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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 Things"), what we loved most was less glitzy and perhaps less glamorous, but no less gorgeous to behold.
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.
10. 'Overcompensating' (Amazon Prime)
Underpinning every thigh-slapping comedy bit in Amazon's raucous and irreverent college comedy "Overcompensating" is a deeply real understanding of the messy and imperfect way that human beings transition from flailing young teens into flailing young adults.
Although it's set in our TikTok times, "Overcompensating" could represent anyone's college experience, even if they're not a timid gay jock trapped in the closet like protagonist Benny (Benito Skinner, also the series' creator). Benny and pal Carmen's (Wally Baram) hilarious and relatable journey through their freshman year is a cringeworthy pleasure, funny, heartfelt and backed by great beats from Charli XCX (also a producer and guest star). Just look away during all the vomit and defecation gags.
9. 'Task' (HBO)
"Mare of Easttown" creator Brad Ingelsby returned to the Philadelphia working class suburbs for this dark and gripping crime drama starring Mark Ruffalo. The actor plays a depressed and traumatized FBI agent leading a task force investigating a series of home invasions targeting drug dens in the area. Told from the point of view of Ruffalo's lawman and the everyman (Tom Pelphry) who is surprisingly leading the robberies, "Task" is addictive and compelling, a tale of two cities set in the same Delaware County town.
Packed with regional accents and references, "Task" contained multitudes of theme, thesis and tone. It is the deliciously complex story that has both tense plot twists as well as deep meditations on family and what we are owed.
8. 'North of North' (Netflix)
This comedy set in a tiny Arctic village that's, well, north of what you think of as "north" probably flew below your radar this spring. But gleeful and bubbling with energy, "North" is well worth a watch.
It stars the instantly magnetic Anna Lambe as Siaja, a young woman living a seemingly perfect life in her indigenous community as wife and mother. But Siaja walked down the aisle and had a child at such a young age that she never had time to find her own identity or set her own goals. In the opening episode of the comedy, she finally takes control of her destiny in the most awkward and humorous way possible.
Full of cutesy (but not in a bad way) sitcom high jinks and set in a deeply unique but strangely familiar locale, "North" will charm its way into your heart, no matter how cold.
7. 'Taskmaster' (YouTube)
If you've never heard of this outrageously hilarious British comedy panel show, you likely will soon. Twenty seasons and hundreds of hilarious "tasks" in, "Taskmaster" is finally reaching a level of cultural saturation this side of the pond that its stars are showing up on "Late Night with Seth Meyers" and American comedians like Jason Mantzoukas are lining up to take part.
The series has a simple formula: Five comedians are given silly tasks to perform, ranging from life-size games of Chutes and Ladders to putting wetsuits on mannequins, and they are given (somewhat arbitrary) points on their performance by the titular Taskmaster, British comedian Greg Davies.
Created by Alex Horne, who plays the subservient assistant in the episodes, the show has a unique talent for mining comedy from complete mundanity and inanity, and somehow gets more creative with each passing season. Seasons 19 and 20, which both aired this year, are outrageously funny, offering the kind of full-body, deeply cathartic laughs you need after a year as chaotic and unpredictable as this one.
6. 'Boots' (Netflix)
The last TV show that legendary producer Norman Lear worked on before he died in 2023, "Boots," has that ineffable charm going for it that you find in so many of the producer's iconic shows.
There is a magnetism to the wry humor of the dramedy about Cameron (Miles Heizer), a young gay man trying to survive the U.S. Marine Corps. Boot Camp in the pre-"Don't Ask, Don't Tell" era of the military back in 1990. Despite all the muddy obstacle courses and shouty drill instructors, "Boots" has the sweetest, most pure heart of any other show this year.
Like all the best coming-of-age stories, "Boots" is at once both specific and universal; Cameron's journey is infinitely relatable as he adorably blunders his way through the trials and tribulations the Marines have to offer their cadets. You can't help but root for him.
