6 Years Later, Netflix’s 8-Part Psychological Thriller With 87% Rotten Tomatoes Rating Is Aging Well

While it has been six years since The Stranger was first released, Netflix’s second Harlan Coben show remains the streaming service’s strongest adaptation of the author’s work. Released in January 2020, Netflix’s psychological thriller The Stranger was based on bestselling author Harlan Coben’s novel of the same name from 2015.

The series follows Richard Armitage’s Adam Prince, a seemingly ordinary suburban father who is approached by the eponymous stranger. A young woman with a baseball cap, the title character tells Adam his wife’s secret, only for his wife to go missing soon after this revelation. When her disappearance occurs, Adam and the stranger’s lives become inextricably linked.

While The Hobbit star Armitage is great as Adam, The Stranger’s twisty story also includes a stacked supporting cast. Siobhan Finneran plays Johanna Griffin, the Detective Sergeant trying to unpack the stranger’s relationship with Adam, while British comedy mainstay Jennifer Saunders plays another person who learns a shocking personal secret from the stranger.

The Stranger Is One of Netflix’s Best Psychological Thrillers Ever

Paul Kaye, Lily Loveless, Kadiff Kirwan, Shaun Dooley, and Stephen Rea round out the impressive cast of The Stranger, which is one of the starrier Harlan Coben adaptations from recent years. Every cast member gets a chance to shine as the show’s complex, multi-faceted story unfolds, as the stranger’s secrets end up impacting the lives of many people.

Since its source material is seriously complicated, viewers could be forgiven for assuming that The Stranger gets a little convoluted as its plot plays out. However, Netflix’s second Coben adaptation is also one of the best attempts to bring the mystery author’s unique style to life onscreen, as the show effectively recreates the smooth plotting of the original novel.

At this stage, the prolific Coben is almost as famous among mystery aficionados as Agatha Christie. However, while Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials wasn’t the best Netflix mystery novel adaptation in recent years, The Stranger’s distillation of Coben’s unique mystery style earned the highest Rotten Tomatoes score of the many, many adaptations of his work.

The Stranger Is Still the Best Harlan Coben Miniseries

Image courtesy of Everett Collection

Technically, the first screen adaptation of Coben’s work came back in 2008, with the underrated French thriller Tell No One. However, the writer’s intricate plotting is much better suited to the longer runtimes of TV shows, so it’s no surprise that, in the years since, his work has become a mainstay on streaming services.

Coben signed a multi-million dollar deal with Netflix in 2018, promising 14 novel adaptations as movies or shows. The Stranger was the second of these, and the series wowed critics, earning a stellar 87% rating from reviewers. Its 70% audience rating was not much lower, but the rest of Coben’s adaptations struggled to repeat this feat.

Although 2026’s new Coben show Run Away earned 80% from critics on the site, currently, its Rotten Tomatoes audience rating is a mere 40%. That is less than half of its critical rating, but this isn’t all a rare occurence for the author’s shows. 2021’s Stay Close earned 92% from critics but only 53% from viewers, while Missing You’s critical rating was only 50%.

Just One Look’s audience and critical ratings have a difference of almost 50%, indicating that viewers didn’t agree with reviewers on the series. Missing You’s critical rating was bad, but its audience rating came in at an even worse 32%. In contrast, The Stranger’s 87% critical rating was matched by an impressive 70% audience rating.

The Stranger Started A Massive Streaming Trend

While The Stranger’s success boded well for Coben’s future adaptations on the streaming platform, Netflix’s further Coben shows like Run Away weren’t the only screen iterations of the author’s work. In 2022, Amazon released Harlan Coben’s Shelter, while in 2025, Prime Video released Lazarus.

The upcoming Coben series starring Sam Worthington and Milo Ventimiglia, I Will Find You, promises to keep this successful string of adaptations going strong. However, as exciting as this adaptation is, it is hard to see the show managing to outdo The Stranger. Upon a rewatch, it is striking how well the British series captures Coben’s style on screen.

In the wrong hands, The Stranger’s plot could seem contrived, as the storyline relies on coincidental connections between seemingly unrelated characters and the unexpected ways that they shape each other’s fate. However, the masterstroke of the series is the decision to stick closely to Corben’s story, resulting in a mystery that feels as inevitable as it is complex.

Although it would be tough for any viewer to see the show’s twists coming, The Stranger doesn’t rely on the corny twists that mar adaptations like Run Away. Instead, the mystery’s story feels as organic and believable as it does disturbing and original. It is this unpredictability and live-wire quality that feels true to Coben’s writing.

While some of Netflix’s later shows weren’t as strong, and the deluge of Coben adaptations across various streaming platforms has reached wild new heights over the years, the sheer critical success of Netflix’s second Coben show made these developments inevitable. In The Stranger, the streaming service perfectly encapsulated the author’s appeal.