It is possible that national productions continue to constitute most of the media regime of the American spectator, but foreign productions are gaining ground: Netflix reports that 13% of their visualization hours in the US. UU. They came from titles that were not in English in 2023. The specific ones are increasingly important. A higher percentage of the talk about water coolers, since transmission platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney, Apple TV, Tubi, Viki and Iqiyi create foreign series as “Squid Game”. “Moving” and “Maxton Hall” are more available than ever beyond national borders, attracting more attention to the variety and intensity of what global television production has to offer.
In recognition of the increasingly global nature of TV watching and criticism, we have compiled a list of some of the best international TV drama shows in 2024. The entries are limited to one series per country, which makes selection from strong and prolific industries, such as Japan, Korea, and Germany, particularly difficult. To be considered, the series also had to be easily accessible to viewers in the U.S., which means distribution on a streaming service or TV channel available in the U.S.
In this spirit, here are 15 of the most productive foreign TV dramas of 2024. . .
In recent years, Thailand has a center for the production of romantic dramas among world -popular boys (or bl), that is, series focused on queer love stories between two men. (Some attribute to the expansion of the dramatic industry BL the contribution to the resolution of 2024 to legalize same -sex marriage in Thailand, a fundamental victory for LGBTQ rights in the region). Although there have been several perfect blocy dramas this year, they add the Thai adaptation of the Japanese IP “Cherry Magic”, 2024, stood out for the increase in the number of dramatic love series between girls (or gl) produced through the industry Thai television. “Subject” was one of the best.
Based on Cha Planoy’s novel of the same name, the GL drama follows Phleng (“Sonya” Saranphat Pedersen) and Wan (“Lookmhee” Punyapat Wangpongsathaporn) as two girls who grew up together in the same house—one as the daughter of the owner and one as the daughter of the maid. When they come of age and are forced to consider marriage, they fight to hide their burgeoning romantic relationship. “Affair” has its amateurish production elements, as is often the case for pieces of media pioneering a certain kind of representation, but the chemistry between the two leads and the solid direction elevates this GL drama to something special. While “Affair” didn’t totally stick its landing, the romantic melodrama of the journey speaks to the global potential of the GL drama genre in a TV landscape that so rarely centers queer women’s love.
While Nordic countries are known worldwide for their atmospheric black film television series, the Scandinavian countries in Europe are capable of telling outdoor stories of this popular genre. “Everyone and Eva”, the story of a 40 -year -old Swedish woman named Eva (Tuva Novotny) who makes the decision to have a baby alone, is an intelligent example. Similar to “Fleabag” in any tone and its production driven by the author, “All and Eva” is a dramatic comedy that runs through the delicate line between flashy comic moments and raw and realistic auctions. The story follows Eva in her simultaneous searches of fertility and quotes, which are entangled when she organizes a nice encounter with man, Mads (Joachim Fjelstrup), who donated sperm for her son to be born. When the two really get along, she is in the awkward position of deciding whether to tell her new love.
When one of the main shareholders of one of the largest fishing operations in the world dies, all loyalties are invalidated in this story of “succession” of the Norwegian salmon empires. Like this late, wonderful story of family disorder under capitalism, “The Billionaire Island” balances drama and dead-comedy satire in its exploration of the way corporations and trafficking infiltrate even the highest national spaces. The center of the duel is between Gjert Meyers (Svein Roger Karlsen), the former patriarch of Meyer Fjordbruk, and Julie Lange (Trine Wiggen), the cosmopolitan matriarch of Marlex. Neither the family circle nor society are presented as good, giving more complexity to this six-episode soap opera about the Norwegian Uber Rich. Fun fact: The series was created through Anne Bjørnstad and Eilif Skodvin, the crime drama duo of 2012’s “Lilyhammer,” aka Netflix’s first “original series. “
The second season of “The Broken News,” a Hindi-language TV drama about the state of modern journalism, goes past the one-season blueprint source material BBC drama “Press” laid out. The initial set-up is still present, of course: two rival TV news empires fight for dominance in the political news landscape. On one side, we have Awaaz Bharati, led by Amina Qureshi (Sonali Bendre), an idealist who fights to uphold the standards of journalistic integrity. On the other side, we have Josh 24/7, led by an editor-in-chief, Dipankar Sanyal (Jaideep Ahlawat), who cares about ratings more than anything else.
Season 2 continues more or less where season 1 ended, with Amina’s protected progressive, Radha (Shriya Pilgaonkar), in prison. After trying to disseminate an intrusive data collection program known as Operation Umbrella, Radha was classified as “terrorist” by the Dipankar Media Channel. She promises to knock him down, but will she maintain her journalistic integrity in the process? “Broken News” has some of the most productive artists in India. TV and works as a drama in itself, but it is especially desirable to see it compared to “press” and watch the same relevant questions about the role of television. The media in the era of social networks explored in a different cultural perspective. context.
