11 Netflix series you should watch with your significant other this summer

Maanya Sachdeva recommends the top Netflix titles coupled-up viewers can savour together right now

A still from Netflix’s smash hit real estate reality show ‘Selling Sunset’ (Netflix)

The simple act of watching telly with your partner is one of life’s unparalleled joys. Though it may appear outwardly mundane, research suggests that couples who binge together stay together for longer – and get friskier than those who don’t.

In a 2019 study published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, researchers found joint TV viewing habits can help couples create a “shared social identity” and, in turn, engage in some self-expansion action.

This is essentially the process through which romantic partners open up to each other about their true selves – which presumably includes a crippling Selling Sunset addiction or the shame of never having watched Game of Thrones. The study concluded that watching TV together can improve the overall quality of romantic relationships.

Further, couples who engaged in self-expanding activities also reported improved sex lives in a separate study – though there is some dispute over what makes the cut as being “self-expansive”.

Despite its potential to bring couples closer together, joint Netflix viewing is often marred by bickering, remote-snatching, or the kind of crippling indecision solo watchers like myself are less prone to. So, in the interest of science, love and the delightful ways they intertwine with each other, here’s a list of 11 (ish) shows you can watch with your significant other this summer:

1. Selling Sunset (Five seasons)

Immerse yourself in the drama at the Oppenheim Group, a swanky Los Angeles brokerage at the heart of this wildly successful Netflix reality series. Now in its fifth season, and renewed for a sixth and seventh, Selling Sunset follows attorney-turned-brokers and twin brothers Jason and Brett Oppenheim and their team of incredibly attractive, high-heeled real estate agents-turned-influencers as they list and sell stunning properties to some of the world’s most rich and famous.

The series begins with former soap star and new Oppenheim Group recruit Chrishell Stause joining the brokerage in season one. Alongwith the rest of the team, including Mary Fitzgerald, Christine Quinn, Davina Potratz, Maya Vander, Heather Rae, Stause must prove herself by bringing in premium listings to the brokerage. As the seasons play out, alliances and rivalries emerge, blur and re-emerge with a vengeance – against the backdrop of glamorous parties, brokers’ opens, and boozy brunches, set in a celebrity-filled world that doesn’t always feel real.

This makes Selling Sunset perfect for a weeknight, escapist Netflix binge (and a little dream home manifestation).

2. How To Build A Sex Room 

You’ve probably watched home improvement shows before, but How To Build A Sex Room really turns the temperature up. Released earlier this month, the reality series takes viewers inside the inner sexual worlds of diverse American couples through the eyes of Melanie Rose, a middle-aged British interior designer. Rose’s speciality, we learn, is building her clients the perfect sex rooms, equipped with whatever might tickle their fancies – from floggers and saddles to inversion tables and chrome stripper poles.

As with most home makeover shows, Rose begins each episode by understanding her clients’ needs and inspecting the spaces she will transform into unique pleasure palaces for unbridled exploration. Then – and this is a first for the genre – she sits down with them to talk about sex, baby. Toys, kinks, and trust are all discussed with Rose who, as The Independent’s Amanda Whiting writes, has an “air of cultivated eccentricity” which becomes her most important tool in the redesign process.

“It puts her clients at ease, so much so that they divulge secrets to her that they’ve never shared with their partners,” Whiting continues, calling the “delightfully and deceptively educational” show “sincere and bingeable reality TV”.

‘How to Build a Sex Room’ arrived on Netflix this month (Netflix)

3. The Staircase 

Dig your nails into this real-life murder mystery that’s now spawned a controversial, new mini-series starring Colin Firth as crime novelist Michael Peterson. In 2001, Michael was accused of killing his wife Kathleen after she was found dead at the bottom of the stairs in their home. Oscar-winner Jean-Xaver de Lestrade documented the trial in which Peterson was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison.

That would’ve been the end of that but, in 2011, it was revealed that one of the prosecution’s witnesses had committed perjury. This was the opening Michael and his family used to successfully appeal the verdict and secure a retrial – pending which the author and former war veteran was placed on house arrest. Lestrade was granted immediate access to the case and directed the follow-up to his 2004 film The Staircase II - Last Chance.

Lestrade’s work on the Peterson murder was acquired by Netflix in 2018 and is available on the platform as a 13-episode, nail-biting season that will leave you with more questions than answers.

