A chef under pressure, a workplace comedy, a CIA operative on the run, and a crew of lovable Canadians sharing their problems in a small town of only 5,000. These are just a few of the colorful figures that you can find streaming on Hulu these days.
The streaming service has exploded as a source of original programming and a place to watch live TV, Hulu original series, and other library selections. Sometimes we even stream the TV shows on movie-sized screens, because Quinta Brunson and the Abbott Elementary gang are even funnier on a bigger screen.
Aside from heavyweights like Abbott Elementary, the streamer has plenty to pick from, so here are our choices for the 25 best shows on Hulu.
Last updated on June 24, 2024.
1. Justified
Year: 2010-2015
Cast: Timothy Olyphant, Walton Goggins, Nick Searcy, Jacob Pitts, and Erica Tazel
Genre: Drama, Action, Adventure, Crime
Rating: TV-MA
Runtime: Seasons 1-6: 78 episodes
Created By: Graham Yost
Trailer: Watch here
Modern crime dramas have a lot of shows vying for GOAT status, and Justified has justifiably (sorry) earned its place in the conversation. Based on Elmore Leonard’s stories, Raylan Givens is a deputy U.S. Marshall who always plays exactly by the rules! Just kidding. He’s got his own way of handling things. That squares him off against the Crowder crime family, as well as a slew of guest baddies anchored by the Batman-and-Joker-like tango with Boyd Crowder. It evolved and deepened over 6 seasons, often due to stirring performances, a sharp focus on its villains, and the blurry line between doing what’s right and doing what the laws prescribe. If you start now, you can binge all of it before the limited series revival, Justified: City Primeval, drops.
2. Only Murders in the Building
Year: 2021-present
Cast: Steve Martin, Martin Short, Selena Gomez, Amy Ryan, and Cara Delevingne
Genre: Comedy, Crime, Mystery
Rating: TV-MA
Runtime: Seasons 1-2: 20 episodes
Created By: Steve Martin, John Hoffman
Trailer: Watch here
Emerging from a pile of ten thousand true crime podcasts, this absolute gem of a show puts three strangers in a posh New York City apartment building into a real-time murder investigation. All they have to do is make sure they don’t bump their heads on the boom mic and ruin a take. Charles, Oliver, and Mabel are an odd trio that worship and break as many true crime tropes as they can manage while hunting the hidden corridors of the historic Arconia to find out who murdered Mabel’s childhood best friend. They stumble through twists, cliffhangers, and the occasional pop-in from Tina Fey playing a Sarah Keonig-esque crime podcasting queen. Plus, the show won’t try to sell you a mattress or home security system every five minutes.
3. The Bear
Year: 2022
Cast: Jeremy Allen White, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Ayo Edebiri, Abby Elliott, and Lionel Boyce
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Rating: TV-MA
Runtime: Season 1-2: 18 episodes
Created By: Christopher Storer
Trailer: Watch here
It’s rare to find a fish-out-of-water show about someone returning to their old stomping grounds. Storer’s stress-inducing series pulls wunderkind fine-dining chef Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White) out of the rarified air of Michelin stars back down to earth at a family-run sandwich shop in Chicago following his older brother’s suicide. He brings that elite culture and perfectionism to the ragtag crew slinging Italian meats. Not only did his brother leave behind debt and some shady deals, Carmy’s return to the shop brings a heaping pile of personality clashes, emotional calamity, and a line of demanding customers that wraps around the block. It’s a pressure cooker dark comedy, and you’ll feel like you’ve run a marathon after watching an episode, so stay hydrated.
