2024 was another great year for television. We got a ton of new series and returning favorites over the last twelve months, including a masterpiece from Alfonso Cuaron, the best comic book-inspired television series ever, and follow-up seasons to perennially great shows. We could barely watch everything from event series to revivals, comedies, dramas, and genre offerings. With hundreds of shows to choose from and thousands of hours of programming, here is our list of the best TV shows of 2024.
Honorable Mentions
Star Wars: Skeleton Crew, Interior Chinatown. Sunny, Dark Matter, Monsieur Spade, The Regime, Sugar, Interview with the Vampire, The Franchise, La Maquina, The Madness, Shrinking, Only Murders in the Building, Eric, The Day of the Jackal, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, The Sympathizer, The Boys, The Agency, Agatha All Along.
There have been many good shows this year, but not enough to make it into our top ten. Of all the shows reviewed in 2024, the above series is worth checking out if you have already plowed through the top series listed below. From returning series to limited events and unique genre offerings, there are a lot of quality shows we just couldn’t fit into our top list. Check out reviews for each series by clicking the title above.
Honorable Mention: Yellowstone (Paramount Network)
After a tumultuous pause in production that saw Kevin Costner written out of the series, Taylor Sheridan’s popular flagship series returned with the final six episodes of the fifth season. Killing off Costner’s John Dutton was always in the cards, but the timeline was accelerated to accommodate the contractual shift. With Kelly Reilly and Cole Hauser announced to lead their own spin-off series and rumors of a continuation led by Matthew McConaughey, the frustration fans may feel regarding the quality of Yellowstone is moot. Yellowstone remains one of the most fascinating melodramas on the air and representative of what fans love about watching rich people behave badly.
Read our Season 5 Part 2 review here.
10. Squid Game 2 (Netflix)
After becoming the biggest global streaming sensation of 2021, the Korean drama Squid Game has returned for a second season of games, drama, mystery, and death. While the second season has fewer episodes than the first and spends less time on the mysterious island, there is much more going on now. New characters and more conflict make this season as engrossing as the first, with another gripping lead performance from Lee Jung-jae. Premiering right after Christmas, Squid Game 2 marks the latest entry into this list and is definitely a worthwhile gift to send out in 2024.
Read our review here.
9. The Bear (FX on Hulu)
Despite some critics, including myself, being underwhelmed by The Bear‘s third season, the culinary comedy-drama still serves up some of the best writing on television. Jeremy Allen White and Ayo Edibiri are stellar alongside Ebon Moss-Bachrach and the entire ensemble cast, with great guest stars and without needing guns, superpowers, or any other tropes from genre storytelling. As funny as it is heartbreaking, The Bear slowed down significantly during the third season but seems to be setting up what could be the final season of the series. There is no doubt that the show will continue to garner awards and critical acclaim as it shows us a different side of long-form storytelling than we usually get.
Read our season three review here.
8. Tulsa King (Paramount+)
With a third and fourth season looking more likely every day, Taylor Sheridan’s series catalog has found another hit with this Sylvester Stallone-led series. Surprisingly funny but with a Sopranos-esque bend, the second season of Tulsa King added two great villains in Neal McDonough and Frank Grillo. A cliffhanger ending sets the stage for what comes next, potentially opening up a bevy of spin-offs inspired by this show. Stallone on the small screen is as good as on the big screen, so here is hoping the iconic actor is up for playing this character for years to come.
Read our season two review here.
7. Fallout (Prime Video)
Video game adaptations have long suffered from bad scripts, directing, and acting. Over the last few years, shows have raised the bar, with The Last of Us setting the benchmark. When Westworld co-creator Jonathan Nolan lent his talents to bringing Fallout to screens, it became an instant contender for the next bar-raising series. With stellar performances from Walton Goggins, Ella Purnell, Kyle MacLachlan, and Aaron Moten, Fallout took the tone and style of the video games. It forged a fully original story rather than retelling one we already knew. With a vast world full of drama and a sense of humor, Fallout is a great series that shows that you don’t have to be grim and serious to be a worthwhile video game adaptation.
Read our review here.