4. Borgen & Borgen: Power & Glory (Four seasons in total)

If you’ve been sleeping on this Danish political drama that’s been compared to The West Wing, we insist you cue Borgen up for any forthcoming Netflix-and-actively-watch-the-show-not-chill date nights with your boo. Released in 2010, season one of Borgen begins with the leader of a minor, centrist political party Birgitte Nyborg (Sidse Babbett Knudsen) being elected as the country’s first female prime minister amid scandal around the incumbent leader.

A production of the Danish public broadcaster DR, Borgen ran for three seasons which were acquired by Netflix in September 2020. The fourth season was released as a standalone series Borgen: Power & Glory on the platform in February this year – meaning first-time Borgen viewers have a long way to watch before catching up to Nyborg in Power and Glory.

According to Vanity Fair’s review for the newly released installment, what makes Borgen so satisfying “is that it doesn’t bother half-assing any ‘gotta see both sides’ baloney, the way so many other scripted political shows do”. Instead, the review reads, it “treats its viewers like intelligent adults – but adults who aren’t above light soap opera vibes”.

5. Stranger Things (Four seasons)

Chances are, you’ve heard of this sci-fi/horror drama that’s bringing in the big bucks for Netflix, and is on track to accumulate one billion viewing hours across audiences around the world. The Duffer Brothers unleashed Stranger Things – set in a small, sleepy American town Hawkins where evil forces are always around the corner – on the world in 2016. Since then, the series has spawned incredible global fandom, made superstars of its young cast members, and singularly led the revival of Kate Bush’s “Running Up The Hill”.

The show’s fourth instalment (or “chapter”) was released in May this year and, in his review for The Independent, Nick Hilton calls it a “near-faultless crowd pleaser”. Needless to say, if you haven’t watched it yet, you’re missing out. The only reason this writer has been unable to jump right into season four is because she has a weak stomach and the gore this time is apparently off-the-charts icky. However, since you’re likely coupled up if you’re reading this, please dig your nails into each other’s arms and allow yourself to be transported to Hawkins where Vecna’s curse is causing a body pile-up the size of your unfolded laundry.

Hilton’s review of season four is actually the perfect elevator pitch for the franchise, that has gone from strength to strength since its debut. It reads: “This excellent penultimate season of Netflix’s golden goose is the perfect antidote to lowest common denominator television: a show that offers much more than its audience asks for.”

Lucky for you lovebirds, Stranger Things has been renewed for a fifth and final season which is expected to air in 2024.

Millie Bobby Brown as Eleven in ‘Stranger Things' (Courtesy of Netflix)

6. The Umbrella Academy (Three seasons)

One of Netflix’s most watched TV shows in 2020, The Umbrella Academy returned to the platform for its third season in June this year. Based on a collection of graphic novels and comics by My Chemical Romance singer Gerard Way, the series focuses on a billionaire industrialist Sir Reginald Hargreeves’s adoptive family of superheroes known as the Umbrella Academy. Its cast includes Elliot Page, Robert Sheehan, Tom Hopper and Emmy Raver-Lampman.

Page, a transgender actor who came out publicly back in December 2020, initially played cisgender woman Vanya Hargreeves on the first two seasons. Though it was initially reported that there were no plans for Page’s character to be re-written as trans, the actor announced on Twitter in March that his character will furthermore be known as Viktor. Following the release of season three, fans praised the show’s handling of a gender transition storyline concerning Page’s character.

But why should you watch it? Top-notch superhero action, inclusivity, family secrets, stellar character development, shock betrayals, and a forthcoming fourth season to name a few.

7. Money Heist: Korea - Joint Economic Force

The Korean remake of Netflix’s Spanish language hit Money Heist – or La Casa del Papel – was released on the streaming service earlier this year. If you’ve watched and loved the original show, which released in 2017 and became an international hit, maybe the K-remake can fill The Professor-shaped hole in your collective heart.

The original crime drama followed an elaborate heist scheme orchestrated at the Royal Mint of Spain, by a man known as The Professor and his band of thieving recruits. In the recently released adaptation, North and South Korea are on the verge of a peaceful reunification following 80 years of division. As the nations begin to print a brand-new unified currency, a heist is organised by a genius strategist known as the Professor (Yoo Ji-tae), and carried out by a crew of expert thieves.

