15 Best Netflix original series of 2018: A Year in Review

14. Maniac

Released on Sept. 21, 2018, Maniac is a Netflix original series that offered an extraordinary cast and put them into a bizarre mind-boggling sci-fi series.

Maniac was based on a Norwegian TV series of the same name and was directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga, the brilliant director behind the first season of True Detective.

Emma Stone is Annie and Jonah Hill is Owen, two strangers who submit themselves to a pharmaceutical trial and end up on a strange journey where no one — from the characters to the viewers watching on Netflix — has any idea what is real.

There will not be a second season as this Netflix original series was meant to be a standalone story, and it was a huge success.

Stone picked up award nominations at the Satellite Awards and Screen Actors Guild Awards while it was also recognized at the Writers Guild of America Awards.

13. Safe

Michael C. Hall is no stranger to groundbreaking television, as he starred in the critically acclaimed Dexter on Showtime.

Hall made his debut on a Netflix original series with the Harlen Coben scripted Safe. The series premiered on May 10, 2018, and had Hall star as a man whose daughter disappeared.

The Netflix original, a British production, showed Hall as a surgeon who lives in a peaceful estate that is supposed to be safe behind a guarded wall but starts to learn that not everything is as it seems after his daughter disappears.

While it takes a bit to get used to Hall’s British accent, the Netflix original series paints an interesting picture of dysfunctional people that almost overshadows the fact that it’s about a missing child.