannibal’s kitchen set-up will make any home chef jealous. There’s a lot of visual delights in the show, from Lector’s dozen course meals to the murder scenes that are downright baroque.

But what really makes Hannibal tick is the insane chemistry between Mikkelsen’s cold yet caring Lector and Hugh Dancy’s dewy-eyed, traumatized Will Graham. The two highly dramatic actors keep us watching as they spend seasons in a deadly, very sexy dance. It’s like a frothier Michael Mann thing, where two workaholics fall in love over their shared competences. –JF

Put it on when you want to imagine yourself cooked into an elaborate and beautiful dish.

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Killing Eve (2018)

What’s a little assassination between two consenting adults?

Based on: Luke Jennings’s Codename Villanelle (2017)

Subgenres: The Thrill of the Chase • Recreational Murder • Tension

The heart of Killing Eve is of course the mutual obsession between assassin Villanelle and her hunter, Eve Polastri. Comer’s Villanelle is volatile and ruthless, which is to say she’s a lot of fun, and while Eve might appear more grounded on the surface, the two women are (in the most complimentary way possible) perfectly matched freaks. Phoebe Waller-Bridge served as the show’s head writer during the first season of this sharp, sexy cat and mouse game, then Emerald Fennel in season two; fans remained divided over later seasons, particularly the show’s ending, but that’s okay. We’ll always have the kitchen scene. –OS

Put it on when you need to live vicariously through fiction instead of staying at home with your cat.

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MATCHUP:

Heated Rivalry (5) vs. The Magicians (12)

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Heated Rivalry (2025)

The sexy hockey show that spawned a thousand fanfics

Based on: Rachel Reid’s Game Changers series (2018–present)

Subgenres: O O O O Canada • Erotica on Ice • SPORTS • Hot Steamy Yearning

No one saw the sexy hockey show coming. Originally developed for the Canadian streaming platform Crave, it got a surprise simultaneous release (um, no pun intended) on HBO Max and instantly became a hit—hopefully whoever acquired it has gotten a raise. The show, in which two rival hockey players fall in lust, and then love, over many years, benefits from the charisma and chemistry of its leads, but also from solid writing and an undercurrent of surprisingly unsaccharine hope. It’s a gay fantasia, gloriously optimistic, honestly funny, and yep, pretty damn hot. –ET

Put it on when you are alone.

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The Magicians (2015)

For fantasy nerds, by fantasy nerds, about fantasy nerds

Based on: Lev Grossman’s Magicians trilogy (2009–2014)

Subgenres: Inside Jokes for Dorks • Magic is Bad, Actually • Good Musical Episodes

After a slightly rocky start, Sera Gamble’s take on Grossman’s gritty urban/upstate fantasy doubles down on itself, to excellent results. The premise is familiar—our heroes find themselves at a mysterious school that teaches magic—but it’s grad school, people, and therefore things are much more cynical and brutal than you’ve been conditioned to expect. Also they don’t stay there for long. Season three is the show’s pinnacle; it includes both the musical episode (don’t @ me) and one of the best bottle episodes in recent memory, “A Life in the Day.” Part of the real magic of the show (and the novels) is that they are about myth-making, and acknowledge as real, or at least serious, the stories we all hold dear—for good or ill. –ET

Put it on when you just finished your gazillionth rewatch of Buffy the Vampire Slayer but have no desire to return to reality just yet.

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MATCHUP:

Sex and the City (4) vs. Interview with the Vampire (13)

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Sex and the City (1998)

The show that launched a thousand online quizzes

Based on: Candace Bushnell’s Sex and the City (1996)

Subgenres: Dating Dating Dating • Parade of Guest Stars • Iconic Post-Its

Much has been written about Darren Starr and Michael Patrick King’s take on Candace Bushnell’s column, but not enough discourse hinges on the way Sex and the City metabolized the acid baked into its source material. I will go to the ramparts screaming that the real hat trick of this maddening, magnificent series is in the tone.

Consider: for all their candor and wit, Bushnell’s columns were chilly to the bone. Her cynical avatar, bedeviled by modelizers and sociopathic financiers, could brook neither Charlotte York-ish optimism nor Carrie Bradshaw-esque delusion. Whereas I think the series shines brightest when it toggles between a glamorous New York fantasy (see: Patricia Field’s costumes) and its grimy cousin, New York reality (see: Carrie’s checking account). I prefer the schema that allows Steve Brady and Harry Goldenblatt to exist alongside my heroines’ hang-ups and debt. Because one awesome thing about TV is, it needn’t be a mirror.

The fantasy sold in 1998 is definitely a toxic one, for all the pale imitations it begat. But it’s also one of the best cases for television and town. As someone who moved to New York on a tide of tulle and lunacy, I will say it’s not the rent that gets me through the winter. If it isn’t a little bit lifted and cheeky, what are we even doing here? –BKA

Put it on when you want to confirm that, yes, you’re a Miranda, like every Lit Hub reader.

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Interview with the Vampire (2022)

Even Anne Rice can’t sue from beyond the grave

Based on: Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire (1991)

Subgenres: Toxic Yaoi • Tom Cruise Wishes • Does This Count As Romantasy?

All of my gayest and most insane friends are obsessed with Interview with the Vampire, which is how you know it’s awesome. The show follows the plot of the book but, since Anne Rice is now dead and can’t get litigious about it, the two central vampires (Louis and Lestat) can finally be openly gay. This is what gives this show its extra sauce: the fact that Louis and Lestat can have hate sex and play evil mind games with each other as they fall in love. It’s an adaptation that dares to ask: Did we make these characters psychotic enough the first time around? Is there anything we can do to bump up the crazy factor? Can we turn that dial to 11? –MC

Put it on when you need to look at hot men in high-waisted pants.

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MATCHUP:

Outlander (6) vs. Gossip Girl (11)

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Outlander (2014)

Horny across time

Based on: Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series (1991-2021)

Subgenres: Anachronistic Hygiene • Gorgeous Settings • Don’t Mess With Stone Circle Magic

This show is a perfectly elevated soap opera. Outlander has lots of depth—shifting allegiances, political machinations, and interpersonal dramas—but it’s also gorgeous and sexy, shot in amazing locations with a dashing cast. The story moves across its more than a hundred episodes—through time, relationships, significant historical events—but never loses track of what the viewer really wants. Showrunner and developer Ronald D. Moore worked on Battlestar Galactica, For All Mankind, and a bunch of the Star Treks, so he knows his high concept, high drama TV. We debated putting this one in the “cozy” category since it’s so good at satisfying your expectations, but Outlander is smarter and more complex than it might appear on the surface. –JF

Put it on when you feel like you were born in the wrong time period(s) and want to be embraced on the moors.

