42 Must-Watch TV Shows on Hulu Right Now (June 2026): ‘The Bear’ Season 5 and More

What do you do after you give up on your dreams? That’s the question The Bear’s resident conflicted hero, Carmy (Jeremy Allen White), asks himself after last season’s shocking finale, which saw him leave his beloved restaurant in the hands of coworkers, friends and family Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) and Natalie (Abby Elliott). Carmy doesn’t want to be consumed by his work, but some obsessions are too hard to break for good.

In case you haven’t heard, season 5 will be The Bear’s last; after it drops all of its eight episodes, the show won’t return for season 6. While it’s no longer the critical darling it once was in its first three seasons, The Bear has enough goodwill left to make this a swan song worth checking out. A flashback episode, “Gary,” is already available to stream, while the rest of season 5 premieres on June 25.

Growing up is hard, but it doesn’t compare to what happens when you actually grow up. For the young adults at the center of the new Hulu sitcom Not Suitable for Work, their gung-ho optimism is quickly tempered with hard reality. Their dream jobs turn out to be nightmares, and their personal lives aren’t all that much better.

Sound familiar? That’s because it’s made out of spare parts from other, better shows. Yes, it isn’t revolutionary; Friends covered the same territory, albeit with a laugh track, 30 years ago, and even a recent rival Hulu show, the slightly better Adults, updated the formula for a Gen Z audience first. But Not Suitable for Work is still engaging to watch, mostly due to its cast of engaging newcomers and glitzy Manhattan setting. The show is produced by Mindy Kaling, and you can see her imprint all over it. Whether that’s a good or a bad thing is really dependent on whether you like her sense of humor or miss The Mindy Project. 

Alice (Nicola Walker) and Steve (Jemaine Clement) have been best friends for decades. She’s there for support when Steve’s wife leaves him and he thinks he’ll never be in a relationship again. Steve is wrong – he winds up meeting someone beautiful, intelligent and intoxicating. She just happens to be Alice’s 26-year-old daughter, Izzy (Yali Topol Margalith), and their hooking up doesn’t please Alice at all. She wants to prevent them from being together, and she’ll sacrifice her friendship – and more – to do so.

Alice and Steve is a pitch-black comedy only the Brits can make. The painful silences and awkward conversations recall Ricky Gervais at his best, while the two lead stars create characters you want to drink a beer with one moment and throw it in their face in another. 

Former Doctor Who star David Tennant gleefully shows off his dark side in the period black comedy Rivals. The show is set in the ’80s as British television executive Lord Tony Baddingham (Tennant) is challenged by an upstart company led by his hated rivals, Rupert Campbell-Black (Alex Hassell) and Declan O’Hara (Aidan Turner).

Season 2 promises more romantic entanglements — and gratuitous nudity — that will unfold as the story moves into 1987. But don’t mistake this as a purely romantic season. Tony plans to win this corporate war no matter how many dirty actions he has to take or any scandals he has to inflate. He might just leave ruined lives and broken relationships in his wake.

The first half of Rivals season 2 is now streaming. The rest of the episodes will stream later in the fall.

The title characters of Deli Boys are Mir (Asif Ali) and Raj Dar (Saagar Shaikh), a pair of brothers who believed they would inherit their father’s deli empire. Instead, they’ve discovered that the entire business was a front for a drug smuggling operation. Their father’s right-hand woman, Lucky (Poorna Jagannathan), is also forcing the brothers to take part in their criminal birthright.

Story details for season 2 are currently scarce, but Fred Armisen is among the newcomers to the cast.

It’s been almost 20 years since Malcolm in the Middle ended, and just as long since Malcolm (Frankie Muniz) spent any time with his family. When Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair picks up, Malcolm is really happy with his life because of his daughter, Leah (Keeley Karsten), and his girlfriend, Tristan (Kiana Madeira).

That’s when Malcolm’s parents, Hal (Bryan Cranston) and Lois (Jane Kaczmarek), reenter the picture against his will. They’re feeling betrayed that Malcolm cut them out for so long, and his siblings aren’t any happier about it. The chaos that Malcolm avoided for so long is about to overtake him again.

Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair is streaming on Hulu.

One Battle After Another standout Chase Infiniti takes the leading role in The Testaments, the sequel series to The Handmaid’s Tale. Infiniti’s character, Agnes MacKenzie, is the daughter of the legendary revolutionary June Osborne; she just doesn’t know it yet.

