From true-crime dramas and documentaries to horror stories about bigoted neighbourhoods, big issues found a home in this year's finest small-screen offerings. This first part of our countdown rolls out some heavyweight acting talent too, in the formidable shape of Olivia Colman, Neil Patrick Harris and David Thewlis

10) Can't Get You Out Of My Head
In typically erudite and occasionally doom-laden fashion, documentarian and political anthropologist Adam Curtis concocted another vibrant series. Across six parts he picked at the bones of empire, money, artificial intelligence, love, conspiracies, and power via a blistering clash of sound and vision.

9) Them
Deborah Ayorinde and Ashley Thomas starred in this social drama/gory horror about a 1950s black family moving from a rural nightmare in North Carolina into a racist LA neighbourhood, with Alison Pill doing a wonderfully sinister turn as the conflicted matriarch of this bigot-fest. The terror is both leavened and heightened in a sensational standalone episode that hammers home a historical context to the family's misery.

8) Storyville: Raising A School Shooter
A sensitive and non-sensationalist portrayal of the trauma and guilt carried by parents of those who took a loaded gun into their own school and caused carnage. This, of course, is a very American story, but the despair which lingers is a universal hurt.

7) Landscapers
In a year when true-crime drama made an attempt to reinvent itself, few blazed quite so boldly and innovatively as this four-parter about the felonies committed by Susan and Christopher Edwards in the 1990s. David Thewlis and Olivia Colman are unsurprisingly devastating in the key roles while Daniel Rigby deserves praise for his unhinged and comedic turn as the lead detective on their case.

6) It's A Sin
Russell T Davies returned to the 1980s for the drama series he has always wanted to make. A group of diverse pals (led by Years & Years' Olly Alexander) descend on a hedonistic and often homophobic London just as the AIDS crisis is set to take hold. There was even room here for an all-too brief cameo from Neil Patrick Harris.

Agree or disagree? Post a comment on Twitter and check out our rundown of numbers 5 to 2 on Thursday.