4. The X-Files
Year: 1993-2002, 2016-2018
Cast: Gillian Anderson, David Duchovny, and Mitch Pileggi
Genre: Science Fiction, Drama, Horror, Detective
Rating: TV-14
Runtime: Seasons 1-11: 218 episodes
Created By: Chris Carter
Trailer: Watch here
The one, the only, the original. This sci-fi series is beloved by fans around the globe, and it’s ripe for re-binging or discovering fresh for anyone who missed the 1990s. In the show, FBI agents Fox Mulder (the conspiracist) and Dana Scully (the skeptic) work together to uncover the truth about bizarre phenomena. Is it Bigfoot? Or just a perpetually blurry bear? With a monster-of-the-week structure, the show also managed to build its characters’ mythologies while fighting aliens and cryptids and things that go bump in the night. The Godparent of modern genre TV, The X-Files has inspired countless shows, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Supernatural and far beyond.
5. The Americans
Year: 2013-2018
Cast: Matthew Rhys, Keri Russell, Noah Emmerich, Margo Martindale, Holly Taylor, and Keidrich Sellati
Genre: Drama, Spy, Crime, Mystery
Rating: TV-MA
Runtime: Seasons 1-6: 75 episodes
Created By: Joe Weisberg
Trailer: Watch here
The true magic of The Americans is taking a well-worn spy genre, housing it in the completely-worn Cold War period, and pulling off something impossibly fresh. Elizabeth and Philip Jennings are a bland couple raising two kids in a Virginia suburb outside DC and struggling with all the normal middle-class nonsense of the Reagan era. At least, that’s a nice cover story. They’re actually KGB officers deep, deep, deep undercover, and those aren’t the only identities they have to keep straight. The show is an outstanding drama that attaches us to the baddies and adds complexity to the standard game of spy vs spy. Come for the subterfuge, but stick around for Margo Martindale owning every scene she’s in.
6. Reservation Dogs
Year: 2021-present
Cast: D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Devery Jacobs, Paulina Jewel Alexis, Lane Factor, and Elva Guerra
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Crime
Rating: TV-MA
Runtime: Seasons 1-2: 18 episodes
Created By: Sterlin Harjo, Taika Waititi
Trailer: Watch here
In this winning coming-of-age comedy, four best friends are stuck in Oklahoma, wishing for the illusory freedom of the West Coast. Elora, Bear, Cheese, and Willie Jack want to make it off the reservation and out to California to honor their dead best friend (and to escape their monotonous lives) but getting out isn’t so simple. They pull some petty crimes to raise money, clash with the paintball gun-wielding NDN Mafia, and Bear is visited by the spirit of a non-fighting warrior at The Battle of Little Bighorn who keeps giving him “advice.” Executive producers Harjo and Waititi as well as a stellar cast, which includes D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Devery Jacobs, and Paulina Jewel Alexis, have made idle days into comedic gold.
7. What We Do In The Shadows
Year: 2019-present
Cast: Kayvan Novak, Matt Berry, Natasia Demetriou, Harvey Guillen, and Mark Proksch
Genre: Comedy, Supernatural
Rating: TV-MA
Runtime: Seasons 1-5: 44 episodes
Created By: Jemaine Clement, Taika Waititi
Trailer: Watch here
This is the true story of four vampires and one familiar picked to live in a house, and have their lives taped, to find out what happens when vampires stop being polite and start being hilarious. Okay, so this spin-off from the film of the same name is not a “true story,” but the documentary style and world-class awkwardness send up the immortal blood-suckers by making them all too human. Nandor the Relentless, Laszlo Cravensworth, Nadja of Antipaxos, Guillermo, and Colin Robinson all live an occult lifestyle (deathstyle?) but still have to figure out how to pay parking tickets and and the bureaucracy of vampire orgies. Not only is it one of the funniest shows on television, it’s also the only show in history to cast Mark Hamill as a vampire that demands back-owed rent from another immortal being.
