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Mike Flanagan has become one of the best horror writer/directors of the last decade thanks, in part, to his multi-series deal with Netflix. The five shows he created for Netflix have allowed him to hone his style and craft in different ways, each telling unique and spooky stories that, above all, are human. While he did also write and direct the horror movie Gerald’s Game for Netflix, that will not be included in this ranking, as we are focusing on his TV shows.
As a fan of his work, trying to rank Mike Flanagan shows sometimes feels like trying to pick a favorite child. While there are some that obviously stand out more than others, they each have their merits and are worthy watches during spooky season, or any time of year. Because Flanagan has since parted way with Netflix, opting to sign an overall deal with Amazon Studios for whatever his next projects may be, this list will likely be final. That being said, here is our ranking of Mike Flanagan’s Netflix horror shows, from “worst” to best.
5. The Midnight Club
The Midnight Club was a valiant effort by Flanagan to take his signature horror brand and make it more appealing to a younger audience. Based on various young adult thriller novels by Christopher Pike, including his novel of the same name, this series follows a group of youths with various terminal illnesses as they live out their final days at the mysterious Brightcliffe hospice center. They form the titular Midnight Club as a way to share scary stories and deal with the trauma of their impending deaths. It’s not a bad series by any means, but compared to Flanagan’s other shows, it doesn’t quite hit the mark that we expect after watching Haunting of Hill House or Midnight Mass.
4. The Fall of the House of Usher
Deciding where to place Flanagan’s most recent series on this list was hard. The Fall of the House of Usher is a compelling and haunting adaptation of various works by Edgar Allan Poe, but because of that it’s slightly more predictable. This show is so beautifully done, both stylistically and through the cast’s performances that it feels almost sacrilegious to rank it next to last. However, it’s hard to beat the emotional power of his first three shows, and The Fall of the House of Usher doesn’t quite reach that high bar, as hard as it tries to. Where this show does excel, however, is in crafting some of the most terrifying and gruesome death scenes we’ve seen from the filmmaker. They’re the kind of moments that stick with you long after the TV has been turned off, which is a testament to Flanagan’s skills as a horror master.
3. The Haunting of Hill House
The first of Flanagan’s Netflix horror series, The Haunting of Hill House remains one of his best. He puts the capital H in Haunting as he tells the story of the Crane family and the trauma they’ve endured since they became the owners and denizens of the eerie Hill House. The spirits that we come across are terrifying on their own, but the series does an impeccable job of making the house itself feel like a living, breathing, malevolent entity as well, both in the past and the present. As with the majority of Flanagan’s work, The Haunting of Hill House is as heartbreaking as it is genuinely scary and set the bar really high for his projects that followed.
2. The Haunting of Bly Manor
Placing The Haunting of Bly Manor above Hill House might be slightly controversial to some, but they are nearly tied in my book. What puts Bly Manor slightly over the top, however, is the queer love story at its core. Like Hill House before it, Bly Manor balances the heartbreaking with the scary impeccably. But what ultimately sets it apart is its ability to weave Dani (Victoria Pedretti) and Jamie’s (Amelia Eve) love story so expertly within the tragedy and horror going on around them. There’s hope here, where there really isn’t much in Flanagan’s other work.
1. Midnight Mass
As Flanagan’s only wholly original work, Midnight Mass stands out slightly above the rest. Netflix clearly let him cook, and the result is a chilling story about a small island town and its fight with vampires and, in a way, organized religion. After centuries of vampire stories and legends, it’s hard to tell an original story that doesn’t feel derivative or a ripoff of something we’ve already seen. Obviously, Flanagan hasn’t reinvented the proverbial wheel with Midnight Mass, but he still manages to tell a vampire story that feels unique and exciting, which itself is an impressive feat.
Though the margin between them isn’t large, Midnight Mass is the best of Flanagan’s Netflix shows. It features a plethora of incredible performances from Rahul Kohli as Sheriff Hassan to Hamish Linklater as the chilling Father Paul to Annabeth Gish as Dr. Sarah Gunning to Zach Gilford as Riley Flynn. The entire cast acted their asses off, and it shows in every scene. The setting is idyllic yet eerily isolated, adding onto the terror we feel as the plot unfolds. It’s an automatic rewatch for me every spooky season, and I’ve yet to grow tired of it.
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