John Powers

One of this year's surprise hits has been the Netflix series "Lupin," which stars French actor Omar Sy as a likeable and brilliant thief who's out to avenge the railroading of his father. The second season of "Lupin" is streaming now. And our critic-at-large, John Powers, says that it isn't just exciting but clever in its way of taking something old and making it feel new.

Acorn TV's engaging new crime drama takes place in a touristy seaside town with an oversized murder rate. Pearl, the single mom who runs the seafood restaurant, also has a small detective agency.

The Amazon anthology series Solos features a different actor in each installment. The Bite, on Spectrum On Demand, is comedy-drama that combines COVID lockdown with an outbreak of a zombie contagion.

A writer offers up her guest house to a famous painter in hope that something transcendent will happen. But he's selfish, amoral and flagrantly misogynistic — and monstrously at ease with all this.

The first volume of Kaoru Takamura's 1997 eccentric crime thriller has just been translated into English. Inspired by a real-life case, Lady Joker reveals its world in rich, polyphonic detail.