It Was Hard Picking a Favorite Harlan Coben Netflix Show, But We Did It Anyway
Harlen Coben is a name you’ve likely seen while perusing Netflix’s drama and mystery categories. The prolific author has published close to 40 novels in just over thirty years, and quite a few of his books have been adapted into television series by Netflix and other streamers.
As of this writing, Netflix features eight separate series based on Coben’s work, and there’s more content on the way. Netflix recently announced that they’ve greenlit two more limited series based on his novels Missing You (2014) and Run Away (2019). Both of these series will be produced by Quay Street Productions and Coben will serve as executive producer via his own company, Final Twist Productions. Missing You is scheduled to begin shooting any day now, so it will likely be available to watch before Run Away.
If you’re looking for a murky mystery to unravel right now, we’ve ranked our favorite current Coben offerings below. We start with Hold Tight, our least favorite adaptation, but you’ll have to keep scrolling to see which series earned the number 1 spot on our list of favorites.
8. Hold Tight
Premiere: April 22, 2022
This limited series consists of just six episodes, but frankly … that’s enough. Hold Tight is one of Coben’s many foreign shows that was filmed in Warsaw, Poland, and later dubbed into the English language. Normally Netflix does an incredible job with dubbing from foreign languages, but this was a rare miss for the streamer. The voices just didn’t match, and the whole story feels disjointed and, forgive us for saying so, rather silly.
The story is about a young man who goes missing right after his friend passes away. There’s a serial killer hiding in plain sight in their tight-knit community, and all of these stories come together in a very twisty-turny conclusion.
7. Gone For Good
Premiere: August 31, 2021
Like Hold Tight, Gone For Good was filmed overseas, but this one was made in France. The English dubbing is much better in this show, but still not quite up to the streamer’s usual standards. Finnegan Oldfield plays a social worker named Guillaume who is coping with the sudden disappearance of his girlfriend. He starts experiencing flashbacks from his troubled past, reliving the sight of his brother and ex-girlfriend’s murder ten years prior. Audiences follow Guillaume over 5 episodes as he investigates his girlfriend’s disappearance and connects the dots between past and present to solve the mystery.
6. Stay Close
Premiere: December 31, 2021
Cush Jumbo plays Megan Pierce, a British mother-of-three who’s engaged to be married. She comes home late one night after celebrating at her bachelorette party and discovers a note stuck on her door. A stranger from her past has emerged, complicating her present and connecting her inextricably with Detective Michael Broome (James Nesbitt) and a photojournalist named Ray Levine (Richard Armitage). All three people are haunted by a single disappearance 17 years ago … but why?
5. The Woods
Premiere: June 14, 2020
Here’s another Polish production that originally aired in that country and was later dubbed into English. There are two storylines to follow, one in 1994 and another in 2019. Present-day prosecutor Pawel Kopinski (Grzegorz Damiecki) is asked to identify the body of a murder victim because the crime seems to be linked to an experience he and other teens had back in 1994. Two people were murdered and two more went missing back then. Is this recent murder connected?
4. The Innocent
Premiered: April 30, 2021
This series was shot in Spain, filmed in Spanish, and later dubbed to English. Mario Casas plays Mateo Vidal, a man who was just released from prison and is determined to stay out of trouble. Years ago he went to jail for accidentally killing a man, and he wants a fresh start. He marries his girlfriend Olivia (Aura Garrido), who waited patiently while he did his time, yet their relationship immediately begins to fray once he’s home. Mateo discovers Olivia is hiding a dark secret that will keep audiences guessing until the final moments.
3. The Stranger
Premiere: January 30, 2020
Richard Armitage appears yet again in this British limited series consisting of just eight episodes. He plays Adam Price, a father who is confused when a stranger (Hannah-John Kamen) approaches him with uncanny information about his own family. After he tells his wife (Dervla Kirwan) what the stranger said, his wife disappears without a trace. Later, one of their teenage son’s friends is found wandering naked in the forest, leaving Adam to figure out the connection before it’s too late.
2. Safe
Premiere: May 10, 2018
One of the earliest Coben series to hit Netflix is still one of our favorites, and not just because it features Dexter’s Michael C. Hall. (But it doesn’t hurt!) Hall plays a recently widowed dad trying to keep his family together in a gated community, but when his daughter Jenny (Amy James-Kelly) disappears with her boyfriend, he discovers things are not as they first appeared in his community.
1. Fool Me Once
Premiered: January 1, 2024
The best of the Coben Netflix offerings arrived most recently, on New Year’s Day 2024. It was easily the most critically acclaimed of all the author’s Netflix series, reaching the streamer’s Top 10 in 91 different countries and amassing 61 million views in its first two weeks online. Thanks to the success of Fool Me Once, the streamer greenlighted the next two series we mentioned above.
This series follows a military veteran (Michelle Keegan) who is mourning the loss of her sister and husband (Richard Armitage again!) when she gets a shock compliments of a hidden nanny camera in her daughter’s room. It appears that her husband has faked his own death, but why would he do that? Dänya Griver and Daniel Burt play her niece and nephew who join in the search for the truth, and the always amazing Dame Joanna Lumley (Absolutely Fabulous) rounds out the cast as her possibly evil mother-in-law, Judith. Honestly, you had us at Joanna Lumley!
We look forward to seeing the next two series in Coben’s catalog once they make their way to Netflix. In the meantime, all eight of Coben’s current offerings are available to stream now.
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