\n\tSome of the creators behind my favorite shows of the year arrived fresh off acclaimed classics, but there was room for new voices as well. Greatness could be found in tried-and-true genres like the biopic or the medical procedural, but also in reality-comedy hybrids or animated shows that messed with our ideas of linearity and reality.<\/p>\n
\n\tMy list contains shows that will tie you up in knots, reminding you of the uncertain state of the world at large, but also shows offering a bit of escapism or warmth.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tHere\u2019s just some of the good stuff from the small-screen year that was.<\/p>\n
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\t1. Mussolini: Son of the Century (Mubi)<\/p>\n
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![\"Luca](\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-hollywoodreporter-2021\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Andrea-Pirrello\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\n\tSome years I might look for a more polished, conventionally satisfying top choice, but unsubtle times call for unsubtle art, and Stefano Bises and Davide Serino\u2019s chronicle of the rise of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini is an audacious and orgiastic warning about the mechanics of encroaching fascism. Joe Wright directs the eight-part series, borrowing aesthetic devices from opera, German Expressionism and the primordial ooze of early cinema, and fusing it all into a cacophonous piece of horror propaganda, elevated by Seamus McGarvey\u2019s breathtaking cinematography and a uniquely unnerving soundtrack from Chemical Brothers veteran Tom Rowlands. Towering over the whole thing is Luca Marinelli\u2019s terrifying, animalistic performance in the title role, perfectly pitched for a series that was probably the year\u2019s best and definitely its MOST show.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
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\t2. Andor (Disney+)<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Disney+\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\n\tPoor\u00a0Andor has to be satisfied with being only the year\u2019s second-best warning about the mechanics of encroaching fascism, though it\u2019s hard to equal creator Tony Gilroy\u2019s audacity in using Disney\u2019s Star Wars universe to deliver something this smart, this angry and this thrilling. Gilroy\u2019s great gift in the 12-episode sophomore season<\/a> \u2014 split into four three-episode arcs \u2014 is providing both the epic excitement the franchise demands and a prism through which to view the rise of Trump 2.0, the quagmire in Gaza and any future conflict pitting authoritarian governance against civilian unrest. Andor is now the standard by which the aspirations of all future Star Wars projects must be judged.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
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\t3. Eyes on the Prize III: We Who Believe in Freedom Cannot Rest 1977-2015 (PBS)<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Courtesy of HBO\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\n\tThe mechanics of encroaching fascism are only in the background of the essential third installment<\/a> of this essential Civil Rights Movement history, which HBO effectively buried in February. In the six-episode docuseries, a sextet of directors look past the uproar of the \u201950s and \u201960s at more recent struggles including community activism in the South Bronx, the fight for affirmative action and the organization of the Million Man March. Each chapter is a reminder that progress isn\u2019t always linear, with every hard-earned gain contextualized by the audience\u2019s awareness of the steps taken by the Trump administration to undo the good work.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
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\t4. The Rehearsal (HBO)<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: John P. Johnson\/HBO\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\n\tUnderestimate Nathan Fielder at your own peril. The first season<\/a> of\u00a0The Rehearsal\u00a0was already a dazzling fusion of comedy, reality TV and autobiography, but the second season took and landed a precarious leap. Fielder started with a jokey (if timely) premise about fixing communication between airline pilots and co-pilots and somehow leveraged it in directions as serious as sit-down meetings with actual DC politicians and as surreal and silly as a recreation of Sully Sullenberger\u2019s life, as impersonal as an ambitious fake singing competition and as heartbreakingly personal as the attempts to diagnose his possible autism.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
