Best TV and streaming shows in 2025 (so far)

This gut-punch drama sifts through the harrowing aftermath of the deadliest terror attack in British history, when a transatlantic Pam-Am flight was destroyed by a bomb and crashed into a rural Scottish town in 1988. Colin Firth is on top form as a grieving dad going to extreme and polarising ends to pursue justice for his daughter and the 269 other passengers, crew and Lockerbie residents who died. Powerful television that doesn’t pretend to have all the answers. 

Length of binge: 3 hours 20 mins

If you fused Kill List and Emmerdale Farm into a six-part ITV thriller starring British telly’s Martin Clunes, it would look, well, a lot like Out There. Clunes is impressive as Nathan Williams, a struggling farmer and diligent dad whose guileless son is drawn into a county lines drug trafficking operation. Nathan’s particular set of skills – farming, blasting drones out of the sky with a shotgun – means that the ‘avenging dad’ role isn’t a natural fit. It lends extra unpredictability to a gripping family survival tale that addresses some distressingly real social ills.

Length of binge: 4 hours 41 mins

For anyone who found grim-faced survival epic The Revenant too cheery, screenwriter Mark L Smith is back to really crank up the bleakness in this real-life western series. Constructed with maximum period detail in New Mexico, it recreates the little-known 1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre that set a ruthless Mormon militia, Utah settlers and Shoshone warriors at odds in spectacularly violent fashion. Veteran action-thriller filmmaker Peter Berg sends his Friday Night Lights muse Taylor Kitsch into this unforgiving landscape as a reluctant saviour for Betty Gilpin’s doughty homesteader. Not exactly fun but consistently gripping. 

Length of binge: 5 hours 4 mins

Touted as a sort of female version of Peaky Blinders, this six-part miniseries does far more than offer a proto-feminist revision of male crime stories (though it does that, too). Based on a true story and set in a London heaving with grime and grit in the immediate aftermath of World War I, it tells the story of a widow (the always-great Julianne Nicholson) with two daughters, one of whom has run off and mixed up in bad company. Exploring the dynamic of wartime women no longer reliant on men – who find their own seedy path to a kind of punk liberation – Dope Girls is thought-provoking fun. 

Length of binge: 5 hours 23 mins

Robert De Niro takes on civil liberties in a Netflix thriller that examines America’s complex relationship with objective truth. As a former president yanked out of retirement to head up an emergency committee to root out domestic terrorism, De Niro is on fine form, juicing up New York crowds with a rousing speech one minute, and blithely torturing civilians the next. The stacked cast also includes such heavyweights as Jesse Plemons, Joan Allen, Angela Bassett, Matthew Modine and Connie Britton. At a bite-sized six episodes, Zero Day is both an enjoyable binge romp and a soberingly prescient glimpse at America’s possible future.

Length of binge: 5 hours 6 mins

It’s rare for a third season to slap as hard as the first run, and even rarer to leave you actively gobsmacked. Comedian Jack Rooke’s beloved uni sitcom pulls both of those things off with a final stint that’s every bit as funny, silly and touching as before, as protagonist Jack (Dylan Llewellyn), bestie Danny (Jon Pointing) and the gang navigate a final year at Brent Uni. This time the strain of relationships, mental health and the threat of being thrust into adulthood hangs over them like a dark cloud. A gut-wrenchingly perfect bit of television – and if we started out hoping it would never have to end, we finished knowing it has to end here.

Length of binge: 2 hours 33 mins

Animation wizards Pixar deliver their answer to Rashomon. The eight-part series takes us into the high-stakes world of middle school softball, each episode sliding into the perspective of a different character in the same week leading up to The Pickles’ championship game. The skittering viewpoint deals with everything from avoidant attachment to crippling anxiety and financial struggles, via sentient blobs of sweat, imaginary armour and gravity-linked self-esteem. Not quite a home run, but a comfortable slide into third. 

Length of binge: 2 hours 47 mins

Whisk a generous helping of Game of Thrones into a thick batter of The Rings of Power and you’ll have a mixture that’s very close to this wonderfully knotty fantasy saga, adapted from the late Robert Jordan’s shelf-busting 15-book series. This season proves the best yet, the story picking up the pace in a tale of political strife, gore-flecked battles, and scheming sorceresses in fabulous frocks. With dense lore, epic scale and an outstanding supporting cast (Meera Syal’s Verin and Shohreh Aghdashloo’s Elaida being particular standouts), this is old school high fantasy spiced up with Thrones-inspired slaughter and shagging.