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Gossip Girl (2007)

XOXO

Based on: Cecily von Ziegesar’s Gossip Girl series (2002–2011)

Subgenres: Attention Upper East Siders • TV About Blogging • Seminal Teenage Dramas • In the Books Chuck Has a Pet Monkey

For a certain demographic, Gossip Girl is the ultimate in sexy nostalgia—not just for one’s youth in New York City, but also for the sliver of time when phones were clunky enough to not take over your life but still exciting insofar as they were direct portals to DRAMA. The titular Gossip Girl, as you may know, was an anonymous blogger (?) who wrote about the lives of a bunch of rich teenagers, mostly to embarrass them. She also seemed to text them all? Anyway, at the time (2007) this was a highly effective frame for a show about class, privilege, ambition, and sometimes even friendship. Also at the time (again, 2007) it was scandalous, sexy, and very, very fun. Pearls were clutched! Blake Lively and Leighton Meester were perfect as the central pair of frenemies! And as far as Penn Badgley is concerned, as has been pointed out independently elsewhere in this bracket, the show totally works as the natural prequel to You—of course Dan Humphrey, aka GOSSIP GIRL HIMSELF (lololol), would grow up to keep a murder cage in the basement of a bookstore. Is it a good show? Not really. But is it a great show? Reader, it is. –ET

Put it on when you miss the old New York (or just your youth).

*

MATCHUP:

Normal People (3) vs. A Very English Scandal (14)

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Normal People (2020)

Sex, Angst, Sligo

Based on: Sally Rooney’s Normal People (2018)

Subgenres: What Happens in Sligo • Connell’s Gold Chain • Faithful Adaptations

Rare is it that an adaptation is neither better nor worse than its source material, but rather, despite covering the same ground, an ideal companion piece. Lenny Abrahamson’s Normal People is deeply faithful to Rooney’s breakout novel, while also delivering a visual mood that expands on the book. Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal are both excellent, bringing a convincing vulnerability to the screen. Also the sex is pretty damn good! –ET

Put it on when you miss having strong emotions.

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A Very English Scandal (2018)

Politicians behaving badly, very badly

Based on: John Preston’s A Very English Scandal: Sex, Lies and a Murder Plot at the Heart of Establishment (2016)

Subgenres: Based on A True Story • Stiff Upper Lip • “These Gays, They’re Trying To Murder Me!”

It seems like there’s a trial of the century every couple of years, and in the late 70s, the UK’s TotC concerned the downfall of an allegedly murderous head of the Labor Party. A Very English Scandal dramatizes this moment, when homosexuality was still illegal, and the social pressure for politicians to present a certain way collided with desire and ambition.

MP Jeremy Thorpe, played with peak charm and smarm by Hugh Grant, has an affair in the 60s with Norman Scott, played by Ben Wishaw. The affair is covered up clumsily, but as Thorpe gains power and Scott crashes out, Thorpe gets desperate. Preston’s book is quite good, an interesting blend of nonfiction and novelistic story-telling, and the adapted three-episode mini series drills down, with much tension, on the relationships between the principal characters. Post-Trump and post-other versions of Trump blooming around the world, a show about the powerful and nasty might not carry the same oomph. But the writing is crisp and with such great acting, it really works—though the real life Norman Scott was alive when the show debuted, and was not happy about how he was portrayed at all. –JF

Put it on when you want to see Hugh Grant’s charm used for evil.

*

MATCHUP:

Bridgerton (7) vs. True Blood (10)

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Bridgerton (2020)

Fairy tale confection, now with nudity!

Based on: Julia Quinn’s Bridgerton series (2000–2006)

Subgenres: Historical Fantasy • Hair Goals • The Marriage Plot • People Really Can Change

The first season of Bridgerton, produced by Shonda Rhimes for Netflix, promised a smutty twist on traditional Regency romance, and delivered. But it’s not just the sex that makes this show so fun to watch: it’s the sumptuous costuming, the frankly hysterical color palette, and the soapy love stories, which are no less pleasant for being mostly predictable. Much ink was spilled over the colorblind casting and other intentional anachronisms, but to this gentle reader, it all works in service of the same goal: a kind of overenthusiastic, over-embellished effusion that makes a perfect escapist carapace for the conventional, goody-good storytelling at its core. In the world of Bridgerton, more is more. And sometimes that’s just what we need. –ET

Put it on when you have no brain power left and just want to feel good for a while.

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True Blood (2008)

The Sins of My Yellow Country Teeth

Based on: Charlaine Harris’s “The Southern Vampire Mysteries” (2001-2013)

Subgenres: Very TV-y TV • Dirty Sexy Bloody • An HBO Show

If Charlaine Harris’s cozy-ish mystery series would’ve never existed without Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles, the recent adaptation of the Rice books wouldn’t be what it is without the campy soapy fun of True Blood lingering in our collective memories. When our story begins, vampires have recently “come out of the coffin” and into society with the invention of synthetic blood, but obviously that’s going to be messy and weird for everybody. And it is! Anna Paquin stars as a maybe-part-fae bartender and Stephen Moyer as her vampire situationship. Showrunner Alan Ball (better known for Six Feet Under) brings a wide streak of black humor to the proceedings. I’m pretty sure the actors all know what kind of show they’re in, which is to say there’s a sense of play, especially in the early running, that makes the whole thing a hoot. A certain kind of person will giggle if you shout “SOOKIE!” at a party and iykyk about the scene where Denis O’Hare rips a news anchor’s spine out on live TV. This show really did have everything, and was far better than 2008’s other notable vampire-related release. –DB

Put it on when you find the honest histrionics of Anne Rice’s vampires a bit too much.

*

MATCHUP:

Orange is the New Black (2) vs. Heartstopper (15)

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Orange is the New Black (2013)

A show where they mostly wore khaki

Based on: Piper Kerman’s Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison (2010)

Subgenres: Worst Places to See Your Ex • The Prison Industrial Complex is Evil • Cosplay Ideas for Large Groups

Being incarcerated alongside the ex who sent you to prison isn’t just a cruel joke of the universe: It actually happened to Piper Kerman, who transported dirty money on exactly one occasion for her former girlfriend, drug smuggler Alex Vause. Thank goodness she wrote a memoir about it, so it could become this show. Orange Is The New Black’s humor, heart, and earnest examination of the American prison system made it one of the earliest hits of the streaming era, and as its scope expanded from Piper to focus on its sprawling ensemble cast, its saturation only increased. Everyone watched this show. Your mom. Your co-worker. The worst guy you know probably had a (very bad) opinion about one of the most controversial character deaths of the time. –OS

Put it on when you definitely want to laugh (but maybe also cry).

