Netflix's 6-Part Thriller With Near-Perfect Rotten Tomatoes Score Is One Of Its Best Spy Series

Nov 01, 2026 - 17:18

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Netflix's 6-Part Thriller With Near-Perfect Rotten Tomatoes Score Is One Of Its Best Spy Series

Richard Madden as David Budd in Bodyguard

Published Nov 1, 2026, 8:30 AM EST

Felipe Rangel is a Movie and TV Journalist ScreenRant. He has been writing about movies and TV since 2021. Felipe joined ScreenRant in 2022, working across different teams, covering everything from breaking news to features to reviews and more.

Felipe is a writer who is an avid film and TV fan, with superhero movies and series being his biggest passion. He graduated from college in 2019, having studied Journalism. Before college, he spent a month studying at the Oxford English Centre. His superhero knowledge expands to the comics, with his undergraduate thesis being "Politics Reflected In American Comics."

Netflix is the streaming home of a major spy thriller series that ranks as one of the best espionage shows on the streamer's library, and that is not a small feat. Netflix's list of thriller series makes up one of the most important sectors of its TV show library. For instance, many of Netflix's biggest hits of 2026 have come from the thriller genre.

Both His & Hers and I Will Find You have broken into Netflix's all-time TV show charts, though the latter replaced the first after being released later in the year. Historically, Netflix has also always been drawn to thrillers. After all, the first major Netflix Original series was House of Cards. The political thriller series put the streamer on the map.

Since then, Netflix has found enormous success with different types of thrillers. From psychological thrillers like You to legal thrillers like The Lincoln Lawyer, and many more, the genre is the gift that keeps on giving, fitting Netflix's binge release model like a glove. Playing into that is the rise of spy thriller series on Netflix, with many genre shows becoming global smash hits, and one of the very best is a 2018 miniseries.

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Bodyguard originally aired on BBC One in the United Kingdom, though Netflix deemed it an Original everywhere else through its international distribution deal. Bodyguard starred Game of Thrones' Robb Stark actor Richard Madden as David Budd, an Afghanistan war veteran who now serves as a Principal Protection Officer assigned to protect politician Julia Montague. Bodyguard is an intense ride.

Bodyguard Is An Intense Spy Thriller Series On Netflix

Bodyguard follows Budd as he wrestles with PTSD, the fact that he does not match the politics of the politician he must protect above everything else, and uncovers a deadly government conspiracy. Much of Bodyguard hinges on Madden's performance in the title role, and the actor knocks it out of the park. Madden's performance is magnetic, making Budd a layered character and taking the viewer directly into his mind with microexpressions, body language, and more that allows Netflix subscribers to feel like they know exactly what Budd is thinking. His PTSD cuts through the rigidness of Budd's new line of work.

Madden won the Best Actor – Television Series Drama award at the 2018 Golden Globe Awards for his work on Bodyguard. The series was also nominated for Outstanding Drama Series and Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series at the Emmys in 2019. Bodyguard is a masterpiece thriller series, making conversations just as enticing as the show's more action-packed segments, of which there are quite a few. It is also filled with memorable moments, including Budd de-escalating a suicide bomber situation on a train and a game-changing event towards the half of the spy thriller series.

How Bodyguard Holds Up Against Other Netflix Spy Thriller Series

Richard Madden looking serious in Bodyguard

Netflix's list of thriller shows has grown to include several successful spy series, with some of them being The Night Agent, Unfamiliar, Black Doves, The Recruit, and more. Netflix is not alone in the rise of spy thriller series, as all the other major streaming services are also getting into the fun. For instance, Prime Video has Citadel, which also stars Madden, though in the form of a globe-trotting and more technological spy thriller, while Apple TV has Slow Horses, Paramount+ has The Agency, and so on.

As far as Netflix's list of spy thriller series goes, Bodyguard ranks higher than most with a near-perfect 93% critics' score on Rotten Tomatoes. Bodyguard comes in the form of a tight six-episode season that tells a full story, different from other multi-season spy thrillers that see their quality jump around. The show is also more interested in the psychological aspect of the characters than the action itself. It is not a globe-trotting adventure like The Recruit, for instance, and comes with incredibly high stakes, compared to shows where the leads are always safe. As such, Bodyguard is a must-watch spy thriller series on Netflix.