The Sunday Times - UK (2022-02-06)

I

t would have been unimaginable 16

years ago. The arrival of Netflix and

the advent of streamers brought

dizzying choice — but the biggest

change in our television viewing is

that we have gone global. Foreign

dramas are no longer niche or intimi-

dating — just look at the Korean thriller

Hellbound, which racked up 43 million

viewing hours in three days. Subtitles,

once alienating, are now welcome,

forcing us to focus in the face of lock-

down brain fog or the lure of scrolling

through our phones.

The show that sparked the change

was the French police drama Spiral,

which BBC4 took a gamble on in 2006.

Now there have been eight series

attracting more than a million viewers.

The Scandi drama The Bridge followed,

attracting two million. After the success

of the Spiral experiment, first BBC4 and

Channel 4, then Netflix and Amazon

started buying and commissioning their

own shows. Numbers went through the

roof, with Netflix’s Spanish drama

Money Heist outperforming The Crown

and Sex Education.

So where to start? The Sunday Times

has assembled a team of experts to

compile a list of the best subtitled shows.

Be prepared to binge-watch — in 14

different languages. c

COVER STORY

From twisting

French thrillers to

dark Mexican

comedy — our

expert panel

picks the finest TV

shows in the world

30

Murder, riots and antisemitism

rip through Paris in this bold

murder mystery loosely based on

the Dreyfus affair and figures from

the belle époque. It begins with the

true scandal of the

sex-induced death of

President Félix Faure

and our star is an

honourable young

police officer who

must confront

corruption and a

dismembered

torso floating

down the Seine.

27

The murky war between

the mafia and the state

prosecutors in 1990s Sicily is laid

bare in this series based on real

events. “It has the stylish allure of

high-class

cinema,” says

Iuzzolino. The

lead is Saverio

Barone, right, a

prosecutor and

seemingly the

only person

with any

integrity in this

sun-drenched

setting.

25

Hellbound toppled Squid

Game as Netflix’s most-

watched TV show and it matches it

in terms of dark plot. A celestial

being tells people when they will

die, then demons appear and

drag them to Hell. “It’s a rich and

rewarding take on belief, conspiracy,

mass manipulation

and religion,” Baker

says. There’s a

media frenzy, cults

form, QAnon

conspiracies

flourish — and

then a newborn

baby is damned.

PARIS POLICE 1900* FRANCE

i PLAYER (1 SERIES, 2021)

THE HUNTER* ITALY

WALTER PRESENTS/ALL4 (x3, 2018-)

HELLBOUND* SOUTH KOREA

NETFLIX (1 SERIES, 2021-)

LUMIERE SUR UNE EPOQUE NOIRE IL CACCIATORE

THE KILLING* DENMARK

i PLAYER (3 SERIES, 2007-2012)

LUPIN* FRANCE

NETFLIX (2 SERIES, 2021-)

HOUSE OF FLOWERS* MEXICO

NETFLIX (3 SERIES, 2018-20)

PANCHAYAT* INDIA

AMAZON (1 SERIES, 2020)

24

This darkly humorous series

follows a dysfunctional family

who own a flower business and a

drag club — although not everyone

knows about both. Grim suicides sit

alongside fantasy sequences in a

show that makes Succession seem

like The Waltons. “It’s joyful

and daft and hyper-

real, riffing on

Latin-American

telenovelas for

the millennial

generation,”

Baker says.

26

Omar Sy, below, brims with

charisma as the “gentleman

thief” in this charming series

dubbed the French Sherlock. Slick,

swift and bingeable, the show

centres on a conman who runs rings

around the Parisian police. The first

series was devoured by 70 million

people within 28 days

of landing on

Netflix. It is a

riveting, often

silly romp with

a third series

in the works.

29

“Not only did The Killing tip

foreign language drama into

the mainstream, it also started a

fashion trend for Faroese knitwear,”

Deeks says. Almost 15 years have

passed since the first episode,

yet a young boy finding out

about the death of his

sibling is still haunting.

The series became a

lockdown revival hit,

with new fans flocking

to the dysfunctional

detective Sarah Lund

(Sofie Grabol,

right).

28

A fish-out-of-water dramedy

with unemployed engineering

graduate Abhishek Tripathi (Jitendra

Kumar, below) becoming secretary

to a village council, or panchayat, in

rural India. “It’s the Indian

Last of the Summer

Wine but infinitely

better written,” Baker

says. “The petty

bureaucracy will

chime with Brits

— with one

episode devoted to

the office politics of

who deserves a

swivel chair.”

Omar Sy brims with

charisma as a

gentleman

thief in

Lupin

*FORBRYDELSEN

*PANCHAYAT

*LUPIN

*JIOK

*LA CASA DE LAS FLORES

30 BEST SUBTITLED DR

THE JUDGES

From left: Walter Iuzzolino, curator

and cofounder of Walter Presents;

Mariella Frostrup, Times Radio

presenter; Robin Baker, head

curator of the BFI National Archive;

Sue Deeks, head of programme

acquisition at the BBC. Plus Andrew

Male, Culture’s foreign drama critic.

Reviews by

Stephen

Armstrong,

Andrew

Male and

Jake Helm

4 6 February 2022