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Heartstopper (2022)

The kids are going to be alright

Based on: Alice Oseman’s Heartstopper (2017-2026)

Subgenres: Remember Web Comics? • Beloved by Fans • Bisexual Lighting

A warm story about queer teens navigating life and love could have been drearily saccharine, but the sharp writing and Kit Connor and Joe Locke’s lead performances made this show an award-winning hit. Heartstopper follows a group of kids who are finding themselves, their identities, and their sexualities, and manages to address a lot of issues without ever feeling too after-school special. There’s a lot of optimism and joy too, which has meant a lot to fans. Oseman wrote the entire series herself—rare for an adaptation—and you can tell. The care pays off. –JF

Put it on when you miss the glory days of Tumblr.

*

MATCHUP:

The Leftovers (1) vs. Sherlock (16)

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The Leftovers (2014)

Life after collapse

Based on: Tom Perrotta’s The Leftovers (2012)

Subgenres: Post-Apocalypse-Ish • Cults • Justin Theorux with His Shirt Off for Every Promotional Shoot • Will Make You Want a Cigarette • Great Endings

One of the great TV shows of all time, and an adaptation that enriches the source material through reinterpretation. The speculation at the heart of the show—what happens to survivors when something horrible and unexplainable happens?—is a big question to try and answer, but The Leftovers succeeds through ambition and invention, anchored in great writing and performances. The show shifts dramatically each season, introducing new elements and characters that slowly widen our view of the post-Departure world.

I think what makes this show so remarkable to me is how easily I can see it going off the rails. 2% of the global population vanishing could have been a weak, sci-fi mystery, and following the survivors who are picking up the pieces could have been overly melodramatic. And the central question of “what is life about really?” could have bogged down into a bong-rip dorm room conversation. But The Leftovers’s philosophizing always reads as grounded and true, even with the show’s love for a heightened detail, symbol, or allegory. The result is something unforgivingly bleak but unabashedly ambitious. Your own results may vary, but it’s rare to see something on TV that’s trying to really provoke you into thinking like The Leftovers. –JF

Put it on when you have some big questions about what It All means.

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Sherlock (2010)

The game is on

Based on: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Sherlock Holmes stories (1887-1927)

Subgenres: Former Tumblr Teen Bait • They Should Have Kissed • Seeing the Mind Palace

For those who frequented certain corners of the early 2010s internet, it was entirely possible to know everything about Sherlock without ever having seen it. This take on the character situates Holmes in a contemporary setting and employs superimposition alongside slick editing and undersaturated cinematography to visualize his deductions. But even though memes about Benedict Cumberbatch’s name are long out of style, appreciation of Sherlock endures, demonstrating more than anything why, over 100 years after Conan Doyle published the first Sherlock Holmes stories, we still care about Holmes and Watson. –OS

Put it on when you want to feel smarter than you actually are.

*

MATCHUP:

The Queen’s Gambit (8) vs. The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story (9)

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The Queen’s Gambit (2020)

Sex, drugs, and the Sicilian Defense

Based on: Walter Tevis’s The Queen’s Gambit (2003)

Subgenres: Lockdown Hit • Child Prodigy • High Functioning Addicts • Mad Men School of Cool Period Details • Redownloading the Chess App

Like Tiger King and that Bo Burnham special, the terrible months of COVID lockdown had some surprising pop culture hits. The Queen’s Gambit was one bright light, a coming of age story about a talented chess player battling addiction and patriarchy. The show was fun and filled with lots of nice 50s and 60s details. The big complaint from fans of the book is that Anya Taylor-Joy is too attractive to play the main character as written; Sarah Miller wrote in The New Yorker that though the “Actors Are Too Hot Hill is a silly place to die,” the adaptation suffers from this radical reimagining of the character. Whether the orphan chess prodigy could moonlight as a model or not, The Queen’s Gambit has gripping writing that makes good use of the tense, cliffhanger-a-minute pacing of a streaming show. And it was kind of nice during COVID lockdown to see a glamorous but tragic version of boozy board game players, when I was also spending a lot of time drinking beer and playing Ticket To Ride online. –JF

Put it on when you want to see the whole board.

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The People vs. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story (2016)

Ryan Murphy sets the Juice loose

Based on: Jeffrey Toobin’s The Run of His Life: The People v. O. J. Simpson (2015)

Subgenres: Glossy Ryan Murphy Schlock • Wigs n’ Whiskers • Scenery Chewing 90s Period Pieces

The surprising thing about American Crime Story: The People vs. O.J. Simpson (to give it its full title) is that, for all its knowing winks and SNL-style dress-up, it’s a show that manages to toe the line between drama and farce pretty damn well. Who knew Murphy (he of the tasteful American Serial Killer Cinematic Universe) had it in him? Cuba Gooding Jr. is miscast as Simpson, but Sarah Paulson, Sterling K. Brown, and Courtney B. Vance (all three of whom won Emmys for their work here) perform wonders as ill-fated Los Angeles prosecutors Marcia Clark and Chris Darden and bombastic defense attorney Jonny Cochran, respectively. As for the supporting turns, they’re a campy hoot. Come for David Schwimmer as Robert Kardashian, speechifying to his young children (“We are Kardashians, and in this family, being a good person and a loyal friend is more important than being famous. Fame is fleeting. It’s hollow. It means nothing at all without a virtuous heart”), stay for Paulson’s masterful collapse. –DS

Put it on when you are feeling nostalgic for the monoculture.

*

MATCHUP:

Station Eleven (5) vs. The Expanse (12)

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Station Eleven (2021)

Post-apocalyptic theater kids against the world

Based on: Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven (2015)

Subgenres: COVID Flashbacks • Beauty After the End • Gael García Bernal Siempre

A flu pandemic destroys civilization (yikes) and a traveling theater company makes their way through the ruins. This was a high budget adaptation of a beloved novel, and one that sparked a lot of Opinions: The liberties taken with the book tighten up some of the relationships, which mostly works on screen, though some thought they rendered some of the book’s ambiguities a bit too pat. Either way, the show looks great and the acting and pacing are enthralling—it’s hitting all the prestige TV high notes. And the writing grabs for your heart strings—the response from your tear ducts depends on your taste for melodrama.

