Anthologies let you watch a show in any order while carrying an overarching theme or genre that ties their parts together. You can build your own adventure and not worry about nail-biting cliffhangers or unsatisfying endings.
Netflix has a decent collection of anthology titles, including two of the most popular sci-fi anthologies you’ll find anywhere, spanning genres like thriller, horror, and drama. Here are some anthology titles to add to your Netflix watch list today.
10
Black Mirror
One of the best sci-fi anthology series ever is Black Mirror. This dark, dystopian British horror sci-fi show, inspired by the 1950’s show The Twilight Zone, is straight out of your worst tech nightmares and explores the double-edged sword of rapid media and tech advancement. Be it a society where social status determines how you live, AI technology that figuratively raises the dead, or an abandoned museum housing relics of horror, there are many essential Black Mirror episodes; each tells a neatly-packed story within 40 to 90 minutes.
The happy endings may be few and far between during the show’s seven-season run, but what makes Black Mirror’s pessimistic and dystopian narratives so addicting to watch are the unique concepts, characters, and consequences of every action. Black Mirror won three Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Television Movie.
Black Mirror
- Release Date
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December 4, 2011
- Network
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Channel 4, Netflix
- Showrunner
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Charlie Brooker
9
Love, Death & Robots
Combine stunning animation, a short film format, and gripping plots, and you get Love, Death & Robots. This anthology series spans several genres, like fantasy, science fiction, horror, and even comedy, with each episode having a bite-sized runtime of 6 to 20 minutes.
Set in alternative histories and post-apocalyptic ruins, the show explores themes like love, technological impact, space, and society through stories showcasing some of the best character design and animation effects I’ve seen in a show. You may also find yourself struck by the show’s uncanny valley effect in some episodes where hyperrealistic visual effects and design take center stage.
Across Love, Death & Robot‘s great episodes, only one story (Three Robots from season 1) has a sequel (Three Robots: Exit Strategies from season 3) and a prequel (The Other Large Thing from season 4), with the rest being standalone stories. Love Death and Robots has many awards to its name, including 17 Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards for character animation and design, production design, and sound editing.
Love, Death & Robots
- Release Date
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March 15, 2019
- Network
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Netflix
- Directors
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Víctor Maldonado, Patrick Osborne, Robert Valley, Alfredo Torres Martínez, Jerome Chen, Emily Dean, Rémi Kozyra, Léon Bérelle, Dominique Boidin, Alberto Mielgo, Maxime Luère, Andy Lyon, Robert Bisi, Dave Wilson, David Nicolas, Simon Otto, Damian Nenow, Laurent Nicolas, Kevin Van Der Meiren, Vitaliy Shushko, Owen Sullivan, István Zorkóczy, Javier Recio Gracia, Oliver Thomas
8
Guillermo Del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities
Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities is a limited horror miniseries, featuring eight modern horror stories involving various filmmakers. All episodes are tied together by the cabinet of curiosities, with the series exploring one curiosity per episode. Each episode opens with del Toro’s introduction to the episode. Episodes explore themes like body horror, murder, supernatural horror, and cults.
Cabinet of Curiosities is partly inspired by Rod Sterling’s Night Gallery and is seeped in Gothic horror themes. It won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Production Design for a Narrative Period or Fantasy Program (one hour or more) in 2023, receiving positive reviews from critics for its pacing, strange horror, and acting.
7
Junji Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of the Macabre
For fans of animated horror and manga author Junji Ito’s works, Netflix’s anthology horror series, Junji Ito’s Maniac: Tales of the Macabre is a perfectly unsettling watch. The series, which is a collection of short horror stories that wrap up within 30 minutes, is an original net animated by Studio Deen (The Seven Deadly Sins). Maniac: Tales of the Macabre features Ito’s prominent stories, including The Hanging Balloons, Tomie, and Sōichi.
Each episode is an exercise in macabre storytelling and is animated in Ito’s stunning art style. From the story of a mysterious transfer student who is hiding dark secrets to a sibling duo who are forced to drive through a tomb town after a hit-and-run incident, each story in this anthology series is as creepy as they come.
