The Best TV Series of the Decade (So Far)

Somewhere between the streaming wars, two industry strikes, and the great cancellation purges, the 2020s quietly became a spectacular decade for television. The volume of new shows finally started shrinking after its 2022 peak, but the hit rate at the top end went up. The best series of the last six years are not just good by streaming-era standards; several belong in any all-time conversation.

That abundance creates its own problem. Nobody has time to audit every acclaimed drama, and a wrong pick costs you ten hours you will not get back. So the EditorBuzz entertainment desk did the arguing for you. What follows is our honest shortlist of the series that premiered between 2020 and 2025 and actually earned their reputations, grouped so you can match a show to your mood and your available hours.

One ground rule before we start: every show here began in this decade. Beloved series that merely ended in the 2020s were left off, however painful that was, because this is a list about what the decade built, not what it inherited.

How We Picked

Three filters shaped this list. First, the premiere date: 2020 through 2025, no exceptions. Second, critical consensus mattered, but it was a floor rather than a ceiling; plenty of well-reviewed shows evaporate from memory a month after their finale. Third, and most important, we asked whether each series holds up on a second pass, because rewatchability is the closest thing television has to an objective quality test. Awards were a tiebreaker, and the Television Academy record of recent years lines up with our picks more often than not.

We also capped the list at a manageable size. A ranking of forty shows is a spreadsheet, not a recommendation.

The Dramas That Defined the Decade

Severance (2022– )

Dan Erickson’s workplace thriller starts with a clean, unnerving premise: employees surgically split their work memories from their home lives. What elevates it is the discipline of the storytelling. Every corridor of Lumon Industries is designed to disorient, Adam Scott gives a career-best double performance, and the long-awaited second season in 2025 expanded the mythology without cheapening the mystery. If you recommend one show to someone who claims television peaked years ago, make it this.

The Last of Us (2023– )

Video game adaptations were a punchline until this one. By keeping the game’s spine and having the confidence to detour — the standalone third episode remains one of the decade’s most affecting hours — the series proved that source fidelity and real television craft are not enemies. Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey carry it, and the second season’s harder, riskier turns kept it in the conversation. If adaptations are your thing, our companion guide to the best book-to-screen adaptations runs the same playbook for the page.

Shogun (2024– )

FX’s retelling of James Clavell’s novel swept its awards season for a reason. It is patient, politically intricate, and largely in subtitled Japanese, and it trusted a mainstream audience to keep up — a bet that paid off spectacularly. Anna Sawai and Hiroyuki Sanada anchor a cast with no weak links, and the production design makes most theatrical epics look thin. Its success green-lit further seasons, but the first stands alone as a complete story.

Andor (2022–2025)

The best Star Wars story of the modern era barely mentions the Force. Tony Gilroy’s two-season spy drama about how ordinary people slide into rebellion is dense, adult, and beautifully written — the prison arc and a single mid-series monologue about sacrifice have already entered the television canon. You need no franchise homework to watch it, and it may work even better without any.

Slow Horses (2022– )

Apple’s adaptation of Mick Herron’s spy novels is the decade’s most reliable pleasure: a shabby, funny, propulsive British thriller that turns out a tight season roughly every year. Gary Oldman’s Jackson Lamb is a masterclass in playing brilliance disguised as squalor. It is the rare show you can recommend to almost anyone over sixteen and be certain the recommendation lands.

The White Lotus (2021– )

Mike White’s anthology satire — a new resort, a new ensemble, a new body — is really a Trojan horse for sharp writing about money, status, and self-deception. Season quality varies by taste, but every installment produces at least two performances people argue about for months. Watch it for the scripts; stay for the discourse.

The Comedies That Carried Real Weight

The Bear (2022– )

Nominally a comedy, actually a pressure cooker. Christopher Storer’s Chicago kitchen drama compresses grief, ambition, and family dysfunction into half-hour episodes that occasionally play out in real time. The one-take episode from its first season is still shown to film students, and Jeremy Allen White and Ayo Edebiri became stars on the strength of it. Later seasons got more contemplative, but the highs remain untouchable.

Ted Lasso (2020–2023)

It arrived at the exact moment the world needed a sincerity delivery system, but the show is better than its reputation as comfort food. Underneath the biscuits and folksy aphorisms is a surprisingly rigorous story about mental health, male friendship, and what leadership actually looks like. Three seasons, a real ending, minimal homework.

Abbott Elementary (2021– )

Quinta Brunson revived the network sitcom singlehandedly. A mockumentary about underfunded Philadelphia public school teachers should not be this joyful, but the jokes-per-minute rate is the best on broadcast television and the show has a moral center it never gets preachy about. It is also the rare modern classic the whole household can watch together.

