John Powers

Set in 1989 Germany shortly before and after the fall of the Berlin Wall, this series centers on a cocky female assassin and puts a playful spin on the end of communism.

Bianca Stigter's documentary, Three Minutes: A Lengthening, brings the past to life with an almost archaeological gaze.

Set in Oklahoma's Native American territory, the show blends satire, pathos and tribal lore — not to mention American Indians' tragic history — into a series that is fresh, funny and heartfelt.

Neil Patrick Harris plays a gay New Yorker whose long-term relationship abruptly ends. While it's tempting to criticize Uncoupled for being superficial, that would be missing the point — and the fun.

Set in a sandwich shop in Chicago, this sharply written eight-part series is stingingly accurate about restaurant work — the merciless stresses, oversized personalities and battlefield camaraderie.

Kingston burst onto the scene in 1976 with The Woman Warrior and then kept writing. Critic John Powers says that, like James Baldwin, she's managed to shift American culture and remain relevant.

The seven-part British TV series, which centers on a young doctor working in the OB/GYN ward of a London hospital, tells a painful story about the assembly-line nature of modern medicine.

In 2001, Kathleen Peterson was found dead in her Durham, N.C., home. Her husband, Michael, was accused of her murder, and a Netflix documentary followed. Now, a new HBO Max series revisits the case.

Daniel Roher's film about Russian dissident Alexei Navalny offers intimate, sometimes amazing access to the bravery — and human cost — of opposing a despot.

HBO's new eight-part series follows an American crime reporter who intends to take Japanese journalism by storm — but first must learn how to navigate the churning opacity of 1990s Tokyo.

Mick Herron's Slough House books center on a ragtag crew of intelligence officers who've blown their careers through bungling or bad luck. The first of those novels is now a clever Apple TV+ series.

Based on the novel by Min Jin Lee, Pachinko follows four generations of a Korean family in Korea, Japan and the U.S. as they navigate broken hearts, broken homes, murder, suicide and more.

Schumer stars as a woman on a voyage of self discovery in an enjoyable (if uneven) new Hulu series. Life & Beth is at its best when it harnesses Schumer's capacity for catching life on the wing.

The BBC series, now playing on HBO Max, follows an Irishman who gets into a car accident and wakes up with amnesia in an Australian hospital. This suspenseful six-part thriller will keep you guessing.

This offbeat and amusing thriller from Apple TV+ conjures a world in which employees of a cult-like corporation voluntarily undergo a procedure that severs their work and non-work memories.

In 1970, Hansen began a 12-novel series about Dave Brandstetter, an insurance investigator who happens to be gay. Reading now, it's clear that Hansen was one of the great crime writers of his time.

Based on Lee Child's best-selling novel, this eight-part series by Amazon Prime Video features Alan Ritchson as an ex-military policeman on the hunt for a murderer in small-town Georgia.

This six-part BBC mystery series about a sailor murdered aboard a nuclear sub will keep you guessing. As the investigation widens, more murders — and a slew of red herrings — follow.

As the year draws to a close, critic John Powers singles out seven revelatory people or things that made 2021 a little brighter. At the top of his list? Basketball star Steph Curry.

This eight-part comedy, which centers on a gender-fluid millennial of Pakistani heritage, takes issues that are often used as hot buttons and treats them as an everyday, often funny part of life.