These 10 Netflix Thriller Shows Were Perfect—and Totally Overlooked

These 10 Netflix Thriller Shows Were Perfect—and Totally Overlooked

Netflix has produced countless thriller shows over the years, but not every masterpiece gets the attention it deserves.

Some of the most gripping, twist-filled series quietly slip under the radar while bigger names dominate the conversation.

If you love edge-of-your-seat suspense and thought-provoking mysteries, you’ve probably missed a few hidden gems that are absolutely worth your time.

1. The Midnight Club (2022)

Imagine being a teenager facing your final days, gathering with others like you to share ghost stories that might actually be real.

Created by horror master Mike Flanagan, this series brings together terminally ill teens in a hospice where their tales start seeping into their waking lives.

Rather than relying on cheap scares, the show builds tension through mood and character depth.

Each story they tell reveals something personal while weaving into a larger mystery about the hospice itself.

The emotional weight hits hard as these young people confront mortality while uncovering supernatural secrets.

Unfortunately, Netflix canceled it after one season despite critical praise and a devoted fanbase who recognized its unique approach to horror storytelling.

2. Behind Her Eyes (2021)

What starts as a predictable love triangle quickly morphs into something far stranger and more disturbing.

A single mother begins an affair with her psychiatrist boss while simultaneously befriending his wife, unaware of the dark secrets binding this couple together.

The pacing feels deliberately slow, almost like a traditional drama about relationships and jealousy.

Then the final episode arrives with a twist so bonkers that viewers either loved it or felt completely betrayed by the genre shift.

This British miniseries plays with your expectations brilliantly, hiding supernatural elements beneath domestic tension.

The ending sparked endless debates online, with some calling it genius and others feeling blindsided by how weird things became in those last shocking minutes.

3. Bodies (2023)

Four detectives across four different time periods—1890, 1941, 2023, and 2053—all discover the exact same body in the exact same London location.

How can one corpse appear unchanged across more than 150 years?

This British series weaves these timelines together masterfully, revealing connections that seem impossible at first.

Each era has its own visual style and detective with personal struggles, yet they’re all chasing the same conspiracy.

Based on a graphic novel, the show tackles themes of fate, sacrifice, and whether the future can be changed.

The puzzle-box structure keeps you guessing as clues from different centuries slowly click into place, building toward a mind-bending explanation that actually makes sense.

4. Dark Desire (2020–2022)

A married law professor has a weekend fling with a younger man, thinking it’ll be a one-time escape from her stale marriage.

Instead, he becomes obsessed, inserting himself into her life as connections between them grow increasingly sinister and deadly.

This Mexican series starts as steamy romance before pivoting hard into psychological thriller territory filled with murder, gaslighting, and shocking family secrets.

Every character has hidden motives, and trust becomes impossible as the plot twists pile up.

The second season somehow raises the stakes even higher with more manipulation and revenge.

While critics dismissed it as soap opera excess, millions of viewers worldwide devoured its addictive blend of passion and paranoia, making it one of Netflix’s most-watched non-English shows despite minimal English-language buzz.

5. Maniac (2018)

Two strangers with nothing in common sign up for a pharmaceutical trial promising to fix their minds without therapy.

Instead, they get trapped in a malfunctioning computer simulation that throws them into bizarre shared fantasies where reality keeps breaking down.

Starring Emma Stone and Jonah Hill, this limited series from the director of True Detective feels like a fever dream.

Each episode jumps to wildly different settings—fantasy quests, crime capers, strange alternate lives—as the experiment spirals out of control.

Beneath the surreal visuals lies a surprisingly touching story about trauma, connection, and healing.

The show flopped in viewership despite critical acclaim, probably because it’s genuinely weird and refuses to follow conventional thriller formulas or provide easy answers.

6. Absentia (2017–2020)

An FBI agent vanishes without a trace, leaving her family devastated and her case eventually going cold.

Six years later, she suddenly reappears in a cabin with no memory of her captivity—but people immediately suspect she’s involved in new murders.

Stana Katic delivers a powerful performance as someone trying to reclaim her old life while everyone around her has moved on.

Her husband remarried, her son barely remembers her, and the bureau questions whether she’s victim or villain.

This gritty series balances procedural crime-solving with deeply personal drama about trust and trauma.

It ran for three seasons with international co-production, building a loyal following abroad while remaining surprisingly unknown to most American Netflix subscribers looking for quality thrillers.

7. The Stranger (2020)

A mysterious woman approaches strangers with devastating secrets about their loved ones, secrets that couldn’t possibly be known.

When she targets a suburban family man, his wife disappears and his perfect life unravels into a web of lies.

Based on Harlan Coben’s novel, this British miniseries stacks twist upon twist as multiple families discover their connections to the stranger’s revelations.

Everyone seems to be hiding something, and trust becomes impossible as the body count rises.

The small-town setting amplifies the paranoia—neighbors spying on neighbors, parents lying to children, friends becoming suspects.

While some twists feel slightly over-the-top, the propulsive pacing and strong ensemble cast kept viewers binging through all eight episodes despite minimal promotion from Netflix.

8. Bodyguard (2018)

A war veteran with PTSD becomes the personal protection officer for a controversial politician he fundamentally disagrees with.

His job is to take a bullet for someone whose policies he despises, all while battling his own trauma and paranoia.

This British political thriller became a massive hit in the UK but somehow flew under the radar for American audiences.

Richard Madden won a Golden Globe for his intense performance as a man caught between duty and moral conflict.

Explosive action sequences mix with intimate character study as conspiracies unfold within the government.

The show tackles terrorism, mental health, and political corruption with nuance rarely seen in thriller television, building to a finale that had millions of Brits glued to their screens simultaneously.

9. The OA (2016–2019)

A blind woman returns after seven years missing, now able to see and calling herself The OA.

She gathers a group of misfits to teach them strange movements she claims can open portals to other dimensions where she experienced death repeatedly.

This is not your typical thriller—it defies every genre convention with interpretive dance, near-death experiences, and parallel universes.

Co-created by Brit Marling, who also stars, the show asks whether she’s a prophet or delusional, leaving viewers genuinely uncertain.

The passionate fanbase fought hard when Netflix canceled it after two seasons, leaving major cliffhangers unresolved.

Its ambitious storytelling and willingness to be genuinely weird made it unforgettable for those who connected with its strange, beautiful vision of reality and faith.

10. Tabula Rasa (2017)

A woman wakes in a psychiatric facility with severe memory loss, unable to remember anything about her recent past.

Police believe she witnessed—or committed—a terrible crime, but she genuinely cannot recall what happened or who she really is.

This Belgian thriller uses her fractured memory as a storytelling device, showing unreliable flashbacks that might be real or imagined.

Each episode peels back another layer of her identity while a missing person case grows more disturbing.

The atmospheric cinematography and deliberately confusing narrative structure mirror her mental state perfectly.

It’s a slow burn that rewards patient viewers with genuine surprises rather than cheap tricks, though its European pacing and subtitles likely limited its American audience despite being exactly what thriller fans claim they want.