The Best Foreign Shows to Binge This Summer

By Ellis Clopton

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Looking past the regular popular streaming playlists, audiences can find quality television shows to binge made in countries both across the pond and south of the border. Read on to find the best international television shows to watch this summer.

Breathe

“Breathe,” starring R. Madhavan and Amit Sadh, is an Indian thriller that features a cat-and-mouse story as a police detective tries to solve a string of murders of organ donors. His prime suspect is a father desperately seeking a donor to save his dying son.

How to Watch: Amazon Prime

Cable Girls

This Spanish period drama follows four women working in Madrid’s first and only telephone company in 1929 right before the global financial crash. The show showcases the hardships working women faced during the time period and how they overcame them. The series stars Blanca Suárez, Maggie Civantos, Ángela Cremonte, and Nadia de Santiago.

How to Watch: Netflix

Suburra: Blood on Rome

Inspired by real events, this Italian-American crime drama is a prequel to the 2015 movie “Suburra.” The series focuses on a land dispute near Rome between the Vatican, mobsters, politicians, and land developers. The show stars Alessandro Borghi.

How to Watch:

Pakt

“Pakt” is a Polish police procedural that fans of “True Detective” and the fifth season of “The Wire” will latch onto. Starring Marcin Dorocinski, the show follows a newspaper journalist as he uncovers a fraud conspiracy involving his brother. The resulting exposé destroys his family and relationships, nearly ruining his life.

How to Watch: HBO Go

Broadchurch

Starring David Tennant and Olivia Colman, this British crime drama is set in a fictional tight-knit Dorset community. The three seasons show the slow breakdown of the community after the murder of an 11-year-old boy and the media frenzy that follows.

How to Watch: Netflix

Happy Valley

Sarah Lancashire stars as a police sergeant in a small West Yorkshire town in this British crime drama. The sergeant, Catherine, deals with the pain of her daughter’s suicide by hunting down the man who assaulted her and discovering he’s involved in something much darker.

How to Watch: Netflix

Ekaterina

A biographical drama for Russian history buffs looking for a new obsession, “Ekaterina” chronicles the rise of Russia’s longest-ruling leader, Catherine the Great. Starring Marina Aleksandrova, the show details her ascension to empress as well as her vision of elevating Russia into one of the world’s great powers, all while dealing with intrigue and family drama.

How to Watch: 
Amazon Prime

The Fall

This British-Irish crime thriller finds “The X-Files” star Gillian Anderson playing the role of Detective Superintendent Stella Gibson as she hunts down a serial killer in Belfast, Northern Ireland, played by Jamie Dornan.

How to Watch: Netflix

El Hipnotizador

“El Hipnotizador” is a Brazilian drama in a class all of its own. Constantly stretching the boundaries of fantastical magic and reality, Leonardo Sbaraglia stars as a gifted hypnotist who works to peel back the layers of his patients to help them confront the skeletons hiding in the darkest crevices of their closets while avoiding his own.

How to Watch: HBO Go

Dark

For those craving a time-travel story with a mix of child abduction drama, the German series “” is the perfect fit. This perplexing series doesn’t hold back its most grim moments, and uses time travel to tell the dark history of a small German city and the unforgivable acts of its sordid citizens. The show stars Louis Hofmann, Oliver Masucci, Karoline Eichhorn, Maja Schöne, and Jördis Triebel.

How to Watch: Netflix

La Mante

This show takes the audience to Paris and features a “Silence of the Lambs”-style story with Carole Bouquet, a serial killer teaming up with the Paris police to catch a murderer obsessed with copying her style.

How to Watch: Netflix

Patrick Melrose

Based on the British novel that sought to showcase the depravity and wickedness behind the rosy surface of Britain’s upper class, Benedict Cumberbatch stars as the show’s titular character, who becomes an heir who struggles with addiction following the death of his abusive father.

How to Watch: 
Showtime

La Casa de Papel

Still in the mood for a good heist story after “Oceans 8?” “La Casa de Papel” is a Spanish caper featuring a team of criminals each with their own special talents locking themselves in the Royal Mint of Spain in an effort to steal 2.4 billion euros. Along the way, the team takes 67 hostages and deals with the best elite operations forces the Spanish police can throw at them. The show stars Úrsula Corberó, Itziar Ituño, Álvaro Morte, Paco Tous, Pedro Alonso, Alba Flores, Miguel Herrán, Jaime Lorente, Darko Peric, and Kiti Mánver.

How to Watch: Netflix

Babylon Berlin

Getting away from the serial killers, the German crime thriller “Babylon Berlin” transports its audience to 1929 Berlin, the height of the Germany’s Golden Twenties, as Volker Burch stars as Gereon Rath, a German police commissioner who works to uncover a conspiracy lurking in the city’s darkest corners. The show also stars Liv Lisa Fries as Charlotte Ritter, an aspiring police inspector with a checkered past.

How to Watch: Netflix

Trapped 

“Trapped” is a slick, claustrophobic crime mystery with a man-versus-nature twist: Set in Iceland, the show features a police department struggling and racing to solve a brutal murder all while a storm bears down on the town. The show stars Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, Ilmur Kristjánsdóttir and Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson.

How to Watch: Amazon Prime

Fauda

“” is the Arabic word for “chaos,” a perfect description for this Israeli thriller series. It follows a team of undercover Israel Defense Forces operatives as they attempt to take down “The Panther,” a high-level Hamas terrorist who’s credited with killing 116 Israelis. The IDF previously believed he had been dead for over a year. “Fauda” stars Lior Raz, Laëtitia Eïdo, Shadi Mar’i, Hisham Suliman, Itzik Cohen, and Neta Garty.

How to Watch: Netflix

3%

With the third season released earlier this month, now is the time to jump into “3%,” a Brazilian thriller set in a dystopian future where citizens are given a chance to escape their miserable circumstances and live a life of privilege and luxury. However, the catch is that only 3% of the population succeeds in the process, the rest either returning to their previous lives or dying. The show stars João Miguel, Bianca Comparato, Vaneza Oliveira, Michel Gomes, and Rodolfo Valente.

How to Watch: Netflix