Diego Pineda has been a devout storyteller his whole life. He has self-published a fantasy novel and a book of short stories, and is actively working on publishing his second novel.
A lifelong fan of watching movies and talking about them endlessly, he writes reviews and analyses on his Instagram page dedicated to cinema, and occasionally on his blog. His favorite filmmakers are Andrei Tarkovsky and Charlie Chaplin. He loves modern Mexican cinema and thinks it's tragically underappreciated.
Other interests of Diego's include reading, gaming, roller coasters, writing reviews on his Letterboxd account (username: DPP_reviews), and going down rabbit holes of whatever topic he's interested in at any given point.
There are few television genres that lend themselves more perfectly to a good binge-watch session than thrillers. After all, what could possibly be more addictive than a suspense-filled show designed to keep viewers on the edge of their seats throughout? Over the course of history, this has resulted in several of the greatest TV shows of all time being exceptional thrillers that keep viewers' eyes glued to the screen throughout several seasons. A thriller series doesn't need to be particularly long in order to be great, however. In fact, over the years, we've gotten several great thriller shows that are only a single season long.
From gripping miniseries like The Undoingto legendary animated shows like Death Note, these shows prove that all you need to make an effectively tense, twist-filled thriller is a few episodes spread out over the course of one season. They may be short, but these masterful series are already icons of the genre—and deservedly so. Brilliantly paced, brilliantly performed, brilliantly directed, and with stakes that seem to reach sky-high, these are television masterpieces that are easy to breeze through in perhaps no more than a single binge-watching session.
'The Undoing' (2020)
Only six hours long, The Undoingis a psychological thriller starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant, who deliver some of the strongest work they've ever offered on the small screen. It's one of the best drama miniseries of the 2020s so far, about a wealthy New York therapist whose life is turned upside down after she and her family get involved with a murder case. A modern whodunnit unlike any other, The Undoing was the first HBO show to gain viewership every single week over the course of the season, which is hardly surprising.
After all, it's not just the incredible performances. Misdirects, detours, and distractingly gorgeous visuals keep the viewer guessing at all times, yet the twists and turns remain consistently surprising. Thematically sharp and structurally interesting, the miniseries often feels like a modern neo-noir packed with surprises. It can be a little cheesy, and some spots in its narrative don't hold up particularly well under scrutiny; but those are easily ignorable nitpicks in a series that's overall one of the most fascinatingly-constructed psychological thrillers of the decade.
'Scam 1992 – The Harshad Mehta Story' (2020)
The world of Indian television is a criminally underappreciated one in the West, one that holds several gems that deserve far more love outside their home country. As proof of that, several of the highest-rated TV shows on IMDb hail from India, and the highest-rated of all is the biographical miniseries Scam 1992 – The Harshad Mehta Story. It depicts the rise and fall of the titular stockbroker, who was one of the leading forces in the 1992 Indian stock market scam. The show is far more than just an Indian version of The Wolf of Wall Street.
In fact, Scam 1992 is gleefully original and full of energy, with some exceptional writing and an anchoring lead performance by Pratik Gandhi. It's a cleverly told boom-to-bust story that feels intelligently balanced, never romanticizing or glamorizing the figure of Mehta but also not showing him as a cartoonish villain. It's a delectably complex and nuanced character study that all fans of thriller television, no matter where they're from, should give themselves the chance of checking out.
'Escape at Dannemora' (2018)
Directed by Ben Stiller, who has been exhibiting plenty of signs of being a television genius as of late, Escape at Dannemora is based on an incredible true story. It follows a prison employee in upstate New York, who becomes romantically involved with a pair of inmates and helps them escape. The show is incredibly well-made all around, but with a cast as stellar as Patricia Arquette, Benicio del Toro, and Paul Dano, they wouldn't have even needed anything else in order to make the show work. Chillingly tense and awfully underrated, it's one of the best thriller shows that fans of the genre probably missed.
The miniseries is deliberately slow-paced, so it's definitely one that requires patience. Those willing to give it, however, will be treated to one of the most memorable thriller shows of the 2010s. Deeply dramatic, psychologically complex, and capable of generating an endlessly vibrant amount of suspense once the titular escape finally kicks off, this seven-episode masterpiece is one of the greatest docudramas that the small screen has seen in a very long time.