While Korea’s “Hierarchy” and “Pyramid Game” made a good run at the next “Gossip Girl” or “Pretty Little Liars,” it was Japan’s “Chastity High” that brought the “anonymous social media presence throws the high school social landscape into chaos” premise into 2024. When elite school Asuran Academy goes co-ed as a way to compensate for low enrollment, the headmaster puts into place a strict no-dating rule. The consequence if broken? Expulsion. Scholarship kid protag Ichika Arisawa (Ai Mikami) doesn’t have any plans of dating, but when she inadvertently stumbles into a money-making scheme that involves blackmailing fraternizing students to keep their love “crimes” off of the headmaster’s radar, her life is changed forever.
As a representative of the drama about wealthy young people, “Chastity High” refuses to fall into clichés, making the young man in the end a reluctant champion of adolescent sexuality and thus breaking the absurd logic of the culture of purity. Instead of portraying rich characters as bad and poor as good, “Chastity High” feels a lot . Society molds us.
In 2010, one of the most popular Egyptian series in the waves was a program called “Ayza Atgavez” or “I need to marry. ” Adopted through a popular blog by Ghada Abdel AAL, the screen narrated the life of a young pharmaceutical company called Ola (the Tunisian actress Hendi Sabri) who planned to marry before the age of 30. The series ended with wave locating her boyfriend.
More than a decade later, Netflix relaunched the series under the name “Finding Ola,” allowing the audience to locate the now 40-year-old protagonist in a new phase of his life. In 2022 season 1, Ola was the mother of two recently divorced young men who tried to get back on their feet, frustrating contrary to society’s expectations regarding what an Egyptian woman in her forties would be. At the time of the season of this Arabic-language romantic drama, Ola continues her journey of self-exploration, as she proceeds to balance the roles of entrepreneur, mother, daughter, and romantic partner. At a time in media creation where every outing can look like a straw fire, “find Ola” is combined with a ten-year-old character who subverts the ephemeral nature of fashion media.
Lidia Poët is the last character of the wonderful culture of the dramatic detectives of the time. Technically she is a lawyer, not detective, and is technically based on a genuine woman (the first fashion lawyer in Italy), but those distinctions are only main points in the format of the genre that also brought us wonderful characters such as Miss Fisher, Miss Scarlet and Sara Howard. “The right according to Lidia Poët” presents us to Lidia (Matilda de Angelis) just when he loses his right to exercise law. After this devastation, he moves with his brother lawyer, Enrico, and his family, and convinces Enrico to be his legal assistant.
In the second season, which premiered in October, we are invited to return to the colorful world of 1880s Turin and Lidia’s life for six more episodes, as our animated protagonist juggles her professional ambitions with her confusing life. domestic, adding her complicated romance with brother-in-law Jacopo (Eduardo Scarpetta). In another year when women’s rights were most invaded in the United States, “The Law According to Lidia Poët” was a beautiful Transitional Escape: light, feminist fun, wrapped in a moving procedural format where the wise men win and the wise men owe to the harsh paintings of a wise woman.
In a year that began with the release of Wong Kar-Wai’s first TV project, it continued the unforeseen good fortune of rural drama “To the Wonder” and ended with a renewed commitment to dressing dramas from one of China’s major studios. , there’s a lot to celebrate on Chinese television in 2024. But the highlight of the year came with the release of “Love Game in Eastern Fantasy,” a 32-episode Xianxia drama about a woman who finds herself drawn into the global world. from a terrible e-book: for fun, high-stakes results.
Yu Shuxin (aka Esther Yu) plays Ling Miaomiao, an employee in her twenties who can’t wait to read the new book, “Monster Hunting,” from her favorite author. When she does, and realizes that she misses him, she writes an online review that takes her into the world of books and forces her to “play” the role of a secondary antagonist. The series cleverly uses video game mechanics to raise a familiar layout and stakes to the absurd fantasy story, and Yu Charms as a modern woman who knows the plot, just seeks to get out alive. Her biggest asset (and later romantic interest) comes in the form of Mu Sheng (Ding Yuxi), a demon hunter who is hard to please with his own secrets.
Korea has become one of the centers of globally popular TV production. While violent, action-driven dramas (e.g. “Squid Game,” “Hellbound,” “The Glory”) tend to get the most American critical attention, Korea continues to make some of the best romantic TV dramas of all time. Time-slip romance “Lovely Runner” was 2024’s best, pulling viewers into the story of Im Sol (Kim Hye-hoon), a thirtysomething fangirl who, distraught by the mysterious death of her favorite K-pop idol Rye Sun-jae (Byeon Woo-seok), accidentally travels back in time 15 years to her high school self. Once there, she discovers that she lives next door to teenage Sun-jae, and becomes determined to save his life in the future. With that premise, “Lovely Runner” always stood a good chance at being diverting, but an Episode 2 twist recontextualizes Sol and Sun-jae’s entire relationship, setting viewers on a time-hopping love story that was as unpredictable as it was satisfying.
