As the year draws to a close, check out these 10 great TV shows. You might be surprised at what you find.
Top 3 TV shows of 2025, ranked by USA TODAY critic Kelly Lawler
Kelly Lawler reveals the best TV shows of 2025, including ‘The Pit’ and ‘Adolescence.’
In real life, 2025 has been a chaotic year. We have lived through the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, the beginning of a divisive presidential term, and witnessed the election of a Pope from Chicago, pop stars in space, natural disasters and history-making events almost daily. Even in the fictional world that fills our television screens in search of a little distraction at the end of the day, things are not so benign. But in a good way.
We’re talking about HBO Max’s “The Pit,” which won an Emmy and won Hearts and Minds. We’re talking about the little British drama on Netflix that generated viewership and cultural buzz. And we’ll also talk about some shows you’ve probably never heard of.
While this year’s television was full of viral Hatewatches (like Hulu’s disastrous but renewed “All’s Fair”) and the biggest shows of all time (like Netflix’s “The Squid Game” and the final season of “Stranger Things”), the ones we loved the most were less flashy, perhaps less glamorous, and less gorgeous than ever.
As the year draws to a close, check out these 10 great TV shows. You might be surprised at what you find.
Scroll through the gallery below to see a long list of the top 20 best TV shows of the year.
10. “Overcompensation” (Amazon Prime)
Underpinning all of the thigh-slapping comedy in Amazon’s raucous and irreverent college comedy Overcompensation is a very real understanding of the messy, imperfect ways humans transition from flopping teenagers to flopping young adults.
Although set in the era of TikTok, “Overcompensating” could represent anyone’s college experience, even if you’re not a timid gay jock stuck in the closet like protagonist Benny (played by series creator Benito Skinner). The hilarious and relatable journey of Benny and his friend Carmen (Wally Ballam) as freshmen is cringe-worthy, funny, heartwarming, and anchored by great beats from Charli XCX (also a producer and guest star). Look away during vomiting and defecation gags.
9. “Task” (HBO)
“Easttown Horses” creator Brad Ingelsby returns to the working-class suburbs of Philadelphia for this dark and gripping crime drama starring Mark Ruffalo. The actor plays a depressed and traumatized FBI agent who leads a task force investigating a series of home invasions targeting drug dens in the area. Told from the perspective of Ruffalo’s lawman and the average man (Tom Pelphrey) who surprisingly leads the heist, “Tusk” is an addictive and compelling tale of two cities set in the same Delaware County town.
Packed with regional accents and references, the “task” encompassed a number of themes, theses, and tones. It’s a deliciously complex story with both tense developments and deep meditations on family and what we owe.
8. “North of North” (Netflix)
This comedy set in a small village in the Arctic Circle is further north than you might imagine, and probably didn’t get your attention this spring. But upbeat and energetic, “North” is worth a look.
The film stars the instantly captivating Anna Lambe as Siaja, a young woman living a seemingly perfect life as a wife and mother in an indigenous community. However, because Siaja walked down the aisle and gave birth to a child at a young age, she did not have time to find her own identity or set her own goals. In the comedy’s opening episode, she finally takes control of her destiny in the most clumsy and humorous way possible.
Packed with cute (but not in a bad way) sitcom high jokes and set in a deeply unique yet strangely familiar place, North will charm its way into your heart no matter how cold it gets.
7. “Taskmaster” (YouTube)
If you’ve never heard of this outrageously hilarious British comedy panel show, you soon will. After 20 seasons and hundreds of hilarious “tasks,” “Taskmaster” is finally reaching a level of cultural saturation on this side of the pond to the point that its stars have appeared on “Late Night with Seth Meyers” and American comedians like Jason Mantzoukas are lining up to participate.
This series has a simple formula. Five comedians are given ridiculous tasks, ranging from a game of life-sized chutes and ladders to dressing a mannequin in a wetsuit, and the titular taskmaster, British comedian Greg Davies, is (somewhat arbitrarily) awarded points for their performance.
Created by Alex Horne, who plays an obedient assistant in the episodes, the show has a unique talent for mining comedy from the perfectly ordinary and the unreal, and somehow becomes more creative with each passing season. Seasons 19 and 20, both of which aired this year, are ridiculously funny and provide the full-body, deeply cathartic laughs you need after such a chaotic and unpredictable year.
6. “Boots” (Netflix)
“Boots,” legendary producer Norman Lear’s final TV show before his death in 2023, has the ineffable charm of many of the producer’s iconic shows.
