Best shows on TV right now
Television has never been more crowded—or more competitive—with streaming giants and networks battling for your attention every single night. From gripping dramas to laugh-out-loud comedies, the best shows on TV right now are shaping conversations at work, online, and around the dinner table. Which series truly deserves the crown? Cast your vote and help settle the debate.
What counts: Seeded with approximate real-world figures — the crowd's votes decide the order from here.
Though it wrapped in 2020, this Michael Jordan and Chicago Bulls docuseries still dominates sports-doc conversations and streaming rewatches, making it a perennial 'best on TV right now' pick whenever it resurfaces on ESPN or Netflix rotations. Its blend of rare archival footage, candid interviews, and Jordan's competitive fire captured a cultural moment during lockdown that still resonates. The 'Republicans buy sneakers too' and Game 5 flu game moments remain iconic touchstones in sports storytelling.
Premiered: 2020Seasons: 1IMDb: 9/10
added by IJRin 4 rankingsThe Last Dance
31The scene of workers wading into radioactive water to prevent a second explosion turned a niche historical disaster into appointment television, and Jared Harris's haunted-scientist performance gave the whole miniseries its moral spine. It argued that prestige TV could do rigorous, unglamorous truth-telling as thrillingly as any twist-laden drama, and five years later nothing has topped its bleak, meticulous dread.
Premiered: 2019Seasons: 1IMDb: 9.3/10
added by IJRin 7 rankingsChernobyl
26Logan Roy's raspy 'you are not serious people' didn't just humiliate his children, it became the show's thesis statement, and the Season 3 finale boardroom coup left jaws on the floor for weeks. Its Shakespearean bile, quotable cruelty, and pitch-perfect satire of billionaire rot make it the show other prestige dramas are still measured against.
Premiered: 2018Seasons: 4IMDb: 8.9/10
added by IJRin 8 rankingsSuccession
19The Season 1 dartboard scene, where Lasso quietly dismantles Rupert while quoting Walt Whitman, turned a folksy underdog comedy into a cultural balm right when the world needed one. Its sincerity-as-rebellion approach reshaped what comfort TV could look like post-2020, even if later seasons wobbled — the goodwill it banked still carries it.
Premiered: 2020Seasons: 3IMDb: 8.8/10
added by IJRin 6 rankingsTed Lasso
19The elevator ding that splits Mark into 'innie' and 'outie' selves became one of the decade's most unsettling visual ideas, and the Season 1 finale's frantic dash to say something, anything, before consciousness switches back is TV's best cliffhanger in years. Its sterile corporate nightmare aesthetic and puzzle-box patience make it the show most likely to be studied as this era's defining original concept.
Premiered: 2022Seasons: 2IMDb: 8.7/10
added by IJRin 8 rankingsSeverance
17Baby Yoda's first reveal broke the internet before the episode even finished airing, single-handedly proving Star Wars could work as prestige-adjacent episodic TV rather than just blockbuster spectacle. It resurrected Disney+ as a platform and gave a bloated franchise its most purely enjoyable corner, even as later seasons diluted the western-in-space simplicity that made it special.
Premiered: 2019Seasons: 3IMDb: 8.6/10
added by IJRin 6 rankingsThe Mandalorian
3Bella Ramsey and Pedro Pascal turning a zombie video game into a devastating meditation on grief, especially in the standalone Bill-and-Frank episode that made even non-gamers weep, proved prestige adaptation could transcend its source material's reputation. It's the rare franchise piece that argues for TV's ability to slow down and breathe inside genre horror.
Premiered: 2023Seasons: 2IMDb: 8.7/10
added by IJRin 13 rankingsThe Last of Us
0John Dutton's 'here's your ranch back' speech to the developers became a MAGA-era rallying cry disguised as a family melodrama, and the show quietly built the biggest live audience in America without much coastal media coverage. Its unapologetic Western machismo and Kevin Costner star power carved out a massive audience prestige TV usually ignores.
Premiered: 2018Seasons: 5IMDb: 8.6/10
added by IJRin 4 rankingsYellowstone
-2Homelander laser-eyeing a plane full of passengers with a psychotic smile turned superhero satire from novelty into genuine social commentary about celebrity, fascism, and corporate rot. Its willingness to go gleefully, upsettingly far — practical effects gore included — keeps it the most purely entertaining takedown of the genre glutting every other streaming service.
Premiered: 2019Seasons: 4IMDb: 8.6/10
added by IJRin 5 rankingsThe Boys
-3Nemik's manifesto monologue and the Ferrix funeral riot showed Star Wars could stage a genuine political insurgency drama with adult stakes, no Jedi in sight. Tony Gilroy built something denser and angrier than fans expected, and its argument for the franchise's untapped potential makes it the most purely 'great television' Star Wars has ever produced.
Premiered: 2022Seasons: 2IMDb: 8.6/10
added by IJRin 4 rankingsAndor
-9Beth Harmon staring down a chessboard, pills and vodka in hand, turned competitive chess into unlikely appointment viewing and made Anya Taylor-Joy a star overnight. Its lush period detail and against-all-odds sports-movie structure — applied to a game, not a field — proved niche subject matter could still become a genuine global phenomenon.
Premiered: 2020Seasons: 1IMDb: 8.5/10
added by IJRin 7 rankingsThe Queen's Gambit
-9Carmy's silent, shaking meltdown in the walk-in freezer distilled kitchen-industry trauma into pure anxiety television, and the single-take chaos of 'Review' became an instant classic of sustained tension. Its blend of fine-dining detail and blue-collar grief reinvented the workplace dramedy as something closer to a panic attack you can't look away from.
Premiered: 2022Seasons: 4IMDb: 8.5/10
added by IJRin 10 rankingsThe Bear
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