If brevity is the soul of wit, as the saying goes, then brevity can also be the key to memorable television. Today’s miniseries usually aren’t as sweeping as the appointment-viewing epics of the 1970s and ’80s (Roots, the original Shōgun, The Winds of War), but some of the most gripping watercooler shows of the last decade have still been one-and-dones telling a contained story (Chernobyl, Baby Reindeer, The Queen’s Gambit).
The voting period for the 2025 Emmy Award nominations has closed, and when it comes to eligible submissions for Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series, members were spoiled for choice. Whether it’s a mystery simmering with tension, a historical piece fraught with meaning, a comic book adaptation elevated to the next level, a vulnerable true story, or a haunting crime drama, here are seven limited series whose titles deserve a coveted nomination spot.
7
‘Presumed Innocent’ (2024–)
Created by David E. Kelley
When lawyer Carolyn Polhemus (Renate Reinsve) is found murdered, authorities charge her married lover, deputy prosecutor Rusty Sabich (Jake Gyllenhaal), with the crime. Before the accusation, Rusty was a man with a comfortably flourishing career and a loving family — his wife Barbara (Ruth Negga) and their two children — who still followed the bad decision playbook by having a toxic affair. As the trial begins, Rusty’s reputation and future hang in the balance. So does the crucial question: is Presumed Innocent‘s protagonist a wronged man, or did he viciously murder an innocent woman?
David E. Kelley, the reigning king of legal thrillers, adapts author Scott Turow‘s 1987 novel of the same name — which also inspired the 1990 film starring Harrison Ford as Rusty — with an eye for our modern times. Kelley’s interpretation of Presumed Innocent fulfills every beat genre fans crave from their courtroom murder mysteries while exposing male entitlement. Episode by episode, the series drags ego, cowardice, greed, lust, and power-grabbing into the light, and does so with justifiable ruthlessness and pulse-pounding suspense.
6
‘Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story’ (2024)
Created by Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan
The second installment of Ryan Murphy‘s true crime anthology series Monster attracted almost as many viewers as the first season, The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, and almost as much controversy, too. Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story offers contradictory perspectives on the experiences of its subjects, brothers Lyle (Nicholas Alexander Chavez) and Erik (Cooper Koch), who pleaded self-defense in the 1989 killing of their allegedly abusive parents, José (Javier Bardem) and Kitty (Chloë Sevigny). Convicted of first-degree murder but eligible for parole after a judge adjusted their life sentences in 2025, Erik criticized Murphy’s unreliable narrator approach, while Lyle appreciated how the series’ worldwide popularity directed attention to child sexual assault.
Warranted critiques notwithstanding, Monsters‘ presence at the Emmys is virtually guaranteed; the series has already earned three Golden Globe nominations, including Best Limited or Anthology Series or Television Film. Meanwhile, Koch’s remarkable performance and the haunting fifth episode, “The Hurt Man,” have both received widespread acclaim. Perhaps more than any other entry in Murphy’s body of work, Monsters‘ decision to blur the lines between empathy and sensationalism summarizes the dichotomy between Murphy’s raw artistic highs and his divisive, discomfiting lows.
5
‘Say Nothing’ (2024)
Created by Joshua Zetumer
Say Nothing, FX’s adaptation of Patrick Radden Keefe‘s 2018 non-fiction book, unspools history through an ensemble cast led by IRA volunteers and sisters Dolours (Lola Petticrew, Maxine Peake) and Marian Price (Hazel Doupe, Helen Behan). Both the dramatized miniseries and its source material center on The Troubles, a devastating multi-decade conflict in Northern Ireland over civil rights, religion, culture, Irish nationalism, and more. The series also pays significant attention to the IRA’s abduction and murder of Jean McConville (Judith Roddy), a single mother of 10 and one of the 17 “Disappeared” individuals accused of being informants for the British Army.
Say Nothing is a sensational, sensitive, and deeply moving depiction of a profoundly complex period in Ireland’s history, one marked by political division, communal unrest, deadly paramilitary violence on both sides, and civilian casualties. The mark The Troubles left on Ireland’s soul still ricochets across generations. Say Nothing neither heroizes the IRA’s terrorism nor condemns their most stripped-down, baseline motivation — preserving and freeing Ireland from British occupation — as wholly evil. Instead, the series explores the complicated morals behind a violent uprising, the flawed humans driving it, and how the regret of these characters’ older selves contrasts with the righteous beliefs of their youth. At the center of that whirlwind lies Petticrew’s unforgettable performance as the younger Dolours.
