11 Generation Kill, 2008

Following multiple recon marines during the invasion of Iraq in 2003, a group of mixed personalities, you see the dysfunctionality of the military, and on other times, how formalized and heroic it can be. A Rolling Stones reporter joins reconnaissance marines invading Iraq and recounts the mix of horrors and hilarity he encounters during his time there.

A Rolling Stone reporter, embedded with The 1st Recon Marines chronicles his experiences during the first wave of the American-led assault on Baghdad in 2003.

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10 Boardwalk Empire, 2010-2014

Set in the Prohibition era of the 1920s Boardwalk Empire is the story of Enoch «Nucky» Thompson, the treasurer of Atlantic County, Atlantic City, New Jersey. Due to his relationships with mobsters as well as political contacts, the Federal Government start to take an interest in him. His lavish lifestyle seems at odds with his position, and as well as his connections, there is prolific bootlegging in the area.

An Atlantic City politician plays both sides of the law by conspiring with gangsters during the Prohibition era.

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9 Snowfall, 2017-2023

The story follows numerous characters on a violent collision course, including Franklin Saint, a young street entrepreneur on a quest for power; Gustavo «El Oso» Zapata, a Mexican wrestler caught up in a power struggle within a crime family; Teddy McDonald, a CIA operative running from a dark past who begins an off-book operation to fund the Nicaraguan Contras; and Lucia Villanueva, the self-possessed daughter of a Mexican crime lord. In «Snowfall,» people are working toward their ultimate goals of money, power, and influence as 1984 begins in Los Angeles.

A look at the early days of the crack cocaine epidemic in Los Angeles during the beginning of the 1980s.

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8 When They See Us, 2019

Five teens from Harlem become trapped in a nightmare when they’re falsely accused of a brutal attack in Central Park.

In 1989, a jogger was assaulted and raped in New York’s Central Park, and five young people were subsequently charged with the crime. The quintet, labeled the Central Park Five, maintained its innocence and spent years fighting the convictions, hoping to be exonerated. This limited series spans a quarter of a century, from when the teens are first questioned about the incident in the spring of 1989, going through their exoneration in 2002 and ultimately the settlement reached with the city of New York in 2014.

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7 The Pacific, 2010

December 1941. Pearl Harbour has been attacked by Japan and the US has entered World War 2. Robert Leckie immediately enlists in the Marines. Eugene Sledge would like to enlist but a heart condition prevents him from doing so. John Basilone is a Sergeant in the Marines. These are their experiences in the Pacific Theatre of World War 2.

It is based primarily on the memoirs of two US Marines: With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa by Eugene Sledge and Helmet for My Pillow by Robert Leckie. It also draws on Sledge’s memoir China Marine and Red Blood, Black Sand, the memoir of Chuck Tatum, a Marine who fought alongside Basilone at Iwo Jima.

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6 Mindhunter, 2017-2019

In the late 1970s, two FBI agents broaden the realm of criminal science by investigating the psychology behind murder and end up getting too close to real-life monsters.

Mindhunter is based on the 1996 book Mind Hunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit, by former special agent John Douglas and Mark Olshaker. For years, Douglas pursued some of the most notorious serial killers and rapists, developing profiling techniques to catch them. The book goes behind the scenes of some of his highest-profile cases, including the man who hunted prostitutes in Alaska, the Atlanta child murderer, and Seattle’s Green River killer. To hone in his profiling methods Douglas interviewed and studied a skew of serial killers. Several book and TV characters have been based in part on him, including Jack Crawford in Thomas Harris’ The Silence of the Lambs, Will Graham on Hannibal and Jason Gideon on Criminal Minds.

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5 Narcos, 2015-2017

A chronicled look at the criminal exploits of Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar, as well as the many other drug kingpins who plagued the country through the years.

Pablo Escobar was a Colombian drug lord, narcoterrorist, and politician, who was the founder and sole leader of the Medellín Cartel. Dubbed «the king of cocaine», Escobar was one of the wealthiest criminals in history, having amassed an estimated net worth of US$30 billion by the time of his death — equivalent to $70 billion as of 2022 — while his drug cartel monopolized the cocaine trade into the United States in the 1980s and early 1990s.

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4 The Crown, 2016-2023

This show focuses on Queen Elizabeth II as a young newlywed faced with leading the world’s most famous monarchy while forging a relationship with legendary Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill. The British Empire is in decline, the political world is in disarray, but a new era is dawning. Peter Morgan’s masterfully-researched scripts reveal the Queen’s private journey behind the public façade with daring frankness. Prepare to see into the coveted world of power and privilege behind the locked doors of Westminster and Buckingham Palace.

Elizabeth II was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until her death in 2022. She was queen regnant of 32 sovereign states over the course of her lifetime and remained the monarch of 15 realms by the time of her death. Her reign of 70 years and 214 days is the longest of any British monarch or female monarch, and the second-longest verified reign of any monarch of a sovereign state in history.

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3 The Offer, 2022

Al Ruddy is working as a programmer at the Rand Corporation but sees an opportunity to produce TV shows and movies. Mario Puzo is a struggling author whose wife gives him an idea to write a book on the Mafia. Joe Colombo is a rising crime boss. Their three worlds are about to collide, resulting in the making of one of the greatest films of all time.

Oscar-winning producer Albert S. Ruddy’s never-before-revealed experiences of making The Godfather.

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2 Chernobyl, 2019

On April 26, 1986 the Chernobyl nuclear power plant near Pripyat, Ukraine experienced a malfunction which resulted in a core explosion in reactor 4. This miniseries follows Valery Legasov, the lead scientist working to control the disaster, Boris Shcherbina, a Soviet politician representing the interests of the Soviet government during the disaster, and Ulana Khomyuk, a nuclear physicist working to uncover the truth about what really happened at Chernobyl. This series tackles the problems that arise when the truth is ignored and kept from the public, begging the question: «What is the cost of lies?».

The Chernobyl disaster began on 26 April 1986 with the explosion of the No. 4 reactor of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant near the city of Pripyat in the north of the Ukrainian SSR, close to the border with the Byelorussian SSR, in the Soviet Union. It is one of only two nuclear energy accidents rated at seven — the maximum severity — on the International Nuclear Event Scale, the other being the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident. The initial emergency response and subsequent mitigation efforts involved more than 500,000 personnel and cost an estimated 18 billion roubles — roughly US$68 billion in 2019, adjusted for inflation. It was the worst nuclear disaster in history, and the costliest disaster in human history, costing an estimated US$700 billion.

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1 Band of Brothers, 2001

The story of Easy Company of the U.S. Army 101st Airborne Division and their mission in World War II Europe, from Operation Overlord to V-J Day.

Based on interviews with survivors of Easy Company, as well as soldiers’ journals and letters, this 10-part series chronicles the experiences of these young men who knew extraordinary bravery and extraordinary fear.

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