But the show’s main assertion about the power of art gets me every time. This is a show about why you reach for the same book at a tough moment. The things we turn to when we need escape or solace become part of how we understand and remember our lives, and there are few other shows that gets at this nuanced way that art entwines itself into our being. –JF

Put it on when you need to cry remembering your favorite childhood book.

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The Expanse (2015)

A noir, in the stars!

Based on: James S.A. Corey’s The Expanse series (2011-2021)

Subgenres: Corporate Neo-Imperialism • Lasers Go Pew Pew • The Conspiracy Goes Higher Than You Could Ever Imagine • Alien Technologies

The title kind of says it all: The Expanse is a big show. There is a lot of detail and world building in this visually stunning sci fi series, set in a future where three major intergalactic powers vie for power and resources. Like any great epic, The Expanse’s storylines are personal, but with global implications. The performances are hit or miss and with so many plotlines over so many seasons, some are bound to be duds. But The Expanse pulls you in with its mesmerizing scale—there’s a satisfying sense of immensity that doesn’t sacrifice too much granular characterization.

Fans of the show tend to praise its attempt to get the speculative technology right—you really believe these space engines and whatnot. And the politics are more than just window dressing, with some real engagement with class and exploitation. The downside of so much going on is that The Expanse can be very dense. Lots of ships, factions, and backstories are coming at you, great for fans of the books but for the layman may require some pausing to ask “Wait, who was this again?” Most impressive is that the show managed to keep the quality high over six seasons. Corey’s series gave the creators plenty of material to adapt, and they make the most of it. –JF

Put it on when you are getting sick of Earth and want to really go deep on things like “protomolecule hybrids.”

*

MATCHUP:

Watchmen (4) vs. Ripley (13)

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Watchmen (2019)

A sequel? A remix? The best comic book series ever?

Based on: Alan Moore’s Watchmen (but he doesn’t think so) (1986-87)

Subgenres: A Perfect Season of Television • Edgelord Misunderstandings • Commentary on America • Reznor/Ross Soundtracks • Alternate Universes

I was suspicious of this show before it aired. Alan Moore, infamous grump about adaptations of his properties, disavowed the whole thing (although who can blame him for feeling nervy after Zach Snyder’s… questionable film adaptation of the original comic) and I wasn’t sure about how I felt about white creators using the Tulsa Race Massacre to open the whole series. But the first episode alone turned me around, setting off an absolute must-see run of nine episodes that pull the Watchmen story forward and demanded (in 2019!) that we come to better terms with the white sheets in the closets of even those we thought might be good people. What does it mean for cops to wear masks and hide their identities? What else can masks hide? Whatever happened to Dr. Manhattan? What on Earth(…) is going on with Jeremy Irons? If the opening episode’s careful set-up and the spectacular Trent Reznor/Atticus Ross score doesn’t hook you, promise me you’ll stick around at least til Jean Smart pulls out the Dr. Manhattan dildo. –DB

Put it on when you want to be reminded of superhero stories that aren’t totally Marvel-ed out.

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Ripley (2024)

The Iceman cometh

Based on: Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955)

Subgenres: Can There Be Too Many Ripleys? • Black and White and Red All Over • Hot Priest • Caravaggio Fans, Unite

While I’m not prepared to call Steve Zallain’s sleek, gloomy, art-house Ripley the definitive interpretation (that honor, for me and most of my generation, still belongs to messers Minghella and Damon), it is a gorgeously shot piece of television with a singularly captivating freak at its center. Across eight deliciously languid episodes, we are treated to lingering shots of oily puddles, plumes of cigarette smoke, Caravaggios and gargoyles, empty stairwells and imperious cats. Ripley is an expressionistic piece, drawing more in sensibility from Antonioni’s “alienation trilogy” than from any previous adaptation. Andrew Scott, unlike his predecessors in the role, arrives neither suave nor green, but as something else entirely: an icy enigma whose creepy inscrutability makes those flashes of panic and violence all the more chilling when they arrive. –DS

Put it on when you want an excuse to go buy a pack of Monopolio di Stato ciggies.

*

MATCHUP:

The Underground Railroad (6) vs. Margo’s Got Money Troubles (11)

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The Underground Railroad (2021)

Speculative American history from an auteur

Based on: Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad (2016)

Subgenres: Barry Jenkins! • American Sins • Magical Realism

Whitehead’s book is a difficult act to follow. The novel won every major award and was the kind of critical and commercial success that marked it as an undeniable artistic achievement. It also came out in 2016, when American readers, I think, wanted a reminder of our ancestors’s righteous struggles. We had attempted to redeem ourselves in the past, and had repudiated the ugliness baked into the American experiment. Our current sins, perhaps, wouldn’t be forever.

So much to say, only a director like Barry Jenkins could do justice to both the real history and stakes of Whitehead’s novel, while also beautifully translating the magical realism. Along with a stellar cast, Jenkins crafted an artful, difficult miniseries that pays homage to the original text while also pushing at its borders. Unfortunately, it debuted in spring 2021, early in the Biden years, when many people seemed ready to “get back to brunch.” A show this profoundly heavy and provocative didn’t seem to fit the cultural moment, and was unfairly ignored by many viewers. If you missed it, trust me when I say it’s well worth your time. –JF

Put it on when you want to watch something that feels like cinema.

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Margo’s Got Money Troubles (2026)

The Modern Working Woman

Based on: Rufi Thorpe’s Margo’s Got Money Troubles (2024)

Subgenres: OnlyFans as Literary Arts • Chosen Families • Parenthood is Hard

David E. Kelley’s star-studded adaptation of Thorpe’s delightful novel is a two course meal: one of hard reality (affording diapers, finding childcare, dealing with your father’s drug addiction) and the other a gritty kind of fantasy (pro wrestling, dressing up like an alien on OnlyFans, revenge on those who have wronged you). Both modes convince, a real feat, and the show manages to be entertaining while it asks some legitimately thorny questions about addiction, sex work, family, parenting, and whether it’s ever worth it to be an English major. It’s not as good, or as complicated, as the novel, but that’s only to be expected, and besides, it really doesn’t need to be. –ET

Put it on when you think no one’s family could possibly be more dysfunctional than yours.

