25 Best TV Shows On Netflix Right Now (November 2023)

Summary

• Netflix offers a diverse range of TV shows, including acclaimed classics and hidden gems, catering to various genres and interests.
• “The Fall of the House of Usher” is a chilling horror drama by Mike Flanagan that combines themes of capitalism and family dysfunction.
• “Grey’s Anatomy” is a beloved medical drama filled with steamy romances and tackles sensitive subjects with its grounded storytelling.

Netflix‘s giant TV show catalog can be daunting, and the real question most subscribers will want answered is what the best shows on Netflix right now are. Naturally, such is the value of the platform that it includes some of the greatest TV shows of all time, alongside hidden gems and overlooked classics. Whether you’re looking for the best documentary series, the best comedy TV shows, the best horror shows or something for the whole family to enjoy together, you’re covered.

And good news, we’ll be updating this list regularly to keep all recommendations fresh. So whether you’re looking for a selection of the best TV shows ever, or something more specific in a genre, our guide has it all. Looking for more recommendations? Check out our guide to the best movies on Netflix for even more recommendations. You can also check out our guide to the best shows on Disney+.

For even more Netflix streaming recommendations, be sure to check out the best horror movies on Netflix, best romance movies on Netflix, and best family movies on Netflix.

Related: The 10 Best Documentaries On Netflix Right Now

25 The Fall Of The House Of Usher (2023)

From The Haunting of Hill House to Midnight Mass, acclaimed horror director Mike Flanagan has become a Netflix mainstay, offering terrifying miniseries that promise to give viewers more than a few thrills every spooky season. Flanagan’s 2023 contribution is The Fall of the House of Usher, based on the works of Edgar Allen Poe. The Fall of the House of Usher has a stacked ensemble cast full of Mike Flanagan actors who regularly show up in his work.

The drama centers around tyrannical pharmaceutical CEO Roderick Usher (Bruce Greenwood) who must contend with a demon haunting the family and killing off his children, the heirs to his company. With this premise, which could be described as Succession meets the slasher genre, Flanagan taps into the best of both worlds; with its themes of capitalism and greed, The Fall of the House of Usher entertainingly explores themes of greed, capitalism, and family dysfunction that are seen in many prestige dramas while the scares are chilling and memorable enough to strike fear into the heart of even the most seasoned horror fan.

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24 Grey’s Anatomy (2005-Present)

The show that launched the Shondaland empire, every season of Grey’s Anatomy is available to stream on Netflix. Medical dramas have long been a staple of network TV, but when the brilliant Shonda Rhimes released Grey’s Anatomy in 2005, she captured lightning in a bottle. The series begins with Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) beginning her medical internship at Seattle Grace Hospital (now Grey Sloan Memorial), and from there Grey’s Anatomy gives viewers a peek behind the surgical curtain at the personal and professional lives of Meredith and her colleagues.

As seen in her other shows like Scandal, How to Get Away with Murder, and Bridgerton, Rhimes is a master at creating steamy, soapy romances that also feel grounded and real. And while Grey’s Anatomy is beloved for its enthralling romantic storylines, it also deftly tackles sensitive subjects from abortion to sexual assault. There’s a reason Grey’s Anatomy has achieved such success — it’s not only one of Rhimes’ best shows but also one of Netflix’s.

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23 Friday Night Lights (2006-2011)

Friday Night Lights started as a non-fiction sports book by H.G. Bissinger, which was turned adapted into a 2004 movie. The TV series is loosely inspired by the movie, and it is by far the best and most memorable. Like its predecessors, the Friday Night Lights series follows the high school football coach and players of a football-obsessed town, the fictional Dillon, Texas. While there’s plenty of action-packed football, Friday Night Lights is just as concerned with the day-to-day lives of its characters off the field.