8. The Handmaid’s Tale
Year: 2017-present
Cast: Elisabeth Moss, Joseph Fiennes, Yvonne Strahovski, Samira Wiley, Ann Dowd, and Alexis Bledel
Genre: Drama, Science Fiction
Rating: TV-MA
Runtime: Seasons 1-5: 56 episodes
Created By: Bruce Miller
Trailer: Watch here
If you haven’t joined the resistance yet, there’s still time before the sixth (and final) season lands in 2023. Based on Margaret Atwood‘s novel, this Emmy powerhouse is set in a near-future United States where fertility rates have plummeted, and a fascist government of religious zealots demands that women not read, handle money, own property, or have any power whatsoever. It focuses on Offred (as in “Of Fred”), a woman assigned to powerful military commander, Fred Waterford, so that he can get her pregnant and continue a lineage along with his pious wife Serena Joy. It is a harrowing, stark vision of female subjugation, so it’s no wonder the iconic red costumes have found a place in real-life protests.
9. Under The Banner of Heaven
Year: 2022
Cast: Andrew Garfield, Gil Birmingham, Daisy Edgar-Jone
Genre: Drama, True Crime
Rating: TV-14
Runtime: 7 episodes
Created By: Dustin Lance Black
Trailer: Watch Here
Based on the harrowing true story, Andrew Garfield stars as a small-town detective in Utah who must investigate the gruesome murder of a mother and her baby daughter. Eventually, the murder is revealed to be connected to the Latter-Day Saints church, and more unsettling secrets are uncovered.
10. Ramy
Year: 2019-present
Cast: Ramy Youssef, Mohammed Amer, Hiam Abbass, Amr Waked, and May Calamawy
Genre: Comedy
Rating: TV-MA
Runtime: Seasons 1-3: 30 episodes
Created By: Ramy Youssef
Trailer: Watch here
When Ramy Youssef won a Golden Globe for the show in 2019, a lot of people sat up and took notice because they’d never even heard of the series before. Three years later, too many people are still in the dark about this immaculate comedy about a Millennial Muslim guy trying to do his best while being stuck between the traditionalism of his parents’ generation and the nihilism of his friends. Its superpower is relatability — finding the universal human experience in the specifics of Ramy’s comic struggles. It’s also the rare comedic alchemy that produces belly laughs while still wearing its heart on its sleeve, whether Ramy’s Ramadan devoutness is challenged by a lonely widow or drinking Mia Khalifa’s breastmilk to curb his sexual urges. It’s an incredible show, and it’s incredible that few know that it exists.
11. Abbott Elementary
Year: 2022-
Cast: Quinta Brunson, Tyler James Williams, Janelle James, Lisa Ann Walter, Sheryl Lee Ralph
Genre: Rockumentary, Comedy
Rating: TV-MA
Runtime: 3 seasons (40 episodes)
Created By: Quinta Brunson
Trailer: Watch here
After multiple Emmys and a long hiatus due to 2023 chaos, Quinta Brunson and her crew will be back with fewer episodes than expected, but at least viewers will see some followup on the Janine and Gregory relationship. The school calendar might be confusing at first to make up for lost time, but rest assured that Abbott classes will be back in session and as funny as always.
12. Schitt’s Creek
Year: 2015-2020
Cast: Dan Levy, Eugene Levy, Catherine O’Hara, Annie Murphy
Genre: Comedy
Rating: TV-14
Runtime: Season 1-6: 80 episodes
Created By: Dan Levy
Trailer: Watch here
A constant barrage of quotable one-liners and Gif-able theatrics, this Canadian comedy series from father-son duo Eugene and Dan Levy is the kind of feel-good show you can’t help but watch on repeat. Following a family of wealthy elites who go bankrupt and are forced to seek sanctuary in a tiny town bought as a birthday prank, the series pokes fun at its leads, The Roses, even as it transforms them from shallow, out-of-touch snobs to a flawed-but-well-meaning family of eccentrics. Each viewing reveals new jokes, heartwarming storylines, and a bit of archaic jargon from one Moira Rose, but it’s the cast and their characters that really shine here.