Chris Lang’s propulsive cold case drama remains the jewel in the crown of British network ITV, with Sinéad Keenan entering her second year as DCI Jessie James after stepping into Nicola Walker’s boots. This time, James finds herself dealing with an alt-right pundit, an autistic labourer, an Afghan refugee, and a recently unearthed cadaver. The joy, as ever, is in watching Lang weave these disparate threads into a satisfyingly serpentine narrative, here touching on everything from British immigration policy to the corrosive influence of the culture war. 

Length of binge: 4 hours 41 mins

Peaky Blinders’ showrunner Steven Knight returns to dark historical crime dramas, this time in Victorian London but still with the same texture and grit. Fresh from Jamaica, best friends Hezekiah (Malachi Kirby) and Alec Munroe (Francis Lovehall) are pulled into the unregulated world of bare-knuckle boxing. There’s lots of blood, class snobbery and a colourful gang of female thieves called the Forty Elephants who find a use for Hezekiah’s particular set of skills. But, standing over it all like a colossus, is a ripped Stephen Graham as ‘Sugar’ Goodson, the emperor of the bare-knuckle boxing world who delivers maximum intensity in minimum screen time. It may be Disney+ but Graham doesn’t pull any punches. 

Reliably brilliant in every episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and as the damaged daughter in Hacks, Kaitlin Olson has finally landed a lead worthy of her immense talent. In this remake of a French series, Olson plays a ‘high potential intellectual’ – her IQ is 160 – who uses her advanced cognitive abilities to help clay-footed detectives solve crimes. A fashion-forward fusion of Monk and The Mentalist with a manic mother-of-three? It has a lot of potential. 

Length of binge: 9 hours 16 mins

Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson’s girls-in-the-wilderness cannibal drama returns with a more focused third instalment after a meandering season 2, the feral teenagers drawing steadily closer to the macabre Lady of the Flies cult teased in the very first episode. There’s still a sense the the writers are making it up as they go, with no clear destination in mind, but this is a hell of a fun ride regardless, with superbly batty oddball Misty (Samantha Hanratty/Christina Ricci) the gold-plated MVP in both past and present timelines.

If you’re on the lookout for a cosy crime caper to warm the cockles on a Sunday night, look elsewhere. This grim story of murder, incest and child abuse is not the for the faint of heart, adapted from the similarly twisted novel by Erik Axl Sund. However, if you can get past the tricky subject matter, this is a fiendishly well-constructed serial-killer thriller, complete with a captivating, Lecter-like unsub and the fiercely enjoyable pairing of Eve Myles and Katherine Kelly as the detective/ psychologist duo trying to stop the killings.

Length of binge: 4 hours 50 mins

If there is one thing you can expect from Dan Fogelman, it’s an emotionally-charged twist. So sit back, grab some popcorn, and pull out any other self-care stop you need to mentally prepare yourself because Paradise delivers one of those after another. This Is Us showrunner delivers a genuinely fresh take on yet another US President show that’s part murder-mystery, part political thriller, and is peppered with tantalising clues and jolting flashbacks. Sterling K Brown is natural as ever as a Secret Service agent detailed to protect James Marsden’s persuasive President (his finest performance this side of Jury Duty). Not one to miss.

Length of binge: 6 hours 52 mins

Booker Prize-winning author Marlon James turns his hand to screenwriting with this five-part adaptation of his own novel, in which former Scotland Yard detective Millie Black (Tamara Lawrance) returns to her native Kingston to take a job on the Jamaican police force. Directly inspired by James’ policewoman mother, Black is an unflappable force of nature, one who ends up butting heads with Joe Dempsie’s Met detective, drawn to her patch by a jurisdiction-twisting murder. While the crime thriller at the heart of this show is largely by-the-numbers, its elevated entirely by both Lawrance’s performance and the distinctive setting, rendered with love and detailed familiarity by Jamaican-born James. 

The Wire meets Ozark and then sits on a whoopie cushion in this darkly funny Apple TV crime thriller. Two layabout ex-con friends, Ray (Eternals’ Brian Tyree Henry) and Manny (Narcos’ Wagner Moura), attempt to rip off a drugs gang only to find themselves pincered between a ruthless drug lord and the DEA. Reliant on wits dulled by addiction, the pair’s attempt to negotiate those two cat-and-mouse games has a tragicomic quality. Somehow finding time between his big-screen blockbusters, Ridley Scott gets the ball rolling, with a chaotically funny pilot episode.