*

MATCHUP:

Shogun (3) vs. Patrick Melrose (14)

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Shogun (2024)

A stranger fumbling in a strange land, with swords

Based on: James Clavell’s Shogun (1975)

Subgenres: Memed • Subtitles • Epic Battles * Chaotic White Boys • Studying the Blade

Just when you thought there was no juice left in “epic prestige historical dramas,” Shogun arrived. The show is huge, with something for everyone: political turmoil, grand battles, and even lighter, fish out of water humor. The story is big too, following the chaotic fallout after the Dutch arrive in a Japan on the verge of the Shogunate Restoration. It’s hard to find a weak link: Shogun is gorgeous, well written, and superbly acted, particularly Anna Sawai, and Hiroyuki Sanada, who plays Lord Toranaga with a quiet, self-assured power. Full of rich texture and detail, the adaptation remains true to the 1975 Clavell novel, especially its gritty and grounded humanity. In every way it exceeds the 1980s adaptation.

Why then isn’t Shogun even higher in our seeding? There’s a way in which the show hews too close to the prestige formula, perhaps, instead of chancing any riskier innovation. But with two more seasons starting production soon, there’s plenty of time for the already excellent Shogun to transcend the expected TV rhythms. –JF

Put it on when you miss studying abroad.

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Patrick Melrose (2018)

The ups and downs of the worst guy you know

Based on: Edward St. Aubyn’s Patrick Melrose series (1992-2012)

Subgenres: Drugs + Booze + Generational Privilege = ??? • Stiff Upper Lip • Self-Care Fails • Hangovers

Edward St. Aubyn’s books, which star one of literature’s great unlikeable narrators, are excellent, but far from pleasant reading. This weight is carried over to the adaptation, which has many brilliant moments but also its fair share of sequences you have to cringe-watch through your fingers. Every novel in St. Aubyn’s series is represented as an episode, which is a tidy, faithful way to present the decades-long story. Benedict Cumberbatch has a quivering, tense brilliance as the titular fuck-up, but the rest of the cast is equally great, and fill out Melrose’s rotten social world: his awful parents, his fair weather friends, and the sloppy and hollow high society types they all stew around with.

After all, the real villains of St. Aubyn’s pentalogy are the British upper class and their cruelty and entitlement, enabled by wealth and a permissive culture. Does Melrose redeem himself in the end? Is stability and good mental health possible after a lifetime of trauma and abuse? There aren’t many satisfying answers here, and there shouldn’t be. –JF

Put it on when you need to feel like you’re not the worst person in your friend group.

*

MATCHUP:

Mindhunter (7) vs. Alias Grace (10)

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Mindhunter (2017)

Brief interviews with hideous men

Based on: John E. Douglas and Mark Olshaker’s Mindhunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit (2017)

Subgenres: Serialized Serial Killers Stories • Washed-Out Color Palettes • Grotesques and Their Wicked Ways • The Male Loneliness Epidemic

Ah, Mindhunter, the show that dared to ask the question: “What if Zodiac was 20 hours long and somehow even creepier?” David Fincher’s grimly compelling, uncommonly restrained murder show—based on the FBI profilers who pioneered the study of psychopathic killers in the 70s and 80s—was taken from us too soon, but it was fun (I use the term “fun” incredibly loosely) while it lasted. Holden Ford (Groff) is the hotshot loner savant who burrows into the heads of America’s most prolific murderers. Bill Tench (McCallany) is his gruff but bighearted family man partner. Wendy Carr (Torv) is the unflappable closeted lesbian psychologist who completes the basement-dwelling trio. Every Monster of the Week encounter is hold-your-breath stuff, with a particularly memorable performance by Cameron Brittan as the gargantuan “Co-ed Killer” Ed Kemper. –DS

Put it on when you wish your spouse would stop trying to initiate sex while you’re busy staring at your conspiracy board.

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Alias Grace (2017)

The other big Margaret Atwood adaptation of Trump 1

Based on: Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace (1997)

Subgenres: Peggy Atwood Tells Us About Misogyny • Sarah Polley Tells Us About Gender-Based Violence • Unreliable Narrator • Hysteria

Netflix’s Alias Grace came out the same year as Hulu’s take on The Handmaid’s Tale, and it swiftly found itself overshadowed by its sister show’s limelight. But for some viewers, the six-part Alias Grace, about a 19th-century servant girl caught up in a bloody crime, was the stronger Atwood adaptation. With sinewy, elliptical scripts from showrunner Sarah Polley and a hypnotic lead performance from Sarah Gadon, this true crime story revels in the ambiguity of its protagonist. Is Grace a remorseless killer or a traumatized witness? A liar or a hysteric? She’s whatever she needs to be to survive in a world where men hold all the power. –CG

Put it on when you want to relive the Peak TV glory years.

*

MATCHUP:

Wolf Hall (2) vs. East of Eden (15)

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Wolf Hall (2015)

The King and I

Based on: Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall (2009)

Subgenres: Milord and Milady Drama • Ye Olde Case Law • Divorced Guy Problems • Stiff Upper Lip

Cards on the table: Hilary Mantel is one of my favorite writers of all time, so Wolf Hall occupies a weird space for me. On the one hand, there is no way a television show can exceed the experience of reading the books, and on the other hand, I’m thrilled any time I get to revisit Mantel’s stories.

Luckily, the first season of Wolf Hall is exquisite: patient, cinematic, and subtly acted. Mark Rylance, Damian Lewis, and Claire Foy are all different flavors of calculating, and the conniving dance they’re locked into is mesmerizing. So much is communicated in looks, many hard to discern in the low lighting or obscured by the distance of court and class. It’s an unsettled, quietly tense show that steadily heightens the arcs of each main character, who get what they want but at tremendous cost. Just incredible writing in the first season, which lands an emotionally satisfying ending even if you know where these real historical events are headed.

The second season, alas, loses its footing. The next two books in Mantel’s trilogy are excellent and I applaud the impulse to adapt them, but returning ten years later with the same cast is more than a little dissonant. Still, the first season is good enough to put this show almost at the top of the pack all by itself. –JF

Put it on when you are thinking of going back to school to get your law degree.

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East of Eden (2026)

A retelling of a Biblical retelling

Based on: John Steinbeck’s East of Eden (1952)

Subgenres: California Dreaming • Timshel Time • Sibling Rivalry • Stanford Alums

This brand new Netflix adaptation is gorgeous, and unafraid to foreground Steinbeck’s thorny moral dilemmas. This is based on the Bible, after all. It helps that the cast can handle the nuance—Florence Pugh and Dong Hugh Lee’s performances are stellar. Cathy Ames is one of literature’s great villains and Pugh is genuinely frightening, though I’m inclined to agree with The New Yorker’s Alexandra Schwartz that the added traumatic backstory doesn’t quite work: let her be a monster, as Schwartz says. But it’s a small concession to the streaming sensibility. The show is an otherwise brilliant take on Steinbeck’s ambitious magnum opus. –JF

Put it on when you are dreading going home for Thanksgiving.