13. Snowfall
Year: 2017-present
Cast: Damson Idris, Sergio Peris-Mencheta, Carter Hudson, Emily Rios, and Michael Hyatt
Genre: Drama, Crime
Rating: TV-MA
Runtime: Seasons 1-5: 50 episodes
Created By: John Singleton, Eric Amadio, Dave Andron
Trailer: Watch here
Los Angeles. 1983. Cocaine hidden in hot tubs. It turns out dealing kilos of coke may not be worth the trouble that comes with it. Grounded by stirring performances, this series has pushed past its roots as a generic crime escapade and grown into something approaching masterpiece status. Franklin Saint is only 19, but he’s a budding drug kingpin with ambitions beyond slinging weed to white kids. He convinces a notorious dealer to front him a kilo of cocaine, which turns out to be a pretty bad idea. Other shows might stay laser-focused on Franklin, but Snowfall zooms out to show what how the Feds are funding foreign insurgents by selling drugs even as cops are making newsworthy busts for young men like Franklin for doing the same. While Breaking Bad fans have been preoccupied with Better Call Saul, this dynamite show has been waiting in the wings for the nation to turn its lonely eyes and recognize its bouncy brilliance.
14. Atlanta
Year: 2016-2022
Cast: Donald Glover, Brian Tyree-Henry, Lakeith Stanfield, and Zazie Beetz
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Rating: TV-MA
Runtime: Seasons 1-4: 41 episodes
Created By: Donald Glover
Trailer: Watch here
Surprising, atypical, and peerless. It’s no exaggeration to say that there isn’t another show like Atlanta, but that also makes it hard to describe. It follows Earn, a Princeton dropout jumping between staying at his parents’ house and staying with his ex-girlfriend/mother of his child while scrounging together a new life. When he gets wind of his rapper cousin Paper Boi gaining popularity, Earn sees a chance to jump on the bandwagon as his manager. While Earn and Paper Boi, alongside their Shower Thought-producing best pal Darius (Lakeith Stanfield) and Van (Zazie Beetz), take a stab at musical success, the show is largely uninterested in sticking to its linear plot, instead delivering a gorgeous series of short stories that revolve around this group of characters and the colorful figures in their orbit.
15. It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia
Year: 2005-present
Cast: Rob McElhenney, Glenn Howerton, Kaitlin Olson, Charlie Day, Danny DeVito
Genre: Satire, Black Comedy, Cringe Comedy
Rating: TV-MA
Runtime: Seasons 1-16: 166 episodes
Created By: Rob McElhenney
Trailer: Watch here
It’s an astonishing feat of television that The Gang is still bumbling its way through insulting schemes. The dark comic wonder is the longest-running live-action American comedy series (symbolically dethroning Ozzie and Harriet), following a group of narcissistic owners of a crummy Irish pub in South Philly. Charlie, Dennis, Mac, and Sweet Dee are terrible human beings suffering through poverty and an unfair world that doesn’t reward their stunning good looks and genius. They also try to sell gas door-to-door sometimes. Somehow they’ve managed to make each episode more shocking and immoral than before, and adding DeVito as the depraved millionaire dad to Dennis and Dee was a struck of excellence that catapulted the group into well-funded chicanery. There are tons of prestige dramas about terrible people, but It’s Always Sunny is the only comedy about terrible people that goes this hard.
16. Mayans M.C.
Year: 2018-present
Cast: J.D. Pardo, Clayton Cardenas, Sarah Bolger, Michael Irby, Carla Baratta, Richard Cabral, and Edward James Olmos
Genre:Crime Drama
Rating: TV-MA
Runtime: Season 1-4: 40 episodes
Created By: Kurt Sutter, Elgin James
Trailer: Watch here
While it took a moment to emerge from the Sons Of Anarchy‘s shadow, Mayans has only gotten better as it’s gone along, deepening its story and getting further entangled in a world of cartel violence, revenge, and family betrayals. At the show’s heart is Ezekiel “EZ Reyes, a prospective member of the Mayans Motorcycle Club trying to gain acceptance under the tutelage of big brother Angel. But his membership may only be a vehicle for his personal vendettas, the kind that demand a man digs two graves. The subsequent seasons watch him rise through the ranks, and a fifth and final season will prove whether they can stick the landing and close out an outstanding series the way it deserves.