The only thing Agnes knows is the indoctrination of Gilead, which has trained her to become a Handmaid like several other young women in her generation. At an exclusive school for Handmaids, Agnes’ latest classmate, Daisy (Lucy Halliday), may hold the key to getting her away from this environment. But before Agnes can escape, she needs to see Gilead as it really is and make her own decisions.

The Testaments is streaming on Hulu.

The new crime drama R.J. Decker is named after the main character because if the network called it Florida Man: P.I., then it would have been a little too on the nose. Scott Speedman plays R.J., an ex-con and former newspaper photographer who is reinventing himself as a private investigator.

R.J.’s former wife, Catherine Delacroix (Adelaide Clemens), and her new wife, Melody “Mel” Abreu (Bevin Bru), may be his two most reliable allies as he finds himself drawn into a mystery that could be connected to the powerful people who had him sentenced to prison.

R.J. Decker is streaming on Hulu.

Can you imagine growing up in the shadow of one of the most beloved Presidents in the history of the United States? That’s what John F. Kennedy Jr. (Paul Anthony Kelly) had to live through. Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette is a dramatization of Kennedy’s adult life, but his mother, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (Naomi Watts), is still with him to provide emotional support.

Sarah Pidgeon plays Carolyn Bessette, the woman who ultimately won Kennedy’s heart. Because of his celebrity, their courtship played out in full view of the public. And as much as fans seem to enjoy this series, their love story has a tragic ending.

Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette is streaming on Hulu.

There’s trouble in Paradise, and as usual, Samantha “Sinatra” Redmond (Julianne Nicholson) is at the heart of it. But after the events of season 1, Secret Service agent Xander Collins (Sterling K. Brown) knows just how much of a liar Sinatra is. She told him that his wife, Teri Rogers-Collins (Enuka Okuma), and nearly everyone else on Earth was dead after an apocalyptic event.

Now that Xander knows there’s some hope that his wife may be alive, he leaves Paradise behind to find her. Shailene Woodley is joining the cast this season as a survivor Xander meets on his journey. Meanwhile, turmoil in Paradise may lead to a leadership change as some deeply held secrets are coming to the surface.

Paradise is streaming on Hulu.

The original run of Scrubs made a name for itself with its comedic and heartfelt take on the medical genre. Although the show ended after nine seasons, ABC and Hulu are bringing the series back to life.

Zach Braff is reprising his role as Dr. John “J.D.” Dorian, alongside Donald Faison as Dr. Chris Turk, Sarah Chalke as Dr. Elliot Reid, John C. McGinley as Dr. Perry Cox and Judy Reyes as Carla Espinosa. We don’t know much about the characters’ lives in the present, but they’re the veterans now. And there’s going to be a new generation of doctors and nurses working alongside them.

Scrubs is streaming on Hulu.

American Horror Story creator Ryan Murphy is diving into sci-fi and body horror in The Beauty. Evan Peters and Rebecca Hall star as FBI agents Cooper Madsen and Jordan Bennett, respectively. These partners and secret lovers are investigating a sexually transmitted disease that can turn anyone into the most beautiful version of themselves. But the physical cost of that transformation is potentially deadly.

Their investigation leads back to a billionaire who goes by The Corporation (Ashton Kutcher) and a drug he funded to achieve the same thing. To protect his investment and his secrets, The Corporation has dispatched an assassin (Anthony Ramos) to silence anyone who threatens his global financial empire.

The Beauty is streaming on Hulu.

When A Thousand Blows debuted on Hulu in 2025, Stephen Graham was a few months away from winning critical acclaim and multiple Emmy Awards for Netflix’s Adolescence. Luckily, Graham had already filmed A Thousand Blows season 2 ahead of time. Following the first season of Hulu’s period drama, Henry “Sugar” Goodson (Graham) has retreated from his life of crime.

Sugar’s former adversary, Mary Carr (Erin Doherty), pulls him back into the game when she needs his help reforming her all-female gang, the Forty Elephants. Whether Mary will come to regret that decision remains to be seen. Meanwhile, Hezekiah Moscow (Malachi Kirby) has made a few enemies of his own, and his battles are far from over.

A Thousand Blows is streaming on Hulu.

