The Best Reviewed TV Shows of 2025, According to Metacritic

The critics have spoken! The best shows of the year, according to the TV pros, include some you'd expect, like Apple TV's Severance, or FX's Alien: Earth, but the really interesting ones are those you wouldn't expect or maybe even didn't know existed. 

Using review aggregator Metacritic, we've extracted the best reviewed television shows of the year from the huge mass of mid TV on our screens so you can watch something good. 

A few rules and notes on how this list was made: 

• – Metacritic scores shows based on an aggregate of published reviews from trusted reviewers, assigns each review a score on a 1-100 scale — 100 being the best — and averages those scores for a total score called a metascore. 
• – Metacritic does not assign metascores to shows with less than five reviews from Metacritic's list of approved outlets. 
• – We have set the threshold for making this list a metascore of 80. These scores were taken at the time the show was released; it is possible that reviews added later could affect the scores after their release.
• – Metacritic notes that returning shows trend toward having higher scores, as reviewers are more likely to review a show in its second season or later because they liked earlier seasons, while reviewers who didn't like the show in early seasons are less likely to review the show. 

Here's what TV shows made the list.

Metacritic score: 89

Acclaimed Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda's drama focuses on a family of four sisters who learn that their father was having an affair. "Asura, a seven-episode Japanese drama on Netflix (in Japanese, with subtitles, or dubbed), is the full package: a detailed, human-scale domestic drama with plenty to say, fascinating characters to say it and the stylishness to make it sing," writes The New York Times' Margaret Lyons. "The downside is that other shows feel paltry and thin in comparison. The upside is everything else."

Premiere date: Jan. 9, 2025

Metacritic score: 80

Steven Knight, the prolific creator of Peaky Blinders, See, and A Thousand Blows, marched into World War II for this thrilling drama about the elite British Army's Special Air Service. "With its sober view of sacrifice and its clever use of extreme adversity to bring out different facets of the male psyche, Rogue Heroes earns its stripes, but be reassured that with all that groundwork in place it is, primarily, a right old romp," says The Guardian's Jack Seale. 

Premiere date: Jan. 12, 2025

Metacritic score: 86

The second season of Apple TV's paranoid dissection of the corporate workplace received 16 perfect scores, with reviewers calling the second season every bit as good as the first and saying the wait between seasons was well worth it. "It all adds up to dizzying, exciting television, building to a finale that matches the thrilling highs of the end of Season 1," says TV Guide's Allison Picurro. 

Premiere date: Jan. 17, 2025

Metacritic score: 83

Sir David Attenborough is back again to delight us with the treasures of nature, this time hopping around the continent of Asia to expound on sperm whales, red-crowned cranes, and more, and reviewers noted the series seemed less gloomy than recent installments of Planet Earth, which have focused on climate change's ruinous relationship with wildlife. "Was it just me or did Asia feel slightly less doomy than previous wildlife spectaculars?" says The Times' Carol Midgley.

Premiere date: Jan. 25, 2025

Metacritic score: 83

Rob McElhenney, Charlie Day, and Megan Ganz's workplace comedy about a video game company toys with Ian (McElhenney) and Poppy's (Charlotte Nicdao) professional and personal relationship in Season 4, which reviewers say is one of the show's best yet. "Season 4 is just as refreshing as previous seasons," says IndieWire's Ben Travers. "It's just also taking a fundamental dynamic and bending it as far as it can, while growing the main characters in exciting, relatable ways."

Premiere date: Jan. 29, 2025

Metacritic score: 83

Season 2 of the Netflix comedy, which star Mo Amer co-created with Ramy Youssef, improved its Metacritic score from Season 1 as it delved further into immigration politics and combined three cultures — Palestinian, American, and Mexican — into one show. "Mo is one of those comedies where the humour does not flow from a firecracker script," writes The Independent's Ed Power. "There is little in the way of set-up-and-delivery zingers or quotable lines. Its appeal lies in how it evokes the small absurdities of everyday life."