'Sharp Objects' (2018)
Escape at Dannemora wasn't the only near-flawless miniseries that 2018 had to offer. There was also the Southern Gothic psychological thriller Sharp Objects, based on Gillian Flynn's 2006 debut novel. It stars a powerhouse Emmy-nominated Amy Adams as Camille, a crime reporter who returns to her hometown after treating her mental illness to solve the murder of two young girls. Everything that ensues is so dramatically juicy that Adams gets plenty of chances to prove why she's perhaps the most talented actress of her generation.
The potent lead performance isn't the only reason why thriller television fans should watch Sharp Objects, however. It's also one of the best HBO miniseries of all time, so grim and deeply atmospheric that its slow-burning pace feels like a fascinating, absolutely essential feature of the narrative. It's profoundly disturbing, like any great murder mystery should be, but it's also fascinatingly moody and thematically complex. It's feminist television at its very best.
COLLIDER.
Collider · Quiz
Collider Exclusive · Oscar Best Picture QuizWhich Oscar Best Picture Is Your Perfect Movie?Parasite · Everything Everywhere · Oppenheimer · Birdman · No Country
Five Oscar Best Picture winners. Five completely different visions of what cinema can be — and what it can do to you. One of them is the film that was made for the way your mind works. Ten questions will figure out which one.
🪜Parasite
🌀Everything Everywhere
☢️Oppenheimer
🐦Birdman
🪙No Country for Old Men
QUESTION 1 / 10TONE
01
What kind of film experience do you actually want?The best movies don't just entertain — they leave something behind.
QUESTION 2 / 10THEME
02
Which idea grabs you most in a film?Great films are driven by a central obsession. What's yours?
QUESTION 3 / 10STRUCTURE
03
How do you like your story told?Form is content. The way a story is shaped changes what it means.
QUESTION 4 / 10VILLAIN
04
What makes a truly great antagonist?The opposition defines the protagonist. What kind of opposition fascinates you?
QUESTION 5 / 10ENDING
05
What do you want from a film's ending?The final note is the one that lingers. What do you want it to sound like?
QUESTION 6 / 10WORLD
06
Which setting pulls you in most?Where a film takes place shapes everything — mood, stakes, what's even possible.
QUESTION 7 / 10CRAFT
07
What cinematic craft impresses you most?Every great film has a signature — a technical or artistic element that makes it unmistakable.
QUESTION 8 / 10PROTAGONIST
08
What kind of main character do you root for?The protagonist is the lens. Who you choose to follow says something about you.
QUESTION 9 / 10PACE
09
How do you feel about a film that takes its time?Pace is a choice. Some films sprint; others let tension accumulate slowly, deliberately.
QUESTION 10 / 10AFTERMATH
10
What do you want to feel walking out of the cinema?The best films leave a mark. What kind of mark do you want?
The Academy Has DecidedYour Perfect Film Is…
Your answers have pointed to one Oscar Best Picture winner above all others. This is the film that was made for the way your mind works.
BEST PICTURE 2020
Parasite
You are drawn to films that operate on multiple levels simultaneously — that begin in one genre and quietly, brilliantly migrate into another. Bong Joon-ho's Parasite is a film about class, desire, and the architecture of inequality that manages to be darkly funny, deeply suspenseful, and genuinely shocking across a single extraordinary running time. Your instinct is for cinema that hides its true intentions until the moment it's ready to reveal them. Parasite is exactly that — a film that rewards close attention and punishes assumptions, right up to its devastating final image.
BEST PICTURE 2023
Everything Everywhere All at Once
You want it all — and this film gives you all of it. The Daniels' Everything Everywhere All at Once is one of the most maximalist films ever made: action comedy, multiverse sci-fi, family drama, existential crisis, and a genuinely earned emotional core that sneaks up on you amid the chaos. You are someone who responds to ambition, who doesn't want cinema to choose between being entertaining and being meaningful. This film refuses that choice entirely. It is overwhelming by design, and its overwhelming nature is precisely the point — because the feeling of being crushed by infinite possibility is exactly what it's about.
BEST PICTURE 2024
Oppenheimer
You are drawn to cinema on a grand scale — films that understand history not as a backdrop but as a force, and that place their characters inside that force and watch what happens. Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer is a film about the terrifying gap between what we can do and what we should do, told with the full weight of one of the most consequential moments in human history behind it. You want your films to feel important without feeling self-important — to earn their ambition through sheer craft and the gravity of their subject. Oppenheimer does exactly that. It is enormous, complicated, and refuses easy comfort.