Forest Whitaker doesn’t always get his due as an actor, but he’s stellar as the leading performer of Godfather of Harlem. This is a fictionalized version of the life of Ellsworth Raymond “Bumpy” Johnson, a man who emerges from prison in the 1960s only to discover that his neighborhoods are now under the control of the Italian mafia.

Never one to back down from a fight, Bumpy enlists Malcolm X (Nigél Thatch) to help drive Vincent “The Chin” Gigante (Vincent D’Onofrio) and his crime family out of their streets. The Chin isn’t going to leave without a fight, and even if Bumpy can reclaim his lost territory, he’ll still have to hold it through the turbulent ’60s.

Godfather of Harlem is streaming on Hulu.

Producer Ryan Murphy has cast Kim Kardashian as the lead of her own legal drama, All’s Fair. And she’s been surrounded by a pretty fantastic supporting cast, including Naomi Watts, Glenn Close and Sarah Paulson.

Allura Grant (Kardashian), Liberty Ronson (Watts) and Emerald Greene (Niecy Nash-Betts) were previously divorce lawyers at a male-dominated firm. Now, they’re on their own, with a lot of high-profile cases to tackle and enough backroom drama that their new firm may be in trouble from the moment it opens its doors.

While some critics have called All’s Fair “the worst TV show of the year,” it’s an enjoyable guilty pleasure filled with over-the-top acting and wild outfits.

All’s Fair is streaming on Hulu.

If you ruined your life in a major scandal, would you make your comeback with an even bigger scandal? Russ Holliday (Glen Powell) has no one to blame but himself for the way his college football career ended in disgrace. In Chad Powers, Russ is so eager to recapture his glory days that he creates a fake identity as the title character so he can enroll at a small college and play football again.

Russ goes to great lengths to disguise himself as Chad, including prosthetic makeup on his face. But keeping up this deception has to go far beyond the playing field, which Russ finds increasingly difficult as his alter ego begins to make waves. Russ’ comeback has been built on a house of cards, and it may only be a matter of time before his true identity is discovered.

Chad Powers is streaming on Hulu.

Ethan Hawke stars in this neo-noir story about Lee Raybon, a conspiracy theorist, journalist and self-styled “truthtorian” who’s determined to track down answers after the mysterious death of a high-profile businessman in his hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma. The stacked cast includes Keith David, Peter Dinklage, Jeanne Tripplehorn and Kyle MacLachlan.

Lee is a ne’er-do-well with a heart of gold, not afraid to stir up trouble to get to the bottom of a story, and his antics are always fun to watch. As Lee tells Francis (Ryan Kiera Armstrong), the 13-year-old daughter he shares with ex, Samantha (Kaniehtiio Horn), “We call up bad guys. Make ‘em answer the phone.” Well, now that the phone’s been rung, The Lowdown has definitely caught our attention. We’re eager to see how those bad guys respond.

The Lowdown is streaming on Hulu.

Did you have a cool teacher who changed your life in high school? Evan Marquez (Brian Jordan Alvarez) really wants to be that teacher for the kids at his Texas public school, but his students really don’t make it easy. As he balances his personal life with his principles and the ever-shifting expectations of students and parents, he often ends up in trouble.

A hilarious critique of modern youth culture that maligns millennials and Gen Z in equal measure, English Teacher is a sitcom you won’t want to miss. This show gets an A in our book — and we’re not just saying that to avoid an angry parent.

English Teacher is streaming on Hulu.

Even if you’ve never seen any of the Alien movies, you’ll be able to pretty quickly catch up with this prequel series — and you should, because the sci-fi horror show has been an instant hit. It takes place in a not-so-distant future (the year 2120, two years before the first movie’s story begins) where five rival corporations run the world — Prodigy, Weyland-Yutani, Lynch, Dynamic and Threshold. All of these corporations use different kinds of technology to enhance human beings to the point of immortality.

The newest version of this is a hybrid — a human mind uploaded into a synthetic body. The main character is Wendy (Sydney Chandler), an adult-bodied synth hybrid whose mind was transferred from a terminally ill 12-year-old girl. Wendy and her fellow hybrid “Lost Boys” undertake a dangerous mission — which soon puts them directly in the path of a full-grown Xenomorph and other predatory life-forms. Scary and thought-provoking, Alien: Earth fits right in with the groundbreaking franchise originally created by Ridley Scott.

