Best Drama Shows on Netflix

Dramatic TV shows are, in many ways, the backbone of television in modern pop culture, and thankfully Netflix has an incredible selection of them.

There are more recent fan favorites like Riverdale and Better Call Saul, to ones that have ended within the last few years, like Parenthood and Glee.

You can even enjoy quite a few classic teen/young adult dramas like One Tree Hill and Gossip Girl.

If you’re interested in something fresher, there are also plenty of Netflix original series to choose from. There’s Grace and Frankie, Flaked, Gypsy and Bloodline, just to name a few.

You can also catch a few premium cable series like Weeds and Dexter if you prefer your drama shows with a little more… edge.

Whatever your preferred style of drama is, you’re guaranteed to find at least a handful of shows on Netflix that would satisfy you TV cravings.

Netflix Life previously put together a list of the top 50 “Best Drama TV Shows on Netflix Right Now.” Below, we’ve condensed that list and added a few of our own selections. Enjoy!

Orange is the New Black

Seasons available on Netflix: Five

Starring: Taylor Schilling, Laura Prepon, Michael Harney, Michelle Hurst, Kate Mulgrew, Jason Biggs, Uzo Aduba, Danielle Brooks, Natasha Lyonne, Taryn Manning and many more.

Orange Is The New Black burst onto screens in July of 2013. It was the third original Netflix series to debut, after House of Cards and Hemlock Grove, and it took the world by storm.

In season five, the humor is amped up quite a bit, but that doesn’t mean the series is any less dramatic. There are still plenty of heavy moments that tug at heartstrings. It’s emotionally divisive in a way that sometimes feels too real.

All five seasons are streaming right now on Netflix.

Mad Men

Seasons available on Netflix: Seven

Starring: Jon Hamm, Elisabeth Moss, Vincent Kartheiser, January Jones, Christina Hendricks, John Slattery, and Jared Harris.

Mad Men premiered on AMC in 2007 and ran for 92 episodes, right up until 2015.

The show’s timeline spanned a decade, with season one beginning in March of 1960 and the conclusion of season seven taking place in November of 1970.

Throughout its seven season run, Mad Men won numerous awards, including five Golden Globes and 16 Emmys. Additionally, it was the first basic cable series to receive the Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series and won in each of its first four seasons.

All seven seasons of the award-winning series are currently available on Netflix.

Grey’s Anatomy

Seasons available on Netflix: 13

Starring: Ellen Pompeo, Sandra Oh, Katherine Heigl, Justin Chambers, T. R. Knight, Chandra Wilson, Patrick Dempsey, Sara Ramirez, Eric Dane, Chyler Leigh, and Jesse Williams.

This medical drama focuses on a group of doctors at a Seattle hospital, including many who began their medical careers there as interns. One of the doctors (and the show’s namesake) is Meredith Grey. She is at the center of the action while a cast of other characters, all with their own personal issues and challenges, revolved around her.

Currently, ER holds the record for longest-running primetime medical drama, with 15 total seasons. Grey’s Anatomy, however, is quickly creeping up on it, as the series will soon enter its 14th season. In just a few years, it could steal that title that ER has held for almost a decade.

Breaking Bad

Seasons available on Netflix: Five

Starring: Bryan Cranston, Anna Gunn, Aaron Paul, Dean Norris, Betsy Brandt, RJ Mitte, Bob Odenkirk, Giancarlo Esposito, Jonathan Banks, Laura Fraser and Jesse Plemons.

Breaking Bad, in many circles, is considered to be not just one of the greatest drama shows of all time, but one of the greatest television shows of all time, ever.

It’s described as telling “the story of Walter White (Bryan Cranston), a struggling high school chemistry teacher diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. Together with his former student Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), White turns to a life of crime, producing and selling crystallized methamphetamine to secure his family’s financial future before he dies, while navigating the dangers of the criminal world.”

Cranston won the “best lead actor in a drama” Emmy four times for his portrayal of Walter White.

If you haven’t binged this lately, it’s time to pull it up and stream all five seasons on Netflix, right now.

Law & Order: SVU

Seasons available on Netflix: Three

Starring: Mariska Hargitay, Richard Belzer, Dann Florek, Michelle Hurd, Stephanie March, Ice-T, and B. D. Wong

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit debuted in September of 1999 as a spin-off of another show, the original Law & Order.

Its original focus was “centered almost exclusively on the detectives of the Special Victims Unit in a fictional version of the 16th Precinct of the New York City Police Department” and the sex-crime cases they encounter on a daily basis.

While the show currently has 18 seasons under its belt (with season 19 currently airing) only three of them are available on Netflix.

 

The Walking Dead

Seasons available on Netflix: Six

Starring: Andrew Lincoln, Jon Bernthal, Sarah Wayne Callies, Laurie Holden, Jeffrey DeMunn, Steven Yeun, Chandler Riggs, Norman Reedus, Lauren Cohan, Danai Gurira, Michael Rooker and many more.