Say Nothing
- Release Date
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2024 – 2023
- Network
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Hulu
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Lola Petticrew
Dolours Price
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Maxine Peake
Older Dolours Price
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-
4
‘Disclaimer’ (2024)
Created by Alfonso Cuarón
It’s hard to go wrong with Alfonso Cuarón as writer-director and the exquisite Cate Blanchett as Catherine Ravenscroft, Disclaimer‘s morally ambiguous, secret-concealing leading lady. Based on Renée Knight‘s 2015 novel, Disclaimer twists-and-turns its way through Catherine’s present as a revered documentary journalist and her time in Italy 20 years earlier. When a novel fictionalizing Catherine’s fateful Italian vacation unexpectedly arrives at her doorstep, Catherine risks having her deepest secret exposed and her family’s lives irreparably ruined.
Apple TV+‘s psychological thriller stars an outstanding cast who all deliver captivating work, with none more enthralling than Blanchett as a multifaceted woman whose existence comes crashing down around her ears. Wholly assured of itself thanks to Cuarón’s supervision, Disclaimer‘s discordant atmosphere whips viewers between truth, fiction, unreliable narrators, flashbacks, and voice-overs until its final answer leaves us heartbroken, forced to reckon with society as a whole and our individual knee-jerk assumptions.
Disclaimer
- Release Date
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2024 – 2023
- Directors
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Alfonso Cuarón
3
‘Dying for Sex’ (2025)
Created by Liz Meriwether and Kim Rosenstock
After years of extensive breast cancer treatment and receiving a terminal metastatic diagnosis in 2015, the late Molly Kochan began a blog, wrote a memoir, and co-created and co-hosted the award-winning podcast Dying for Sex with her close friend, Nikki Boyer. As the title implies, Kochan and Boyer discuss the aftermath of her stage IV diagnosis through the lens of Kochan’s decision to divorce her husband and explore her sexuality by embarking on hundreds of different intimate encounters.
FX’s eight-episode dramedy stars Michelle Williams as Kochan and Jenny Slate as Boyer, and their soulmate friendship anchors this darkly entertaining, tender, raunchy, and poignant series. Dying for Sex has a fine line to walk, and aside from an overcrowded plot and some tonal missteps, it masters its vulnerable high-wire act. Liz Meriwether and Kim Rosenstock honor the podcast’s brutally honest yet comedic tone without downplaying the inarguable tragedy of Kochan’s brief life, and without turning the way she chose to spend her final days into an aggressively sentimental inspiration for the non-ill. Dying for Sex soars highest when it focuses on Kochan’s complex, cathartic, and freeing journey toward processing her trauma, understanding herself, and achieving sexual contentment, all while discovering how uniquely revelatory (and silly) gender dynamics can be.
2
‘The Penguin’ (2024)
Created by Lauren LeFranc
These days, when studios milk their IPs six ways from Sunday, it’s easy to dismiss new projects as just one more spin-off or sequel or prequel beholden to the Hollywood machine. By the time The Penguin‘s eight-episode run ended, the doubts about its quality were silenced. A ruthless crime drama even bleaker than the parent film with which it shares creative DNA, Matt Reeves‘ The Batman, The Penguin is a monumental multi-genre accomplishment: a comic book adaptation, a psychological thriller, two separate character studies, and a battle between rival mobster families for unmitigated control over Gotham’s criminal underbelly.
By rooting the series in character analysis and an immersive sense of place — a city that’s barely holding its head above water, no pun intended — creator Lauren LeFranc turns The Penguin‘s familiar saga of ambition, corruption, and trauma into a compelling origin story that doubles as a propulsive ride straight into hell. This isn’t the first time a dark-and-gritty superhero show has graced the small-screen, but The Penguin takes its cues from properties like The Sopranos because its narrative voice requires prestige TV aesthetics. That said, Colin Farrell and Cristin Milioti‘s fearsome performances as Oswald Cobb and Sofia Gigante, respectively, give The Penguin its soul — two paralleling, yet radically different portraits of broken humanity.
The Penguin
- Release Date
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2024 – 2024-00-00
- Showrunner
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Lauren LeFranc
1
‘Adolescence’ (2025)
Created by Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham
Hailed as a “flawless” modern masterpiece and an instant contender for one of the decade’s best miniseries, Adolescence‘s four episodes span the arrest, interrogation, investigation, and psychological motivations behind 13-year-old Jamie Miller’s (Owen Cooper) murder of Katie Leonard (Emilia Holliday), his classmate, as well as the devastating aftermath for Jamie’s family as they strive to reconcile the beloved son they know with his furious assault against an innocent young woman.
Adolescence‘s one-take episodes (no CGI, hidden cuts, or gimmicks here) are an astonishing technical triumph matched only by its searing depiction of how online spaces radicalize young men into violence by preying upon their vulnerabilities and resentments. Co-creators Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham never flinch away from a desperately necessary conversation about one of the most dangerous epidemics of our time, handling the topic’s severity with nuance, maturity, honesty, and stomach-churning tension. Since its debut earlier this year, Adolescence has become one of the top three most-streamed shows in Netflix history. Believe the hype.
Adolescence
- Release Date
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March 13, 2025
- Network
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Netflix