"Families Like Ours."

A brilliant 'drop everything and watch this now' drama on Netflix

Thomas Vinterberg makes excellence look easy. It’s one of the most elusive of the great achievements in the arts. The Danish director and writer did it in 2020 with “Another Round,” a wonderful film where he was nominated for an Academy Award as best director — the first Danish director to achieve that honor. And Vinterberg has done it again, this time on the small screen, with “Families Like Ours,” a seven-episode limited series on Netflix that is the best series I’ve seen so far in 2025.

Having spent years (decades?) learning to understand what separates the very good from the great — that small space in the creative process where minor decisions on what to do or not do on purpose are the ultimate defining element that separate works of art — watching “Families Like Ours” was a masterclass in getting it right when so much could have gone wrong.