Hacks (2021– )

A legendary Las Vegas comedian and an entitled young writer form television’s best toxic mentorship. Jean Smart delivers the performance of the decade in any genre, and the show keeps finding new gears each season instead of repeating its pilot’s dynamic. Sharp, mean, and secretly warm.

Only Murders in the Building (2021– )

Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez solving murders in a New York co-op is exactly as pleasant as it sounds, and more cleverly constructed than it needs to be. It is the ideal group-watch mystery: light enough for a weeknight, twisty enough to argue about at the credits.

Limited Series: Complete Stories, One Weekend

The Queen’s Gambit (2020)

The show that made chess sets sell out worldwide. Anya Taylor-Joy’s orphaned prodigy gives the sports-drama formula an elegance it rarely gets, and seven episodes is precisely the right length. Half a decade later it remains the template for the prestige limited series.

Beef (2023)

A road-rage incident between two strangers spirals into mutual annihilation. Steven Yeun and Ali Wong are both extraordinary, and the series has more to say about loneliness and class in ten episodes than most dramas manage in five seasons.

Baby Reindeer (2024)

Richard Gadd’s autobiographical account of being stalked is uncomfortable, self-implicating, and impossible to shake. It is not a casual watch and should not be your movie-night pick, but it is one of the decade’s bravest pieces of writing.

Ripley (2024)

Steven Zaillian shot Patricia Highsmith’s con man in luminous black and white, and Andrew Scott plays Tom Ripley as a patient, meticulous void. It moves slowly on purpose; the tension comes from process, not plot twists. Gorgeous is an overused word — here it is simply accurate.

Adolescence (2025)

Each episode of this British drama about a thirteen-year-old accused of murder unfolds in a single unbroken take. The technique never feels like a gimmick because the performances — especially from its young lead — are devastating. It sparked a genuine public conversation about boys and the internet, which almost no television manages anymore.

Quick Guide: What to Watch Tonight

How to Watch It All Without Six Subscriptions

Streaming rights move constantly, so we deliberately avoid promising where a given show lives this month. The practical strategy is rotation: subscribe to one platform, clear two or three shows from this list, cancel, and move to the next. Checking a series on Rotten Tomatoes before you commit also helps you skip the seasons critics agree are skippable.

Make the watching itself an event, too. The finale of a great drama deserves better than a laptop speaker; our guide to hosting a perfect movie night at home works just as well for a season finale, and if you are rethinking the room you watch in, a little color psychology in your interior design goes a surprisingly long way toward making a living room feel like a screening room.

And when your watchlist fatigue sets in — it happens to everyone by episode two hundred of the decade — swap a screen night for something interactive. A round of the best co-op games with the same friends scratches a similar shared-story itch, and a cheap gig ticket does too; our field guide to live music on a budget is the antidote to couch inertia.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best TV series of the 2020s so far?

There is no single right answer, but Severance, The Bear, and Shogun appear on nearly every credible best-of list for the decade. Shogun is the most complete single-season achievement, while Severance is arguably the boldest original concept to break through since 2020.

Do I need every streaming service to watch these shows?

No. Most of the series here cluster on a handful of major platforms, and availability shifts over time. A smarter approach is rotating one or two subscriptions per month, finishing what you want on each, then switching.

Are limited series worth it compared to long-running shows?

Often, yes. Limited series like The Queen’s Gambit, Beef, and Baby Reindeer tell a complete story in under ten hours with no filler seasons, which makes them ideal if your watching time is scarce.

Which of these series are safe to watch with family?

Abbott Elementary and Ted Lasso are the safest all-ages picks on this list. Most of the prestige dramas here carry mature ratings, so check content advisories before a family viewing night.

How were the shows on this list chosen?

Every pick premiered between 2020 and 2025, earned broad critical acclaim, and holds up on a rewatch. We weighted writing, performances, and whether the series stuck the landing over hype or viewership numbers alone.

The Bottom Line

The 2020s did not kill great television; they concentrated it. Fewer shows are being made than at the peak, but the ones that matter — Severance, The Bear, Shogun, Andor — are operating at a level that would have seemed implausible fifteen years ago. The decade’s real signature is range: a subtitled Japanese epic, a single-take British drama, and a network sitcom can all sit on the same best-of list without anyone blinking.

Our advice is to treat this list as a menu, not homework. Pick the entry that matches your week — a limited series for a free weekend, Slow Horses for a reliable weekly ritual, Abbott Elementary for the family — and let the rest wait. Great TV is not going anywhere, and for once that is a promise the decade has actually kept.