The Walking Dead has very quickly become one of the most important television shows of all time. It’s a very bold claim to say that, but it single-handedly redefined the nature of horror television and even set a new precedence in the process.

From the get-go, it has been a ratings-dominated machine and the intrinsic drama of the show is a huge factor in that.

The Walking Dead isn’t just a “show about zombies.” It’s an exploration of the human condition and attempts to examine how humanity might respond to a near-total apocalypse. In this case, the cause just happens to be zombies.

The first six seasons are currently available on Netflix now, and the seventh season is likely to drop there in late-September or early-October.

Blue Bloods

Seasons available on Netflix: Seven

Starring: Donnie Wahlberg, Tom Selleck, Bridget Moynahan, Will Estes, Len Cariou, Amy Carlson, Sami Gayle, Jennifer Esposito, Marisa Ramirez, and Vanessa Ray

First debuting in 2010 on CBS, Blue Bloods is celebrated crime-drama about the Reagans, a family of law-enforcement officers and justice system officials, and how they navigate the difficulties of balancing their personal and professional lives.

Throughout its many seasons, Blue Bloods has continued to grow its viewership and for the last two seasons its been one of the top 10 shows on television.

You can catch up on seasons one thru seven now on Netflix, before season eight debuts next month.

Ozark

Seasons available on Netflix: One

Starring: Jason Bateman, Laura Linney, Sofia Hublitz, Skylar Gaertner and Julia Garner.

OZARK, which stars Arrested Development’s Jason Bateman, was quite possibly the most anticipated new Netflix original for summer 2017 and it did not disappoint.

The series features Marty Byrde, “a man who relocates to hopefully wipe the slate clean from his dealings in the drug world.”

However, hiding from their problems doesn’t make them go away and so eventually the Byrdes are forced to confront their past and each other.

If you’re a fan of Bloodline or Breaking Bad, you’ll want to check this one out before its second season airs sometime in 2018.

Criminal Minds

Seasons available on Netflix: 12

Starring: Mandy Patinkin, Thomas Gibson, Shemar Moore, Matthew Gray Gubler, A. J. Cook, Kirsten Vangsness, Paget Brewster, Joe Mantegna, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Jennifer Love Hewitt, and Aisha Tyler

Criminal Minds is a “police procedural crime drama” that “follows a group of FBI profilers who set about catching various criminals through behavioral profiling.

Additionally, “the plot focuses on the team working cases and on the personal lives of the characters, depicting the hardened life and statutory requirements of a profiler.”

The show has 13 seasons to date (the 13th season is currently airing) and you can rewatch all the past 12 seasons on Netflix at this time.

Marco Polo

Seasons available on Netflix: Two

Starring: Lorenzo Richelmy, Benedict Wong, Michelle Yeoh, Gabriel Byrne, Joan Chen, and Remy Hii.

This original series from Netflix, much like The Tudors, is based on historical events.

Specifically, “Marco Polo’s early years in the court of Kublai Khan, the Khagan of the Mongol Empire and the founder of the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368).”

If you love the intense drama and constant suspense of Game of Thrones, then you should absolutely check out Marco Polo.

House of Cards

Starring: Robin Wright, Kate Mara, Corey Stoll, Michael Kelly, Mahershala Ali, Neve Campbell, Joel Kinnaman, and Kevin Spacey (Seasons One through Five).

As the first major Netflix original series, House of Cards led the charge in more ways than one. If you need proof of its initial success, in 2017 alone it was nominated for four Emmy awards.

At the end of season four, we saw that Tom Hammerschmidt, the former editor of The Washington Herald, was getting closer and closer to unveiling some of Frank Underwood’s past corruptions.

Once the Underwoods found out, they mounted an incredible defense in the form of distracting the American public away from the story by manipulating a domestic terror situation that was already national news.

In 2017, season five debuted and completely changed everything.

Understandably, House of Cards is a top topic series for most as the numerous sexual assault allegations against Kevin Spacey that surfaced in the fall of 2017 have cast a shadow over the series.

In spite of that, Netflix has decided that, with Spacey having been fired and not being a member of the cast in season six, they will air the final season in 2018.

All available seasons of House of Cards are currently streaming on Netflix.

GLOW

Seasons available on Netflix: One

Starring: Alison Brie, Betty Gilpin, Sydelle Noel, Britney Young, and Marc Maron.

GLOW is a series that “revolves around a fictionalization of the characters and gimmicks of the 1980s syndicated women’s professional wrestling circuit, the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling (or GLOW).”

While the story and specific plot of the series are fictional, the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling was a real organization in the 1980s.

The first season of GLOW debuted on Netflix in June of 2017 to rave reviews from critics and fans alike.

It was quickly renewed for a second season, which will air in 2018.