Whether viewers have picked up a football in their lives or not, Friday Night Lights will inspire everybody who watches. From Coach Eric Taylor (Kyle Chandler) instilling wisdom into his players to his wife, guidance counselor Tami (Connie Britton) helping students reach their full potential, it’s impossible not to get swept in the “clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose” optimism on full display every episode. Friday Night Lights launched the careers of some of today’s best young A-list actors, from Jesse Plemons to Michael B. Jordan, and the show is a masterclass of acting and storytelling.

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22 The Great British Baking Show (2010-Present)

Reality TV is perhaps the most maligned genre of television. Many dismiss it as trashy and salacious, and there are a lot of shows that prove the naysayers right, but that’s where The Great British Baking Show (also known as The Great British Bake Off) shines. It’s not about gossip, backstabbing, or sabotage — it’s a sweet show about amateur bakers competing in a series of challenges for judges.

With its warmth and kind-spiritedness, The Great British Baking Show makes for the perfect cozy binge-watch. While there is competition, it is extremely low-stakes, as there is no cash prize at the end — the winner is gifted with a cake stand and a bouquet of flowers. The Great British Baking Show celebrates people trying their best, and that’s what makes it so special and endearing.

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21 Wednesday (2022-Present)

Based on the cartoons by Charles Addams, The Addams Family franchise has been gracing TV screens since the 1960s. The creepy and kooky family has also appeared in movies, and a young Christina Ricci is responsible for popularizing the macabre pig-tailed Addams daughter Wednesday when she first played her in The Addams Family (1991). And nobody was more perfect than Tim Burton to bring Wednesday Addams back to TV woth Wednesday. The series sees Jenna Ortega play the titular anti-heroine, as Wednesday is shipped off to the mysterious Nevermore Academy after she is expelled from public school. There, she must solve a decades-old murder mystery.

While it’s impossible to say who’s a better Wednesday between Ricci and Ortega, the latter roots the character firmly in Gen-Z while still maintaining Wednesday’s dark, deadpan demeanor. Ortega’s Emmy-nominated performance, along with Wednesday‘s talented supported cast make the Addams Family franchise feel as lively as it ever was, and the mystery at the core of season 1 makes Wednesday perfect for a binge-watch. Wednesday broke Netflix’s record for most hours viewed in a week for an English-language series at 341.2 million hours, dethroning Stranger Things season 4.

RELATED: Wednesday Cast & Character Guide

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20 One Piece (2023-Present)

Based on the hugely popular manga and anime (which started in 1997 and is still going), Netflix’s live-action One Piece is both a respectful adaptation (creator Eiichiro Oda is thankfully involved) and also a great starting point for new fans. Given the weight of lore behind One Piece‘s cast of characters, that’s no small feat, and it’s down to a well-executed, entertaining story that packs in oceans of heat. The swash-buckling story follows the colorful Straw Hat Pirates as they search for the fabled “One Piece” treasure. It’s trope-heavy, but there’s a beautiful simplicity to it that should give anime fans hope that other series could follow to live-action.

Thanks to the episodic story set-up, with adventure-of-the-week chapters that take the pirates, under Iñaki Godoy’s Monkey D. Luffy to new islands for new emerging challenges, it’s also a Netflix show that can be dipped into and not necessarily hungriy binged at once. And while there are changes to the source material, they are largely smart, and the aesthetic commitment to making it feel like it came from the anime world may massage some of the bruises purists feel because of them.

Related: Netflix’s One Piece Season 1 Ending Explained (In Detail)

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19 Suits (2011-2019)

Witty, slick, and addictive, Suits is a USA Network legal drama that all starts with college dropout Mike Ross (Patrick J. Adams) using his photographic memory to talk his way into a job at a law firm despite having no legal experience. He’s hired by powerful “closer” attorney Harvey Specter (Gabriel Macht), and together they take on cases and navigated the sharkwater politics of Pearson Hardman. Suits also notably stars Meghan Markle as whipsmart paralegal Rachel Zane, and was the actress’ first role before she became the Duchess of Sussex.