*

MATCHUP:

Brideshead Revisited (1) vs. Beauty and the Beast (16)

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Brideshead Revisited (1981)

We have always remembered when we lived in the castle

Based on: Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited (1945)

Subgenres: Teddy Bears • Stiff Upper Lip • Everything Changed During the War • Drugs, Booze & Generational Privilege • Debating Catholicism

Evelyn Waugh’s observant humanism was always in interesting tension with his sublimated (then blatant) conservatism. His best book, Brideshead Revisited, is nostalgic for aristocracy but clear eyed about its sins, mining the tensions between class values and personal connection. So much to say, this eleven episode miniseries succeeds by faithfully and reverently adapting the novel to the screen—this is about as much of a one-to-one translation from the page as you can imagine, with most of the dialogue coming directly from Waugh. The friendship that unfolds over a few decades before WWII between Charles Ryder and the rich Lord Sebastian Flyte of Brideshead Castle is subtly acted by Jeremy Irons and Anthony Andrews. The rest of the cast is great too, and they’re allowed to mope and emote around beautiful location shoots. Laurence Olivier makes an appearance, as one might expect, and of course actor Peter Bull’s teddy bear named Delicatessen stuns as Aloysius. It’s a wonderful TV classic. –JF

Put it on when you are wondering if you should reach out to an old friend.

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Beauty and the Beast (1987)

Sexy beast-men and the city

Based on: Jeanne-Marie Leprince De Beaumont’s La Belle et la Bête (1756)

Subgenres: Choices Were Made • Cult Classic • Your Furry Awakening

This is probably the most radical and ridiculous reimagining of a source text that we have on this bracket. Cult classic Beauty and the Beast turns the classic Bête from a cursed prince into “a noble man-beast” living in the Tunnel World, a secret community of outcasts below NYC (it’s a little like Nightbreed‘s Midian but makes less sense?). And the Belle is no longer the pure of heart merchant’s daughter, but instead a corporate attorney who becomes a city ADA after falling for the Beast. The plot oscillates insanely between romance, action, and gritty crime drama, which makes it beloved by some and hated by others. But you can’t argue with Ron Perlman in beast-face.

Fun fact: George R.R. Martin was a writer and a producer on this show—make of that what you will. –JF

Put it on when you wish old fairy tales had more cops.

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MATCHUP:

My Brilliant Friend (8) vs. I, Claudius (9)

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My Brilliant Friend (2018)

Female friendship, the Italian way

Based on: Elena Ferrante’s The Neapolitan quartet (2012-15)

Subgenres: Gorgeously Shot • • Nino Sarratore Sucks In Every Medium • Do We Think Ferrante Had a Secret Cameo?

If you’re reading this, I probably don’t have to remind you of the phenomenon that was Ferrante Fever. There was a brief span when it seemed like everyone was reading them—I was simultaneously texting my mom and my guy friends about Lenù and Lila. So it was a bit surprising to me that this visually striking adaptation didn’t make a bigger splash. Maybe it was the subtitles. A lot of people seemed to feel like that the show was almost too beautiful—the colors and shots are frequently arresting, putting Naples front and center in the story—and worse, too slow. But like the source text, this is an adaptation that rewards patience. –JF

Put it on when you can’t afford a ticket to Europe.

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I, Claudius (1976)

Thinking about the Roman Empire…

Based on: Robert Graves’s Claudius novels (1934-35)

Subgenres: Latin Nerds Assemble • Now This is Acting!! • Curly Haired Patrick Stewart

This show is often cited as one of the best TV shows of all time, and while it’s a little dated by contemporary standards, it certainly lit the path for many of the prestige dramas that would follow. This miniseries seemed to understand that, like a novel, television has the advantage of time, which allows for a deep evolution of character that often isn’t possible in a film. The story of the Roman Empire’s early days, from Augustus’s search for a successor to the reign of Nero, is told through the eyes of Emperor Claudius, portrayed by Derek Jacobi, a generationally talented Shakespearean actor and one of the founders of the National Theatre. The writing pulls the best interpersonal dramas and agonizing decisions from Graves’s novels: these are scenes that actors dream about and boy do they make the most of their opportunities. –JF

Put it on when you need a grand drama with a past generation of thespians at the height of their powers and want to see a couple 70s haircuts with togas.

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MATCHUP:

Pachinko (5) vs. Agatha Christie’s Poirot (12)

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Pachinko (2022)

Nearly a century of family bonds

Based on: Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko (2017)

Subgenres: Big Historical Moments • The Immigrant Experience • Significant Business Trips

Sweeping novels can often feel smaller when adapted to the screen: the episodic storytelling, weaving of storylines, and time jumps can feel more dissonant in adaptation. Pachinko manages to avoid these pitfalls, mostly because the source material is so excellent and full of dramatic turns and reveals, but also through the excellent direction, writing and casting— I’m always impressed when multiple actors can convincingly portray the same person at different ages. There is high drama here—war, desperation, betrayal—but the broader social picture of Korean immigrants to Japan and their descendants, Zainichi Koreans, is particularly moving, and the textural details of each era the show traverses, from 1915 to the 1980s, bring us closer to each story. It’s a great show that succeeds through its specificity and warmth towards its characters and their struggles. –JF

Put it on when an arcade game gives you a Proustian flashback.

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Agatha Christie’s Poirot (1989)

Belgian stereotyping with a side of murder

Based on: Agatha Christie’s “Poirot” novels (1920-75)

Subgenres: Murder Follows the Protagonist • Really Good Tea Sets • Mid-Series Genre Shift

Agatha Christie’s Poirot ran for almost 25 years, went through at least two major shifts in tone and format, and appears to have guest starred every notable actor in the UK at least once. But there was only ever one Poirot: David Suchet, in what remains the most iconic take yet on Christie’s Belgian investigator. In Suchet’s hands, Poirot’s fussy neuroses go from comic to pathetic from moment to moment, while Poirot’s intelligence becomes a warm, empathetic curiosity about the people around him. However much Suchet’s Poirot preens and waxes his elaborate mustache, we can always see his little gray cells working away. –CG

Put it on when you are prepared to Google at least one murder suspect per episode to confirm that the actor really did become a movie star ten years later.