16. Law & Order: SVU
Year: 1999 –
Cast: Mariska Hargitay, Christopher Meloni, Ice-T
Genre: Crime procedural/Drama
Rating: TV-MA
Seasons: 24 (538 episodes)
Created By: Dick Wolf
Trailer: Watch here
This spinoff cannot be stopped, and thank justice for that. Yes, it’s unrealistic that most of this show’s cases are solved in less than an hour, but this show nonetheless keeps an important cause in the public consciousness. Also, SVU is even more watchable than the original Law & Order and its revival. Mariska Hargitay never ceases to be fierce, Ice-T is always cool (even as a cop), and Chris Meloni’s newish Organized Crime spinoff continues to provide excellent crossover fodder.
17. Shōgun
Year: 2024
Cast: Hiroyuki Sanada, Cosmo Jarvis, Anna Sawai
Genre:Historical war drama
Rating: TV-MA
Runtime: Season 1: 10 episodes
Created By: Rachel Kondo, Justin Marks
Trailer: Watch here
James Clavell’s beloved 1975 novel (within his Asian Saga) will be lushly rendered to bring his 1600s civil war-story to life. You might need a flowchart to keep track of the various alliances and betrayals in this show, which begins when Lord Yoshii Toranaga finds himself being dragged into oblivion by “vultures,” i.e. the opposing Council of Regents. Enter an apparent ally, John Blackthorne, whose ship has conveniently been marooned nearby, although he could be the key to helping Toranago tip the balance against his enemies. That’s only the beginning, and clearly, any attempt at a small blurb would fail to adequately describe what’s in store for viewers here.
18. Welcome to Wrexham
Year: 2023
Cast: Wrexham AFC, Ryan Reynolds, Rob McElhenney
Genre: Docuseries
Rating: TV-MA
Runtime: Seasons 1: 18 episodes
Created By: Bryan Rowland
Trailer: Watch here
Not only did Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney save a struggling Welsh football club while having no clue how the game of soccer is actually played, but the two actors also made a spectacular docuseries chronicling their journey as first-time club owners — with all the triumphs and heartbreaking defeats that entails. This feel-good show spotlights how sport can unite us, showing what happens when a community steeped in tradition welcomes help from the unlikeliest of sources. Reynolds and McElhenney and as charming and funny as ever, but it’s the people of Wrexham who really steal the show here.
19. Pen15
Year: 2019
Cast: Maya Erskine, Anna Konkle
Genre: Comedy
Rating: TV-14
Runtime: 2 seasons
Created By:Isaac Aptaker & Elizabeth Berge
Trailer: Watch Here
If you could go back and watch yourself live out your 13th year, would you? Probably not, but that’s what Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle set out to do with Pen15, the bizarre comedy that stars the two as their teenage selves in the early 2000s, trying to figure out how to shave their legs, win concert tickets on the radio, and, of course, get the 8th-grade boys at their middle school to notice them during kickball.
20. Fargo
Year: 2014
Cast: Billy Bob Thornton, Martin Freeman, Carrie Coon, Ewan McGregor
Genre: Drama, Crime
Rating: TV-MA
Runtime: Seasons 4: 40 episodes
Created By: Noah Hawley
Trailer: Watch here
Few people thought showrunner Noah Hawley could pull off a TV adaptation of the beloved crime thriller from the Coen Brothers but here we are, four seasons later with Fargo cementing itself as one of the best critically-acclaimed dramas on TV. Instead of a rote retelling of the classic crime tale, viewers were treated to a top-notch cast, shocking violence, incredible character names, and stunning visuals. While honoring the legacy of the original film in the details, Fargo managed to become a unique and essential addition to the current television landscape and it’s given names like Ewan McGregor and Chris Rock a chance to reinvent themselves for a new audience.
