Canal+: the 10 best series to watch on the streaming platform

With more than 3,500 films and 1,600 series, Canal+ (and its streaming platform myCanal) is the only French company capable of competing with Netflix, Prime Video and Disney+. To do this, it has good arguments, in particular its series visible through all its offers. Downside: it’s not always easy to find your way through this vast catalog… That’s why Digital has selected for you the 10 best series to watch on Canal+ and myCanal.

This article is regularly updated with the best of the streaming service, as well as our pick of the month. In February, our favorite is Paris Police 1905.

What are the best series to watch on Canal+?

Paris Police 1905

An unidentified dead man in the Bois de Boulogne. Suicide or murder? Inspector Antoine Jouin conducts an investigation that plunges him into a clandestine territory, this wood where all of Paris comes to satisfy his impulses. Jouin will have to leave the beaten track, at his own risk.

After the series Paris Police 1900 (2021), Fabien Nury returns with the continuation of his detective universe at the heart of the Belle Époque. The opportunity to find familiar characters, but also a neat artistic direction and a unique atmosphere, between period thriller and morbid tale. With the vice squad at the heart of its six episodes, Paris Police 1905 tackles themes of violence and the vices of society, woven into a gripping detective story.

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The rest of our selection

Hippocrates

A public hospital on the outskirts of a big city. Following sanitary measures, the incumbent doctors find themselves confined to their homes for 48 hours. Three inexperienced interns and a medical examiner, who do not yet know each other, will have to unite to manage the service and the patients alone. But the quarantine continues…

Americans do not have a monopoly on excellent medical dramaet Hippocrates prove. Thomas Lilti’s series, adapted from his own film released in 2014, takes a current and chilling look at the daily life of caregivers in hospitals. A dive into the heart of a failing system, both on the side of caregivers and patients, carried by a cast of choice: Louise Bourgoin, Alice Belaïdi, Karim Leklou or even Bouli Lanners. A French reference.

What We do in the Shadows

This mockumentary follows the daily life of Nandor, Laszlo, Nadja and Guillermo, three centuries-old vampires and a human, living as a roommate in modern-day New York. How is their cohabitation organized? Can a human be a friend and not a snack? Eternal life, is it really that cool?

Created by Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi, this series produced in the form of documentary follows the tribulations of a roommate of vampires painfully adapting to our modern times. A deliciously absurd show, which makes fun of gothic folklore, to better take an offbeat look at the nonsense of our society. It’s barred and unavoidable.

Aries

In 1978, Didier Mathure, a great space engineer, saw his rocket explode on takeoff and found himself transferred to Gépan, a department of CNES responsible for giving a scientific explanation to all kinds of reports of strange phenomena. If Didier is initially skeptical, an extraordinary event will come to upset his convictions.

This strange marriage between frank humor and X-Files American mixes supernatural, absurd and regressive atmosphere to give birth to a series really like no other. Aries thus transports the spectator into his very 70s world, to meet characters all more formidable than the others, plunging them into improbable situations. A little gem from the recent Canal+ catalogue.

Yellowjackets

Following a plane crash, the young members of a women’s football team are forced to survive in a wild and inhospitable environment. 20 years later, we find what remains of his survivors and discover how they got away with it.

If plane crash stories pique curiosity, the series pushes the concept by peppering it with teenage hormones and cannibalism. The strength of Yellowjackets is based on its stunning cast (Melanie Lynskey, Juliette Lewis, Tawney Cypress, Christina Ricci), and on an agonizing staging that plays as much on the codes of horror as on those of mystery drama. A unique and daring series of which we can’t wait to discover the sequel.

Black Baron

Between the two rounds of the presidential elections, Philippe Rickwaert sees his political future collapse when his mentor sacrifices him to save his election. Determined to reinvent his career, Philippe will use the political highlights to impose himself step by step, against the one who betrayed him, but thanks to a new alliance with the closest adviser of his enemy.

Black Baron was one of the emblematic creations of Canal+, and it remains a series to see. A political story, certainly, but also human and intimate, on the meaning of our institutions and those who represent them. A brilliantly written war of offices, carried by an astonishing Kad Merad, decidedly at the top in dramatic roles. A safe bet on the platform.

This is Going to Hurt

The unvarnished truth about life as an under-resourced physician working in obstetrics and gynecology.

And Hippocrates dealt with the French health system, This is Going to Hurt tackle English! Carried by a Ben Wishaw (Paddington, Heavy rain) brilliant and endearing, the series confronts us with an uncomfortable reality, where the humanity and stubbornness of the caregivers are all the more admirable. An uncompromising fresco adapted from the eponymous novel by doctor Adam Kay, which turns out to be devilishly effective and addictive. Not to miss.

The flame

Life gave him everything… except a co-pilot. For nine weeks in a sublime villa, thirteen women will compete to seduce Marc, an airline pilot, and try to light in him… The Flame! So, arm the slides, check the opposite door… Marc is going to take his suitors to seventh heaven!

This French adaptation of the show Burning Love produced by Ben Stiller twists the neck of reality TV shows, and extracts their delicious uneasiness and absurdity, to the delight of spectators. Not far from the spirit of The Office, The flame can also count on the chemistry of the actors (Jonathan Cohen and Pierre Niney in the lead), which gives hilarious sequences. If the second season (The torch) is less effective, here is a program not to be missed.

The Office of Legends

Within the DGSE, the BDL, Office of Legends, remotely directs the clandestines, who are the most important agents of the French intelligence services.

How to make a selection of the best Canal+ programs without citing The Office of Legends ? Eric Rochant’s series (The Patriots, moebius) is a marvel of political intrigue where everything is intertwined, professional and personal. The series is a gem of staging and artistic direction that offers an unprecedented immersion in the workings of the state. It is especially worth it for its gallery of troubled and fascinating characters, and its perfect cast, where Mathieu Kassovitz finds here one of his best roles. Five thrilling seasons, and a summit of French TV.

Hannibal

The strange relationship between the famous psychiatrist Hannibal Lecter and one of his patients, a young profiler of the FBI named Will Graham, tortured by his all-consuming fascination with serial killers…

A series dedicated to Hannibal Lecter, one of the most emblematic villains of cinema, immortalized in particular by Anthony Hopkins in Thesilenceofthelambs in 1991. Developed by showrunner Bryan Fuller (Dead Like Me, Heroes), the series convinces with its particularly morbid police investigations, and its plunge into the minds of criminals, but also and above all with its disturbing… but elegant atmosphere. A feeling wonderfully encapsulated by Lecter, brilliantly embodied by Mads Mikkelsen. We regret the abrupt end of the series, which has no real conclusion, but the three seasons remain a pleasure.