5. 'Death By Lightning' (Netflix)
A new subgenre of historical fiction has emerged on TV recently, and you might call it the "historical romp." Talented writers and actors are bringing dry, crusty stories from our middle school social studies classes to life in ways both surprising and surprisingly fun, without sacrificing the gravity of their subject material.
In 2024, Apple TV did this with the Abraham Lincoln assassination series "Manhunt," and this year, Netflix has turned a different presidential death into one of the best shows of the year.
"Lightning," about President James Garfield (a steadfast Michael Shannon) and the man who murdered him ("Succession" star Matthew MacFadyen), is riotous and revelatory, a fun series illuminating a fascinating drama from the 19th century. With actors like Bradley Whitford, Nick Offerman and Betty Gilpin in tow, "Lightning" is the most informed fun you'll have all year, in a tight four-hour binge-watch.
4. 'The American Revolution' (PBS)
If our number 1 pick for the year is a story of how we live now (more on that below) in the United States, this exquisite, 12-hour documentary is the vital story of how we got here. Leave it to Ken Burns, America's favorite history teacher, to bring our origin story into such stark, and often unflattering, relief on the eve of our 250th birthday.
Like his masterpiece documentaries "Civil War" (1990) and "The Vietnam War" (2017) before, "Revolution" is a steady, didactic and unvarnished look at a defining moment in American history. The documentarian, together with codirectors Sarah Botstein and David Schmidt, tells the story of the Boston Tea Party and Yorktown and George Washington you already know − with all the parts you don't.
"Revolution" does not hold back or sugarcoat the violence or discomfort of the story. It is a discomfort we all should sit with at the same time we celebrate July 4th with hot dogs and fireworks. Complexity is our friend, and Burns makes it all the easier to understand.
3. 'Adolescence' (Netflix)
A quiet British crime drama about the dangers of online male toxicity to young boys ballooned through the sheer power of its storytelling to become one of Netflix's most-watched series of all time.
The moment you set your eyes on the dazzling, hypnotizing four-part limited series − each episode is filmed in one tantalizingly long single shot − you can't look away from the everyday horror of the story of middle schooler Jamie Miller's (Owen Cooper) brutal murder of a girl in his class. In addition to setting viewership records, the series has sparked deep conversations about the internet's dangerous "manosphere" and the real harm that social media can cause to children in our increasingly digital age. It's the most horrifying parable any parent can witness.
2. 'Andor' (Disney+)
When you take away the kitsch, the lightsabers, the creatures and droids designed to sell toys, and all the fanboy baggage from "Star Wars," and add impeccable scripts, performances and the deeply political message the franchise has always been telling, you get the wonder that is "Andor."
The second season of Disney+'s "Star Wars" prequel series is as transcendent and sublime as the 2022 first, a story of fighting against tyranny where there is no straight line from good intentions to good outcomes. Star Diego Luna's haunting performance as the title character grounds the grim series, and "Andor" becomes a sadly relevant, morally gray and deeply compelling portrait of resistance amid love, friendship, trauma and everything between.
The very best story that the "Star Wars" machine has turned out since the original trilogy (yes, better than all the rest), "Andor" will forever stay in the hearts and minds of its audience.
1. 'The Pitt' (HBO Max)
It's almost a cliché to talk about how superb HBO Max's medical drama is at this point in the year. The series, starring longtime "ER" doc Noah Wyle back in scrubs as a beleaguered Pittsburgh emergency room doctor, burst onto the TV scene in January and blew every single person who watched it away.
No TV show from the past half decade has better illustrated the way we live now in the United States, and no show has done it so artfully. With Wyle at the head and a group of magnetic and talented young whippersnappers right behind him in masks and gloves, "Pitt" is the kind of must-see TV we haven't seen, since, well, "ER" was the biggest show around.
A truckload (or ambulance-load) of Emmys and acclaim later, "Pitt" has become synonymous with the very best of what television can be in 2025: Relevant, heart-palpitating, thoughtful, emotional, tense, thrilling, devastating and joyful. We'll be clocking in for the 2026 shift as soon as it starts.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: These are the absolute best TV shows of 2025
Reporting by Kelly Lawler, USA TODAY / USA TODAY
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