While Netflix has a slew of international hits in 2026, one massive global phenomenon from 2018 paved the way for this worldwide trend. As hard as it might be to believe, there was a time when foreign language TV shows struggled to find large audiences in the English-speaking world. Unless a series received an expensive remake from American producers, which often changed substantial story elements anyway, it was tough for a show originally produced in a foreign language to gain a truly massive English-speaking audience.
Nowadays, hits like the Squid Game franchise, Lupin, The Glory, All of Us Are Dead, The Asset, and Netflix’s 2026 German spy thriller Unfamiliar regularly prove that this is no longer true. However, the show that made their success possible isn’t always credited with this innovation. Before any of the titles listed above, there was a lone breakout hit that went from a local sensation to a worldwide phenomenon when Netflix made the risky move of releasing this series in its original foreign language.
Netflix’s acclaimed five-season crime thriller Money Heist remains one of the streaming service’s greatest thrillers ever, which is a considerable claim about the company behind masterpieces like You and Mindhunter. A Spanish heist series, the aptly titled Money Heist centered on two daring robberies masterminded by Álvaro Morte’s mercurial Professor. The show’s title was the only thing simple about it, as Money Heist’s ingenious real-time storytelling saw the series constantly wrong-foot viewers with switching POVs, flashbacks, and time jumps.
Money Heist Was The First Non-English Netflix Series To Become A Global Phenomenon
Money Heist saw the show’s crew plan heists on both Spain’s national bank and its Royal Mint, with the show’s story initially narrated by Ursula Corbero’s Tokyo. A Spanish production that aired on the TV channel Antena 3 from May to November 2017, Money Heist was originally intended to be a standalone, self-contained miniseries, not unlike Stranger Things season 1. Like that 2016 hit, the series soon became an unexpectedly massive smash on Netflix, and further seasons were soon an inevitability.
Netflix gave Money Heist a boost by recutting the Spanish show’s 15 episodes into 22 shorter outings, making its story even more propulsive and addictive. This approach soon paid off handsomely, as Money Heist went on to win the 2018 International Emmy Award for Best Drama Series. The same year, the series beat stiff competition to become Netflix’s most-watched non-English-language TV series ever, and it was clear that a new entertainment industry trend had been born.
Money Heist Paved The Way For Squid Game And Lupin
The outsized success of Money Heist proved that Netflix didn’t need to remake successful foreign-language shows to sell them to an English-speaking audience, and could instead simply acquire and release the existing original shows. This time-saving hack meant that audiences got more authentic, unvarnished cultural products, while Netflix saved substantial investment by sidestepping the dreaded English-language remake trend. In the eight years that followed, a good number of international titles became increasingly common sights on the streaming service’s most-watched Top 10 list, from countless K-dramas to the French mystery thriller Lupin.
Nowadays, it is no surprise to see shows like Netflix’s South Korean action thriller Weak Hero among their biggest hits in a given month, or a German spy series like The Asset outdoing its English-language competition. It is tough to remember a time when this was a rarity, and that is a testament to the mainstream success of Spain’s superb crime thriller. Back in 2018, Money Heist proved that the language barrier could be vaulted over effortlessly by a great story that was told well, and Netflix has been enjoying the spoils of this risky bet ever since.
- Release Date
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2017 – 2021-00-00
- Showrunner
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Álex Pina
- Writers
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Álex Pina, Javier Gómez Santander
