(Credit: Netflix)

Netflix has a weird habit of dropping limited series that feel like they were meant to be ten seasons long, but instead decide to do God’s work and end them without a cliffhanger. This week’s picks are exactly that. We have got stories that pull you into murders no one talks about anymore and missing people who were never found.

Moreover, you have got politicians dodging consequences, detectives solving nothing, killers who vanish halfway through, and survivors who do not want to be found. The stories feel so real that you might want to Google if they were inspired by true cases after you finish them.

And you will be utterly surprised when each one of them ends before you’re ready. Not because the story’s incomplete, but because you were still trying to process what just happened when. Sounds exciting, right? Limited series do that when they are good.

And here are five shows that start with something small and then become larger than you thought. You’ll keep watching because you need to know who did it, but what keeps you there is how messed up everything gets on the way to the truth.

Five limited series to watch on Netflix this weekend

Hitler’s Circle of Evil (2018)

So here is what Hitler’s Circle of Evil actually does, and why it works. Instead of centring everything on Hitler like most World War II documentaries do, this series shifts the focus to the people around him. We are talking about the inner circle that fought for influence, protected their own interests, and helped turn ideology into machinery. You see how power moved through rooms, how decisions were shaped by ego and rivalry, and how ordinary-looking conversations led to consequences that reshaped history. Scary, right? That’s exactly the purpose.

The storytelling of this show is what makes it watchable. The series makers have done a great job by blending dramatic recreations with archival footage and expert commentary, but it never feels like a lecture. It moves forward like a political thriller, showing how ambition and fear fed into each other until everything went beyond control. You come away understanding that this was not the work of one man but a system built by many.

Collateral (2018)

After Hitler’s Circle of Evil, you might want to watch something more modern. Something that shows how power plays out in streets instead of palaces. That’s where Collateral comes into play. It opens with a delivery guy being shot on a regular London night, and what starts as a murder investigation very quickly cracks open bigger questions like immigration, war, politics, identity… all spilling out of one incident.

Carey Mulligan plays a detective who, though thought to be quite sharp, is constantly outnumbered by systems that have no explanation whatsoever. One of the best things about this show is that in its four episodes, not once do you feel the need to look for long explanations. Everyone is essentially in a grey area, and that’s what makes it more interesting.

Black Spot (2017)

With Black Spot, let’s just say you are up for something darker, which the title doesn’t justify. And this time, it’s not just murder, but something eerie, something that messes with the edges of logic. This show is a French crime thriller set in a fog-covered forest town where the murder rate is six times the national average. Six freaking times. It follows a police chief who knows the area too well and a prosecutor who does not like what he finds. And we know when law and police come together, it’s huge.

This is not the kind of show where you just wait to see who did it. You start to feel like the forest is watching everyone back. We see a myth in the show, but it’s never given the supernatural angle. The town feels cut off, as time passes differently there. Something way darker than your imagination is happening here.

The Forest (2017)

If that one pulled you into the woods, then The Forest will not let you out. It is also French, and it also starts in a small town, but here it is a teenage girl who goes missing, and the adults tasked with finding her are not exactly whole themselves. There is a teacher with a past and a cop who remembers too much. You get a weird silence in the town that feels heavier than any actual clue.

What works here is the emotion. You do not just follow the investigation; you get pulled into what it means for the people left behind, for those who blame themselves, and for those who still hope. It is about how the past doesn’t want to stay buried anymore. It’s about how people carry a whole lot of trauma while they pretend like they have moved on.

Safe (2018)

Safe is the cleanest one on this list, in terms of setup. Here, you again have a teenager missing from a gated community, and her father, played by Michael C. Hall, starts digging into her life and realises he does not know her at all. But the clean setup breaks fast. Everyone has secrets, and the more he digs, the more the image of the community starts to crumble.

What keeps this eight-part thriller addictive is the constant misdirection. You think you have something figured out, and then a completely different person becomes the centre of the story. You need to understand that Safe is not just about uncovering a mystery; it is about how we lie to ourselves in the name of protecting the people we love. And how the truth, when it finally comes out, rarely brings closure. Just consequences.