As we inch closer to the end of the year, it's only natural to reflect on 2025 and the state of entertainment.
2025 was a transformative year for music, movies, and video games for a variety of reasons. But one medium continued to elevate: television. From medical dramas to horror, comedy, and even neo-Westerns, TV was on fire.
Each series on this list did its best to transport us to new worlds and old places, and each one succeeded: delivering joy, despair, sadness, and a host of other complex emotions that kept us talking and coming back for more, much like 2024. We've rounded up the best shows that cut through the waves of content.
This is Complex's list of the best TV shows of 2025.
10.Daredevil: Born Again
Streaming Service: Disney+
Cast: Charlie Cox, Vincent D'Onofrio, Margarita Levieva, Deborah Ann Woll
Genre: Thriller, Drama
Number of Seasons: 1
Revival series and reunion shows are often cheap nostalgia grabs, trotting out original casts for a quick buck. Daredevil: Born Again avoids that entirely (even if it still falls well short of the original Netflix series. Despite sloppier fight choreography, odd plotting, and an even stranger title — especially since season three already adapted the Born Again comic — Disney+’s 2025 take on Daredevil was a welcome return to the small screen. -Devin Nealy
9.King of the Hill
Streaming Service: Hulu
Cast: Mike Judge, Kathy Najimy, Pamela Adlon
Genre: Comedy
Number of Seasons: 15
Hulu’s King of the Hill revival set a new standard for reunion series, never chasing nostalgia and instead showing genuine evolutions of its familiar characters. And despite the updates, it retains its signature knack for skewering pop culture and serving up internet discourse for our amusement. It’s good to be king.-Devin Nealy
8.Wednesday
Streaming Service: Netflix
Cast: Jenna Ortega, Hunter Doohan, Emma Myers
Genre: Dark Comedy
Number of Seasons: 2
With long gaps between TV seasons, it’s easy for audiences to forget shows they once loved. Netflix’s Wednesday is a prime example: after its 2022 debut drew rapturous praise, three quiet years made it seem like the craze had cooled. Season two fixed that instantly. Strong guest appearances and richer world-building proved that absence really does make the heart grow fonder. Here’s to waiting another three years for season three.-Devin Nealy
7.It: Welcome to Derry
Streaming Service: HBO Max
Cast: Jovan Adepo, Bill Skarsgård, Taylour Paige
Genre: Horror
Number of Seasons: 1
Stephen King adaptations are notoriously hit or miss. For every standout, there’s a misfire — look no further than Edgar Wright’s polarizing 2025 remake of The Running Man. On the opposite end sits HBO Max’s It: Welcome to Derry, which taps into the lore of King’s iconic town to great effect. Only four episodes into its eight-episode run, the series has already earned a strong place among the best King adaptations by committing to the atmosphere and world-building the original film glossed over.
Set in 1962 and based on King's novel interludes, it follows the Hanlon family as they encounter Pennywise's terror 27 years before the Losers Club, going darker than the movies while weaving sharp social commentary on race relations, the Cold War, and civil rights into genuinely shocking horror. It even connects to the broader King universe through Dick Hallorann from The Shining, whose psychic abilities become entangled with the military's attempts to weaponize Pennywise. Looking forward to potential new seasons of this stellar series.-Devin Nealy
6.Peacemaker
Streaming Service: HBO Max
Cast: John Cena, Danielle Brooks, Freddie Stroma
Genre: Superhero, Action
Number of Seasons: 2
John Cena is a star. Long before he strapped on Peacemaker’s signature helmet, he’d already proven himself in WWE and on the big screen. But in Peacemaker’s second season, Cena showed a depth many didn’t expect. Riding the momentum of Superman, James Gunn used the new season to push his budding DCU forward with style and confidence.-Devin Nealy
5.Your Friends and Neighbors
Streaming Service: Apple TV+
Cast: Lena Hall, Jon Hamm, Amanda Peet, Olivia Munn
Genre: Drama
Number of Seasons: 1
With recession warnings blaring, it’s no surprise that creators are mining America’s looming financial crisis for story material. Your Friends and Neighbors is a standout example. The series follows Andrew Cooper (Jon Hamm), a recently unemployed hedge-fund hotshot who’s financially overextended—and starts robbing his own friends and neighbors to stay afloat. Led by television great Jon Hamm and bolstered by the criminally underrated Amanda Peet, the show delivers a whip-smart black comedy with a stellar cast.-Devin Nealy