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\t5. Long Story Short (Netflix)<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Courtesy of Netflix\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\n\tIt isn\u2019t surprising that Raphael Bob-Waksberg\u2019s first solo creation<\/a> post-BoJack<\/a> never felt as buzzy as his exploration of Hollywood and depression. Built on a foundation of family and Judaism,\u00a0Long Story Short\u00a0is elliptical and evasive, playing with memory and time to illustrate what is often so infuriating and so necessary about family. It\u2019s a show that works well from episode to episode \u2014 Bob-Waksberg\u2019s love of puns, wordplay and silliness infiltrates even the darker chapters \u2014 and works even more beautifully as the pieces come together in a true animated tapestry.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
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\t6. The Lowdown (FX)<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Shane Brown\/FX\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\n\tSterlin Harjo follows up perennial list-topper\u00a0Reservation Dogs\u00a0with a shaggy-dog mystery comedy<\/a> that\u2019s ostensibly a convoluted whodunit with Tim Blake Nelson as the verbose victim, but turns out to really be a love letter to Oklahoma\u2019s melting pot of cultures and the unique pleasures of watching Ethan Hawke repeatedly getting beat up. It\u2019s more a collection of magical moments and immaculate vibes than a tightly composed narrative, but every second of\u00a0The Lowdown\u00a0looks and feels right.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
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\t7. Pluribus (Apple TV)<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Apple TV\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\n\tReturning to his\u00a0X Files\u00a0roots while retaining his Albuquerque grounding, Vince Gilligan riffs on\u00a0Invasion of the Body Snatchers\u00a0with a very funny, very sad, very inventive meditation<\/a> on loneliness and the allure of monoculture in a fragmented world. It\u2019s a simple premise, executed with thrilling versatility through a uniquely dyspeptic heroine. As\u00a0that grumpy protagonist, who was uncomfortable with the old world and likes the cheery new world even less, Rhea Seehorn completes the transition from Your Favorite TV Critic\u2019s Favorite Actress to National Treasure.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
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\t8. Adolescence (Netflix)<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Courtesy of Netflix\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\n\tThe combination of just enough profundity to avoid being simply a technical stunt and more than enough televisual pyrotechnics to avoid being simply a polemic helped make Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham\u2019s Netflix four-parter<\/a> into 2025\u2019s buzziest show. Director Philip Barantini\u2019s one-shot wizardry \u2014 sometimes navigating great distances without blinking, other times turning a one-room conversation into a claustrophobic thriller \u2014 never upstaged stars including Graham, Erin Doherty and breakout newcomer Owen Cooper, nor did it distract from the cautionary tale of youthful masculinity in chaos.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
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\t9. Such Brave Girls (Hulu)<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Courtesy of Hulu\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\n\tNo show currently makes me laugh as frequently, as hard or as guiltily as Kat Sadler\u2019s BBC Three\/Hulu comedy<\/a> (season 2 aired this year) about two generations of women \u2014 played by Louise Brealey, Lizzie Davidson and Sadler \u2014 united by the sense that their shared family trauma is unparalleled, even if their lives are, at worst, complicatedly ordinary. Sadler\u2019s confident voice, turning domestic toxicity into perfectly honed, invariably scathing punchlines, finds the humor in mental illness, romantic dysfunction and death.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
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\t10. North of North (Netflix)<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Jasper Savage\/Netflix\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\n\tIf this list is topped by the year\u2019s most aggressively uncomfortable shows, it ends with a slice of comfort in the form of Stacey Aglok MacDonald and Alethea Arnaquq-Baril\u2019s thoroughly heartwarming CBC\/Netflix comedy<\/a>. Set and filmed in an Inuk community in the Canadian Arctic,\u00a0North of North\u00a0is an utterly distinctive spin on countless coming-of-age tropes, anchored by a star-making performance by Anna Lambe. The series manages, in only eight episodes, to build a fictional community characterized by eccentric togetherness at an otherwise turbulent moment.<\/p>\n
\n\t***<\/p>\n
\n\tHonorable mentions (in alphabetical order):<\/strong> Abbot Elementary (ABC),\u00a0The Bear<\/a> (FX\/Hulu),\u00a0The Chair Company<\/a>\u00a0(HBO),\u00a0Common Side Effects<\/a>\u00a0(Adult Swim),\u00a0Dark Winds (AMC),\u00a0Everybody\u2019s Live With John Mulaney\u00a0(Netflix),\u00a0Hacks\u00a0(HBO Max),\u00a0Katrina: Come Hell and High Water\u00a0(Netflix),\u00a0The Pitt\u00a0(HBO Max), Severance<\/a>\u00a0(Apple TV)\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