A precious adventure about one Brazilian girl’s quest to find the truth about her birth family, “Luz: The Light of the Heart” was one of the best children’s series released this year. Marianna Santos shines as nine-year-old Luz, a girl who is raised by an Indigenous community following a tragedy around her birth. When she turns nine and learns her Kaingang family have not been telling her the whole truth about her identity, she runs away with her steadfast (and magical) firefly companion, ending up at a boarding school filled with other curious, kind-hearted kids. Marketed as “Brazil’s first telenovela for kids,” “Luz” does an impressive job balancing the high-stakes of its main character’s birth family drama with the sweeter stories of her school adventures across 20 episodes, all while celebrating Brazilian culture. This Portuguese-language series is a gem, and the rare example of a fantastical middle-grade kids series that goes the live-action route.
Adapted from a bestselling novel series by one of the writers of “Dark” (Daphne Ferraro, serving here as Head Writer), “Maxton Hall” is the kind of story we’ve seen before. Working class scholarship student Ruby Bell (Harriet Herbig-Matten) is trying to keep her head down at elite private school Maxton Hall, a vital step in her dream to study at Oxford. But when she inadvertently walks into the orbit of entitled rich kid James Beaufort (Damian Hardung), her perfectly constructed plan is threatened. And feelings only make it worse.
You can file “Maxton Hall” alongside other enemies-to-lovers romance TV classics like “Élite,” “Skam,” and many a K-drama, or even trace its basic elements back to the source of so much of today’s romance genre: Jane Austen’s “Pride & Prejudice.” While popular, this story format is not as easy to pull off as it might seem. However, propelled by the chemistry between series leads Herbig-Matten and Hardung, some gorgeous direction, and a subtly diverse supporting cast of characters, “Maxton Hall” nails it. The German-language show became the most-successful of any non-American Amazon Prime Original series launch ever as a result. With a second season already filmed, there will be more “Maxton Hall” in our near future.
In Mexico City, the government finances only one hundred ambulances for a population of around 10 million inhabitants. The Spanish series “Midnight Family” via Apple TV+ explores this genuine global challenge through the familiar prism of a circle of relatives drama. Based on a 2019 documentary from the same call, “Midnight Family” tells the story of a circle of relatives of Mexican paramedics seeking to provide care in a cutthroat, for-profit ambulance industry where staff have little to no medical education. . While daughter Marigavia Tamayo (Renata Vaca), a medical student, burning the candle through either end is our access to this 10-episode series, “Midnight Family” provides time to each circle of family, adding father Ramón ((Joaquín Cosio), and his sons Marcus (Diego Calva) and Julio (Sergio Bautista), expanding the overall scope of this series in an important way. It is difficult to do anything new in the medical drama format, However, the richness of “Midnight Family’s” décor, not to mention its genuine inspiration, is helping the series stand out in a subdued genre.
“Penguins’ mother” takes the disorderly and imperfect global of the raising of the children to the audience through the story of Kamila Barska (Masza Wągocka), a MMA fighter and a single mother. When his seven -year -old son, Jaś (Jan Lubas), is diagnosed with autism and refers to a school for young people with disabilities, Kamila struggles to settle for the diagnosis and assistance that his son locates while keeping it. It is not an easy race. If that sounds like a serious premise, and the “mother of penguins” does not sweeten the realities of life as a single father concerned with an autistic child in a global who still does not actually perceives not neurodivergencia. However, this comedy drama in the Polish language is also full of fun moments that are treated as true.
Nigerian mother and businesswoman Aunty Bunmi (Sola Sobowale) would have possibly lost her husband 20 years ago, however, she refuses to live the life of a afflicted widower. Instead, she is the life of the party in Lagos, fabulously sure of herself in her social life. However, he feels alone and has overlooked his own health. When Bunmi is diagnosed with fibroids, he will have to receive treatment.
Meanwhile, Bunmi’s son, YEMI (Tobi Bakre) is a dancer who dreams of leaving Nigeria. When he gets a concert in Bollywood, he also travels to Mumbai, throwing them into the care of others.
Bollywood and Nollywood have a history of working together in productions, and “Postcards” is filmmaker Hamisha Daryani Ahuja’s second such commission after the 2020 feature film “Namaste Wahala. ” Ahuja was born in India but raised in Nigeria, bringing his own multicultural wisdom to the story. “Postcards” celebrates the vibrancy of Lagos and Mumbai, with discussions in Yoruba, English, Nigerian Pidgin and Hindi. “Postcards” is rarely as polished as most of the foreign dramas on this list, but it is a universal story about family and the network of two colorful television industries that go too under the radar in the Western world.
A non -linear story of an incursion after women in the overall of fashion meetings, “Thank you, Next” is a romantic dramatic sublime outside the doors of the Western global. To be fair, it would not be realized by the replacement in the regional parameters, given the family interest of “thank you”, for the life of the Aissis, Cosmopolitas and historically beautiful. However, it is a laugh to spend time in the bright offices and the Houses of Istanbul and on the oscillating beaches of the Turkish coast. Serenay Sarikaya embodies Leyla Taylan, a young lawyer who hopes to pass beyond her appointment of several years with Ömer (Metin Akdülger) with that of her organization of friends. With a great soundtrack, an elegant assembly and an appreciation for the role that it works through social networks in our fashion life, “thank you, then” scratch the same romantic itching “or” the bold guy. ” “