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The 50 Best Pbs Shows Of 2025 Ranked By Fans

Leo Migdal
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the 50 best pbs shows of 2025 ranked by fans

Only PBS originals airing new episodes in 2025. PBS as a publicly funded non-profit has been responsible for airing some of the most influential programming in their effort to educate youth and adults alike. From Ken Burns's groundbreaking in-depth documentaries to the most acclaimed children's program of all time Sesame Street, the best PBS shows have long been an institution in the world of television. 2025 sees the return of long running dramas Call The Midwife and Midsomer Murders. The 2020 iteration of All Creatures Great and Small also returns with more adventures for veterinarian James Herriot. Other great shows on this list include Grandchester, Nova, and Antiques Roadshow.

Vote up your favorite PBS shows and be sure to check out the whole list! Is All Creatures Great and Small Watchworthy? 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 In real life, 2025 has been a chaotic year. We've navigated the beginning of a divisive presidential term, the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, witnessed a pope from Chicago get elected, a pop star in space, natural disasters and history-making events almost daily. In the fictional worlds that fill our TV screens when we look for just a little distraction at the end of our days, things haven't been particularly calm, either.

But in a good way. We're talking about Emmy- and hearts-and-minds-winning "The Pitt" on HBO Max. We're talking about a tiny British drama on Netflix that took off with viewership and cultural conversation. And we're also talking about a couple of shows you've probably never heard of at all. While TV this year has been full of viral hate-watches (like Hulu's disastrous-but-renewed "All's Fair") and some of the biggest shows of all time (like the final seasons of Netflix's "Squid Game" and "Stranger... As the year winds to a close, we hope you'll give these 10 absolutely superb TV shows a watch.

You might be surprised by what you find. To see our longer list of the top 20 picks for the best TV shows of the year, scroll through the gallery below. What a year it’s been for television. The small screen has dominated the pop-culture conversation in 2025, with watercooler shows like The Pitt, Severance, and Adolescence proving that people still sat down together to watch the tube. Meanwhile, genre shows dominated, with sci-fi TV like Pluribus, Andor, and Alien: Earth proving to be the escape we need in an increasingly dystopian reality. But what makes a TV show great in 2025?

Is it its willingness to push the boundaries that television usually lays down? Is it sharp and provocative messaging that draws parallels to our current reality? Or is it simply the amount of alien goop and human gore that it’s willing to throw at its audience? Maybe it’s all of the above. After much careful deliberation and a very democratic polling process, Inverse has chosen its top 25 TV shows of the year. Here are Inverse’s top TV picks of 2025.

Mark my words: “Wilderness reform schools” will become the next big thing in horror, and Mae Martin’s Netflix series just confirmed that with a twisting tale of small-town cults, the “wayward teen” industry, and... Add a spine-tingling performance by Toni Collette on top of that, and you’ve got a great weekend watch. — Dais Johnston Faster, bloodier, and funnier than Season 1, Twisted Metal Season 2 also managed to tell a tender family story. Come for requisite vehicular mayhem. Stay for Anthony Mackie reading vintage Babysitter’s Club paperbacks.

— Ryan Britt What a year for new shows. As TV Guide narrowed down our favorite series of 2025, what stood out was how many of them — more than half — premiered this year. And not one of those new shows is part of a franchise. It isn't easy to get any TV series made these days, especially when it isn't a spin-off of a spin-off, but the ones that beat the odds did it in style. Plenty of them were also massive, Emmy-winning hits, because nothing is more exciting than original storytelling.

This year, Pluribus followed in the footsteps of Severance as a truly fresh Apple sci-fi series that got everyone talking. The Lowdown dug deep into Tulsa's underbelly for a vibrant noir mystery. The Chair Company uncovered an absurd conspiracy all its own. Long Story Short spanned decades of one family's life with humor and care. Adolescence gave crime drama a new look with its immersive one-shot filmmaking. And The Pitt took a similar real-time approach, with every episode chronicling one hour in a chaotic emergency room.

The series was also a nostalgic throwback to network TV's heyday, but bringing a broadcast-style workplace drama to streaming was its own kind of innovation. Plenty of returning shows had great years, too — just look to our No. 1 show for proof — and one series on our list made the most of a major cinematic universe. But take a minute to appreciate the new shows and novel ideas that arrived when we needed them most. These are TV Guide's picks for the 10 best TV shows of 2025. Honorable mentions: Dark Winds, Dying for Sex, The Rehearsal, Task, Too Much

Look, 2025 may just be a little more than half over, but it’s already been a great year of television for both new and returning shows. Severance returned after a three-year hiatus and did not disappoint. Hacks continues to show that comedies can be comedic. HBO hits like The Gilded Age and The White Lotus returned with new seasons that delighted viewers. And broadcast proved that it can still hold its own against cable and streaming with some solid series. HBO Max delivered a solid hit with the debut of the new medical drama The Pitt, while Paradise reunited Sterling K.

Brown and Dan Fogelman for a show very different from This Is Us. And Apple TV+ offered a look inside Hollywood with The Studio. Below, TV Insider’s staff has gathered to share our picks for the Best Shows of 2025 so far (taking into account those that have aired through the first week of August). Let us know what makes your list in the comments section below. If you want to know your favorite reality TV stars’ favorite reality TV show, look no further than Love on the Spectrum U.S.. Featuring vibrant series newbies, Madison Marilla and Pari Kim, alongside returning favorites Abbey Romeo, Tanner Smith, Connor Tomlinson, Dani Bowman, James Jones, and more, Season 3 takes the Netflix docuseries to the next level,...

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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 plot...