Alien: Earth is streaming on Hulu.

Superman fever struck the country in 2025 after David Corenswet flew onto the big screen as the Man of Steel. That’s probably why Smallville has been trending on Hulu lately — if you’re craving more Clark Kent content, this epic origin story is the perfect place to find him. 

Tom Welling stars as a high school-aged Clark as he discovers his unusual abilities and grapples with the complexities of teenage life. Focusing on Clark’s relationship with Lex Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum), Lana Lang (Kristin Kreuk) and — eventually — Lois Lane (Erica Durance), the series balances sci-fi action and emotion with lots of juicy teenage drama.

Smallville is streaming on Hulu.

If you’re in the market for propane and propane accessories, you’re in luck — because King of the Hill is back! The series “ended” in 2010, but has returned for a long-awaited season 14 on Hulu. King of the Hill was created by Mike Judge and is set in Arlen, Texas. It follows the working-class Hill family, particularly bumbling dad Hank Hill (voiced by Judge), his well-meaning wife Peggy (Kathy Najimy) and their eccentric son Bobby (Pamela Adlon).

Season 14 isn’t being packaged as a reboot or a sequel — simply a very delayed continuation. The show looks a little different — Bobby has grown up, Hank and Peggy are retired — but it’s got the same satirical sense of humor and well-written characters you loved in the original run. 

King of the Hill is streaming on Hulu.

How to Die Alone is a must-watch for one simple reason — we’re hoping that if enough people tune in, it will get un-cancelled. (It’s good to have dreams!) This smart, funny sitcom from Insecure and The White Lotus star Natasha Rothwell deserved more love than it got.

Rothwell plays Mel, a “broke, fat, Black JFK airport employee” who has given up on dreaming. But when a near-death experience gives her a new lease on life, Mel is determined to start really living — by any means necessary. With the help of Hudson News employee Rory (Conrad Ricamora of Fire Island), Mel learns to make a very important distinction between being single and being alone.

How to Die Alone is streaming on Hulu.

Ernest Kingsley Jr. headlines Washington Black as its main character, George Washington ‘Wash’ Black, a man who was born into slavery in the early 19th century. This was the only life that Wash had ever known, and he found a mentor in Christopher ‘Titch’ Wilde (Tom Ellis), a member of the family that enslaved him.

Despite his obviously keen and scientific mind, Wash is forced to flee his home when he is wrongfully accused of a crime. That leads him to a dangerous journey that may redefine the course of his life and determine where he can live as a free man.

Washington Black is streaming on Hulu.

Haunted houses are just another part of the job in SurrealEstate. Sarah Levy stars as Susan Ireland, the latest agent to join the Roman Agency, a real estate company that deals exclusively with supernaturally charged homes and properties under the leadership of Luke Roman (Tim Rozon).

The Roman Agency takes it upon themselves to save their clients from any otherworldly activity that arises when buying or selling a home. However, the job isn’t without its own risks and sometimes the demons the agency encounters can follow them home.

SurrealEstate is streaming on Hulu.

The world doesn’t need another show about young people living in New York City, but give Adults a chance. The new series follows five friends living together in a house in Queens as they figure out life after college. But Paul (Jack Innanen), Samir (Malik Elassal), Issa (Amita Rao), Anton (Owen Thiele) and Billie (Lucy Freyer) soon discover that being in your twenties isn’t as great as they thought it would be, and navigating love, sex and paying the rent is a struggle with seemingly no end.

If Adults sounds a lot like Broad City or Happy Endings, that’s because it is. The snarky banter and nonsensical plots aren’t all that original, but the cast — made up of mostly unknowns — makes it work. Adults is a fun hangout show with relatable characters dealing with relatable problems, and it’s a comfort to see people more messed up than you on television.

Bob Fosse (Sam Rockwell) was a visionary choreographer and director, but like the old saying goes, behind every great man is an even greater woman, and for Fosse, that was Gwen Verdon (Michelle Williams), his muse, wife and mother to his daughter. The 2019 FX eight-episode miniseries details the pair’s complicated relationship and makes a convincing case that they were some of the most important Broadway artists of the 20th century. After you watch the show, you’ll come to that conclusion, too.

