7 miniseries you can finish in a weekend

Sometimes you do not want to start a show that will keep you busy for months. You want something that starts on Friday night and is done by Sunday evening. Miniseries are made for that: one season, one complete story, no waiting for more. Here are seven that are worth the weekend, sorted from short to long.

Unorthodox

4 episodes, under four hours. Esty is 19 and lives in an ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Williamsburg, New York. She runs away to Berlin with no plan and almost no money. The series is loosely based on Deborah Feldman's memoir and is largely told in Yiddish. Shira Haas plays Esty with a restraint that says more than any dialogue. Maria Schrader won an Emmy for directing it.

Good if you want something quiet that still will not let go.

Adolescence

4 episodes, about four hours. A 13-year-old boy is arrested, accused of killing a girl from his school. Every episode is filmed in a single continuous shot, with no visible cut. It is not a gimmick: you cannot look away because the camera does not either. Stephen Graham co-created the series and plays the father.

Good if you are ready for something that stays with you. It is not easy viewing.

Chernobyl

5 episodes, just over five hours. The 1986 Chernobyl disaster and what came after: the people who had to clean up, and a system that preferred not to hear the truth. Jared Harris, Stellan Skarsgård and Emily Watson carry a series that plays like a thriller even though you know how it ends.

Good if you like history that does not sound like a textbook.

The Queen's Gambit

7 episodes, almost seven hours. Beth Harmon grows up in an orphanage, discovers chess in the basement and plays her way to the top in the 1950s and 1960s. Anya Taylor-Joy plays her, and the series is based on a novel by Walter Tevis. You do not need to know chess: it is about talent, loneliness and the price of both.

Good if you want something elegant that is easy to watch.

Mare of Easttown

7 episodes, about seven hours. A small town in Pennsylvania, an unsolved case, a new murder. Kate Winslet plays detective Mare Sheehan, who knows everyone and whom everyone knows. It is a crime show, but above all a portrait of a woman and a place. Winslet won the Emmy for it.

Good if you like a whodunit but want more than just the answer.

The Night Of

8 episodes, about nine hours. A student from Queens secretly borrows his father's taxi, spends the night with a young woman and finds her dead in the morning. From then on he is stuck in New York's justice system. Riz Ahmed plays him, John Turturro a lawyer with eczema and little luck. The series is less interested in who did it than in what the process does to everyone involved.