Credit: Netflix

Adulting comes with its fair share of acceptance, the biggest being just remaining homebound on weekends with a Netflix watchlist that screams productivity.

No matter how big a ball of energy you are, when it comes to weekends, sleeping till noon, restocking munchies, and kicking back with a Netflix marathon you were saving all week turns into a top priority.

But fulfilling that priority week after week becomes a task when you feel you’re running out of options to fall back on.

So, if you’re already in your PJs, scrambling for a watchlist that makes you want to skip Monday, here are the five best series to binge on Netflix this weekend.

The five best series to stream on Netflix this weekend

Minerva Academy (Ivan Silvestrini, 2026)

Netflix really went all out in the final full week of September with its original productions, meaning viewers are already spoiled for choice. To kick off the marathon, we recommend Minerva Academy, the latest Italian teen drama that comes with an overarching layer of mystery. The Netflix series unfolds at a strict military high school in Naples, where the only rule of life is cutthroat discipline; no phones, no romantic relationships, and certainly no room for mistakes.

Minerva Academy follows Salvo, who joins the military high school with a lot of excitement and enthusiasm, but also with an agenda of his own that goes beyond academic and military ambitions. Determined to find answers about his friend, Francesco, who went missing after enrolling on the school before him with larger-than-life dreams, Salvo embarks on a journey that culminates in many things lost and found.

Not a Stranger (Mert Baykal, 2026)

Since weekends call for thrillers that make bathroom breaks look like a sin, Not a Stranger is a series you can only miss at your own risk. The gripping new psychological thriller follows new mother Funda, who desperately wants to revive her artistic career following a long pause from painting after the birth of her daughter, Mavi. To help ease the transition and juggle work and life around a newborn, she hires a seemingly perfect nanny.

The new nanny doesn’t take long to bond with Mavi, but her arrival only worsens Funda’s mental health, slowly distancing her from her own family. What Funda probably doesn’t realise is that the nanny who appears so perfect has secrets of her own and is definitely not a stranger. Now, whether her arrival is just the outcome of Funda desperately looking for a nanny or the nanny looking for an outlet to infiltrate, you find out on Not a Stranger, now streaming on Netflix.

Habeas Corpus (Luiz Villaça and Flávia Lacerda, 2026)

Serving as Netflix Brazil’s first-ever legal drama, Habeas Corpus centres on respected law professor and former defence attorney Inez Franco, who quit litigating years ago due to a traumatic closing argument that left her with PTSD. After she changed careers to become a law professor, she forms an investigative conviction-review group with her top law students to tackle the case of Jonathan Ferreira dos Santos, a young man serving prison time for a crime he didn’t commit.

Although Habeas Corpus primarily follows Inez and her review group as they battle all kinds of forces to overturn Jonathan’s conviction, the series comes with another layer of mystery. Her brightest student, Marina, doesn’t join the group just to prove the man’s innocence. She does it to get close to her professor in an attempt to right an injustice involving a family member, forcing Inez to confront the past she thought she had left behind.

The Final Problem (Félix Viscarret, 2026)

Set in the spring of 1959, The Final Problem is definitely one of those mystery adaptations that will leave you reeling long after the credits roll. The period detective drama follows 13 individuals trapped in a secluded hotel on a small island off the coast of Mallorca due to a violent rainstorm, where a quiet English tourist, Elisa Mander, is found dead. Although her death looks like a suicide, evidence suggests foul play.

Realising there’s more to the case than meets the eye, veteran actor Benjamin Basil, who has portrayed the famous Victorian-era detective Sherlock Holmes on the big screen, decides to step in and put on the sleuthing hat. The Final Problem follows Basil, who joins forces with aspiring crime writer Foxa to solve the case where everyone’s a suspect, using his fictional detective skills to find a real-life murderer.

A Different World (Debbie Allen, Tiffany Johnson, Angela Barnes, Nefertite Nguvu, and Bille Woodruff, 2026)

To round out the weekend binge session, Netflix, of course, has a palate cleanser, A Different World, which returns to tell the story of the next generation. The sequel series takes viewers back to the halls of Hillman College and follows Deborah Wayne, the youngest daughter of Dwayne Wayne and Whitley Gilbert from the original series, which debuted in 1987, as she steps into her freshman year and tries to forge her own legacy outside of her parents’ shadow.

The debut season of A Different World, currently streaming on Netflix, centres on Deborah’s year-long journey at her parents’ HBCU alma mater, where she stumbles into a romantic ghost from her past and quickly complicates things. But if you think messy romantic entanglements are the only chaos she’s at the centre of, you’re gravely mistaken. Expect mistakes and misunderstandings to follow because old-school traditions and modern realities will clash without a doubt.