The show made headlines in the summer of 2023 when Suits broke records after arriving on Netflix, as it became the highest-viewed acquired show in a single week, clocking 3.674 billion hours of watch time. While Markle’s star power likely has something to do with this, in an era of intense, serialized prestige TV drama, sometimes viewers just want an easy watch, and with its procedural format, Suits delivers just that, while still maintaining an intelligent, fresh tone.

RELATED: 7 Reasons Suits Is Dominating Netflix 4 Years After It Ended

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18 Heartstopper (2022-Present)

Created by Alice Oseman, and based on her webcomic and graphic novel of the same name, Heartstopper is a heartfelt British teen series about two high school boys, Nick (Kit Connor) and Charlie (Joe Locke), who fall in love with each other and form a romantic relationship. It also explores the boys’ other friends as they too come of age, explore their sexuality, and decide who they want to be in the world.

The show has been lauded for its positive representation, as it depicts many issues LGBTQ+ teens face, from being outed to discovering sexuality. Heartstopper also stands out from other teen shows because it doesn’t base Nick, Charlie, or any of their friends’ experiences in suffering; rather, the show is a celebration of being young and in love, whatever the characters’ sexual orientations may be.

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17 Top Boy (2011–2023)

Available Seasons: 3 | Cast: Ashley Walters (Dushane), Kano (Sully), Jasmine Jobson (Jaq), Little Simz (Shelley), Araloyin Oshunremi (Stefan)

With the likes of Gangs of London and the near-iconic Peaky Blinders, the UK has a rich vein of recent crime TV shows, but Top Boy deserves just as much attention. Considered the British answer to The Wire, the comparison may seem generous from outside, but it’s a fitting parallel: both shows deal with shifting power dynamics, the cut-throat world of underworld crime, and the relationships of the main characters and rivals.

Uneasy rivalries, stunning betrayals and often stunning performances punctuate everything, as Top Boy‘s cast was something of a proving ground for talents as rich as Benedict Wong, Laetitia Wright and Michaela Coel, with Barry Keoghan appearing briefly, but memorably. It’s still incredible to think Channel 4 initially canceled Top Boy after just two seasons, but Netflix swooped in after rapper Drake led a campaign to boost the show. And everyone should be thankful for the fact.

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16 Sex Education (2019-Present)

Sex Education felt like a breath of fresh air when it debuted on Netflix back in 2019. What’s perhaps most impressive is that it remained that way right until the very end. It’s not easy to make a TV show about teens, especially one that feels simultaneously as of-the-moment yet somewhat timeless as Sex Education: get it wrong and it falls anywhere between pandering, condescending, cringe-worthy, or tryhard. Netflix deftly finds the balance, though, with a show that’s sweet and heartfelt, utterly hilarious (often grossly so), emotional, risk-taking, and has strong messaging on a wide variety of issues, but weaves them organically into its plot.

What makes Sex Education work so well, ultimately, are its characters. Even when the plots get a little absurd, they keep it all grounded. The show is authentic and honest, and its characters are very much like real teenagers – their struggles either relatable or providing a teaching moment or two, and often both. Sex Education‘s cast is entirely great, and full of actors who are already breaking out into bigger things (Ncuti Gatwa could power the TARDIS on his megawatt smile and pure charisma alone). At the same time, they may not be in too many things that are better.

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15 The Haunting Of Hill House (2018)

Mike Flanagan’s Netflix projects read like a best of the best horror releases of recent years, and The Haunting of Hill House is arguably the one that set the standard. Raising the bar for Netflix’s best horror titles, The Haunting of Hill House relies on Flanagan’s always excellent casting eye and ridiculously successful scare tactics to really leave a mark. And it’s not just jump scares (though it has one of the best ever), as Flanagan’s creative team builds an atmosphere of dread that is both nightmarish and compulsive viewing.

The Netflix show drew from Shirley Jackson’s iconic novel, updating the source material and injecting new life (and death), into The Haunting of Hill House’s story of the shared trauma of five children who grew up in the ominous house. Watch if you’re a fan of good old-fashioned ghost stories, and expect a high chill factor. For good reason, The Haunting of Hill House remains among the best shows to watch on Netflix right now.

