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While I’d never presume to speak for her, I suspect that Margaret Atwood would be perfectly happy to be a little less hot right now, if only it meant that her works of fiction, always prescient, weren’t so alarmingly present. Written in 1985, The Handmaid’s Tale feels closer than ever, and its 2019 sequel, The Testaments, now has a much-anticipated adaptation of its own. While Handmaid saw a generation of women coming to grips with an oppressive Christian nationalist regime consolidating its power, The Testaments finds a later generation of young women who’ve never known any different; for whom this is all perfectly normal. Which feels rather real. Stream The Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments on Hulu, and then check out these other fascist dystopias.
Alias Grace (2017)
It’s the other big Margaret Atwood novel adaptation (existing well in the shadow of the bigger, buzzier Handmaid’s Tale), but this miniseries is every bit as biting and well-crafted. It’s based on the true story of a poor Irish immigrant found guilty of a double homicide in 1843 under somewhat mysterious circumstances, and following a life of trauma. Years later, a psychiatrist comes to examine her and explores her past and the circumstances that might (just might) have driven a disenfranchised and powerless girl to murder. Stream Alias Grace on Netflix.
Pluribus (2025 – )
In some ways, this is a bit of an anti-Handmaid’s Tale, with Pluribus leaning toward dark comedy, but we remain in a fascist dystopia in this show from Breaking Bad‘s Vince Gilligan, albeit of a different variety. Rhea Seehorn plays Carol Sturka, a fantasy romance author and general grouch who becomes one of only 13 people on the planet immune to the “Joining,” an alien virus that transforms the rest of humanity into a peaceful, perky, and perpetually content hive mind. Carol refuses to surrender her miserableness in the face of a loss of identity, fighting instead to restore humanity to its admittedly cruddy ways. Thrilling, heartbreaking, and oddly funny, the show manages to address big questions about what it means to be human, but also, more specifically, suggests that even women who don’t quite have their shit together deserve freedom of thought and bodily autonomy. Stream Pluribus on Apple TV.
3% (2016 – 2020)
It would be tempting to see this as a metaphor for the American dream but, of course, it’s a Brazilian show, and it’s not as though inequality was invented in the United States—we’re just particularly good at it. In 3%, the impoverished young Inlanders have one shot at success: completing “The Process,” a series of interviews, puzzles, and escape rooms designed to test their worthiness to join a futuristic offshore utopia. Most fail, and many don’t survive, leaving a success rate of … 3%. This is very much Hunger Games territory in terms of its themes, but the show has a darker, more adult edge. Stream 3% on Netflix.
Watchmen (2019)
A standalone sequel to the groundbreaking Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons, and John Higgins graphic novel from the ’80s (one that ignores the point-missing Zack Snyder movie), this series plays in the sandbox of that book (arguably the wellspring of all modern superhero deconstruction) while advancing its themes. In an alternate Tulsa, Oklahoma, in a world where super-powered vigilantes exist but have been outlawed, the series starts, dramatically, with a depiction of the real-life massacre and destruction of Tulsa’s Black Wall Street by white residents in 1921. Regina King plays Angela Abar, a modern cop whose grandparents were killed during those attacks, an event that echoes throughout the series—it’s a dystopia that doesn’t look all that much different from our own, with masked police operating on the edges of the law, and overtly racist organizations that hold increasing political sway. Generational trauma is at issue here, and, like The Handmaid’s Tale, it’s a show that looks more depressingly prescient with each passing year. Stream Watchmen on HBO Max.
The Man in the High Castle (2015 – 2019)
From a novel by Philip K. Dick (whose work has been the basis for Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report, A Scanner Darkly, among many others), The Man in the High Castle takes place in an alternate history in which the Axis powers won World War II, and in which the United States is split down the middle; Japan governing the west and Germany the east. The title’s man in the high castle offers an alternate view, though, one in which the Allies actually won, with the potential to rally opposition to the Axis rulers. As the show progresses through its four seasons, the parallels to our increasingly Nazi-friendly world only grow. Stream The Man in the High Castle on Prime Video and Netflix.