21. Taste The Nation With Padma Lakshmi
Year: 2020-present
Cast: Padma Lakshmi
Genre: Cooking, Culture
Rating: TV-MA
Runtime: Seasons 1-2: 24 episodes
Created By: Sarina Roma, David Shadrack Smith
Trailer: Watch here
Prepare to want to lick your television screen. And to think deeply about what it means to be American. Lakshmi brings her food knowledge and charisma to a deep dive into a melting pot of burritos, dosa, challah, and much more. Although it’s more than enough to showcase some amazing cooks and luxuriate on gorgeous cinematography de cuisine, the show isn’t just tastebud-deep — offering some thoughts on how we connect, where cultures intersect, and how sharing a meal can define us. From Puerto Rico to Houston and from Arizona to Milwaukee, this is a truly delicious interstate travelogue.
23. Hannibal
Year: 2013-2015
Cast: Hugh Dancy, Mads Mikkelsen, Caroline Dhavernas, Hettienne Park, Laurence Fishburne, Scott Thompson, Aaron Abrams, and Gillian Anderson
Genre: Psychological Horror, Thriller, Crime Drama
Rating: TV-MA
Runtime: Season 1-3: 39 episodes
Created By: Bryan Fuller
Trailer: Watch here
Criminally underseen, it’s a miracle that Hannibal got three full seasons, but the world is a much better (and darker) place for it. With luscious, slow motion shots of Michelin-worthy meals, it was the rare serial killer show to leave its audience craving meat. Based on the immortal (and endlessly adaptable) books by Thomas Harris, the show focuses on mentally unstable FBI investigator Will Graham as he befriends the brilliant psychologist Hannibal Lecter who also happens to be the disturbingly creative serial murder Graham is hunting. It would be a rom-com except for all the blood. Beyond a thrilling plot, stunning cinematography , and a winning cast, the show has a bonus of making its audience wonder how something this gruesome ever made it onto NBC.
TIE: 25. Genius: MLK/X
Year: 2024
Cast: Kelvin Harrison Jr., Aaron Pierre, Weruche Opia, Jayme Lawson
Genre: Biopic
Rating: TV-MA
Runtime: 1 season (8 episodes)
Executive producers: Reggie Rock Bythewood, Gina Prince-Bythewood, and Francie Calfo
Trailer: Watch here
This eight-part series dives into both the philosophies and personal relationships of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) and Malcolm X (Aaron Pierre). As a result, we will see Coretta Scott King (Weruche Opia) and Betty Shabazz (Jayme Lawson) as the icons’ equals as all four parties lead the Black empowerment Movement. The show also portrays King and X’s only in-person meeting, although the two advocates held an ongoing conversation (while sometimes at odds) on the cause of racial equality. The series will stream next day on Hulu and Disney+.
TIE: 25. Dopesick
Year: 2021
Cast: Michael Keaton, Rosario Dawson, Peter Sarsgaard, Kaitlyn Dever, and Will Poulter
Genre: Drama
Rating: TV-MA
Runtime: Season 1: 8 episodes
Created By: Danny Strong
Trailer: Watch here
Based on Beth Macy’s revelatory book Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America, this award-winning series starts at the heart of the American opioid crisis and spirals out into billion-dollar lawsuits and a shocking number of destroyed lives. The villains at the top are the Sackler family, the founding owners of Purdue Pharmaceutical, a company sued for its major role in pushing highly addictive painkillers. Impossibly timely, Dopesick premiered just a few weeks after Purdue was dissolved in order to pay out billions in legally-forced restitution to aid recovery programs in multiple states. At 8 episodes, the poignant series, which logged two Emmy wins, is fantastically digestible if you can allow your blood to boil for long periods of time.
