Credit: Netflix

Limited series are a bit of a lucky dip on Netflix, and there, that’s the exact reason to go rummaging through it.

The label covers everything from dust-caked westerns to stories that pick apart identity until you are left wondering what, exactly, still belongs to the person at the centre of it.

These five from this list span 2017 to 2024 and come from different corners of the world, so it’s your opportunity to discover multiple cultures. Not just that, they are all from different genres too, so don’t think that you are served with just one.

So if you want to keep this weekend chill and sorted, these five Netflix series get over in just one sitting, five, if your attention span is screwed.

Five best limited series to watch on Netflix this weekend

Maniac (2018)

Pinning Maniac to one genre is asking for trouble, so frankly, don’t even bother. Patrick Somerville’s ten-part series throws Emma Stone’s Annie Landsberg, who is carrying grief and is heavily dependent on a mysterious drug, into the orbit of Jonah Hill’s Owen Milgrim, the estranged son of a wealthy family who has schizophrenia and is struggling to trust his own reality.

Then the pair sign up for a pharmaceutical trial promising to cure emotional pain without therapy. The treatment takes Annie and Owen into one reality after another and, just when you think you’ve got your bearings…nope, off we go again.

New identities, new worlds, and even the computer running the trial starts playing up. You’ve got espionage one minute, crime the next. Sounds like too many cooks, doesn’t it? Somehow, though, Maniac keeps Annie and Owen at the centre of it all. Can’t miss this one.

Godless (2017)

Okay, here is a way to upset the old western rulebook: build a frontier town where most of the men are dead and let the women get on with running the place. La Belle, New Mexico, has already been through enough before Roy Goode turns up, because a mining disaster has killed most of the town’s men and left the women holding everything together.

Then Roy arrives with Frank Griffin on his trail, and, well, that is about the last thing anybody there needs. Roy used to ride with Griffin and was treated like a son, but after turning against him, he has become the one man Frank wants found.

Roy takes refuge with Alice Fletcher, a widow played by Michelle Dockery, while Griffin starts closing in, and La Belle gets dragged into a feud it never asked for. Frank is still out there, of course, and Roy knows full well the man is coming for him. By the time everyone catches on, though, it is far too late to call this Roy’s problem and leave him to it.

Mask Girl (2023)

Being ignored by the world all day and adored online all night sounds like an interesting double life, and that is exactly where Mask Girl takes you: into the life of Kim Mo-mi. This office-worker protagonist once dreamed of performing but gave it up after years of being judged for her looks.

After dark, she puts on a mask, switches on a webcam and finally gets the attention she has always wanted. Sorted, then? Oh, not even close. A colleague discovers the woman behind Mask Girl, and right after that, we are dealing with a murder.

Mo-mi’s life starts changing so much that different actresses play her across the series. That is not some casting gimmick either. Once you see where the story takes her, it clicks. Based on Maemi and Hee Se’s webtoon, the series also starts following other people caught in Mo-mi’s wake, so just when you think you have got her story sussed…think again.

The Last Night at Tremore Beach (2024)

If Oriol Paulo’s name rings a bell, then come on, you know better than to take the first explanation at face value. The man behind The Innocent created and directed this eight-episode Spanish thriller from Mikel Santiago’s bestselling novel, with Javier Rey playing Álex, a composer whose life has gone so bad that moving to a remote coastal village feels like a better option, and so he does.

Then lightning hits him. After that, Álex starts seeing flashes of things that have not happened yet, and the worst of them seem tied to his neighbours, Leo and María. What a nightmare!

The man couldn’t figure out if he was seeing something real or if his own mind was throwing him under the bus. Things get even worse when his romantic interest Judy gets pulled into the mess while old memories start muddying what Álex thinks he understands.

Òlòtūré: The Journey (2024)

Going undercover is one thing, but realising you may not be able to get back out is a whole different game, and that is the bind the Nigerian journalist Òlòtūré is in after the 2020 film Òlòtūré, where she poses as a sex worker in Lagos to expose human trafficking.

However, she sadly gets swallowed by the very network she set out to investigate. Yeah, that’s a shitty turn of events, and by the time The Journey starts, there is no neat way back to normal. Sharon Ooja returns as Òlòtūré, whose route towards Europe becomes a fight to stay alive, while Beauty’s attempt to get home goes wrong as well.

You might think the trafficking is just there to move the story along, but it isn’t. The series makes you sit with what these women are up against, and once the Nigerian Pidgin comes in, you feel even closer to their world. Hard to shrug off, isn’t it?