Mrs. America (2020)
Though fictionalized, Mrs. America dramatizes the ‘70s-era fight over the Equal Rights Amendment, the moment being, simultaneously, a high and low point in the hope for equity and autonomy. Cate Blanchett plays activist Phyllis Schlafly, who lead the fight against the (once) broadly popular proposed amendment, weaponizing the ERA by tying it to radical and pro-choice feminists, homosexuals, desegregationists, and other maligned groups. She was at the forefront of the broad conservative cultural shift that was very much in full swing when Atwood was writing Handmaid, and it’s not a bad time to take a close look at the people who made basic equality sound radical—a reminder that misogyny is not nearly only the province of white men. This is one hell of a supporting cast as well, including Rose Byrne, Uzo Aduba, and Elizabeth Banks. Stream Mrs. America on Hulu.
Mask Girl (2023)
Kim Mo-mi (Lee Han-byeol, initially), the Mask Girl of the title, is a uniquely complicated woman in this twisty-turny K-drama, one that borders on the experimental in its shifting-perspective format. Mo-mi always wanted to be a K-Pop idol, but it was always made clear to her that she’s not nearly pretty enough for that kind of stardom. So, in order to fill that void, she’s got a side hustle: On top of her boring office job, she puts on a blonde wig and a mask to perform as a camgirl for anonymous men. It’s a means to express herself creatively and sexually with a level of control—until a mistake causes her to lose that control, a co-worker discovers her secret life, and desperation leads to murder. It’s a thoroughly twisty thriller with a dark sense of humor, but one that never forgets that Mo-mi’s increasingly disturbing actions are fueled by a culture that sees her as plain, and therefore as merely incidental. Stream Mask Girl on Netflix.
What do you think so far?
Kindred (2022)
Adapted from the essential 1979 novel by Atwood contemporary Octavia Butler, Kindred sees Dana James (Mallori Johnson) pulled back through time to antebellum plantation in Maryland. Having just moved to Los Angeles in 2016 (that year being no accident), Dana finds herself repeatedly transported even as her white neighbors are concerned about the new Black woman on the block. It’s not nearly as effective as the book (which should be required reading), granted, but, like the book, it makes clear that the corrupting influence of American slavery has infected everything it has touched, then and now, and that Black women bear an even greater part of that burden. Stream Kindred on Hulu.
Leila (2019)
Plenty will seem familiar here: Adapted from the Prayaag Akbar novel, Leila finds Shalini (Huma Qureshi) living in a segregated India of the 2040s, one in which water and clean air have increasingly become luxuries. For all of that, Shalini and her family are doing better than most, until they’re attacked for their interfaith marriage—husband Rizwaan is killed, their daughter is kidnapped, and Shalini is sent to a re-education center alongside other women who are seen as sinners or otherwise unclean. There’s the possibility of taking what’s referred to as a Purity Test, but not for women with “mixed blood” like Leila. It’s a future where women are held to strict but shifting moral standards, dissent is ruthlessly put down, education that’s not religious is dismissed, and the environment is increasingly precarious. Couldn’t happen here, of course. Stream Leila on Netflix.
Shining Girls (2022)
Handmaid’s Tale lead Elisabeth Moss stars in this other sci-fi story from an acclaimed novel (in this case by Lauren Beukes). Moss plays Kirby Mazrachi, an archivist at the Chicago Sun-Times who was attacked and left for dead years ago. She still suffers from the trauma of the event, a legacy which becomes even more complicated when she finds reality shifting around her, and comes across a woman who was murdered, with wounds nearly identical to those that almost killed Kirby. She becomes determined to find the killer, even as the number of female victims grow. It’s significant that she’s an archivist and not a cop: Kirby isn’t content to see these women as bodies, or as merely victims, but is determined that their stories are told. Best not to give to much more away here, except to say that there’s a other significant clue in the title, referring as it does to women who stand out in a culture that doesn’t always reward that kind of thing. Stream Shining Girls on Apple TV.
