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The 20 Best Shows Of 2025 So Far Variety

Leo Migdal
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the 20 best shows of 2025 so far variety

Television is always in season these days. It can be a distraction from the world’s ills, transporting us back in time or immersing us in the first blush of young love; it can also help us work through them, taking on... The best shows of the year could be hilarious farces or gripping mysteries, epic face-offs or small and intimate dramedies. Whatever you’re looking for from your leisure time, the first half of the year has offered a full array of options. Variety TV critics Alison Herman and Aramide Tinubu have each selected their 10 favorite shows — presented here unranked and in alphabetical order — from the first half of 2025, from Noah Wyle’s return... Netflix’s riveting limited series “Adolescence” has taken the globe by storm.

Created by Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham (who also stars in it), the show is a chilling examination of red-pill propaganda and its impact on the minds of impressionable boys and young men. Set in an unnamed English city, the four-episode series follows 13-year-old Jamie (Owen Cooper), who is accused of murdering a girl in his class. Helmed by director Philip Barantini, who uses his signature one-shot style throughout all four episodes, viewers follow Jamie’s arrest and examine the damning evidence against him. Expanding outward, “Adolescence” explores how the incident affects Jamie’s classmates, friends and family members. Moreover, during a session with the court-appointed child therapist (Erin Doherty) assigned to his case, it becomes quite clear how Jamie has gotten to this point. Haunting and enthralling, this show unpacks the most grotesque aspects of the manosphere and what we can expect as a society if it isn’t exposed.

Based on a true story and Carol Anne Lee’s biography, “A Fine Day for Hanging,” BritBox’s crime drama “A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story” is a devastating series about abuse, misogyny, trauma and... Set in 1955, the series follows Ruth Ellis (Lucy Boynton), a young mother convicted of killing her abusive lover. Ruth became the last woman to be hanged in the United Kingdom. Though the series opens on July 13, 1955, the day Ruth is executed for murdering race car driver and known playboy David Blakely (Laurie Davidson), creator Kelly Jones and her writers rewind the clock... Manipulation, terror and obsession anchored this relationship. A cinematographically stunning series, despite the challenging subject matter, the series illustrates the societal standards of the time and how women like Ruth, despite their best efforts, never stood a chance.

Set in London’s East End in 1880, “Peaky Blinders” creator Steven Knight’s boxing drama, “A Thousand Blows,” revolves around a group of outsiders determined to get more from the world than it’s willing to... The show follows Hezekiah Moscow (Malachi Kirby) and Alec Munroe (Francis Lovehall), Jamaican immigrants who arrive in the U.K. in search of new opportunities. Instead, they find themselves swept up in the criminal underworld of the East End and caught between gangster Sugar Goodson (“Adolescence” star and co-creator Stephen Graham), who rules the neighborhood, and Mary Carr (Erin... A tale of sexism, racism, loyalty and revenge, this period piece is detailed, engrossing and stunning from beginning to end. Based on the book series by Jussi Adler-Olsen and adapted for television by “The Queen’s Gambit” creator Scott Frank, Netflix’s Scotland-set crime thriller, “Dept.

Q,” is a brilliant blend of mystery and psychology. The series follows Detective Chief Inspector Carl Morck (played by Matthew Goode), a brilliant but wholly unlikable character. Reeling from a horrific incident that shreds what’s left of his emotional stability, Morck is assigned to a high-profile cold case that forces him to confront his personal pain points and inadequacies. Intense, with complex twists and turns, the neo-noir is an absorbing watch all the way through. In 2023, Such Brave Girls’ first season introduced the series as British TV’s next unhinged and unfiltered comedy, no trauma seemingly off limits, no joke too dark to make. Following sisters Josie (writer and creator Kat Sadler) and Billie Johnson (Lizzie Davidson), and their mum Deb (Louise Brealey), it navigated mental health, toxic relationships and the struggle to survive with arch humour.

