540 Best TV-MA Movies to Watch (Page 17)

Genre: Crime, Drama

Actor: Alberto Ammann, Alberto Guerra, Christian Tappán, Juliana Aidén Martinez, Martín Rodríguez, Sofia Vergara, Vanessa Ferlito

Rating: TV-MA

To mere observers, a grudge can seem like just that: a grudge. Shallow, inconsequential, and probably fixable. But for those involved, the cut feels deeper and saltier, despite (or because of) its inexplicable nature. This maddening feeling is what Ryan Murphy both explores and honors in Feud, and boy does he go all in: vicious dialoge, prima donna veterans, stylish costumes, and period-accurate sets. But the real cause for celebration is the empathy he affords to both sides of the feud. There is delicious drama of course, which is what makes this as addictive and watchable as any episode of The Real Housewives, but there is also space for difficult feelings and contradictory ideals. Real archenemies can’t get enough of one another, like Crawford and Davis, and Capote and his swans. It’s that obsession that ultimately makes feuds, and Feud, utterly fascinating. 

Genre: Drama

Actor: Calista Flockhart, Chloe Sevigny, Diane Lane, Naomi Watts, Tom Hollander

Rating: TV-MA

Whoever paired Christina Applegate with Linda Cardellini should be given a raise. As the inadvertent crime duo Jen and Judy, the actresses are magnetic—their chemistry simply radiates through the screen. Whether they’re solving a crime or attempting to incite one, you can’t help but root for them. As long as they’re on screen interacting, everything else—the basic mystery, the predictable twists—is forgivable. 

Aside from the irresistible pairing, Dead to Me is also very watchable for its precise and sympathetic take on grief and womanhood. Both Jen and Judy have had to suffer through immense loss, and the series reminds us through their different reactions that there is no one way to grieve. They're also middle-aged women, a fact that the series handles in a refreshingly deft manner. In lesser hands, this could have been trivialized or sensationalized, but under the helm of showrunner Liz Feldman, it's a simple matter of fact that ingrains itself in every moment.

Dead to Me is both heartwarming and gut-busting, a darkly comic series buoyed by strong performances and principles. 

Genre: Comedy, Crime, Drama

Actor: Christina Applegate, Edward Asner, James Marsden, Linda Cardellini, Luke Roessler, Max Jenkins, Sam McCarthy

Rating: TV-MA

In After Life, Ricky Gervais plays a kind-hearted journalist who turns dark after his wife passes away. Her parting gift to him is a video manual on how to deal with life. But his pessimism and annoyance with people keep delaying him from watching it. Worst of all, a new recruit at the newspaper is assigned to work with him. Her determined personality not only further delays him from dealing with his sadness, but gives him the platform to be even darker and more pessimistic. After Life is a mix of dark humor, straightforward drama, and tragedy. It’s a difficult story packaged in the easiest and most digestible TV form. The episodes are quick, have clear arcs and plot; and yet, you won’t be able to shake the feeling that you’re watching something much deeper than a Ricky Gervais comedy.

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Actor: Ashley Jensen, David Bradley, David Earl, Diane Morgan, Jo Hartley, Joe Wilkinson, Kerry Godliman, Mandeep Dhillon, Penelope Wilton, Ricky Gervais, Roisin Conaty, Tom Basden, Tommy Finnegan, Tony Way

Rating: TV-MA

Growing up in multiple foster homes to an absentee mother and imprisoned father, Paige Alexander (Kerry Washington) has had a tough life, but you wouldn’t know from the way she carries herself. She’s bright, cheerful, and constantly buoyed by her ambitious hopes for upward mobility. But there are cracks to her facade, and all the trauma she’s been keeping in spills over one day when her recently released father decides to move in with Paige and her teenage son.

Trust and abandonment issues start to emerge. Resentment bubbles over. Despite being a relationship therapist, Paige cannot stabilize her love life. A viewer might expect a self-serious dramedy at this point, but Unprisoned refuses to be pigeonholed in this category. Instead, the show extracts unexpected joy from its bleak premise. Paige and her father Edwin (the perfectly cast Delroy Lindo) riff off each other with sparkling dialogue. They deploy endless jokes sometimes to hide their pain, but mostly to connect in that unique father-daughter way. After years of mistrust and negligence, they’re understandably broken but not, as it turns out, irredeemable. Relatable, sympathetic, and big-hearted, Unprisoned is a welcome show about the unexpected ways we heal (and the detours we take along the way). 

Genre: Comedy

Actor: Delroy Lindo, Faly Rakotohavana, Kerry Washington, Marque Richardson

Rating: TV-MA