# Joko Anwar's Nightmares and Daydreams Review: Furious Fables > Joko Anwar's Nightmares and Daydreams is a seven-part Indonesian horror anthology on Netflix, uneven by episode but ambitious, striking and full of social anger. Canonical: https://celluloidscore.com/reviews/joko-anwars-nightmares-and-daydreams-review/ Published: 2026-07-22 Last updated: 2026-09-24 Author: Kaiser Khan — Founder & Editor Language: English Review basis: direct-viewing Spoilers: none Rating: 4/5 ## Verdict Yes. It is an ambitious, handsomely made anthology that rewards patience, best for horror and sci-fi fans who can accept a few weaker episodes along the way. ## Is Joko Anwar's Nightmares and Daydreams worth watching? **Yes. Nightmares and Daydreams is an ambitious, often dazzling genre anthology from Indonesia's leading horror filmmaker, and its best episodes stand with his strongest work.** Joko Anwar uses the supernatural to talk about poverty, exploitation and who gets left behind, and the production values are consistently high. The reservation is unevenness. Some of the seven stories are far sharper than others, and the series asks viewers to stay with its weaker chapters to reach the bigger picture it is building. ## What is Nightmares and Daydreams about? Each episode follows ordinary Indonesians who run into something they cannot explain. A sinister care home, an uncanny orphan and a village facing a threat from beyond are among the situations, and the characters are mostly working people, strivers and families under financial pressure rather than heroes. The stories stand alone, but details recur from one to the next, and the anthology gradually reveals that its separate nightmares are part of something larger. [Joko Anwar's Nightmares and Daydreams](https://celluloidscore.com/shows/joko-anwars-nightmares-and-daydreams/) was created by Anwar, the director behind Satan's Slaves and Impetigore. It is an Indonesian series in Indonesian, with a cast including Ario Bayu, Lukman Sardi, Sita Nursanti, Happy Salma and Marissa Anita, and it streams on Netflix. This review covers the complete series: one season of seven episodes, released in 2024. ## Horror as a language for inequality Anwar's films have always been angry about class, and the series gives that anger more room. The fear in these stories rarely comes from the monster alone. It comes from debt, from powerlessness, from the sense that the comfortable will always be protected and the poor will always pay. The supernatural becomes a way of making those pressures visible. That focus gives even the more conventional episodes a charge. A story that begins as a familiar haunted-institution chiller or a creepy-child tale turns out to be asking hard questions about what people will do for security, and what a society does to those who have none. ## A showcase for Indonesian genre craft The series looks expensive, and it is used well. Anwar and his collaborators move comfortably between grim domestic interiors, eerie institutions and larger-scale science-fiction imagery, and each episode adopts a slightly different genre skin: some lean on dread and atmosphere, others on body horror, others on something closer to cosmic mystery. The cast is strong throughout. Familiar faces from Anwar's films, including Ario Bayu and Marissa Anita, bring weight to characters who are often desperate and morally compromised, which keeps the horror grounded in recognisable people. ## An anthology that tries to be more The biggest gamble is the connective structure. Converging standalone tales into a single story is a bold move for an anthology, and it gives the series a payoff that most horror collections lack. It also creates problems. Some middle episodes feel like they are marking time or laying groundwork rather than delivering a complete story, and viewers who come for self-contained scares may find the shift in the later episodes jarring. The ambition is admirable, but the execution is not always as controlled as in Anwar's features. ## Who should watch Nightmares and Daydreams? This is essential for fans of Anwar's films, for followers of Southeast Asian [horror](https://celluloidscore.com/genres/horror/), and for viewers who like their genre television with a political edge. Seven episodes make it a manageable binge, though it is best watched in order to appreciate how the stories connect. It carries adult ratings in most territories for good reason: expect gore, violence, disturbing imagery and bleak themes. Good companions for a follow-up: - [Stranger Things](https://celluloidscore.com/reviews/stranger-things-review/) for another series that blends supernatural horror, science fiction and a slowly revealed conspiracy. - [Cigarette Girl](https://celluloidscore.com/reviews/cigarette-girl-review/), a very different Indonesian Netflix series, a period romance with equally high production standards. - [Tira](https://celluloidscore.com/reviews/tira-review/) for more home-grown Indonesian genre storytelling on a big scale. ## The verdict Nightmares and Daydreams is an uneven but thrilling statement of intent, a horror anthology that uses its scares to say something furious about Indonesian society. Not every episode lands, yet the best of them are superb, and the whole is more ambitious than almost anything else in the genre on streaming. **Rating: 4/5** ## Related title - [Joko Anwar's Nightmares and Daydreams (2024)](https://celluloidscore.com/shows/joko-anwars-nightmares-and-daydreams/) ## Editorial - [Editorial standards](https://celluloidscore.com/about/editorial-policy/) - [Report a correction](https://celluloidscore.com/about/corrections/)