The series uses a non-linear narrative to chronicle Fosse and Verdon’s multi-decade creative collaboration on such famous musicals as Damn Yankees and Chicago, as well as their rocky romantic relationship that ultimately ended due to Fosse’s frequent affairs. As the titular couple, Rockwell and Williams convincingly portray artists and lovers who can’t live with each other but can’t quite leave one another, either. Fosse/Verdon is a fascinating look at the private lives of two very public figures and how they used their marital drama to make great art.

A group of Utah-based TikTok influencers, once seen as a picture-perfect group of parents, saw their secrets start to unravel after Taylor Frankie Paul revealed that she and her husband had been “soft-swinging” with other couples.

This series, which dropped 10 out of the 20 season 2 episodes on May 15, follows this group of women as their loyalties shift after the scandal that rocked their group. The drama is explosive, but it’s also a fascinating exploration of the thriving online world of Mormon motherhood on social media. The women juggle religious expectations, family obligations and maintaining a “proper” public image, as well as their relationships with one another in a juicy reality series that’s shockingly addictive.

The cult of wellness rears its ugly head in this drama series, which stars Nicole Kidman as Masha, an enigmatic wellness guru who uses extremely unorthodox (and by most metrics unethical) methods to “transform” and “heal” the wealthy guests on her exclusive retreats.

The second season just premiered and features a cast of A-listers, like Henry Golding (Crazy Rich Asians), Annie Murphy (Schitt’s Creek), Christine Baranski (The Good Fight) and Murray Bartlett (The White Lotus). While the first season featured a tranquil, summery setting, season 2 takes viewers to the Swiss Alps. Bundle up, things are about to get dangerous.

On July 22, 2005, bombing suspect Jean Charles de Menezes was shot and killed by the Metropolitan Police Service at a subway stop in London. That much is true, but the circumstances surrounding his death are still debated today. The new four-episode series Suspect: The Shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes dramatizes the events leading up to de Menezes’ death, and the public outrage that occurred after it was revealed he was innocent. 

Russell Tovey and Emily Mortimer lead the cast as members of the London police force who make a fatal error in judgment, and newcomer Edison Alcaide plays the innocent and doomed Jean. Suspect is always fascinating to watch, even if the truth it presents is sometimes tough to take. 

A strong candidate for the best sitcom made in the 21st century, Modern Family chronicles the comical — and often complicated — interactions of the extended Pritchett-Dunphy-Tucker family: the patriarch Jay Pritchett (Ed O’Neill), his younger Colombian wife, Gloria (Sofia Vergara); Jay’s daughter Claire (Julie Bowen), her husband Phil Dunphy (Ty Burrell); Jay’s son Mitchell (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) and his husband Cameron (Eric Stonestreet); and all their offspring. 

The show ran for 11 years, and while there’s some wear and tear in the later seasons, Modern Family retained its good-natured humor that made it an instant hit. The cast is uniformly strong, but Burrell, Vergara and Stonestreet are the show’s stealth MVPs. 

The Met Gala may be over, but that doesn’t mean your obsession with fashion has to stop. The Bold Type is just the show to watch to satisfy those haute couture cravings. The Freeform series explores the lives of three young women working at Scarlet, a woman’s magazine overseen by editor in chief Jacqueline Carlyle (Melora Hardin). 

While it has some soap opera elements, The Bold Type is mostly a straightforward drama series that’s fully invested in its complex female characters. Hardin is terrific as the steely but not unreasonable boss, but a pre-White Lotus Meghann Fahy steals every scene she’s in as Sutton. 

Everyone has a bucket list, essential things you want to do before you pass away, and Molly (Michelle Williams) is no different. She’s stuck in a boring marriage with Steven (Jay Duplass), who won’t have sex with her, and her life is pretty dull. When Molly finds out she has terminal breast cancer, she kicks Steven out, moves in with her best friend Nikki (Jenny Slate) and decides to enjoy everything life has to offer before she dies. That includes having lots of sex, and Molly is determined to explore her desires while still reconciling with her fate.

This premise sounds ridiculous, but it’s based on a popular podcast, also called “Dying for Sex,” which documented creator/author Molly Kochan’s sexual journey after her cancer diagnosis. The Hulu adaptation is largely faithful to the podcast’s playful black humor, and Williams is excellent as the newly liberated Molly. Dying for Sex is a dark comedy that deals with serious issues, but the show never loses its odd sense of humor.