4.The Pitt
Streaming Service: HBO Max
Cast: Ned Brower, Noah Wyle, Patrick Ball
Genre: Medical Drama
Number of Seasons: 1
Medical dramas and television have always been a natural fit. Aside from crime shows, no genre has been mined more heavily. What sets The Pitt apart is its commitment to grounded realism over soapy twists like Grey’s Anatomy. Created by ER alumni R. Scott Gemmill, John Wells, and star Noah Wyle, the series reunites the team nearly 30 years after their groundbreaking NBC medical drama — and they're playing a long game. Structured similarly to 24, each 15-episode season covers a single 15-hour shift in Pittsburgh's underfunded Trauma Medical Center, with each episode representing one real-time hour (the pilot opens at "7:00 AM," the finale closes at "9:00 PM"). This format creates tension as Wyle's Dr. Michael "Robby" Robinavitch navigates staff shortages, life-or-death decisions, and the lingering trauma of COVID-19, which claimed his mentor four years earlier. The Pitt quickly established itself as one of 2025's standout series, winning five Emmys — including Outstanding Drama Series. -Devin Nealy
3.Pluribus
Streaming Service: Apple TV+
Cast: Rhea Seehorn, Karolina Wydra, Carlos-Manuel Vesga
Genre: Drama, Sci-Fi
Number of Seasons: 1Sometimes having something to prove is a gift. After the triumphs of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, Vince Gilligan could have retired as a legendary showrunner. Instead, he created Pluribus. After becoming "weary of writing bad guys," Gilligan conceived a wildly different premise: a global event called "the Joining" transforms humanity into a blissful hive mind. The show follows Carol Sturka (Rhea Seehorn), a misanthropic novelist and one of only 13 people immune to the phenomenon. While the rest of the world is happy, Carol remains grumpy and desperate to reverse it.
Set in Albuquerque and grounded in hard sci-fi (the hive mind comes from a space signal containing RNA code), Pluribus leans into Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Twilight Zone while swinging between dark comedy and horror. The central tension is deliberate: Is the hive mind actually bad? Should we root for Carol's individualism or the collective's contentment?
After two decades perfecting the antihero, Gilligan is exploring what it means to be human in 2025 — and we're here for it.-Devin Nealy
2.The Studio
Streaming Service: Apple TV+
Cast: Seth Rogen, Catherine O'Hara, Ike Barinholtz
Genre: Comedy, Satire
Number of Seasons: 1Hollywood is a strange place, and each new year and scandal remind the public just how weird it can be. That chaos gives writers plenty to work with. In their Apple TV+ series The Studio, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg satirize the inner workings of a modern production house, drawing on their own experiences with Sony — particularly 2014's The Interview. Packed with sharp, topical humor, the series, which stars Rogen as newly appointed studio head Matt Remick, offers a comedic look at running a studio in 2025.
The show parodies Hollywood's post-Barbie IP obsession (Remick is forced to greenlight a Kool-Aid Man movie instead of a Scorsese Jonestown drama), diversity casting anxieties (meetings about whether the Kool-Aid cast should be all Black, interracial, or all white), AI replacing actors (immediately offending Ice Cube), award show nonsense (Remick obsessing over whether Zoë Kravitz will thank him in her acceptance speech), and the frustrating tension between art and business. The Studio has become Hollywood's best way to simultaneously laugh at itself while mourning what the industry has become. -Devin Nealy
1.Severance
Streaming Service: Apple TV+
Cast: Adam Scott, Britt Lower, Zach Cherry
Genre: Drama, Dark Comedy
Number of Seasons: 2Apple TV+ dominates this list for good reason, and Severance is the show that proved it's a top-tier streamer. The workplace thriller — where employees surgically separate their work and personal memories — became a fan favorite and critical darling after its debut season, with its mind-bending second season pushing it even further. Adam Scott leads an ensemble cast through nightmarish corporate satire, packed with the terrors of fluorescent-lit office spaces and cheerful workplace propaganda.
Directors Ben Stiller and creator Dan Erickson craft a psychological horror disguised as a workplace drama, asking profound questions about identity, consciousness, and what corporations would do with total control over our minds. Severance doesn't just stand at the forefront of modern television — it's redefined what prestige TV can accomplish.-Devin Nealy