Television series

The Name of the Rose

Name: The Name of the Rose
Genre: Drama, Crime, Mystery
Released: 2019
Cast: John Turturro, Rupert Everett, Damian Hardung, Michael Emerson, Fabrizio Bentivoglio

Other titles called The Name of the Rose: the 1986 film.

A 2019 Italian miniseries adaptation of Umberto Eco's dense medieval mystery novel, set in a cloistered Alpine monastery where murders unravel theology, politics, and faith. John Turturro is magnetic as a Franciscan detective navigating dogma and danger. It's cerebral without being cold—grounded, gorgeously shot, built for viewers who want their mysteries to mean something.

TVMaze rating

3.6

If you liked this

The Pillars of the Earth2010

Another Starz historical epic built on Follett's massive novel, with monks, cathedrals, and dark secrets woven through 12th-century architecture and faith. Sweeping, violent, morally complicated like The Name of the Rose.

But Dated production values in places. The soap-opera elements can overwhelm the historical intrigue, and it's considerably less cerebral than what you've just watched.

Knightfall2017

A Templars-and-conspiracies mystery set in the 1300s, with the same blend of historical detail, religious obsession, and men trying to survive systems larger than themselves. Pulpy but genuinely gripping.

But It leans harder into action and melodrama than intellectual mystery. The plotting can feel soap-like, and it never quite reaches the thematic depth it's after.

Carnivàle2003

A 1930s carnival set against apocalyptic Americana, built with the same meticulous world-building, moral ambiguity, and sense that every detail carries symbolic weight. Slow, hypnotic, deeply strange.

But Cancelled before its intended ending, so closure is fragmentary. The pacing is deliberate to the point of glacial, and some will find it mannered rather than profound.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Name of the Rose

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Return of Martin Guerre1982

Both are historical mysteries where the investigation becomes a meditation on belief, power, and how institutions decide what is true. Neither trusts the obvious answer.

A French historical mystery set in 1500s France: a man returns from war, but is he really the husband? Like The Name of the Rose, it's fundamentally about how communities construct truth through faith and need rather than fact. Austere, intelligent, haunting.

But Deliberately underdramatic. The film trusts you to construct meaning from ambiguity, and it offers no easy answers. For viewers hungry for resolution, it will feel incomplete.

The Witch2016

A 1600s New England horror film that trusts the audience to sit with dread and philosophy. Like The Name of the Rose, it's interested in how belief systems become paranoia, and in faith as fuel for cruelty.

But Genuinely unsettling and bleak, with a slow burn that pays off in horror rather than intellectual revelation. Some find the ending nihilistic rather than cathartic.

MINDHUNTER2017

Fincher's methodical FBI drama captures that same fascination with how brilliant men parse human behavior, theology replaced by psychology. Built on conversation and observation rather than spectacle.

But Season 2 loses momentum. The show prioritizes process over payoff, and if you need clear resolutions or forward momentum, it will frustrate you.

The Little Drummer Girl2018

le Carré espionage translated by Park Chan-wook: layered, paranoid, beautiful. Like The Name of the Rose, it's concerned with how ideology corrupts institutions and how trust becomes a weapon.

But Deliberately oblique. The plot can feel secondary to atmosphere, and the pacing assumes you're willing to sit in confusion for long stretches.

Fortitude2015

An Arctic noir with folk-horror undertones, built on the idea that isolation and extreme environment warp morality and belief. Visually stunning and conceptually rich in the way The Name of the Rose is.

But The second season fumbles its premise. The cast changes disrupt momentum, and the show sometimes mistakes obscurity for depth.

Hannibal2013

Fuller's hallucinatory thriller about an FBI profiler hunting a genius cannibal—surface procedural, but really a meditation on aesthetics, faith, and the seduction of ideology. Baroque and intellectually obsessive.

But The visual excess can overwhelm narrative clarity. Some find it self-consciously beautiful in ways that distance rather than move. Genuinely grotesque, which won't work for everyone.