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\tAngie Han\u2019s Top 10<\/p>\n
\n\tI\u2019ll just say it: This was not a great year for television.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tWe\u2019ve been talking about the big TV slowdown for a couple of years now, but the past several months have been especially sparse, with the release calendar alternating between weeks of drought and days-long flurries of activity.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tSupposedly \u201csafe\u201d bets like IP extensions, dramas about miserable rich white families and ripped-from-the-headlines true crime fare yielded more forgotten duds (remember\u00a0The Rainmaker<\/a>? Or\u00a0Good American Family<\/a>? Me neither)\u00a0than lasting hits. When the medium did grab headlines, it often did so for upsetting reasons, like the ousting of Stephen Colbert, the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel or the indefinite postponement of Apple TV\u2019s\u00a0The Savant.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tThere were some thrilling high points \u2014 thank you, Major League Baseball, for giving us one of the year\u2019s most unforgettable plot arcs \u2014 but at least from my perch on my living room couch, Hollywood in 2025 has felt defined more by anxiety and uncertainty than optimistic confidence. Nor is it obvious that the immediate future\u2019s going to be much brighter, seeing as two of the big storylines at the moment are industry consolidation and the rise of generative AI.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tAnd yet. Just because TV as a whole isn\u2019t doing amazing doesn\u2019t mean there haven\u2019t been amazing TV\u00a0shows. I fell in love over and over this year with series that spoke to the moment with shocking lucidity, series that comforted me in their sturdy familiarity, series that did the exact opposite and delighted me with their originality. The TV business will have its ups and downs. But as long as our species is capable of producing creative minds and brilliant talents, there will always be something to watch.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
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\t1. Andor (Disney+)<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Des Willie\/Disney+\/Lucasfilm\/Everett Collection\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\n\tHow bleakly appropriate that in a year when too much of mainstream media seemed loathe to call American authoritarianism what it was, it should take a Star Wars spinoff (of all things!) to reflect the moment with clarity and purpose. Tony Gilroy\u2019s Disney+ drama leveled up in its second season with a searing examination of the means through which fascism is spread and the heavy toll paid to fight it \u2014 and with a rousing call about the necessity of doing so anyway.
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\t2. The Pitt (HBO Max)<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Courtesy of HBO\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\n\tMedical shows<\/a> were a dime a dozen in 2025. Still, none were doing it quite like R. Scott Gemmill\u2019s don\u2019t-call-it-an-ER-clone HBO Max series<\/a>. Though Noah Wyle\u2019s sturdy and empathetic Dr. Robby served as the anchor, it was the vast ensemble that truly brought the Pittsburgh hospital setting to life, from seasoned vets like Katherine LaNasa\u2019s weary charge nurse to fresh-faced newbies like Gerran Howell\u2019s beleaguered intern \u2014 rooting the real-time drama in an immediacy that was occasionally devastating, frequently thrilling and always marvelously human.
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\t3. Long Story Short (Netflix)<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Netflix \u00a92025\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\n\tThe latest animated dramedy from Bojack Horseman creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg may not have seemed like anything terribly unique to start, following as it does the mundane lives of an ordinary Jewish family. But first impressions can be deceiving. Jumping between characters and across decades, the Netflix series painted a portrait of a family in all its strengths and flaws and minor traumas, so richly specific that their memories became our own and so brimming with love that their joys and losses did too.
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\t4. Common Side Effects (Adult Swim)<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Courtesy of Adult Swim\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\n\tOnly combining the minds behind one of the most thoughtful sci-fi shows<\/a> in recent memory and some of the best-loved workplace comedies<\/a> of the past several decades could yield a brew as intoxicatingly original as this Adult Swim animated series, about the destructive battle for a magical mushroom capable of curing death itself. I never knew where this show, darkly hilarious and frequently thrilling, with disarming moments of tenderness and surreal beauty, was headed next \u2014 just that I couldn\u2019t wait for my next dose.