Premiere date: Jan. 30, 2025

Metacritic score: 80

The animated series from creators Joe Bennett and Steve Hely follows a man who discovers a mushroom that can cure almost anything... and the relentless pursuit of Big Pharma and Big Health Insurance to make sure his findings don't get out to the public. "There's a sense of the absurd throughout Common Side Effects, in which the stuff that's real feels just as unhinged as the occasional hallucinogenic trips and freaky cosmic spirituality," says The A.V. Club's Kambole Campbell. "And in a healthier television landscape, there would be more shows like this one, an original work that feels no pressure to be a loud spectacle."

Premiere date: Feb. 2, 2025

Metacritic score: 85

This touching, heartbreaking BAFTA-nominated drama miniseries stars Sharon Horgan and Michael Sheen as parents of a daughter with a form of muscular dystrophy, and the difficult decision over ending medical care at their doctors' suggestion. "I defy anyone not to cry," says The Times' Carol Midgley.

Premiere date: Feb. 17, 2025

Metacritic score: 88

This six-part anthology series is a continuation of PBS's 1987 series about the Civil Rights Movement from Henry Hampton, inviting filmmakers to showcase those who fight for equity and racial justice. "The excellent third installment of the acclaimed historical series about civil rights in America is so full of details that each of its six episodes should sit with you for a bit," says The Boston Globe's Odie Henderson.

Premiere date: Feb. 25, 2025

Metacritic score: 84

British screenwriter Jack Thorne has two shows on this list — he also co-wrote and co-created Netflix's Adolescence — though Toxic Town, a miniseries about three mothers who fought the local government after the improper removal of toxic waste left many children in the borough suffering from horrific birth defects, didn't get the same attention as Adolescence. The i Paper's Emily Baker says, "Watching Toxic Town should be compulsory."

Premiere date: Feb. 27, 2025

Metascore: 90

Despite being an Emmy winner and huge among reality television enthusiasts, the U.S. edition of The Traitors doesn't get the clout it deserves because it's limited by the size of its streaming service, Peacock. The British edition, however, is massively popular in England because it's on BBC One, and critics love the Assassin-style game in which contestants lie, cheat, and backstab each other for a cash prize. The Guardian's Rachel Aroesti says, "For those who still believe reality TV can be truly edifying, The Traitors is manna from heaven." (The U.S. version has only two reviews on Metacritic, each with a score of 80, which would be enough to make this list, except Metacritic requires at least five reviews for an official score.)

Premiere date: March 6, 2025

Metascore: 84

Led by Zahn McClarnon's performance as Navajo Tribal Police officer Joe Leaphorn, Dark Winds is an under-the-radar mystery series that has been adored by critics in its three seasons. "There are grittier, hipper, more popular crime dramas coursing through the TV/streaming ecosystem – Tulsa King, Presumed Innocent, The Rookie — but none of those shows can match the quality of AMC's Dark Winds," says Pittsburgh Tribune-Review's Rob Owen.

Premiere date: March 9, 2025

Metascore: 89

Danny McBride's raucous comedy about a family of televangelists enters its final season with the highest metascore it's ever received in its four seasons. Slate's Jack Hamilton says, "The brilliance of The Righteous Gemstones, and the source of its comedy, is that it's a show about basically decent people who are trying their hardest to be terrible and failing at it."

Premiere date: March 9, 2025

Metascore: 90

This four-part miniseries about a boy accused of murder will rip your heart out of your chest while also delighting your brain as you try to figure out how it pulled off its big technical achievement: Each episode was filmed as a one-take, continuous shot. Variety's Aramide Tinubu says, "Dark and brilliantly written, this show unpacks the complexities of humanity and manhood and how the rise of the manosphere has so eerily and quickly permeated itself into the lives of young people through social media."

Premiere date: March 13, 2025

Metascore: 89

The follow-up to the acclaimed 2015 miniseries Wolf Hall actually scored higher than the original on Metacritic, a good sign considering that Wolf Hall was nominated for eight Emmys. The show follows the rise and fall of Thomas Cromwell (Mark Rylance), the trusted adviser of Henry VIII (Damian Lewis). John Anderson of The Wall Street Journal says, "The dialogue is fluid and of its time, so much so that you forget someone wrote it (Peter Straughan did), or that it was directed (by Peter Kosminsky)."

