5 Netflix Shows With a Perfect 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, Ranked

Image via BBC Published Oct 22, 2026, 1:18 PM EDT Sign in to your Collider account Netflix has never suffered from a shortage of things to watch. The harder problem is figuring out which of its endless new releases are actually worth several hours of one’s life. Reviews can help narrow that down, but even critical favorites usually have at least a few detractors. That makes the rare shows sitting at the very top of Rotten Tomatoes especially interesting. These titles did not get there by following one reliable Netflix formula, either. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. These shows knew exactly what they wanted to be, even if it meant taking risks that could have easily divided audiences. The five series on this list sit at the very top of the Rotten Tomatoes scores, and more importantly, each gives viewers a completely different reason to press play. 5 ‘Arcane’ (2021–2024) Image via Netflix Arcane is one of the smartest, most emotional fantasy shows of recent times. The animated series is set between the wealthy city of Piltover and the polluted underground district of Zaun, two places separated by much more than geography. The narrative follows sisters Vi (Hailee Steinfeld) and Powder (Ella Purnell), whose lives are torn apart after a robbery goes horribly wrong. Years later, Vi is trying to find her sister again, while Powder has transformed into the unpredictable Jinx and fallen under the influence of crime lord Silco (Jason Spisak). At the same time, Piltover scientists Jayce (Kevin Alejandro) and Viktor (Harry Lloyd) discover a way to combine magic with technology through Hextech. That breakthrough begins changing the balance of power between both cities, and tensions begin to rise. Now, all of this might sound complex, but Arcane handles its multiple storylines without ever feeling overwhelming. That’s because every conflict and piece of magic eventually leads back to Vi and Jinx. Magic is political in Arcane, and that angle makes the show’s fantasy world feel so layered. The show’s worldbuilding and depth are unmatched, but none of that detail ever gets in the way of the two sisters who no longer know how to reach each other. With all that, the show’s 100 percent Tomatometer score is completely justified. 4 ‘When Life Gives You Tangerines’ (2025) Image via Netflix When Life Gives You Tangerines makes an entire lifetime feel intimate. The series begins on Jeju Island in the 1960s. It follows the rebellious Ae-sun (IU), who dreams of becoming a poet despite growing up with very little, and the quiet Gwan-sik (Park Bo-gum), who has loved her for years. Their relationship survives disapproving families and difficult circumstances before the story follows them through marriage, parenthood, financial struggles, loss, and eventually old age. Moon So-ri and Park Hae-joon later take over the roles of the older Ae-sun and Gwan-sik, which allows the audience to see the couple’s transition from starry-eyed youngsters to seasoned adults with different hopes and dreams. The show’s ambitious timeline gives the impression that it is a sweeping piece of Korean history, but the narrative always stays personal. History is constantly moving in the background, while the foreground remains focused on how one ordinary family actually lives through it. The show’s best moments usually center on small things like conversations over meals and the quiet sacrifices one generation makes for the next. The show holds a 100 percent Tomatometer rating because it focuses on the weight of ordinary, everyday decisions that go on to define the course of several lives. Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes Which Netflix Character Would Be Your Best Friend? Dustin · Emily · Wednesday · Gi-hun Some friends drag you out of the house. Some sit with you on the worst night of your life. Netflix has written both, plus the one who tells you the truth you have been avoiding all week. Answer eight quick questions about how you actually do friendship, and find out which of them was always going to end up in your corner. 🧢Dustin(Stranger Things) 🗼Emily(Emily in Paris) 🕷️Wednesday(Wednesday) 🟢Gi-hun(Squid Game) FIND YOUR BEST FRIEND → 01 How do you usually end up making a new friend? The origin story says a lot about the friendship that follows it. AWe got loud about the same obsession and never stopped. BThey invited me somewhere before we had properly met. CWe bonded over disliking exactly the same thing. DThey noticed I was struggling and stayed with me. NEXT QUESTION → 02 What is a perfect Saturday with your best friend? Friendship is mostly built out of very ordinary hours. AA ridiculous plan neither of us should attempt. BSomewhere new, photographed heavily, ending very late. CSomewhere quiet, few people, zero small talk. DSomething simple, and a conversation that actually matters. NEXT QUESTION → 03 You call them at two in the morning. What happens? This is the real test of a friendship, and everybody knows it. AThey are already putting their shoes on. BThey answer instantly and turn it into a plan. CThey answer and say something unflattering and true. DThey listen for an hour and never check the time. NEXT QUESTION → 04 What do you want from them when you are clearly wrong? The best friendships are the ones that survive being corrected. ASupport first. We can review the mistake later. BA relentlessly positive reframe of the entire disaster. CThe blunt version. Do not soften it for me. DPatience, and no judgment about how I got here. NEXT QUESTION → 05 What do your friends actually value about you? The friend you attract says something about the friend you are. AI am all in, always, about everything. BI can turn almost any situation into a good time. CI say the thing nobody else in the room will. DI look after whoever is having the worst day. NEXT QUESTION → 06 You have a falling out. How does it go? How a friendship repairs itself matters more than how it breaks. ALoudly, briefly, then back to normal by Tuesday. BThey apologise first, enthusiastically, with a gift. CCold silence, then one dry joke that fixes everything. DWe talk until we both understand what actually happened. NEXT QUESTION → 07 What do you actually need a best friend for? Everybody is missing something. The right friend fills that gap. ATo make my life bigger than it would be alone. BTo push me out of the house and into my own life. CTo catch me when I start lying to myself. DTo be the person who never gave up on me. NEXT QUESTION → 08 Ten years from now, what keeps the two of you close? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides who you get. AWe would still drop everything for each other, instantly. BWe still make plans, and we still actually go. CWe still cut through each other's nonsense in one sentence. DThey stood by me once when it cost them something. REVEAL MY BEST FRIEND → The Group Chat Has Spoken Your Best Friend Is…Four Netflix characters, four completely different ways of showing up for somebody. This is the one who fits how you actually do friendship, and what having them in your life would be like. Dustin HendersonYou do not do friendship at half volume, and neither does he. What you want is somebody who says yes to the plan before you have finished describing the plan. Dustin is the friend the entire show runs on: loyal past the point of sense, enthusiastic about everything, and incapable of leaving anybody behind. You have the same instinct. Your friendships are loud, specific and slightly ridiculous, and they last for decades because of it. He is also the one person who would take your strangest interest completely seriously, which is far rarer than it sounds. You would have a group chat. It would never once be quiet. Emily CooperYou are the friend who makes things happen, and so is she. Together you would be mildly exhausting to everyone around you and completely delighted with yourselves. Emily treats an ordinary Tuesday as something that could be turned into an occasion, which is either the best or the worst quality in a friend depending on your energy levels. You share her refusal to sit still. Neither of you has ever accepted a night in when something was happening somewhere else. She is far more loyal than people give her credit for. She defends her friends loudly, publicly, and occasionally before checking the facts. She would post the photo without asking. You would forgive her, because it is a very good photo. Wednesday AddamsYou have no patience for pleasant lies, and she has no ability to tell them. What looks like coldness from the outside is the most reliable friendship on this list. Wednesday never says a kind thing she does not mean, which makes the rare ones count for an enormous amount. You would rather be told the truth than be made comfortable. She is constitutionally incapable of offering you anything else. Underneath all of it she is ferociously protective. She simply refuses to make a performance out of caring. Do not expect a birthday message. Do expect her to ruin anyone who wrongs you. Seong Gi-hunYou look after whoever is having the worst day. So does he. It is the least strategic way to move through the world and the best possible quality in a friend. Gi-hun is not the strongest player in Squid Game, or the cleverest. He is the one who keeps choosing to protect somebody else, over and over, at genuine cost to himself. You have the same instinct. You notice who is struggling and you stay with them, long after anybody would blame you for leaving. He is a flawed friend, and that is part of why it lands. He lets people down, then comes back and tries again, which is more than most manage. He would give you his last chance and never once mention that he had done it. ↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ 3 ‘The Chestnut Man’ (2021–Present) Image via Netflix Tiny handmade figurines will never be the same again after The Chestnut Man. The story begins when Naia Thulin (Danica Curcic) and Mark Hess (Mikkel Boe Følsgaard) first encounter one while investigating the brutal murder of a woman in Copenhagen. However, things take a turn when the figure found at the scene carries the fingerprint of Kristine Hartung, the young daughter of politician Rosa Hartung (Iben Dorner), who disappeared a year earlier and is believed to be dead. Suddenly, Thulin and Hess are forced to reopen a case that everyone thought had already been solved, while more victims begin appearing with the same eerie figures left behind. These connecting threads give the central mystery a strong emotional pull. Meanwhile, Thulin and Hess keep finding inconsistencies that suggest the original investigation may have missed something important. The chestnut figures initially feel like the killer’s calling card, but gradually reveal pieces of a much older story. The show takes its time to paint the entire picture for the audience, but that slow-burn approach has clearly worked, since The Chestnut Man holds a 100 percent average Tomatometer score across its two seasons. 2 ‘Marianne’ (2019) Image via Netflix Marianne is creepy, deeply unsettling, and did not deserve to get canceled after just one season. The French horror series follows successful novelist Emma Larsimon (Victoire Du Bois), who has built her career writing about an evil witch named Marianne. Emma plans to end her famous book series, but an old childhood friend appears at a signing and warns her that Marianne is real and furious that she has stopped writing. That encounter forces the writer back to her hometown of Elden, where the nightmares and supernatural events that inspired her books first began. Soon enough, the series starts blurring the line between the stories she wrote and the memories she has spent years trying to avoid. Marianne works through other people, invades dreams, and seems to know exactly how to turn someone’s guilt or fear against them. Mireille Herbstmeyer’s performance as Madame Daugeron, the primary host Marianne possesses, is one of the most chilling parts of the show and stays with the audience long after the credits roll. Marianne put a fresh spin on familiar horror tropes and carved out an identity entirely of its own. The show was nasty, surprisingly funny at times, and actually interested in the childhood trauma beneath Emma’s story. Season 1 was enough to prove how good the show was, but nowhere near enough to exhaust what it could have become. 1 ‘Giri/Haji’ (2019) Image via BBC Giri/Haji follows a thriller’s structure, but the show’s real story is about how far one man will go to save his brother. The narrative begins when Tokyo detective Kenzo Mori (Takehiro Hira) is sent to London after evidence suggests that his younger brother Yuto (Yôsuke Kubozuka), a former yakuza assassin believed to be dead, may actually be alive. Yuto is suspected of killing the nephew of a powerful yakuza boss, and unless Kenzo finds him, the fragile peace between rival gangs back home could collapse. The unofficial investigation soon pulls Kenzo into London’s criminal underworld, where he meets troubled detective Sarah Weitzmann (Kelly Macdonald) and the wonderfully unpredictable Rodney (Will Sharpe). The title of the miniseries translates to “Duty/Shame,” and that conflict runs through practically every relationship in the series. Kenzo is a police officer trying to stop a criminal who happens to be his brother. Similarly, Yuto has done terrible things, yet the show never reduces him to just that. The show shifts language, uses animation, plays with perspective, and experimental visual styles to deliver a drama that feels genuinely unique. That creative freedom is part of what makes the show so special and earns it a 100 percent Tomatometer score. Giri/Haji Release Date 2019 - 2018 Network BBC Two