'The Narrow Road to the Deep North' Is the Best Show of 2025 You Haven’t Heard Of

A marvel of feel-bad television

Most actors aren’t tall. Jacob Elordi is an exception. Ingvar Kenne/Curio/Sony Pictures Television

Very often, shows that get described as hidden gems are neither hidden nor gems. They’re either pretty popular or not very good. But The Narrow Road to the Deep North is a true hidden gem.

Unless you live in Australia, you probably haven’t heard of this five-episode limited series directed by Justin Kurzel. Prime Video announced it had picked up U.S. distribution for it on April 14 and released it four days later. It quite literally hasn’t been promoted. This lack of marketing is both disappointing and understandable. The Narrow Road to the Deep North is an arty and depressing character drama with no genre hooks. It’s also one of the best shows I’ve seen in 2025 so far.

I was absolutely walloped by its visual beauty and emotional depth. It’s miraculous that something like this even got made in the post-Peak TV era. If it had been a movie in the 1990s, it would have been nominated for Best Picture. It has the stately quality of literary novel adaptations of that era. Or perhaps it would have gone under the radar then, too, because its bleak violence and bitter fatalism prevents it from having mass appeal. If, like me, you’re a fan of feel-bad cinema and the way I’m describing it is selling you on it, stop reading and go watch it right now.

The Narrow Road to the Deep North is based on a Booker Prize-winning novel by Richard Flanagan and tells the story of an Australian man named Dorrigo Evans, played by Euphoria’s Jacob Elordi as a young man during World War II and by Ciarán Hinds as an older man in 1989. The older Dorrigo is a successful and respected surgeon who is haunted by his experiences in the war, when he was held captive in a Japanese POW camp, and by memories of his affair just before the war with Amy Mulvaney (Odessa Young), his uncle’s wife (not his aunt, to be clear). Amy was the love of his life, and it was the thought of her that kept him going. No matter how many women he cheats on his patient and loving wife with, none of them are her. It’s a character study of a man who the world sees as a hero, but who does not see himself that way, because he was there and he knows that there were no heroes. He never really came home from the jungle.

Ciaran Hinds isn’t a first ballot Dad Shows Hall of Famer, but he’d probably get in eventually. Ingvar Kenne/Curio/Sony Pictures Television

It’s a romantic tragedy that’s highly emotional without being sentimental, and never glorifies anything except love. It’s shot like a Jane Campion film, with moody light spilling through windows as Hinds sits and ruminates. I have to give a shoutout to cinematographer Sam Chiplin, as well as composer Jed Kurzel, whose mournful score creates a powerful sense of loss. Writer Shaun Grant keeps the adaptation highbrow.

Narrow Road is the first thing I’ve watched from Justin Kurzel, and I was so impressed that I finally sought out The Order, his true crime thriller starring Jude Law as an FBI agent pursuing white supremacists in Idaho and Washington in the 1980s. It’s very good. It has a lot of the same qualities as The Narrow Road to the Deep North: seriousness and intensity, beautiful cinematography, a moodiness that never gets in the way of plot movement. But it’s more of a straightforward procedural thriller, without Narrow Road’s psychological depth. The limited series format allows him to stretch out and go inside Dorrigo Evans’ soul.

Shows like The Narrow Road to the Deep North are rare, and getting even rarer. So watch it and let Amazon know there’s still a market for this kind of high-quality TV.