Premiere date: March 23, 2025

Metascore: 80

Seth Rogen's sendup of Hollywood as an industry that prefers making money over making movies is a cringe comedy that plays with format and genre while pulling from Rogen's expansive contact list of celebrities for cameos. "The most entertaining and spot-on depiction of Hollywood since Robert Altman's The Player," says The Playlist's Gregory Ellwood.

Premiere date: March 26, 2025

Metascore: 82

Michelle Williams headlines this limited series as a woman diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer who chooses to spend the rest of her life exploring her sexuality with the support of her best friend (Jenny Slate). Variety's Alison Herman says, "Dying for Sex is a show of big, messy, reflexively uncomfortable feelings, the kind that require a mastery of tone and a uniformly game cast to keep the viewer from flinching away."

Premiere date: April 4, 2025

Metascore: 92

HBO's acclaimed comedy about the complicated and combative relationship between a comedy legend (Jean Smart) and her upstart writer (Hannah Einbinder) will likely add to its nine Emmy wins after Season 4, which is its highest-rated season yet. The Daily Beast's Kevin Fallon says, "Hacks is now back for Season 4, and is unrelenting. The jokes are vicious. The relationships between its characters are toxic. It's breathtaking television."

Premiere date: April 10, 2025

Metascore: 82

There's no sophomore slump for one of the biggest shows of 2023. Season 2 of HBO's adaptation of Naughty Dog's bestselling video game is being praised for surfacing poignancy in the otherwise gloomy reality of its post-apocalyptic landscape. "Moving and devastating in equal doses, The Last of Us remains post-apocalyptic television at its peak. At almost every turn, it delivers," says Empire's John Nugent.

Premiere date: April 13, 2025

Metascore: 83

Euphoria's Jacob Elordi stars in this adaptation of Richard Flanagan's novel about Australian doctor Dorrigo Evans, whose life included being held as a POW in World War II and having an affair with his uncle's wife. "Seldom if ever has the blunt shock of bloodletting played in such haunting counterpart to the pathos of brutalized humanity as it does in this adaptation of Richard Flanagan's 2014 Booker Prize-winning novel," The Hollywood Reporter's David Rooney says.

Premiere date: April 18, 2025

Metascore: 85

Nathan Fielder's bizarre television experiment, in which he stages incredibly detailed re-creations of events to help people prepare for them, takes on aviation safety in Season 2 and doesn't lose the delightful meta-ness of Season 1. In his review for Slate, Sam Adams writes, "In an era where comedians are asked to do double duty as cultural truthtellers, Fielder mocks the idea that for comedy to matter, it has to do something important — all while simultaneously touching on subjects that genuinely matter. But it's impossible to say whether pointing to that fact means you're getting the joke or you're the butt of it, and maybe there's no way to do one without being the other." 

Premiere date: April 20, 2025

Metascore: 94

Disney+'s most acclaimed Star Wars series returns almost two and a half years after Season 1, but ask critics and they'll say the wait was worth it. Season 2 earned one of the highest Metascores of the year yet. As Gavia Baker-Whitelaw says in her review for TV Guide, "Exhibiting far more insight than mainstream political dramas like The Diplomat or Zero Day, Andor deepens the anti-authoritarian themes of the Star Wars movies. Hollywood can't endorse a real-world drama heroizing a violent uprising against the government, but you can apparently get away with covering the same ideas in a galaxy far, far away."

Premiere date: April 22, 2025

Metascore: 80

Netflix's culinary franchise, which has stood out from the rest of the streamer's food docuseries with its focus on the world's premier chefs and delicious cinematography, steps into the kitchens of renowned food maestros Jamie Oliver, José Andrés, Alice Waters, and Thomas Keller in Chef's Table: Legends. "If you're going to watch a cooking show, why not devote it to the lives and food of some of the most famous and culturally important chefs of the last 50 years or so?" says The Arizona Republic's Bill Goodykoontz.

