Credit: Lucas Gouveia/How-To GeekAugust is limping towards the finish line, but apparently Netflix didn’t get the memo about winding down, because in addition to the final season of Outer Banks, three new additions landed on the streamer within the last week, and two of them are already parked in the Top 10.
All bingeable over the course of a weekend, there’s a seethingly gritty Swedish serial-killer hunt, an occult spy story set in Anne Rice’s world, and a weird supernatural Syfy transplant where the dead are rising.
3
Blood Sacrifice
A Swedish killer is hunting cops every Friday night
I’m a huge fan of Nordic crime thrillers. They’re dark, slow-burning, and often twisted, and Netflix has had some great ones, including The Åre Murders and The Chestnut Man—watch them next. 2026’s Blood Sacrifice is another one; it just landed on the service on August 20 and went straight to No. 1 on Netflix’s non-English chart. It’s also sitting at No. 3 in the U.S. Top 10 as I write this.
From the writer of crime series Lupin and the Idris Elba vehicle Hijack, Blood Sacrifice opens on a Friday night at precisely 1:15 a.m., when two Stockholm police officers investigating a home invasion call arrive to find an empty house. The next morning, they’re found dead, and the bodies keep coming—always on schedule, and always cops.
On the case is Detective Thomas Berg (Jakob Oftebro), who reluctantly recruits his estranged father, Alfred (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’s Peter Andersson), a disgraced ex-cop who, despite his sordid past, happens to be really good at tracking down killers. The twists are plentiful, the crime scenes are grisly, and you can crush all five episodes in about four hours.
Quiz
Name that Netflix thriller
Trivia challenge
From twisted mysteries to edge-of-your-seat crime dramas — can you identify
these Netflix original thrillers from just a clue?
CrimeMysterySuspenseDramaOriginals
Crime
A seemingly perfect suburban mom discovers her neighbor is harboring a dark secret,
leading her down a rabbit hole of lies, manipulation, and murder in this 2018 Netflix limited series
based on a bestselling novel.
and stars Eric Bana and Connie Britton. It follows Debra Newell, whose romance with charming con man
John Meehan unravels into something terrifying.
based on a true story and a hit podcast, following a woman whose seemingly ideal new partner turns out
to be a dangerous deceiver with a criminal past.
Suspense
A New York City bookstore clerk becomes obsessed with a woman he meets, going to
increasingly disturbing lengths to insert himself into her life — all while narrating his actions
with unsettling charm.
manager whose romantic obsessions quickly spiral into stalking and worse. The show’s genius lies in
making viewers almost sympathize with its deeply disturbing protagonist.
charming but deeply dangerous man whose inner monologue pulls viewers into his warped worldview. The
show has run for multiple seasons and become one of Netflix’s biggest hits.
Mystery
A financial advisor relocates his family to a lakeside Missouri town to launder
money for a drug cartel, making increasingly desperate decisions to keep his family alive in this
slow-burn crime drama.
Byrde, a couple forced to flee Chicago and set up a money-laundering operation in the Missouri Ozarks.
The show ran for four seasons and won multiple Emmy Awards.
much of this critically acclaimed series, which follows a family’s terrifying descent into the criminal
underworld after a money-laundering scheme goes wrong.
Drama
FBI agents travel across the country in the 1970s interviewing imprisoned serial
killers to understand the psychology of violence and build the foundations of modern criminal
profiling.
memoir by FBI agent John Douglas. It features chilling conversations with fictionalized versions of real
killers like Ed Kemper and Dennis Rader, and is praised for its meticulous period detail.
dramatizes the true origins of the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit. Its interviews with serial killers are
so unsettling partly because many are based on real transcripts.
Suspense
A woman wakes up with no memory of who she is or what she’s done, only to discover
she may be more dangerous than the people hunting her in this action-heavy 2020 Netflix original
film.
who is poisoned and given only 24 hours to live, during which she tears through Tokyo seeking revenge.
The film is packed with stylish action sequences and neon-lit visuals.
fierce performance as a dying assassin on a revenge mission through Japan. The film leans into its
action-thriller roots with inventive fight choreography and a bold visual style.
Crime
A true crime docuseries that investigates the mysterious death of a woman on a
hiking trail, raising questions about whether local authorities ignored key evidence in their rush
to close the case.
Dassey, who were convicted of murdering Teresa Halbach. The series sparked a massive public debate about
wrongful convictions and police misconduct when it launched in 2015.
docuseries ignited a national conversation about the justice system when it suggested Steven Avery may
have been framed by the very law enforcement he was suing at the time of his arrest.
Mystery
In this Spanish-language thriller, a group of students and professors are taken
hostage inside the Royal Mint of Spain by a criminal mastermind known only by a city name, who
orchestrates the heist from a remote location.
of the most-watched non-English series in Netflix history. It follows a genius criminal called The
Professor as he guides a team of robbers — each named after a city — through an elaborate heist.
phenomenon ran for five seasons and turned characters like The Professor and Tokyo into global icons.
It’s one of the most successful non-English language shows ever made.
Drama
A wealthy family’s patriarch dies under mysterious circumstances, and as each
sibling fights for control of the family business, long-buried secrets begin to surface in this 2018
psychological thriller series set in Florida.