It’s every parent’s worst nightmare — one minute your child is there, and the next they are gone, possibly forever. That’s what Eliza Blix (Andor‘s Denise Gough) experiences when she goes to pick up her daughter Lucia (Beatrice Cohen) after a sleepover at a friend’s house and can’t find her. She can’t find her friend’s family either, and she eventually discovers that the house was a short-term rental and that no one permanently lives there.

What happened to Lucia? And who was the “family” that seemingly kidnapped her? The Stolen Girl has a can’t-miss premise and delivers on it throughout its five gripping episodes. Gough is outstanding as a mother who can’t believe the worst is happening to her, and matching her is Jim Sturgess as her husband Fred, who is hiding more secrets than Eliza would like.

When it premiered in 2017, The Handmaid’s Tale quickly became a show shaped by — and of — the moment. Adapted from Margaret Atwood’s celebrated novel of the same name, the show’s tale of women being oppressed in a fictional society called Gilead resonated with viewers just as President Donald Trump’s first term was starting. The Handmaid’s Tale was so successful that it continued long after Atwood’s story had ended, with the show following lead character Offred/June Osborne (Elisabeth Moss) as she joined a revolutionary movement to help bring down Gilead.

The long-running Hulu series finally came to an end this May, providing conclusions for the tales of June, Serena (Yvonne Strahovski), Luke (O-T Fagbenle), Nick (Max Minghella), Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd) and more. But the story of Gilead is far from over, as Hulu is already preparing for a spin-off series, The Testaments, based on Atwood’s sequel, that will focus on Aunt Lydia and a few other familiar characters.

Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction, and it doesn’t get any stranger than the case of Natalia Grace. Natalia (Imogene Faith Reid) is a 7-year-old Ukrainian orphan with a rare form of dwarfism who is eventually adopted by a kind American couple, Kristine (Ellen Pompeo) and Michael Barnett (Mark Duplass). But Natalia’s new parents begin to suspect something is seriously wrong with her and eventually accuse her of not being a child at all.

It only gets stranger from there, but to spoil any more would ruin the experience of watching Good American Family, the new eight-episode limited series on Hulu that dramatizes a real-life case that has eerie similarities to the horror movie Orphan. Far away from the soapy romances of Grey Sloane Memorial Hospital, Grey’s Anatomy’s Pompeo shows a different side than what viewers are used to seeing, while Duplass expertly conveys all the contradictions of a parent who has to make an impossible choice. It’s a disturbing watch, but an entertainingly campy one, too.

Detective Ember Manning (Jenna Coleman) has a lot on her plate. A recent widow, she has to investigate a mysterious fire in a scenic small town that seems to exist only in British crime shows. Yet this seemingly simple case of arson leads her to another case involving the abduction of a young girl years ago, and the two seemingly unrelated crimes have a personal connection that will change Ember forever.

The Jetty doesn’t offer anything new to the genre, but what it does, it does well. The central mystery is genuinely compelling, and with only four episodes, the show doesn’t waste any time setting up its red herrings before giving viewers a satisfying resolution.

As Ember, Coleman hits all the right notes, making her detective flawed enough to be believable and relatable. The main highlight, however, is the show’s stunning cinematography, which makes great use of its moody West Yorkshire and Manchester filming locations.

With a title like High Potential and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’s Kaitlin Olson in the lead role, it’s understandable that some might think this show is a comedy about marijuana. Instead, Olson stars as an LAPD cleaning lady with a “high potential” IQ of over 160. When she helps her cop co-workers solve a case, she’s hired as a consultant and paired with Detective Adam Karadec (Daniel Sunjata), who can barely stand her.

The combination of a kooky main character and an unconventional crime-solving duo makes High Potential the spiritual successor to shows like Monk and Psych, which both had long runs on cable TV. High Potential could have a long life as well due to Olson’s sparkling presence and the sturdy, crime-of-the-week cadence the show utilizes to great effect. 