Season two didn’t make things easier for the Johnsons, ramping up their personal tensions and raising the stakes on the family’s future, the wicked touch that made the first episodes so funny intact. Whether it was Billie deluding herself into thinking she was in a sugar baby arrangement with a married man or Deb’s constant desperation to lock down boyfriend Dev (Paul Bazely), there was a continued... Watercooler moment: Josie’s various schemes to spend as little time as possible with her cloying boyfriend Seb, including when she tries to get sectioned by claiming to have overdosed. RD TikTok comedian Benito Skinner transports his own coming-out story into this ribald and unexpectedly tender six-part twist on American Pie college raunch comedies. Executive-produced by his mate Charli XCX, Overcompensating sees him star as Benny Scanlon, a golden-boy jock who tries to convince the world (and himself) that he’s straight.

Every unconvincing frat-bro utterance of “I love pussy” feels like a distress flare he’s sending into the world. The masc-mask starts to chip when he tries to sleep with fellow freshman Carmen Neil (Wally Baram), and the pair strike up an us-against-the-world friendship, as he falls for film student Miles Hari (Rish... Peppered with likeable characters, Overcompensating is astute on the queer coming-of-age experience – including the end-of-the-world fear people can see you’re gay before you’ve fully accepted it yourself – and is further bolstered by... Best episode: ‘Welcome To The Black Parade’ Just when you thought the post-Peak TV glacier of shows had melted into a puddle of mediocre algorithm-feeders, the medium snapped back to form in 2025. We may not be in the midst of a new golden age — streamers and cable networks alike are muddling their way through a very uncertain media landscape (see Netflix’s acquisition of Warner Bros.

Discovery just this morning!) — but this year delivered a handful of truly original shows that did more than throw A-list stars at a paper-thin plot and try to pass it off as prestige. The series that stood out were daring, stylish, and had something to say about the world we live in today. Oh, and they were damn entertaining, too. Whether dissecting Hollywood or the health care industry, exploring history or an alternate universe, making us laugh or making us cry (and sometimes both), these 15 shows, presented here in alphabetical order, proved that... This four-part British limited series, about a kid accused of murdering a classmate, hit Netflix on a Friday with little to no advance fanfare; by the end of the weekend, it was the most... A labor of love from director Philip Barantini and co-writer and star Stephen Graham, Adolescence starts with cops bursting into the home of an average suburban family and arresting 13-year-old Jamie Miller (newcomer Owen...

Each episode then focuses on the aftermath via a different perspective, from Jamie’s fellow students to his family members; Episode Three, a standoff between Cooper’s incarcerated teen and a psychologist played by Erin Doherty,... And as with Barantini and Graham’s previous collaboration, the proto-Bear chef drama Boiling Point, everything is shot in a single extended take. There’s a reason this import dominated the 2025 Emmys, but even if it hadn’t walked away with armfuls of statues, it would still leave you feeling like you’ve been gut-punched. —David Fear The sophomore (and final) season of Tony Gilroy’s Star Wars prequel series doubled down on the revolutionary spirit, delivering an even deeper sausage-factory view of how the Rebellion was made while still giving fans... The fact that Diego Luna’s Cassian and his fellow freedom fighters were fighting a fascist empire a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away almost feels incidental; few works of mass entertainment...

These 10 episodes had their share of thrills and chills, first-class villains (especially Denise Gough’s imperial apparatchik), highly memeable moments — dance like no one’s watching, Mon Mothma! — and a sequence inside an enemy hospital that played like a stand-alone heist movie. But the season also offered a chilling look at how authoritarian governments use misinformation and manipulate certain populations into enemies. The I.P. will be with us, always, but Gilroy’s contribution to the canon will be missed. It was even more invaluable the second time around.

—D.F. Writer Mike Makowsky, best known for his zippy 2019 HBO film Bad Education, took one of the oddest side plots in American history and made it one of the most riveting shows of the... Based on Candice Millard’s book Destiny of the Republic, Death By Lighting chronicles, over a tight yet expansive-feeling four episodes, the 1881 assassination of President James A. Garfield (played with stoicism by Michael Shannon) by an unstable fan turned hater named Charles Guiteau (Matthew Macfadyen, better than ever). It’s an original story of standom gone wrong that tackles the scourge of American violence. It’s also deeply amusing, featuring basically every character actor you know and love (lookin’ at you, Nick Offerman, Bradley Whitford, and Shea Whigham) in a big bushy beard, absolutely killing it.

