Halfway through 2025, the year is already chock-full of incredible television. The best TV shows of 2025 (so far) can be found on streaming, premium cable, and even (even!) public television. They’re funny; they’re dramatic; they’re both at the same time. They’re animated, in both the figurative sense and, in one case, the literal sense. Some reunite us with beloved familiar faces; some introduce us to compelling new performers. All are well worth your time, particularly as Emmy season heats up, with performers and series from this very list likely to be singled out. (And mark your calendars: nominations will be announced July 15.)
Read on to see our picks for the 16 best TV shows 2025 has to offer—so far, anyway.
Netflix.
Adolescence
Network: Netflix
Notable cast members: Stephen Graham, Owen Cooper, Ashley Walters, Erin Doherty
Synopsis: A 13-year-old boy is accused of murdering his female classmate.
All too often, “oners”—camera shots that go on for a long time—are the province of the most annoying film fanatic you know. Imagine my surprise when this four-part drama used unbroken, episode-long shots not for maddening reasons, but to bring us inside the psychological subtleties of an intense, complicated Netflix drama with no easy answers. The camera weaves around a police station, a school, a counseling session, and an unassuming home, all in service of illuminating the mundane, heartbreaking, and wrenching things that happen after a teen boy named Jamie is accused of murdering a female classmate. I have one quibble: I want an Adolescence episode focused on Jade (Fatima Bojang), the best friend of the murdered Katie (neither of them gets nearly enough attention). Still, this is a gripping experiment that by and large works exceptionally well. I will be thinking about the third episode—a stunning two-hander featuring Erin Doherty as a psychologist and newcomer Owen Cooper as Jamie—for a very long time, and about the fact that this drama only begins the process of asking what we do about a society in which boys are still taught—especially online—that “the very notion of masculinity is still built on access, on the idea that men are owed something from women.” —Mo Ryan
By Des Willie.
Andor
Network: Disney+
Notable cast members: Diego Luna, Kyle Soller, Adria Arjona, Stellan Skarsgård
Synopsis: The Rebel Alliance plots the overthrow of the evil Galactic Empire—all leading up to the events of Star Wars: Rogue One.
Remember when the first season of The Handmaid’s Tale hit a decade ago, and a lot of us thought no show could have ever been more timely? Well, the second season of Andor completed its run not long before the military began an occupation of an American city that did not want those soldiers there. Let’s just say the echoes on multiple fronts to Andor’s tremendous Ghorman arc were distinctly eerie. All in all, 2025 has been awash in parallels to Andor, which depicted the rise of a dictatorial state and the risks that all sorts of people take to either ensure its plan stays on track, or is stopped at any cost. Andor’s second season, like its first, has a few wobbles and unprofitable digressions, but in the main, it is to be commended for asking hard questions about the many kinds of sacrifice a rebellion requires — even one that’s absolutely necessary. Throughout, it features sensational work from not just known quantities like Diego Luna, Anton Lesser, Ben Mendelsohn and Stellan Skarsgård, but also from Lucasfilm newcomers Denise Gough, Elizabeth Dulau, and Kyle Soller. —M.R.