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\t5. The Studio (Apple TV)<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Courtesy of Apple TV+\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\n\tCan a showbiz send-up be simultaneously an indictment of an industry in crisis, a tribute to a rosier past and a love letter to a storied medium and the people who keep it running? Starring and co-created by Seth Rogen, Apple TV\u2019s exhilarating comedy<\/a> mined gasps, giggles and surprising heart from the conflict between a studio chief\u2019s passion for the craft and his professional obligation to the bottom line. (Try not to think too hard about the fact that from the back end of 2025, an exec who actually gives a shit about cinema sounds increasingly like a cryptid.)
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\t6. Pluribus (Apple TV)<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Apple TV+\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\n\tYou could read Vince Gilligan\u2019s gorgeously shot Apple TV sci-fi apocalypse as being about any number of things, from AI to the loneliness epidemic. But at its heart lay the more fundamental question of what it means to be human at all. Rhea Seehorn\u2019s Carol may have been a misanthrope, but in her quest to save a world that insists it doesn\u2019t want to be saved, she forced us to consider what makes us who we are and why we might be worth fighting for in all our ugly, messy glory.
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\t7. The Chair Company (HBO)<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Sarah Shatz\/HBO\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\n\tThere is no one like Tim Robinson. Except, of course, what makes his comedy so brilliant is that all of us feel a little like him sometimes. His latest painfully awkward creation was Ron Trosper, a businessman who spirals into conspiracy theory after a minor humiliation at work. His journey was surreal in its unpredictable detours and bizarre characters \u2014 and yet, in its overarching sense of discomfort with a world that\u2019s ceased to make sense, also strangely relatable.\u00a0
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\t8. North of North (Netflix)<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Courtesy of Netflix\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\n\tWho\u2019d have thought one of the year\u2019s warmest shows would spring from one of the world\u2019s harshest climes? The series, following the daily rhythms of a primarily Inuit village deep in the Canadian Arctic, might not have reinvented the small-town comedy. But it certain gave the genre a fresh spin with its unusual-for-TV setting, its vibrant cultural specificity (bet you\u2019ve never heard the phrase \u201cwalrus dick baseball\u201d before) and its breakout lead actor, the absolutely radiant Anna Lambe.\u00a0
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\t9. Mr. Loverman (BritBox)<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: BBC\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\n\tIt would not be inaccurate to describe this BBC drama, which made hardly a splash in the U.S., as a triumph for underrepresented voices, chronicling the fallout when a septuagenarian Antiguan Londoner (an incredible Lennie James) leaves his long-alienated wife (Sharon D. Clarke) for his lover of several decades (Ariyon Bakare). But that would be selling short the wryness of its humor, the awesome complexity of its characters, the exquisite beauty of its costumes and sets and the palpable, even sexy chemistry between its trio of leads.
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\t10. Adolescence (Netflix)<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Courtesy of Netflix\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\n\tThere was no wrapping your head around the shocking crime at the heart of this Netflix drama, of a sweet-faced teenager (Owen Cooper) murdering a classmate in cold blood. There could only be attempts to understand the culture that produced him, and the shockwaves his actions sent through his family and his community. Creators Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham found the humanity underneath the inhumanity, yielding a series of both breathtaking technical accomplishment (those seemingly impossible long takes!) and devastating emotional effect. <\/p>\n
\n\t***<\/p>\n
\n\tHonorable mentions (in alphabetical order):<\/strong> Alien: Earth<\/a> (FX), Forever<\/a> (Netflix), Hacks (HBO), The Hunting Wives<\/a> (Netflix), The Lowdown (FX), Overcompensating<\/a> (Prime Video), Pee-Wee as Himself<\/a> (HBO), Platonic (Apple TV), The Rehearsal (HBO), Severance (Apple TV)
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