One of the most acclaimed miniseries ever made, Shōgun is as advertised – simply great. Based on James Clavell’s 1975 historical novel, the 10-episode series takes place in 17th-century Japan. When a Dutch trading ship carrying valuable weapons crash-lands on the Izu Peninsula, it instigates a war among the region’s five ruling clans. One of the ship’s survivors, John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis), is captured by Lord Yoshii Torangaa (Hiroyuki Sanada), and the two men realize they have more in common than they initially thought. Faced with a common enemy, the two men forge an uneasy alliance.

An immediate sensation when it was released in February 2024, Shōgun won just about every award there is: Emmys, Golden Globes, you name it. All of it was deserved, as the show features superb acting, cinematography and direction. Shōgun feels as epic as silver screen classics like Lawrence of Arabia, and its historical sweep is always grounded in quiet character moments. A second season is on the way, which promises more breathtaking visuals and stunning battle sequences.

Elisabeth Moss is one of the best actresses around, able to elevate even OK material with her talent. The Veil isn’t as great as her previous shows The West Wing, Mad Men or The Handmaid’s Tale, but it’s still pretty good for what it is. 

Moss stars as Imogen, an MI6 agent who goes undercover to find out if Adilah El Idrissi (Yumna Marwan) is really the terrorist her bosses believe her to be. But as the two women bond while traveling across Europe, Imogen isn’t so sure she can trust anyone — not her employers, not Adilah, not even her own memories. With a terrorist attack imminent, Imogen will have to rely on her instincts and overcome some pretty significant trauma to prevent the deaths of innocent civilians.

The Veil starts strong but runs out of steam near the end, but it’s still an engrossing spy drama that will keep you guessing until the end. It’s Moss, though, who makes it all worthwhile — her Imogen is just as complex, empathetic and frustrating as her Peggy and Offred. 

Who knew murder could be so cozy? Set in a luxury apartment building in New York City, Only Murders in the Building follows retired actor Charles-Haden Savage (Steve Martin), failed Broadway producer Oliver Putnam (Martin Short) and twentysomething artist Mabel Mora (Selena Gomez) as they encounter one murder after another. To help solve these crimes, these amateur sleuths podcast their ongoing investigations, which brings them unexpected fame and unwelcome danger.

Only Murders in the Building serves up a different mystery each season with a revolving door of guest stars like Amy Ryan, Tina Fey, Paul Rudd and Meryl Streep. In its current season, the trio travels to Hollywood to oversee a film adaptation of their podcast and has to solve the murder of Charles’s stunt double, Sazz Pataki (Jane Lynch). The show is just as fresh as it was when it debuted in 2021, and Martin, Short and Gomez still have the best chemistry in streaming.

Broadcast comedies were on life support around 2020 until Abbott Elementary came to the rescue. The brainchild of creator and lead actress Quinta Brunson, the show follows the overworked and underpaid staff of R. Abbott Elementary School in Philadelphia. Janine (Brunson) and Greg (Tyler James Williams) are the most optimistic teachers around, while veteran educators Melissa (Lisa Ann Walter), Jacob (Chris Perfetti) and Barbara (Sheryl Lee Ralph) are just trying to make it through the day. And then there’s Ava (Janelle James), the school’s principal, who’d rather be doing anything else.. 

Now in its fourth season, Abbott Elementary is still as charming and funny as ever. Ralph deservedly won an Emmy in 2022 for her performance as the buttoned-up Barbara, but just as good are Walter as the teacher most likely to know Tony Soprano and James as the mean but funny Ava. Like any classic sitcom, the show is warm and welcoming, and it will make you want to watch it again and again.

A streaming sequel to the 2018 film Love, Simon, Love, Victor is set in the same school, Creekwood High, and features cameo appearances from some of the actors of the original film. The central conceit is the same: Victor (Michael Cimino) is a closeted teen who gradually steps out of the closet with the help of his friends and, eventually, his family. Over 28 episodes, the show chronicles Victor’s first romance with Benji (George Sear) and his evolving relationship with his mother Isabel (Ana Ortiz), who isn’t as accepting of his sexuality as he’d like her to be.

Teen dramas can be overlooked or looked down on, but Love, Victor is noteworthy for how seriously it takes Victor’s coming out and the effect it has on his Mexican American family. The show has its lighthearted moments, too, with the usual love triangles and heartbreak that are essential to the genre. Cimino’s Victor is charismatic enough to spend a couple of dozen half-hours with, and Ortiz’s fierce mama is the rare parent in a teen show who has more complexity and screen time than her younger costars.