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For fans of Black Mirror, chasing that same cerebral rush can be an uphill climb. When the latest season landed, it sparked an uproar of excitement. Some even called it the best return to form in years. It’s no surprise people were glued to their screens, swimming in confusion and awe. Netflix was toying with its audience by altering scenes across viewings and introducing the series’ first-ever sequel episode.
However, Black Mirror isn’t the only game in town when it comes to brain-bending television. One title keeps surfacing among the sea of Reddit threads and obsessive fan posts: Maniac. This limited series, tucked away in Netflix’s 2018 archives, has quietly become a cult favorite for those craving surrealism with a side of psychological chaos.
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Maniac follows Owen and Annie, two troubled souls pulled into a pharmaceutical trial that promises to untangle the mess inside their minds. Of course, things spiral fast. What starts as an experimental drug test becomes a fractured trip through alternate realities and inner demons.
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The show, starring Jonah Hill and Emma Stone, is as much about their chemistry as it is about the warped world they’re dropped into. Their performances bring a strange warmth to a story that otherwise feels like wandering through someone else’s subconscious.
Cary Joji Fukunaga, the director behind the cult-loved first season of True Detective and later No Time to Die, helmed the series. Despite the big names attached, the production was apparently a nightmare. Budget restraints were brutal, schedules were tight, and at one point, Fukunaga reportedly built a prop himself just to keep production rolling.
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He said in an interview with The New York Post, “[Maniac’] was really fun to conceive and a pain in the a** to shoot because we basically had $12 and no time.” He added, “For me, the exploration of self — the exploration of the multiple versions of yourself inside you — have been part of my process as a writer and as a director to figure out what it is that’s driving me creatively. I think this show is the next step in the evolution of my creative process.”
With Fukunaga now working on Blood on Snow, featuring a cast stacked with names like Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Eva Green, it’s clear he hasn’t lost his taste for ambitious projects. Check out the trailer for Maniac below:
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