Mildred Pierce (Season 1)

Mildred Pierce (2011) is an HBO miniseries in five parts you can watch online on iFILM. Set during the Great Depression, it follows Mildred — abandoned by her husband, broke, with two daughters to feed — as she rebuilds from a waitress job into a restaurant owner with a thriving business. Director Todd Haynes takes James M. Cain's 1941 novel and strips out the noir to get at something slower and more devastating underneath.

Kate Winslet took home an Emmy for the role, and it shows why: Mildred's blind devotion to her older daughter Veda, played by Evan Rachel Wood, is the engine of every bad decision she makes. Guy Pearce and Melissa Leo round out the cast. Five Emmy Awards in total went to the production.

This is not a thriller. It's a long, precise portrait of self-sacrifice pushed past the point of sense — the kind of story where you understand every choice the character makes and watch helplessly as each one tightens the trap. Stream Mildred Pierce (2011) online on iFILM.