The wry humor of this drama about Cameron (Miles Heiser), a young gay man trying to survive in the United States Marine Corps, is endearing. Military-era boot camp before 1990’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Despite its muddy obstacle courses and loud drill instructors, “Boots” has the kindest, purest heart of any show this year.
Like all the best coming-of-age stories, “Boots” is both specific and universal. Cameron’s journey through the trials and tribulations that the Marine Corps imposes on cadets, endearingly failing, is infinitely more relatable. I can’t help but root for him.
5. “Death by Lightning” (Netflix)
Recently, a new subgenre of historical fiction has appeared on television, and you might call it the “historical epic.” Talented writers and actors bring to life a dry, sordid story from a middle school social studies class in a surprising and surprisingly entertaining way, without sacrificing the weight of the subject matter.
In 2024, Apple TV did just that with its Abraham Lincoln assassination series, Manhunt, and this year, Netflix turned the death of another president into one of the year’s best shows.
“Lightning,” about President James Garfield (a solid Michael Shannon) and his murderer (“Succession” star Matthew Macfadyen), is a raucous and revealing series that shines a light on the fascinating drama of the 19th century. Starring actors like Bradley Whitford, Nick Offerman, and Betty Gilpin, “Lightning” is the most informed entertainment of the year in a tight four-hour binge.
4. “American Revolution” (PBS)
If our top pick of the year tells the story of how we live in America today (more on that later), this wonderful 12-hour documentary tells an important story about how we got here. Leave it to Ken Burns, America’s favorite history teacher, to craft our origin story into such a harsh and often unflattering comfort on the eve of our 250th birthday.
Like his previous masterpiece documentaries, Civil War (1990) and Vietnam War (2017), Revolution is a steady, didactic, and raw look at a defining moment in American history. This documentary film, with co-directors Sarah Botstein and David Schmidt, tells the story of the Boston Tea Party, Yorktown, and George Washington that you already know, along with the parts you don’t know.
“Revolution” doesn’t suppress or gloss over the story’s violence or discomfort. It’s the discomfort we all have to sit through at the same time as we celebrate the 4th of July with hot dogs and fireworks. Complexity is our friend, but Burns makes it even easier to understand.
3. “Adolescence” (Netflix)
This quiet British crime drama about the dangers of online male addiction to young boys has swelled through the sheer power of its storytelling to become one of the most-watched series in Netflix history.
The moment you set your eyes on this dazzling, hypnotic four-part limited series (each episode is filmed in one mesmerizingly long shot), you can’t look away from the everyday horror of middle schooler Jamie Miller (Owen Cooper) brutally murdering a girl in his class. The series not only set viewership records, but also sparked deep debate about the dangerous “manosphere” of the internet and the real harm social media can cause to children in our increasingly digital age. This is the most horrifying fable a parent can witness.
2. “Andor” (Disney+)
Strip Star Wars of all its kitsch, lightsabers, toy-designed creatures and droids, and fanboy baggage, and add in the impeccable writing, performances, and deeply political message the series has always conveyed, and you get what makes Andor so great.
The second season of Disney+’s Star Wars prequel series is every bit as transcendent and sublime as the first season in 2022, a story of a fight against oppression where there is no straight line from good to good. Star Diego Luna’s haunting performance as the title character anchors this brutal series, making Andor a sadly relevant, morally gray, and deeply compelling portrait of love, friendship, trauma, and resistance amidst everything in between.
The best story the Star Wars machine has produced since the original trilogy (yes, even better than any other trilogy), Andor will forever remain in the hearts of audiences.
1. “The Pit” (HBO Max)
At this point in the year, it feels almost like a cliché to talk about how good HBO Max’s medical dramas are. The series, starring longtime ER star Noah Wyle as a beleaguered doctor in a Pittsburgh emergency room in scrubs, burst onto the television scene in January to the surprise of everyone who saw it.
No TV show in the past five years has captured the current way of life in America better, and no show has done it better. With Wiley in the lead and a group of attractive, talented young whipsnappers right behind him in masks and gloves, “The Pit” is must-see TV that we haven’t seen since “ER” was the biggest show.
Winner of truckloads (or ambulances) of Emmys and subsequent rave reviews, “The Pit” has become synonymous with the best of television in 2025. It’s relevant, heart-pounding, thoughtful, emotional, tense, thrilling, devastating, and fun. We will document the 2026 shift as soon as it begins.