Premiere date: April 28, 2025

Metascore: 80

This British series dramatizes the 2005 fatal shooting of a Brazilian man by London police when he was wrongly suspected of being part of a terrorist bombing plot. "The series at once engrosses and enrages as it builds to the fatal incident, pulling focus along the way to the numerous instances of haste and hesitation that result in the killing of an innocent civilian," says Dan Einav of The Financial Times.

Premiere date: April 30, 2025

Metascore: 84

Mara Brock Akil's adaptation of Judy Blume's novel takes a simple premise — a love story between two teenagers in Los Angeles — and elevates it to one of the best shows of the year. "It succeeds at a thing so few YA shows even attempt — giving them a realistic, heartfelt read that takes their relationship seriously, doesn't add in any over-the-top hijinks (no murder or plane crashes here), and also lets them be kids: sometimes petulant, sometimes silly, always growing," says RoberEbert.com's Cristina Escobar.

Premiere date: May 8, 2025

Metascore: 82

This two-episode docuseries looks at the life of the late Paul Reubens, the comedian behind Pee-wee Herman, using exclusive interviews with Reubens that see the usually private man open up. "Pee-wee as Himself is a fascinating, endearing, and moving portrait of an entertainer who as a child was mesmerized by early children's TV like Howdy Doody," says TV Insider's Matt Roush.

Premiere date: May 23, 2025

Metascore: 81

Maggie Q stars in this spin-off of Bosch and Bosch: Legacy, taking LAPD detective Renée Ballard out on her own to solve some cold cases. It seems like it was a good move on her part; Ballard Season 1 received better reviews than any season of the Bosch shows."It's safe to say that Ballard is kick-ass, earnest, and extremely well-written, and may well be one of the best shows of the year," says Paste's Jay Snow.

Premiere date: July 9, 2025

Metascore: 80

We don't know how long It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia will air, but we do know that it will always be loved by critics. The 17th season, which features an Abbott Elementary crossover and a Golden Bachelor spoof, continues the comedy's streak. "Well-paced, unpredictable, and, most importantly, still comical, it's nice to be in Sunny days again," writes Brian Tallerico for The A.V. Club.

Premiere date: July 9, 2025

Metascore: 81

Apple TV's dense and daring science-fiction series Foundation is getting better with age. Season 3 is the best-reviewed season of the series so far, with many reviewers pointing toward the improved visuals. "It's an operatic masterwork with the scale of Game of Thrones and a depth, personality, and sense of import all its own," writes The Daily Beast's Nick Schager.

Premiere date: July 11, 2025

Metascore: 80

The British detective thriller about a deaf woman (Rose Ayling-Ellis) contracted by the police as a lip reader for their investigation into a gang is being praised for its suspense. "My only regret is that the absorbing Code of Silence ends after just six episodes. Thankfully, there will be more," says TV Insider's Matt Roush.

Premiere date: July 24, 2025

Metascore: 80

This retelling of Hurricane Katrina's devastation comes in the year of its 20th anniversary, and lets the people who went through it tell their stories of survival and how their city changed. Daniel Feinberg of The Hollywood Reporter writes, "Race Against Time isn't determined to break new information or even to offer refined understanding. Instead, it's a straightforward and passionate reminder that just because we know what went so very wrong in New Orleans — resulting in an estimated 1,392 fatalities and $125 billion in damages — doesn't mean that lessons were learned or retained."

Premiere date: July 27, 2025

Metascore: 82

Mike Judge's beloved comedy returns for its fourteenth season after almost 16 years off the air, and things haven't changed much, which is a good thing. "It's like the show never left. Smart, warm, and ambling along at the same easy pace that made it a favorite in the first place, one of the greatest sitcoms of the last 25 years has returned in triumph," says Looper's Matthew Jackson.

Premiere date: Aug. 4, 2025

Metascore: 86

Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne embark on another season of just being friends in Season 2 of the hangout comedy. "Rogen and Byrne are so ideally well-paired — his ragamuffin slacker wiseassery meshing perfectly with her frazzled put-together anxiety and wannabe-cool awkwardness — that they make it TV's most steadfast laugh-out-loud affair," writes The Daily Beast's Nick Schager.