6
Bloodride
If you’re looking for a limited anthology series with an overarching plot yet standalone episodes that can be watched in any order, try Bloodride. This Norwegian horror show revolves around a bus driving to an unknown destination, its driver, and a rainy night, with each episode focusing on one passenger who exits the bus.
Bloodride is a macabre story that you will enjoy if you’re a fan of horror anthologies with well-thought-out characters and quick pacing.
5
Tomorrow and I
Thai horror has been taking my watch list for a (needed) ride, and this sci-fi anthology is the latest addition. Tomorrow and I features four stories about futuristic technology and explores four central themes and plotlines in each episode: a husband cloning his astronaut wife after her death, a revolutionary CEO who creates human-like sex robots, the battle of AI technology that commodifies good deeds and a monk who creates a market spiritual guide, and a singing competition that can win a girl her way out of an eternal monsoon world where the rich get priority vaccines.
The show has raw narratives, satirical spins on social issues, and bold storytelling.
4
The Grimm Variations
The Grimm Variations is a collection of animated horror and thriller stories that bring unique, dark twists to the classic Brothers Grimm fairytales, from Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel, and The Pied Piper. Produced by Wit Studio (Vinland Saga, Attack on Titan seasons 1-3, and Spy X Family), this original animation series was released alongside a manga adaptation.
3
Criminal
You’re not alone if you find intense interrogation scenes in crime shows to be the best parts, so why not try a show that’s set (mostly) in the tense atmosphere of the interrogation room? Criminal is a franchise of four police procedural crime anthologies (Criminal: France, Criminal: Germany, Criminal: Spain, and Criminal: UK), all released simultaneously. Each episode of the franchise is a standalone story about the person in the hot seat and is confined to three locations (the interrogation room, the viewing room behind the mirror, and the hallway outside the room).
Criminal episodes are named after the person being interrogated, and their innocence or guilt is proved as the mystery of the individual case unravels. My favorite series from the franchise is Criminal: UK, since it features some of the best British actors that I happen to adore, including Kit Harrington (Game of Thrones), Kunal Nayyar (The Big Bang Theory), David Tennat (Doctor Who), and Hayley Atwell (Agent Carter).
2
Kaleidoscope
Love heists and anthologies? Kaleidoscope is a heist thriller with a unique format that allows you to build your own streaming adventure. The story revolves around Leo Pap (Breaking Bad’s Giancarlo Esposito), a skilled thief and his crew who attempt to pull off a $7 billion bond heist in a vault, and is spread across eight episodes. What makes Kaleidoscope’s format interesting is that episodes, each named after a color, are designed to shuffle when you’re watching the show.
Five episodes cover events 24 years before the heist, and two episodes set after the heist are played in a randomized order. The final episode shows you the day of the heist while serving as the key to all your unanswered questions.
The series was also not shot in chronological order, which makes the plot very interesting. The colors in the episode names pertain to both the characters and Pap, as well as the fact that the seven colors combine to make white, the name of the epic finale. The interactive storytelling and linked anthology format of Kaleidoscope makes it one of Netflix’s most innovative titles, and is a must-watch if you want to experience a randomized heist story with plot twists.
Kaleidoscope
- Release Date
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2023 – 2022
- Network
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Netflix
- Directors
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Robert Townsend
1
Ray
Ray is an Indian, Hindi-language limited anthology series based on the works of filmmaker Satyajit Ray. Each episode tells one of Ray’s short stories, spanning genres like psychological thriller, satire, and drama. Ray includes stories about a successful entrepreneur with a sharp memory whose life is turned upside down, a makeup artist who starts making prosthetics, a kleptomaniac singer who meets a victim of his theft, and an actor threatened by another icon.
Ray nicely adapts the filmmaker’s stories, and the cast gives exceptional performances.
One Netflix feature you probably don’t know about is the ability to search for specific content using hidden codes. While Netflix doesn’t have a dedicated secret code for anthologies, you can narrow down to genres like horror and sci-fi and browse from there.
- Subscription with ads
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Yes, $8/month
- Simultaneous streams
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Two or four
