Top 10 Jewish shows to watch on Netflix and Amazon in 2020!
From meshuganah millennials and families at war to secret spy missions and the coming of the Messiah, here’s our pick of the best shows to watch now!
Francine Wolfisz is the Features Editor for Jewish News.
Marriage Story
Scarlett Johansson stars in this comedy drama about a couple going through divorce from director Noah Baumbach (The Meyerowitz Stories). Adam Driver and Johansson play Charlie and Nicole, a talented actress who moved from Los Angeles to New York and an off-Broadway director. When Charlie is offered television work in LA, her discontentment comes to the fore and their relationship begins to unravel. Based on Baumbach’s own divorce from actress Jennifer Jason Leigh, the cast also stars Laura Dern, Ray Liotta and Alan Alda.
Marriage Story is available on Netflix
Messiah
French–Jewish actor Tomer Sisley plays an Israeli intelligence officer investigating a mysterious and charismatic man (Mehdi Dehbi) who gains global attention for apparently performing miracles. CIA officer Eva Geller (Michelle Monaghan) tries to unravel whether he is a divine entity or a con artist. Mad Men actress Melinda Page Hamilton stars alongside Wil Traval, Fares Landoulsi, Dermot Mulroney and Beau Bridges.
Messiah is available on Netflix
Broad City
Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer star as Jewish millennials trying to figure it all out in New York. Take some neurosis and a big dose of chutzpah and the result is this fantastically fresh take on being a member of the tribe. As Ilana says in the fifth and final series: “Now I know that being Jewish is about being resilient – having the strength to survive the Holocaust, perpetual exile, as well as being able to carry a table to the parking lot of Ikea at 91 years old.”
Broad City is available to purchase from Amazon Prime Video
The Red Sea Diving Resort
Based on the real-life rescue mission, the details of which were declassified a few years ago, The Red Sea Diving Resort tells the daring story of Mossad agents and brave Ethiopians working together in the early 1980s to use a deserted holiday retreat in Sudan as a front to smuggle thousands of Ethiopian-Jewish refugees to Israel. Directed, written and co-produced by Homeland creator, Gideon Raff, the cast features Chris Evans as Ari Kidron, the Mossad agent who co-leads the mission into Sudan, alongside Michael Kenneth Williams, Ben Kingsley, Haley Bennett and Alessandro Nivola.
The Red Sea Diving Resort is available to watch on Netflix
The Spy
Sacha Baron Cohen stars as a Mossad agent in The Spy, released this week. Eli Cohen worked undercover in Syria in 1961 -65 and developed close ties with the political and military hierarchy, before becoming chief adviser to the minister of defence. But his cover, under the alias Kamel Amin Thaabet, was eventually blown and he was put on trial and executed by Syria. The intelligence he gathered was credited by then-PM Levi Eshkol as a factor in Israel’s success in the Six-Day War. His story is brought to life by Homeland creator Gideon Raff, who writes and directs the six-part drama.
The Spy is available on Netflix
Schitt’s Creek
Real-life father and son Eugene and Dan Levy star as video store magnate Johnny Rose and his grown-up son David, alongside wife and former soap star Moira (Catherine O’Hara) and daughter Alexis (Annie Murphy). The Roses lose their fortune after being defrauded and are forced to rebuild their lives with their sole remaining asset: a small town named Schitt’s Creek that they bought as a joke birthday gift for their son.
From a rundown motel, they adjust to their new life alongside residents including mayor Roland Schitt (Chris Elliot) and wife Jocelyn (Jenn Robertson).
Schitt’s Creek is available on Netflix
The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, Series 3
In the third series of the award-winning show from husband-and-wife team Amy Sherman-Palladino and Dan Palladino, housewife turned comic Midge Maisel (Rachel Brosnahan) and her manager Susie (Alex Borstein) leave the comedy clubs of New York for the more exotic Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Chicago and Miami.
Her parents follow closely behind, having only recently discovered the truth about their dutiful daughter.
This Is Us and Black Panther star Sterling K Brown joins the cast.
The Marvelous Mrs Maisel is available on Amazon Prime Video
The Devil Next Door
John Demjanjuk lived comfortably in Cleveland as a retired Ukrainian-American carworker until his past caught up with him. A group of Holocaust survivors identified him as the Treblinka death camp guard Ivan the Terrible. This riveting five-part documentary tells what happened next. In 1985, he was tried in Israel and acquitted after pleading that he was never at Treblinka, but at a different camp, which was apparently true.
He was later extradited to Germany and convicted as an accessory to the murder of 28,000 Jews.
The Devil Next Door is available on Netflix
Coming Soon: The Stranger
Harlan Coben’s thriller The Stranger has been adapted into an eight-part series. Richard Armitage (Spooks and The Hobbit) takes on the role of Adam Price, a man whose life is seemingly perfect until he is approached by a stranger at a bar (Hannah John Kamen), who reveals a shocking secret about his wife.
The Stranger is on Netflix from 31 January
Coming Soon: Grace and Frankie, series 6
Jane Fonda (Grace) and Lily Tomlin (Frankie) return for the sixth series of the comedy from co-creators Marta Kauffman and Howard J Morris. Grace and Frankie’s lives are turned upside down when their husbands reveal they are gay and are in love with each other. Expect plenty of laughter, tears and mood enhancers.
Grace & Frankie is on Netflix from 15 January
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- Features
- Marriage Story
- Scarlett Johansson
- Noah Baumbach
- Netflix
- Amazon
- Tomer Sisley
- Abbi Jacobson
- Ilana Glazer
- Broad City
- The Red Sea Diving Resort
- The Spy
- Sacha Baron Cohen
- Schitt’s Creek
- Eugene and Dan Levy
- Eugene Levy
- Dan Levy
- The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
- Amy Sherman-Palladino
- Dan Palladino
- The Devil Next Door
- John Demjanjuk
- The Stranger
- Harlan Coben
- Grace and Frankie
- Jane Fonda
- Lily Tomlin
- News Features
