Stephen King Says This Netflix Spy Thriller Is a Must-Watch — And Millions Agree

Stephen King might be the master of horror, but he’s also pretty active when it comes to recommending good TV. Over the years, he’s shared quite a few picks with his fans, including smart horror series and crime shows that are, as he once put it, “impossible not to binge.”

Back in 2022, King gave a shoutout to a Netflix show that many people might’ve missed. The series is called Kleo, and he described it as “a breath of fresh air.” In a post on X (formerly Twitter), he said: “KLEO (Netflix): What a breath of fresh air! Suspenseful and also very funny. I wonder, though, where Kleo’s money came from. Flying off to Mallorca mustn’t have been cheap, even in 1989.”

Kleo is a German action-thriller series that mixes suspense, dark humor, and spy drama. It first came out in August 2022 and just dropped its second season on Netflix in July 2024. The show follows a former East German assassin named Kleo Straub, played by Jella Haase. After being betrayed and thrown in prison by her own agency in 1987, she gets out after the Berlin Wall falls and sets off on a wild revenge journey.

The story jumps between the late ’80s and early ’90s, moving through places like Berlin, Mallorca, Spain, and Chile. As Kleo tracks down the people who framed her, a detective named Sven, who once saw her commit a murder, starts to piece things together and gets caught up in her mission.

The show has 14 episodes across two seasons and has racked up over 80 million viewing hours, according to FlixPatrol. It’s also been doing really well with critics. Rotten Tomatoes scores for the series are high, with many praising its energy and storytelling.

Created by Hanno Hackfort, Richard Kropf, and Bob Konrad, Kleo has a strong cast too. Jella Haase leads as Kleo, with Dimitrij Schaad playing the detective Sven. Other characters include former Stasi agents, West German officials, and even a Soviet KGB officer, making the whole thing feel like a stylish, twisty spy movie stretched into a series.

Dread Central was one of the outlets that reported on Stephen King’s praise for the show, and now that both seasons are streaming, it’s a good time to see what all the fuss is about, especially if you like action, espionage, and revenge stories with a bit of humor thrown in.

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