Premiere date: Aug. 6, 2025

Metascore: 87

This Australian drama stars Anna Torv and Sam Reid as news anchors in the mid-1980s, where most of the drama happens off camera. "It's also a show attuned to the smallest details of an actor's performance. ... Even the show's writing is delicious," writes the Chicago Tribune's Nina Metz.

Premiere date: Aug. 7, 2025

Metascore: 85

Noah Hawley (Fargo) takes on the Alien franchise with this prequel starring Sydney Chandler and Timothy Olyphant that imagines a future Earth ruled by corporations and deadly aliens crash-landing on our home planet. "It is Hawley's astute attention to detail and desire to construct an intricate story that distinguish and make Alien: Earth a big step up in quality for the Alien series overall," says The Mercury News' Randy Myers.

Premiere date: Aug. 12, 2025

Metascore: 88

This unique Spanish-language stop-motion comedic melodrama follows a Spanish woman in Ecuador, but its plot is too rich to reduce down to a simple logline. Robert Lloyd of the Los Angeles Times is effusive in his praise of the show: "When I call this series perfect, notwithstanding the happy imperfections of its puppets and sets, it's not because everything works as its meant to, but because there's nothing you can measure it against — it occupies its own self-created space."

Premiere date: Aug. 17, 2025

Metascore: 88

The latest animated Netflix series from BoJack Horseman creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg is another insightful look at the human experience, this time through the eyes of a family over decades. "It's BoJack mashed up with This Is Us, except much funnier, less corny, and way more Jewish than This Is Us," writes Jen Chaney for TV Guide.

Premiere date: Aug. 21, 2025

Metascore: 82

The second Hurricane Katrina docuseries on this list — following National Geographic's Hurricane Katrina: Race Against Time — is a three-episode series from Netflix, with one of the episodes directed by Spike Lee. "Lee refuses to offer a trite statement about the resilience of the community, though there is resilience present. Instead, he seems more interested in what remains lost since the flood," says The New York Times' Esther Zuckerman.

Premiere date: Aug. 27, 2025

Metascore: 87

The new drama from Sterlin Harjo, the creator of Reservation Dogs, stars Ethan Hawke as a dogged journalist and is one of the best-reviewed shows of the year. "At its heart, The Lowdown is a story that wants the viewer to care about the truth as much as its main character does. It's fearless and gonzo, easily one of the best new shows of the year, and it's made even better for the time it arrives in, with trust in the media rapidly sinking and respect for writers at an all-time low," TV Guide's Allison Picurro says in her review.

Premiere date: Sept. 23, 2025

Metascore: 87

The British comedy about a woman's (Bridget Christie) existential crisis after learning she's going through menopause entered its second season with more positive reviews than its first. "The Change is ambitious, surreal, moving, and above all hysterically funny. It is unlike anything else on TV," says The Guardian's Chitra Ramaswamy.

Premiere date: Sept. 24, 2025

Metascore: 82

Tim Robinson's new comedy about a man named Ron who spirals into conspiratorial paranoia after after a chair breaks beneath him at work is being hailed as on one of the best comedies of the year. "It's the way Robinson and his collaborators inject simmering anxiety into each laugh that gives the show its edge," says TV Guide's Allison Picurro. "We never know what's going to happen next, and neither does Ron. It's unpredictable, it's refreshing, and it's utterly Tim Robinson." 

Premiere date: Oct. 12, 2025

Metascore: 84

Some shows get better with age, and Netflix's political thriller has seen its reviews grow more and more positive with each season, jumping to new heights in Season 3. TV Insider's Matt Roush says, "The third season of The Diplomat is the very definition of a breakneck binge bonanza. It's also the most sensationally entertaining political drama since The West Wing."

Premiere date: Oct. 16, 2025

Metascore: 84

Director Rebecca Miller took inspiration from her documentary's subject and opted for the extended cut, using five episodes to tell the story of Martin Scorsese's life and impact on cinema. Rolling Stone's David Fear gushes, "As exhilarating, urgent, invaluable, and perpetually rewatchable as Mr. Scorsese's own work. It is, beyond the shadow of a doubt, the definitive look at our greatest living filmmaker."