6. Mr. & Mrs. Smith (Prime Video)
While Donald Glover and Francesca Sloane used the 2005 film as a jumping-off point, this new take on the spy story has very little in common with what Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt did in their version. Glover and Maya Erskine play two strangers who must forge a professional and personal partnership to be successful spies. Their solid chemistry lends a realistic bend to this crazy plot with many great twists and turns. While the series works as a standalone, the ending leaves the door open for a new spy couple to headline season two. As it stands, Glover and Erskine are exceptional in this series, which defies the conventions of the genre to deliver a great romantic espionage series.
Read our review here.
5. True Detective: Night Country (HBO)
Despite the departure of creator Nic Pizzolatto after the first three seasons, HBO found something in new showrunner Issa Lopez. Bringing in Jodie Foster and Kali Reis as a mismatched pair of police officers in the isolated town of Ennis, Alaska, the fourth season, subtitled Night Country, took a horrifying discovery of murdered scientists in a remote part of the frozen wilderness and derived a chilling story about race, gender, and politics. With great supporting turns from Christopher Eccleston, John Hawkes, Isabella Star LeBlanc, and Fiona Shaw, Night Country was the best take on the True Detective format since the debut season starring Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson.
Read our review here.
4. Ripley (Netflix)
Building off the success of his 2016 HBO miniseries The Night Of, writer and director Steve Zaillian adapted Patricia Highsmith’s classic mystery novel The Talented Mr. Ripley. While fans already got the story starring Matt Damon, Jude Law, and Gwyneth Paltrow in Anthony Minghella’s 1999 film, this lush black-and-white adaptation expands the focus to match the source material. With a chillingly perfect leading performance from Andrew Scott alongside Dakota Fanning and Johnny Flynn, Ripley is a stunningly beautiful storytelling achievement that challenges the noir genre’s conventions. Zaillian does a remarkable job, and Andrew Scott has never been better.
Read our review here.
3. Shogun (FX)
Remaking a beloved mini-series with an almost entirely Japanese cast and performed predominantly in the Japanese language was a risky move for FX, but it paid off. Shogun, a passion project for star and producer Hiroyuki Sanada, adapts the source novel by James Clavell and has garnered critical acclaim for the entire cast, notably Anna Sawai and Tadanobu Asano. With a second season in development from showrunners Rachel Kondo and Justin Marks, the epic ten-episode Shogun remains a cinematic achievement on a scale that television rarely achieves. Wonderfully acted, intensely dramatic, and historically accurate, this series will rank as one of the best productions in small screen history.
Read our review here.
2. Disclaimer (AppleTV+)
Alfonso Cuaron has helped redefine modern cinema with everything from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban to Children of Men, Gravity, and Roma. The auteur turned his focus to the small screen with the support of Apple to develop an adaptation of Renee Knight’s novel that is without comparison. A twisty drama about how the past can haunt the present, Disclaimer is jaw-droppingly brilliant. Cate Blanchett, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Kevin Kline, Lesley Manville, and Sacha Baron Cohen are all phenomenal. Still, relatively new talents Louis Partridge and Leila George take what could have been a run-of-the-mill melodrama and transform it into one of Alfonso Cuaron’s best works. This is less a television series than a novel made for the screen or a movie split into episodes. You have to see it from beginning to end to embrace the shocking power of this story.
Read our review here.
1. The Penguin (HBO)
While Marvel Studios may have cornered the big screen, DC has now raised the bar for television adaptations of comic books. Colin Farrell is unrecognizable in what may be his career-defining role as Oswald Cobb, the low-level gangster who rises through the underworld of Gotham City to become the kingpin known as Penguin. Cristin Milioti gives an equally amazing performance as Sofia Falcone, the woman standing in Oz’s path to power. To be able to tell a story about a Batman character without the Dark Knight would have been folly for anyone other than producer Matt Reeves and series creator Lauren LeFranc, who avoid making this a series about superheroes and villains but rather a fully realized crime saga along the lines of The Godfather, Goodfellas, or The Sopranos. From the ensemble cast to the production values and Farrell’s amazing prosthetic transformation, nothing came close to being as good this year as The Penguin.
Read our review here.
What were your favorite shows of 2024? Let us know your ranking in the comments below.