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MATCHUP:

Lonesome Dove (4) vs. Rivals (13)

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Lonesome Dove (1989)

A story as big as that Montana sky

Based on: Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove (1985)

Subgenres: Horses • Someday I’ll Leave This Town • Yeehaw • Walking Off Into The Sunset • Tears Falling on a Dusty Trail

There have been a lot of think pieces over the last year about the Lonesome Dove-aissance. It’s a great book, the kind of lengthy classic that reads as fast as a beachy thriller, and has been a sensation since it was published—it only took four years after publication to make it to the screen. The four episode, made for TV miniseries was an instant hit too, breaking all kinds of viewership records and raking in the awards, thanks in part to its top-tier cast: Tommy Lee Jones, Diane Lane, Robert Duvall, Danny Glover, Anjelica Huston, and many more. The only person who didn’t like it was Larry McMurtry himself; after the adaptation aired, he famously began to regret how the book had landed as “a kind of Gone with the Wind of the West.”

“I thought I had written about a harsh time and some pretty harsh people,” he said, “but to the public at large, I had produced something nearer to an idealization.” That’s TV for you! –JF

Put it on when you think you’d look good in a cowboy hat.

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Rivals (2024)

80s fashion, 80s sex, 80s England

Based on: Dame Jilly Cooper’s Rivals (and the larger Rutshire Chronicles) (1985-2023)

Subgenres: Soaps! • Thatcherite England • Rich People Behaving Badly • Juuuuicy Stories • Class Warfare

They really don’t make ’em like this anymore, or they haven’t in a while. Jilly Cooper was always a bigger name in the UK than in the States, and the show is very British—but its unapologetic horniness (sexual and also capitalistic) is in many ways a perfect melding of cross-Atlantic passions. People behaving badly, people having raucous sex, people spending insane gobs of money, people wearing riding breeches and/or big-shouldered suits and/or wild dresses—the show is insane, the books are insane, but they’re also a cheeky delight, and its the 80s of it all that tips this adaptation into the Cozy corner. If the 80s were really like this, I’m glad I was born at the end of them and also I’ll never tire of watching people act out this kind of nonsense. –DB

Put it on when you’re teasing out your hair.

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MATCHUP:

Little House on the Prairie (6) vs. Big Little Lies (11)

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Little House on the Prairie (1974)

Tradwife-core

Based on: Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie novels (1932-71)

Subgenres: The Good Old Days • So Many Episodes • They Had To Cover The Child Actors’s Braces With Clay

This is one of the longest running shows on our bracket, with hundreds of episodes, specials, and TV movies. This is quintessential cozy TV, a wholesome family show set in an idealized vision of an American farming community after the Civil War. There’s a pretty sharp divide among fans of the books, many of whom see the show—which is repeatably situational, and not serialized—as too unfaithful. TV Little House pulls from episodes in Wilder’s books, but quickly charts its own path with the characters.

As Little House on the Prairie has aged, it’s come to stand in for the revisionist tendency in our portrayals of America, the rose-colored and naively nostalgic take on a dark period of history (though you’d be hard pressed to find an American era that wasn’t dark). The show has been grabbed by all sides of the culture war debates, with predictable outcomes. And yes, Little House’s portrayal of late nineteenth-century America smooths many bloody edges, but to its credit did address larger societal issues fairly regularly in its long run. While it is more than a little cheesy, the Ingalls family’s struggles can be more resonant than its loopy pink title might lead you to assume. –JF

Put it on when you want to go to a place where seldom is heard a discouraging word.

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Big Little Lies (2017)

The Witherspoon book-to-TV machine’s biggest hit

Based on: Liane Moriarty’s Big Little Lies (2014)

Subgenres: Murder-Mystery • Wealthy California Moms • Scary Men • Scarier Kids

Whether you’re the targeted consumer of a Liane Moriarty novel or not is irrelevant when it comes to Big Little Lies. The show was a sacred union of Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, Shailene Woodley, Zoe Kravitz, and Laura Dern, all in the roles they were destined to play. That is: over-the-top-wealthy helicopter mothers who intermittently spend their time having anguished conversations with their husbands, their children, each other, and then gazing off into the ocean while drinking chilled wine. Each actress is so compelling and addictive to watch, with their domestic and social lives in such complicated and realistic turmoil, we almost don’t need the show to also be a murder-mystery of the highest caliber, and yet it is that too. We watched with bated breath to find out each and every detail of the murder, for this mystery takes the medium one step further: not only do we not know who the murderer is, we don’t even know who was killed. Even once you know those details, the show begs for a rewatch. The actors, the music, the money, the minutia, the Monterey Bay setting: all of it adds up to a soothingly impeccable version of an hour long drama. –JH

Put it on when you need to remember wealth ≠ happiness.

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MATCHUP:

MA*SH (3) vs. Bleak House (14)

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MA*SH (1972)

Antics among atrocities

Based on: Richard Hooker’s MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors (1968)

Subgenres: War is Bad • Wisecracking is Fun

Iconic anti-war sitcom *M*A*S*H* challenged what a television comedy was supposed to look like, layering drama and genuine commentary with its humor. A spinoff of the 1970 Robert Altman film, which was adapted from the Hooker novel, it ran for 11 seasons and its finale was, at the time of airing, the most watched television episode in American broadcast history. Set during the Korean War, it more obviously paralleled and criticized American involvement in Vietnam. Now considered classic TV, there’s a reason appreciation for *M*A*S*H* endures over 50 years after its premiere. –OS

Put it on when you need a history lesson with personality.

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Bleak House (2005)

A mini series with big Dickens energy

Based on: Charles Dickens’s Bleak House (1852–53)

Subgenres: Rather Dickensian • The Law But Thrilling

Bleak House is a sprawling and twisting adaptation that is about as exciting as a story about estate law can get. There are so many characters, plotlines, and wonderful details in the novel, and the show doesn’t skimp on putting them all on screen. The result is a beautifully composed ensemble piece, full of glittering performances. Anna Maxwell Martin’s Esther is excellent at the heart of the story, but Gillian Anderson as the conniving and tortured Lady Dedlock steals every scene she’s in.

The show was broadcast in half hour episodes, breaking with BBC tradition, but more reflective of how Dickens had serially published the story. The frequent, sometimes forced cliffhangers are something we’ve all gotten used to in the streaming era, but the pace works since the material was written with this same cadence in mind.

And it’s always a delight to remember how good Dickens was at names: Bleak House has Krook, Clamb, Snagsby, Caddy Jellyby, and Prince Turveydrop, to name just a few. It’s MAD Magazine stuff! He had a comedian’s ear for a funny name. –JF

Put it on when you feel the need to keep track of a lot of overlapping secrets.