Ben Mendelsohn, and Linda Cardellini as members of the Rayburn family. Ben Mendelsohn’s performance as
the troubled black sheep Danny earned widespread critical acclaim.
a non-linear narrative to build dread across three seasons. Ben Mendelsohn is particularly magnetic as
the volatile Danny Rayburn, whose return home sets a tragic chain of events in motion.
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2
Talamasca: The Secret Order
Anne Rice’s tales of vampires, witches, and spies
The third chapter of vampire queen Anne Rice’s Immortal Universe has made the jump from its home on AMC on August 23 (after being canceled) and joins two seasons of its sister series, Interview with the Vampire and Mayfair Witches, already hanging out on Netflix.
Six episodes of 2025’s Talamasca: The Secret Order are there for the taking, in all its witchy, vampirey, supernatural goodness, but this series has a cool, cat-and-mouse spy angle that’s refreshing. The story follows Guy Anatole (Dangerous Liaisons’ Nicholas Denton), a young Yale Law grad with psychic abilities, and whose life, unbeknownst to him, has been manipulated by the secretive goings-on of the Talamasca order. Guy’s higher calling is revealed to him by Helen (Downton Abbey’s Elizabeth McGovern), a senior agent in the order, who recruits him for a mission to London in search of Jasper (veteran actor William Fichtner), a very bad vampire who’s hunting a lost Talamasca text.
The order itself is drawn from Rice’s Vampire Chronicles and Mayfair Witches novels, though this story is an original that runs in the present day and runs parallel to Interview. At the time of writing, the series was #4 in TV shows on the Netflix app. Hopefully the Netflix boost will spark a second season.
Network
AMC
Cast
Nicholas Denton, Celine Buckens, Maisie Richardson-Sellers, William Fichtner, Elizabeth McGovern, Ahmad Sakhi, Chidi Ajufo, Jack Barton, Will Brown, John Moraitis, Simona Brown, Jane Bertish, Tomi May, Eric Bogosian, Jason Schwartzman, Elise Robertson, Lace Akpojaro, Michelle Wen Lee, Simona Bondoc, Colin Stinton, Molly Osborne, Nicholas Gecks, André Layne, Bryony Hannah, John Henshaw
Showrunner
John Lee Hancock, Mark Lafferty
Directors
Eva Sørhaug
Writers
John Lee Hancock, Anne Rice, Mark Lafferty, Donald Joh
Main Genre
Fantasy
Creator(s)
John Lee Hancock
Producers
Brennan Parks, Anna Fisher
Seasons
1
Release Window
2025
Executive Producer(s)
John Lee Hancock, Mark Johnson, Christopher Rice, Anne Rice, Mark Lafferty, Tom Williams
1
Revival
Small-town walking dead and a murder mystery
My number one pick this weekend is also the newest addition to Netflix on the list (added on August 24), and the highest-rated, with a solid 90% on Rotten Tomatoes. Revival is one of the best sci-fi crime mysteries you’ve probably never heard of, and I’ve loved it since I caught up with it on Peacock last fall. Now, all 10 episodes are on Netflix!
In the small town of Wausau, Wisconsin, the supernatural event “Revival Day” happens, and recently deceased people start clawing out of their graves. But they’re not the brain-munching, leg-draggers you’d expect—they’re lucid, fully healed, and, er, like their normal selves. Dubbed “Revivers” by the locals, the plot thickens when Em (Murdoch Mysteries’ Romy Weltman), the murdered sister of deputy sheriff Dana Cypress (Wynonna Earp’s Melanie Scrofano), returns from the dead.
While the CDC quarantines the town and weird stuff starts happening, Dana and Em work together to find Em’s killer. Adapted from the popular Image Comics series of the same name, its 10 episodes actually close the murder case by the finale.
Network
SyFy, CTV Sci-Fi Channel
Cast
Melanie Scrofano, Romy Weltman, David James Elliott, Andy McQueen, Mark Little, Katharine King So, Steven Ogg, Peter Millard, Hudson Robert Wurster, Gianpaolo Venuta, Kaleb Horn, Maia Jae Bastidas, Glen Gould, Nathan Dales, Lenore Zann, Nicky Guadagni, Derek McGrath, Nora McLellan, Conrad Coates, Brandon Oakes, Josh Cruddas, Karen Knox, Paige Evans, Pat Thornton, Jill Frappier
Showrunner
Luke Boyce, Aaron B. Koontz
Directors
Samir Rehem, Amanda Row
Writers
Noelle Carbone, Ashley Park, Heather Taylor, Luke Boyce, Aaron B. Koontz
Main Genre
Crime
Creator(s)
Aaron B. Koontz, Luke Boyce
Producers
Evan Ottoni, Ryan Plachcinski, Szonja Jakovits
Seasons
1
Executive Producer(s)
Daniel Iron, Daniel March, Lance Samuels, Luke Boyce, Aaron B. Koontz, Stephen Francis Foster, Samantha Levine, Amanda Row, Melanie Scrofano, Neil Tabatznik
August has saved some chills for last on Netflix
A sinister cop killer on the loose in Stockholm, a psychic chasing vampires, and really normal zombies—the end of the month on Netflix has more going on than usual. Stay tuned to How-To Geek’s streaming section for everything playing and coming.
Subscription with ads
Yes, $8/month
Simultaneous streams
Two or four
Live TV
No
Price
Starting at $8/month
Stream licensed and original programming with a monthly Netflix subscription.