Premiere date: Oct. 17, 2025

Metascore: 82

Cooper Raiff's intimate indie TV series follows a pair of siblings (Raiff and Lili Reinhart) adjusting to adulthood when their father (Mark Ruffalo) drops a shocker: He and his girlfriend are expecting. Slant's Ross McIndoe says, "The thing that makes the show so successful is the straightforward family drama underneath this whimsical veneer—tenderly played, sharply written, and delivering a perfect balance of bitter and sweet."

Premiere date: Oct. 19, 2025

Metascore: 80

The animated series based on the YouTube hit is a musical comedy about Lucifer's daughter who opens a hotel for rehabilitating demons. Decider's Maddy Casale writes, "The show continues to use animation to its advantage with vibrant, imaginative visuals and gags, and is again elevated by the immense performance skills and talents of the many Broadway and theatrical talents in its stacked cast."

Premiere date: Oct. 29, 2025

Metascore: 81

Netflix's historical drama charts the unusual story of the attempted assassination of president James Garfield (Michael Shannon) by Charles Guiteau (Matthew Macfadyen). TV Guide's Keith Phipps says, "Even if Garfield has been forgotten in part because he had so little time in which to put ideas into practice, Death by Lightning uses the brief span in which he emerged as an unlikely presidential candidate as a fascinating window into his era's confusion, madness, and missed opportunities, sometimes finding relevant echoes of our own time within it."

Premiere date: Nov. 6, 2025

Metascore: 87

Pluribus marks the return of Breaking Bad's Vince Gilligan, who enlists the help of his Better Call Saul star Rhea Seehorn in this sci-fi series about a mysterious virus that makes most of the people of Earth act strangely. In her review, TV Guide's Kelly Connolly states, "Saul reshaped itself around her magnetism, but Pluribus is built from the beginning to be a proper star vehicle for Rhea Seehorn. She's witty, chaotic, resolute, and heartbreaking."

Premiere date: Nov. 7, 2025

Metascore: 81

The BBC cop drama has had qualifying Metacritic scores in all of its seasons, including the recently released third. TV critic Alan Sepinwall says, "Blue Lights definitely wants to be the Belfast equivalent of The Wire. It never quite gets there, but there's also no shame in not living up to one of the greatest TV dramas ever made."

Premiere date: Nov. 13, 2025 (U.S. release via BritBox)

Metascore: 80

Ken Burns' latest lengthy and thorough docuseries tackles the birth of a nation while also telling the uglier truths of our forefathers. Writing for The A.V. Club, Hunter Ingram says, "With this series airing on the increasingly underfunded and threatened PBS network, Burns' exhaustive and exquisite effort to tell us our own story feels like an endangered species of art and television."  

Premiere date: Nov. 16, 2025

Metascore: 80

Prime Video's new animated series from the Dungeons & Dragons troupe Critical Role rolled a 20 with many critics. Collider's Kelcie Mattson writes, "With no slight intended towards the accomplished and sleek Vox Machina, Critical Role's refusal to take the easy way out and regurgitate their successful formula is precisely the right risk and reward. The Mighty Nein doesn't need to find its feet. This mature venture sticks the landing for established fans and newcomers alike, and stands an excellent chance of becoming a modern fantasy classic." 

Premiere date: Nov. 19, 2025

Metascore: 90

The Traitors UK joined America with a star-studded edition of the popular reality competition series, and it was a hit. Lucy Mangan of The Guardian says, "It's everything you want from the gameshow, but with loads of famous faces. And at one point, it feels like you're witnessing the last pure moment in history. Beautiful."

Premiere date: Nov. 20, 2025 (U.S. premiere via Peacock)

Metascore: 85

This remaster of the 1995 docuseries not only brings it up to present day with 4K resolution, but it also adds an extra episode focusing on Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr working on the original 1995 series. "The extended running time of this series allows for deeper cuts. It is still remarkable to watch a minutes-long uninterrupted shot of the band giggling in a limo while fans claw at the windows like zombies, or play to Shea Stadium, treated like gods, bodies willingly flung at the stage," says Empire's John Nugent.

Premiere date: Nov. 26, 2025

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