Let’s face it: we’ve been bored during quarantine. We’ve read dozens of books, baked frog-bread, and even resorted to shaving the sides of our heads. Netflix is starting to look dismal; is there a single show left to watch before turning to marble-racing live streams?
No worries! We have you covered with a list of our favorite quarantine watches. Whether you’re in the mood for a crime drama, campy fantasy, or harrowing documentary, you’re bound to find something to stream for a 2 AM binge.
Booksmart
Courtesy of Annapurna Pictures
Booksmart hits so different in quarantine. As a rising high school senior, watching this film resonates with me because it’s the definitive cinematic “high school experience” for nerds like me! Booksmart reminds me that I can be smart and let myself live a little. I think it’s going to convince me to live a little louder post-quarantine.
—Sophia Moore, writer
Available on Hulu and Amazon.
Gregg Araki’s Teen Apocalypse trilogy
Courtesy of Strand Releasing
Spanning from 1993 to 1997, Gregg Araki’s Teen Apocalypse trilogy is a revolutionary watch. The films all focus on LGBT characters and really harness the loneliness that comes with being gay. Each part of the trilogy is so heavily stylized that it’s easy to become submerged in them.
—Kaiya Shunyata, writer
Available on Amazon.
Avatar: The Last Airbender
Courtesy of Nickelodeon
As a whole, I think Avatar is a really hopeful show. It begins in the midst of a global war, with the aggressors on the brink of victory, but it ends with a restoration of balance. That’s a really comforting sentiment right now: that even when the end seems near, we can be saved by love and friendship.
—Isabelle Robinson, writer
Available on Netflix.
Life Overtakes Me
Courtesy of Netflix
Since I don’t get to go to school these days and my online classes have been canceled, I love taking every opportunity I can to learn. Life Overtakes Me is about a mysterious phenomenon affecting the children of Swedish refugees; after experiencing some form of persecution, they withdraw from the world and slip into a coma. It’s crazy.
—Angel Martinez, writer
Available on Netflix.
Little Fires Everywhere
Courtesy of Hulu
Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington are AMAZING in Little Fires Everywhere. Honestly, the show doesn’t have a weak link in terms of actors. It has an interesting plotline and tackles so many issues really well, including race, marriage, and privilege.
—Dahlia Theriault, graphic designer
Available on Hulu.
Killing Eve
Courtesy of Hulu
I’ve been loving Killing Eve, a darkly funny spy thriller. Phoebe Waller-Bridge wrote the first season, and it stars Sandra Oh, so you know right off the bat that it’s going to be good. The ‘obsessive Russian psychopath’ storyline is so seductive; I fell in love with the show immediately.
—Katherine Williams, newsletter director
Available on Hulu and the BBC app.
Glee
Courtesy of Fox
I was a ‘gleek’ back in the day, and I’ve been having the time of my life rewatching it. Glee was a source of happiness for me, and reliving that in quarantine allows me to see the show in a different light. Some of the storylines have not aged well at all, but I have so much nostalgia for it.
—Chisom Okoye, outreach coordinator
Available on Netflix.
Now Apocalypse
Courtesy of Sundance Institute
If someone made a chaotic mash-up of all my teenage celebrity crushes in a sexually fluid, dreamlike television show, it would be Now Apocalypse. Highlights include watching Avan Jogia (Victorious) and Tyler Posey (Teen Wolf) make out, and later watching Avan Jogia and Jacob Artist (Glee) make out.
—Meghan Chiew, writer
Available on STARZ.
Never Rarely Sometimes Always
Courtesy of Focus Features
I loved Never Rarely Sometimes Always! It was a real and raw abortion drama that showed how much emotional turmoil abortions cause for women. It’s important to see that in an age where people are more concerned with the baby than the woman.
—Chloe Rose, writer
Available for purchase on Amazon.
The Newsroom
Courtesy of HBO
I started watching The Newsroom, and it has definitely been my favorite thing I’ve watched in quarantine. It’s about a cable news network during the first Obama administration. The journalists in The Newsroom are committed to doing the right thing and sharing the facts, which was comforting to watch at the beginning of quarantine when things were very uncertain.
—Irine Le, writer
Available on Hulu and HBO Max.
Betty Tells Her Story
Image credit: Liane Brandon
I recently watched this short film called Betty Tells Her Story from the ’70s about a woman who tells a story about buying a dress and not feeling beautiful in it. She tells it twice; the first time, it’s just the events as they happened, but the second time you can feel how much it impacted her.
—Colette Bernheim, writer
Available on Kanopy.
The Little Drummer Girl
Courtesy of AMC
I watched a mini-series called The Little Drummer Girl during quarantine. Its art direction was evocative of French new wave, using cool-toned color grading and vibrant costumes, but the most captivating part was the performances from Michael Shannon, Alexander Skarsgard, and Florence Pugh.
—Esme Lee, writer
Available on Amazon Prime.
Run
Courtesy of HBO
I’m currently binge-watching Run. This is a time where we want to feel deeply immersed in something familiar yet foreign… for that feeling, the thriller genre is just the perfect escape.
—Saffron Maeve, writer
Available on HBO.
By MJ Brown