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14 Six Feet Under (2001-2005)

Whether it’s the Sopranos or the Roys, nobody delivers a dysfunctional family show quite like HBO, and Six Feet Under‘s Fisher clan is right at the top of the list. The family runs a funeral home and their world is rocked when patriarch Nathaniel Fisher (Richard Jenkins) dies. Each Six Feet Under episode begins with a death that is thematic of the storylines faced by the main characters as the Fishers go about their lives, trying to run their business, grieve, live, love, and grapple with their own mortality.

From the beginning right to the finale, which has been hailed by many as one of the greatest series finales of all time, Six Feet Under grabs viewers by the emotional heartstrings and refuses to let go. Much like the deaths on the show, Six Feet Under‘s awards are numerous. With all the acclaimed, legendary shows HBO has produced, the fact that Six Feet Under is still in the conversation speaks to its staying power and sterling quality.

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13 The Witcher (2019-Present)

While screen adaptations of video games are slowly shedding their bad reputation thanks to shows like The Last of Us, The Witcher also had literary help, as it is based on the fantasy book series of the same name by Andrezej Sapkowski. The show centers on stoic monster hunter Geralt of Rivia (Henry Cavill) and his adventures, as he is eventually tasked with protecting Crown Princess Ciri of Cintra (Freya Allan). The Witcher season 1 beautifully establishes the show’s fantastical world, and seasons 2 and 3 expand upon it and the characters’ complex relationships.

Fantasy series can be incredibly difficult to pull off because they require the very best in special effects so as not to appear cheesy, and a rich lore that fans can sink their teeth into. Universally praised, The Witcher delivers on all counts. The show has been especially highlighted for its strong performances, which makes Cavill’s departure after season 3 all the more disappointing. Liam Hemsworth will step in to play Geralt in The Witcher season 4, and he has big shoes to fill, but hopefully, fans will give him a fair shake. But regardless of the series’ future, The Witcher has three excellent seasons under its belt.

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12 Mindhunter (2017-2019)

Unfortunately, Mindhunter‘s development story might be one of the most frustrating tales of missed opportunity in TV history, as the show was given only a disappointingly short run. That said, the disappointment is directly correlated to just how great the Netflix Original series is. Offering true crime fans the irresistible prospect of seeing some of real-life history’s most notorious serial killers, Mindhunter charts the rise of the FBI’s dedicated serial murder department (Quantico’s Behavioral Science Unit). Far more than a who’s who of killers, the show’s exploration of the personal relationships of the main characters and their struggles adds huge depth.

Drawing on creator David Fincher’s movies, Mindhunter is compellingly dark, exploring the depths of human depravity without edging into exploitation. If you’re a fan of The Silence of the Lambs, or Se7en, or movies of that ilk, Mindhunter is a must-see, particularly thanks to the unnervingly precise portrayals of some of the most notorious serial killers ever.

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11 Stranger Things (2016-Present)

Along with House of Cards, Stranger Things is arguably the most important Netflix Original the platform ever released. Responsible for a huge uplift in interest in the streaming giant when it debuted in 2016, the horror fantasy blend perfectly blends Amblin-like 1980s nostalgia with an undeniable Stephen King vibe that proves to be a winning formula. With a twisty narrative that draws heavily on Dungeons & Dragons lore, Stranger Things is a far more street level success than its high concept might suggest, mostly thanks to its excellent cast.

Trope heavy, Stranger Things marries multiple genres in a heady blend that appeals across all genre quadrants: its horror is successfully creepy (particularly after the introduction of Vecna); its coming-of-age elements are pitch perfect; and the plot never disappears under its own weight as other shows with such longevity like Lost and Heroes. Impressively, the show has successfully reinvented itself even as it escalates its original ideas and the upcoming Stranger Things season 5 is easily one of the most hotly anticipated TV seasons in recent memory.