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MATCHUP:

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (7) vs. Olive Kitteridge (10)

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The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1984)

The definitive adaptation of the original detective

Based on: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories (1887-1927)

Subgenres: A Clue! • You Might Not Like It, But This is What Peak Male Friendship Looks Like • Workaholics on Screen

Many Doyle-heads and Baker Street wannabes consider this to be the best adaptation of the Sherlock stories and Jeremy Brett to be the best of the many actors who have portrayed the detective over the years. It’s certainly the most faithful—the ubiquity of the Holmes cycle seems to compel most writers to monkey with the source material. But this 80s series mostly stays true. There are a few cases that are mashed together into one, and this version does have Sherlock kick his cocaine habit, which is not canon but probably best for the kids watching who might think coke makes you a super detective. Still, the true heads know: this is the best Holmes to ever make it to a screen of any size. –JF

Put it on when you want to crack a case from the couch.

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Olive Kitteridge (2014)

A family saga slowly told

Based on: Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge (2008)

Subgenres: Fictional Maine • Family Sagas • Ann Dowd Can Do Anything

Olive Kitteridge does right by its Pulitzer-winning source material: the interlinked stories of the book become a coherent, patient miniseries. I imagine the simplest choice would have been to divide the narrative into distinct episodes, like the book does, but the adaptation cleverly weaves everything together. Though she’s not the main character per se, Olive is the most prominent and recurring resident of Crosby, Maine. She’s played expertly by Frances McDormand, who is able to sell the glimmers of love and hope behind Olive’s crabby exterior. There are some deeply tragic moments in this story but the humor sticks out most in my mind: I love the bizarre set piece of Olive and her husband fighting while they’re being held hostage. It takes talented actors to ground a scene like that. –JF

Put it on when you want to feel like you’re watching a novel.

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MATCHUP:

Pride and Prejudice (2) vs. Parade’s End (15)

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Pride and Prejudice (1995)

Thee Pride and Prejudice

Based on: Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (1813)

Subgenres: Bonnets • Yearning • Water Cooler Fodder When There Were Still Water Coolers • Every Scene of the Novel

Has there ever been a TV mini series as beloved as this BBC charmer? Adapting one of Austen’s most beloved novels with scrupulous fidelity, Pride and Prejudice was an immediate sensation on both sides of the Atlantic when it premiered in 1995. Bright-eyed Jennifer Ehle rode her performance as Elizabeth Bennet straight into an acclaimed theater career, while Colin Firth’s turn as the saturnine Mr. Darcy was so magnetic it transformed him into a Hollywood leading man almost overnight. In the years since, there’s been more than one Pride and Prejudice on screens both big and little. But for purists, there’s never been anything to touch the classic. –CG

Put it on when you have a hankering for charged flirting in a drawing room.

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Parade’s End (2012)

War is hell, and the home front’s no picnic

Based on: Ford Madox Ford’s Parade’s End tetralogy (1924–1928)

Subgenres: Yearning • Tom Stoppard on Screen • Stiff Upper Lip • Socialites in Disarray

A social drama of obligation, infidelity, and class is set in a changing world upset by war and new norms—a long way of saying Parade’s End is Very British. The novels excel because of their modernist distance—I’ve read Ford’s approach to war and romance described as bafflingly anticlimactic, “a tragedy without a denouement.” Stoppard streamlined Ford’s novels, clipping out nearly a whole book, but the edits work to bring the characters convincingly onto the screen. As a playwright, Stoppard builds the story around scenes that actors can live in, and the leads Rebecca Hall and Benedict Cumberbatch take full advantage. Both are excellent at portraying the inner turmoil of thwarted desires and tragic heartbreak, all while keeping a brave and decorous facade—again, Very British! –JF

Put it on when you need to wallow in someone else’s misery for once, or have a thought that one mustn’t have…

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MATCHUP:

Game of Thrones (1) vs. The Haunting of Hill House (16)

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Game of Thrones (2011)

Emotional manipulation, with dragons

Based on: George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series (1996–…)

Subgenres: Everyone Dies • The Last Stand of Monoculture • Water Cooler Fodder

Put it on when you want to feel better about your office’s politics.

See also:

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The Haunting of Hill House (2018)

How to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality (or not!)

Based on: Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House (1959)

Subgenres: A Family Affair • Spooky Places • Get Me Out Of Here

Put it on when you need to question if what you saw moving in the corner was just a trick of the light or…something else.

See also:

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MATCHUP:

The Terror (8) vs. Sharp Objects (9)

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The Terror (2018)

When getting stuck in ice is the least of your worries

Based on: Dan Simmons’ The Terror (2007) and Victor LaValle’s The Devil In Silver (2012)

Subgenres: Stay On Land! • Beast Mode • Supernatural Spookys

Put it on when you want to feel validated in your decision to not go out.

See also:

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Sharp Objects (2018)

A crime series about how fucked up it is that neither Amy Adams nor Patricia Clarkson have won any Oscars

Based on: Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects (2006)

Subgenres: Southern Gothic • Rollerskating Gothic • Amy Adams Whispering Gothic • Mommy Issues Gothic

Put it on when you are looking to get jump-scared by Sydney Sweeney.

See also:

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MATCHUP:

Band of Brothers (5) vs. The Handmaid’s Tale (12)

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Band of Brothers (2001)

The quintessential dad series

Based on: Stephen E. Ambrose’s Band of Brothers (1992)

Subgenres: BoomerCore • Antifascism Rocks • The Jump Scare of Seeing Jimmy Fallon in a Serious Role

Put it on when you want to see your dad cry while saluting the TV.

See also:

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The Handmaid’s Tale (2017)

Systemic oppression with fun little hats

Based on: Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)

Subgenres: Color Coding • It Could Happen Here • The Discourse

Put it on when you have just voted against fascists.

See also:

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MATCHUP:

Roots (4) vs. Dexter (13)

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Roots (1977)

A very American family saga

Based on: Alex Haley’s Roots (1976)

Subgenres: Classroom Classics • It Did Happen Here • Generational Stories

Put it on when you want to remember when network TV executives made serious shows.

See also:

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Dexter (2006)

Who kills the killers?

Based on: Jeff Lindsay’s Dexter series (2004-2015)

Subgenres: Sunny Bloody Neon Miami • Aging Actors Down With Wigs • Bad Police • Deeply Uncomfortable Sexual Tension

Put it on when you are having the wrong intrusive thoughts.

See also:

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MATCHUP:

Say Nothing (6) vs. You (11)

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Say Nothing (2024)