—Esther Zuckerman One of the year’s most delightful surprises was this sleeper hit in the vein of Slow Horses — it centers on a group of misfit cops in Scotland — but with a bit more... Matthew Goode, who’s bounced around in rom-coms and period pieces and legal dramas, absolutely melts into the lead role of Carl Morck, a prickly and misanthropic detective returning to work after an on-the-job shooting... Banished to a basement office and saddled with a bunch of dead-end cold cases, he becomes the leader of a motley crew of crimefighting wannabes. At home, meanwhile, he’s saddled with an annoying roommate and an angry teenager — the son of an ex-wife who up and left him. With The Queen’s Gambit creator Scott Frank at the helm, the writing is assured and the pacing is swift.

The show builds suspense but never at the expense of feeling; some of the most quietly poignant scenes are between Morck and his hospitalized partner (played by Jamie Sives), two men communicating a lot... The case the Dept. Q oddballs end up solving is less memorable than the characters themselves — a recipe for a show with legs. —Maria Fontoura Contrary to what certain awards-giving organizations would have you believe, there've been more than five great TV series in 2025. Not only that, but it's remarkable just how different the best shows of the year are.

Some of them are sitcoms closing in on the legal drinking age, while others are wildly ambitious sci-fi series that put every penny of their massive budgets on-screen. No two are even remotely alike, either, be they about comic book superheroes, the experiences of people who spend their days working in cubicles, or even today's youth. Just as noteworthy are the continuations or revivals of much-older shows that've proven shockingly relevant in the modern world, animated and live-action alike. And, of course, some of these series are just an utter trip, so much so that it's easy to overlook how clever and witty they truly are. Enough jabbering, though, let's get to the goods. Here are /Film's picks for the best TV shows of 2025 (in alphabetical order).

"Abbott Elementary" has already proven to be one of the few great comedies to come out of network television in recent years. The fact that it shows no signs of slowing down in its fourth season is a testament to how good the ABC series' writing staff is at depicting the hilarious trials and tribulations of... This season included some surprising developments that helped make it another stellar round of episodes. First and foremost, the firing of Ava Coleman (Janelle James) as Abbott's principal was quite the shake-up towards the end of the season. Watching Ava step up to not only help the rest of the schools in her community but also selflessly take the blame in order to spare her colleagues from being punished for their dealings... Meanwhile, despite Janine (Quinta Brunson) and Gregory (Tyler James Williams) having made their romance official, they had some delightfully entertaining hurdles to overcome as a couple, such as having far too specific of a...

They just get more and more adorable as the show goes on. Which new television shows impressed critics during the first half of the year? In the gallery on this page we rank the highest-scoring first-year TV shows (including limited series and specials) debuting between January 1, 2025 and June 30, 2025. Titles are included based their Metascores (representing the consensus of top professional TV critics) as of July 1, 2025, and must have a minimum of 7 critic reviews to be eligible for inclusion. Currently streaming weekly on BritBox, this true-story historical drama (based on a book by Mary S. Lovell) is set in 1930s Britain.

What's so outrageous about that, you might ask? The answer is the six stylish sisters of the aristocratic Mitford family. They are globe-trotting rule-breakers whose many scandals (especially their involvement in wildly diverse and controversial political movements, including fascism and communism) and celebrity marriages and affairs made headlines while tearing the family apart. "Maybe the most impressive thing about Outrageous is that it never judges the often repellent actions of its stranger-than-fiction subjects—only Nancy does, with the pithiness of a well-to-do lady novelist and the blind eye... Watching the Mitfords make terrible choice after terrible choice is like seeing a train wreck in slow motion while sipping on a flute of champagne." —Jenna Scherer, The AV Club Call it L'ours.

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