Vladimir

Adapted from Julia May Jonas's acclaimed novel of the same name, with Jonas also serving as creator, writer and executive producer in her debut as a showrunner, Vladimir brings one of the season's most divisive antiheroines to Netflix. Rachel Weisz, also an executive producer, plays an unnamed university professor whose professional and marital life unravels as she becomes dangerously fixated on new colleague Vladimir, played by Leo Woodall, fresh off The White Lotus. John Slattery rounds out the cast as her husband, embroiled in a misconduct investigation.

The eight episodes, set on an upstate New York campus, weave academic satire with erotic obsession in a story critics called sharp and uncomfortable, elevating the adaptation beyond expectations, though some reviewers found it smug and lacking real narrative release. Vladimir's appeal lies precisely in its ambiguity: the camera never lingers explicitly, preferring to convey desire through glances, awkward silences and biting dialogue about academic power and gender. It is a series about obsession more than sex, which is exactly why it stands as one of the year's most sophisticated and talked-about explorations of intellectual eroticism on television.