BEST PICTURE 2015
Birdman
You are drawn to films that foreground their own construction — that make the how of the filmmaking part of the what it's about. Alejandro González Iñárritu's Birdman, shot to appear as a single continuous take, is cinema examining itself through the cracked mirror of a fading actor's ego. You respond to formal daring, to the feeling that a film is doing something that probably shouldn't be possible. Michael Keaton's performance and Emmanuel Lubezki's restless camera create something genuinely unlike anything else — a film that is simultaneously about creativity, relevance, self-destruction, and the impossibility of ever truly knowing if your work means anything at all.
BEST PICTURE 2008
No Country for Old Men
You are drawn to cinema that trusts silence, that refuses to explain itself, and that treats dread as a form of meaning. The Coen Brothers' No Country for Old Men is a film about the arrival of a new kind of evil — implacable, arbitrary, and utterly indifferent to the moral frameworks we use to make sense of the world. It is one of the most formally controlled films ever made, and its controlled restraint is what makes it so terrifying. You want your films to haunt you, not comfort you. You are not interested in resolution if resolution would be dishonest. No Country for Old Men is honest in a way that most cinema never dares to be.
'Bodyguard' (2018)
A gripping conspiracy thriller, an addictive police procedural, and an emotionally stirring drama. Those are all the genres that Bodyguard succeeds at being. In it, a war veteran finds work as a police sergeant assigned to protect the UK's home secretary, a controversial and ambitious politician. Touching on themes as complicated and sensitive as government surveillance, the politics of intervention in the face of terrorism, and PTSD, Bodyguard explores such a touchy narrative in admirably nuanced—and ultimately, absolutely binge-watch-worthy—ways.
Richard Madden and Keeley Hawes are amazing here, and they allow each of the series' six episodes to be incredibly suspenseful while still giving the characters space to breathe and develop. It's an exquisitely pulpy and fascinatingly complex psychological thriller. The show has technically not been cancelled, though a second season has never even come close to materializing due to scheduling conflicts between creator Jed Mercurio and the very busy Richard Madden. But even if the second season of Bodyguard never comes together, fans of television thrillers will always have this absolutely perfect season of top-tier dramatic television.
'Death Note' (2006–2007)
For those even the slightest bit familiar with anime and its most iconic outings, Death Note shouldn't even require an introduction. It's far and away one of the most popular and highly-acclaimed anime series of modern times, based on Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata's manga series of the same name. The story follows Light Yagami, a smart high schooler who goes on a secret crusade to eliminate rivals after discovering a notebook capable of killing anyone whose name is written into it.
Subscribe to the Newsletter for One-Season Thriller Picks
Get deeper thriller coverage by subscribing to the newsletter — curated one-season picks, smart analysis, and international gems to expand your watchlist and understanding of standout suspense TV.
By subscribing, you agree to receive newsletter and marketing emails, and accept our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You can unsubscribe anytime.
It's a simple enough premise, but from it sprouted a 37-episode masterpiece that marked the first time a well-known Japanese anime was made legally available to American audiences while the title still aired in Japan. This is why Death Note is largely credited as greatly helping to further popularize anime in North America and make it more mainstream, and it's partly also why it's such a beloved gem even today. Visually striking and impeccably written, the show poses questions on justice that are deeply thought-provoking.
'Chernobyl' (2019)
Chernobylisn't just one of the highest-rated thriller series ever on IMDb: It might just be the greatest miniseries ever created. A resounding masterpiece that perfectly understands how to work within the constraints of the medium, this disaster docudrama depicts the 1986 Chernobyl incident, one of the worst nuclear disasters in the history of mankind, and follows the heroes who put their lives on the line in the following months.
The show doesn't shy away from showing the sheer scale, magnitude, and inhumane horror of the event, so it's definitely not for the faint of heart. But those with the stomach for it ought to check out Chernobyl at least once in their lives, because a better one-season thriller TV show has never been made. Anchored by a powerhouse cast, top-tier production values, and an admirably well-researched attention to detail, Chernobyl is composed of five of the best thriller TV episodes ever produced.