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10 Dark (2017-2020)

Set in a small German town with a story that spans centuries, Dark is a compellingly complex thriller that easily ranks among the best Netflix shows. When the search for a missing child goes wrong, Dark transports the narrative to the past via a mysterious wormhole underneath a nuclear power plant. With the same actors playing characters across the span of time, the show becomes a surreal character study, exploring the trauma that shapes characters in the present, before suggesting what might await them in the future. With three seasons to enjoy, Dark is one of the most satisfying sci-fi series on the platform.

Dark may ask a lot of its audience (especially as the original German is undisputably the best way to watch it), but the reward is just as good. By the time you get to Dark‘s ending, you’ll be exhausted and exhilarated, having been forced through an ordeal of philosophically challenging investigations that strike at the very heart of human existence.

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9 Beef (2023)

Academy Award nominee Steven Yeun and two-time member of Time’s 100 Most Influential People list Ali Wong lend their considerable talent for this Netflix Original miniseries. In Beef, a simple act of road rage between struggling contractor Danny Cho (Yeun) and successful small business owner Amy Lau (Wong) gives way to a feud for the ages. Typically, praise for on-screen chemistry is reserved for romantic leads, but Yeun and Wong absolutely sizzle off the screen as two bitter enemies.

Netflix’s Beef is produced by A24, the acclaimed independent production company behind Best Picture winners Moonlight and Everything Everywhere All at Once. The company is known for refreshing arthouse dramas with an edge, and Beef is no exception. Whether or not it sees awards glory, Beef will forever live rent-free in the minds of Netflix audiences.

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8 The Umbrella Academy (2019-Present)

While Stranger Things is probably Netflix’s more famous sci-fi-like ensemble cast show, The Umbrella Academy is even better, increasing in quality with each release. Based on the incredible comics series by My Chemical Romance frontman Gerard Way, the show deals with the small problem of the end of the world. Repeatedly. Centered on a group of exceptional misfits with the kind of superpowers you won’t see in Marvel or DC Comics, The Umbrella Academy is as funny as it is subversive, exploring incredibly dark material while throwing in must-see dance numbers.

The character performances are delightful and irresistibly meme-able, and the looming shadow of destiny means there’s barely time for a misplaced step or pause in the plot, which throws in some of the most unexpected twists you’d ever imagine. And many you couldn’t possibly. With The Umbrella Academy season 4 promising to bring the complex, time travel story to its inevitably explosive conclusion, there’s still a lot to look forward to. Just make sure you’re there for the ride by catching up first.

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7 Squid Game (2021-Present)

Capitalism critique has never been more violent or visually stunning than it has with Squid Game. Released in the fall of 2021, this South Korean Netflix series took the pop culture zeitgeist by storm. It sees 456 financially strapped contestants compete in a series of lethal children’s games in the hopes of winning the big cash prize. Class warfare has become an increasingly popular subject of film and TV, but many offerings in this subgenre have a decidedly “eat the rich” slant whereas Squid Game is all about the brutality of being on the losing side of capitalism, which most are.

While Squid Game‘s violence is difficult to stomach, it’s impossible to look away as the sets, costumes, and cinematography show what a work of art the series is. And the brutal deaths aren’t what’s terrifying about Squid Game — it’s the lengths the contestants will go to for the smallest chance of getting out of debt, a struggle that is all too relatable.

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6 BoJack Horseman (2014-2020)

For a show about a talking horse, BoJack Horseman can be almost too real. Will Arnett stars as the titular anthropomorphic protagonist, a has-been actor famous for starring in a ’90s sitcom. Wanting to stage a comeback, BoJack plans to write an autobiography with the help of ghostwriter Diane Nguyen (Alison Brie). This forces BoJack to confront his failures, demons, and a whole lot of existential dread.

Adult animated shows have been popular since the 2000s, and while many of them are over-the-top and outrageous, BoJack Horseman is one of the more grounded offerings, despite its surreal premise. BoJack Horseman tackles many serious, real-life issues with such authenticity it can be uncomfortable to watch, but the show maintains its acerbic sense of humor throughout. There’s truly no show like it, and it’s one of the best on Netflix.

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