Length of binge: 6 hours 23 mins

Does Steven Knight not sleep? The Brit currently rivals his compatriot Jesse Armstrong as one of the most prolific screenwriter/showrunners at work (look out for his Disney+ period boxing drama A Thousand Blows and a Peaky Blinders movie The Immortal Man to come). His World War II special forces origin story really hits its stride in a second season full of punkily ferocious Band-of-Brothers-on-Red-Bull energy. Jack O'Connell leads the way as the maverick SAS unit’s iconoclastic, poetry-loving leader Lieutenant Paddy Mayne in an eight-episode run with heart as well as muscle. Roll on season 3.

Length of binge: 5 hours 45 mins

Seven years after Netflix’s Daredevil series was unceremoniously yanked from our screens, Charlie Cox’s take on Marvel’s crimson vigilante makes a welcome return, bringing Vincent D’Onofrio’s growling Kingpin along for the ride. Part reboot, part follow-up, this once more sees lawyer-by-day Matt Murdock wrestling with the ethics of his crime-fighting alter ego and serving out justice both within and without the courtroom, while in a Trumpian turn, Kingpin is elected mayor of New York. Despite a troubled production that saw the entire show retooled, this hits all the right beats, with compelling parallel arcs as both hero and villain wrestle with their (very) violent natures. Not one for the kids.

Length of binge: 7 hours 7 mins

A new Hirokazu Kore-eda in early 2025 – who knew? The Palme d’Or-winning filmmaker behind Shoplifters surprise-dropped a new Netflix series in January, and it’s exactly the delicate, family-orientated work you would expect from the man they call Ozu’s heir. Set over several months in 1979, Asura concerns four sisters whose lives are transformed after their elderly father has an affair. The exemplary cast offers a Who’s Who of J-cinema greats, too, including six-time Japanese Academy Award winner Rie Miyazawa.

Length of binge: 6 hours 52 mins

If you were wondering if The White Lotus might have peaked with its sensational second season, Mike White kindly asks that you hold his margarita. Shifting its luxurious locale to Thailand, season 3 manages to be the most provocative instalment yet, dipping its toe in a thematic jacuzzi of incest, toxic masculinity, sexual boundaries, soured friendships, old grudges, and of course, murder. White’s line-up of the grotesquely privileged is more twisted than ever (Jason Isaacs, Aimee Lou Woods and Walton Goggins standouts), and while it happily cops to accusations of being in no hurry to get where it’s going, the series’ feature-length finale is a jaw-dropping destination that’s worth sticking around for.

Length of binge: 8 hours 35 mins

What if your dream job turns out to be a nightmare? Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s relentlessly funny Hollywood satire plays like an update of The Player for the era of IP moviemaking, Netflix and creative decline. Rogen’s people-pleasing, cinephile studio head Matt Remick – think The Office’s Michael Scott got locked in the Criterion cupboard – has artistic vanity but no backbone, a lethal combination for a man charged with turning around his failing corner of Hollywood. The term ‘studio interference’ gets new meaning in a majestic all-one-shot second episode that sees Remick turn up to (and arse up) a crucial scene in Sarah Polley’s new movie. Call it ‘The Kid Trips Over the Picture’, it’s the best thing on telly so far this year.

Returning after an unbearably long three year absence, Dan Erickson’s darkly funny, delightfully absurd workplace mystery makes a triumphant resurgence, having lost none of its confidence. Adam Scott is back as Mark S, a ‘severed’ employee at corporation/cult Lumon, his artificially split personas offering the ultimate in work/life balance. Mesmerising and baffling in equal measure, this packs Lynchian surrealism, biting satire and ruminations on love, loss and the nature of self. Boasting charming character work and a captivating puzzle box structure, this is hands-down one of the best uses for a television.

Length of binge: 8 hours 18 mins

Re-teaming national treasure Stephen Graham with Boiling Point director Philip Barantini, each of Adolescence’s four episodes is a single continuous shot, driving home the confusion and devastation as a 13-year-old Jamie (Owen Cooper, a revelation) is arrested for the murder of a classmate in real time. Graham (who co-wrote the series with Jack Thorne) plays his father Eddie, radiating grief, rage and guilt. Each episode here takes a different perspective on the crime, from the kids at Jamie’s school, to his family, and a show-stealing, hour-long two-hander between Cooper and Erin Doherty as the psychologist sent to assess him. Devastating, awe-inspiring and hugely powerful, this compact, understated drama sets the bar for show of the year. 

Length of binge: 3 hours 49 mins