The 12-episode series (directed by Kim Hong-Sun) is led by a number of high-profile Korean actors including Yoo Ji-tae (Oldboy), Kim Yunjin (Shiri, Lost), and Jeon Jong-seo (Burning). Fans of last year’s Korean smash hit Squid Game will recognise cast member Park Hae-soo for his role as the childhood friend of the main character Seong Gi-hun, played by Lee Jung-jae.

8. Manifest 

The 191 passengers on Montego Air Flight 828 from Hawaii to New York experience truly horrifying turbulence but, other than that, nothing could’ve prepared them for landing, when they realise they’ve been missing, presumed dead for five years. This is where season one of Manifest, starring Melissa Roxburgh as protagonist Michaela Coel, begins and it’s a terrifying roller coaster ride from there on.

The grief of time passing washes over Michaela and her brother Ben (Josh Dallas), who were on-board the doomed flight, when they learn their mother has died. Michaela’s almost-fiance has married another woman, Ben’s adolescent daughter is all grown up and in therapy. Nothing and no one is unchanged over the mystery five-year disappearance, and, the brother-sister duo realise when they start hearing strange voices in their heads, neither are they.

The fast-paced thriller is due to return next year for its fourth and final season, making right now the perfect time to tear through Manifest in time for a presumably shock ending – cushioned by the safety of your spooning partner.

9. The Sinner (Four seasons)

Following the release of The Sinner’s fourth season, fans praised the show by comparing it to fine wine; it gets better and better with time. The brutal drama centres around Detective Harry Ambrose (Bill Pullman) who encounters and solves violent crimes – focusing not so much on what happened, but why the crime was committed.

The show was first released in 2017 in the US before reaching the UK the following year where it attracted instant fandom. The first season is an adaptation of the 1999 novel by German crime writer Petra Hammesfahr following Cora Tanetti, a mother played by Jessica Biel who one day - while out with her family at the beach - is compelled to murder a seemingly innocent man in cold blood.

Since then, three new seasons of The Sinner – focusing on disparate crimes, and connected to each other only through Ambrose’s complex, nuanced character – have been released on Netflix and are available to stream right now.

Jessica Biel in season three of The Sinner on Netflix (Netflix)

10. Servant of the People 

Servant of the People emerged on news feeds, timelines and watch lists in February when Russia invaded Ukraine. The reason that this Ukrainian political satire was catapulted into the spotlight was because it stars current president Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a curious case of life imitating art. Zelenskyy plays thirty-something high-school teacher Vasily Petrovich Holoborodko, who’s elected to the office of President after a video of him railing against the system goes viral.

Considering the show was released four years before Zelenskyy – a former comedian – took office following a landslide victory – Servant of the People makes for surreal viewing in 2022.

However, if you and your partner haven’t had the chance to watch the prescient sitcom yet, maybe The Independent’s five-star review of the “genuinely egalitarian comedy” will be good enough to convince you both.

Sean O’Grady writes: “It is fascinating to see how and where [the dispute between Ukraine and Russia] started, and not in the sense of the made-up history that Vladimir Putin spouts during his angry but wooden propaganda lectures.” The show has earned its place in cultural history, O’Grady continues, adding, “Ukraine is lucky to have Holoborodko, and, at war, Ukraine is lucky to have Zelenskyy”.

11. Better Call Saul  (Six seasons)

A prequel to Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul is a spinoff that gives its hugely successful predecessor a run for its money. The show features Jimmy McGill/Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk) six years before he began representing notorious chemist-turned-meth dealer Walter White (Bryan Cranston). Its characterisation and deep dive into Saul’s humble beginnings, before he became a sleazy and confident fan-favourite attorney, makes the show really enticing to almost everyone – even if they’re (shockingly) unfamiliar with Breaking Bad.

Bob Odenkirk as Saul Goodman in ‘Better Call Saul’ (Netflix)

The show is currently in its sixth and final season, and returns to Netflix after a mid-season break on Tuesday (12 July). In his five-star review for The Independent, Louis Chilton calls the “slow-burner” one of the best directed and best acted shows on TV. Whether you’re picking up where you left off, and prepping for an epic endgame, or starting the series right now, we guarantee Better Call Saul will have you insisting your partner doesn’t watch any new episodes with you.

We can’t, however, guarantee they will.