These Are The Best Shows on Apple TV+ Right Now

Your Friends and Neighbors

Creator: Jonathan Tropper
Cast: Jon Hamm, Hoon Lee, Olivia Munn
Genre: Drama, Comedy
Rating: TV-MA
Number of Seasons: 1

In Your Friends & Neighbors, Jon Hamm plays a disgraced hedge fund manager who starts stealing from his (as you might have guessed) friends and neighbors in order to stay afloat. It’s like if Walter White started rich and had to maintain that image, turning to robbery instead of meth. From creator Jonathan Tropper, these are the ingredients for a thoroughly entertaining, witty exposé of class.

Hamm has a knack for anchoring compelling TV. While Mad Men is what most would consider his magnum opus, Your Friends & Neighbors is already well on its way to being one of the actor’s next-best.

Government Cheese

Creator: Paul Hunter, Aeysha Carr
Cast: David Oyelowo, Simone Missick, Jahi Di’Allo Winston
Genre: Comedy
Rating: TV-MA
Number of Seasons: 1

In Government Cheese, David Oyelowo (Selma, The Book of Clarence) plays Hampton, a man released from prison who’s surprised to discover the ways his family has made unconventional plans to move on in his absence. Like other great AppleTV comedy/dramas, Government Cheese uses its cast to great effect. Oyelowo and Missick embrace their characters full-heartedly, bringing heart and humanity to the zigs and zags the story takes them through.

While pieces of this TV series are certainly familiar, the way creators Paul Hunter and Aeysha Carr present them with a touch of whimsy makes it feel totally fresh. With so much TV out there right now, Government Cheese is the kind of show that could be easy to sleep on in favor of something flashier. Don’t.

Severence

Creator: Dan Erickson
Cast: Adam Scott, Zach Cherry, Britt Lower
Genre: Drama, Mystery
Rating: TV-MA
Number of Seasons: 1

How’s your work/life balance? For the cast of characters in AppleTV+’s Severance, they couldn’t tell you. That’s because the employees at Lumon Industries have had their consciousness separated by biochips as a way of protecting the classified nature of their work. That tantalizing setup is just the tip of the iceberg in this mystery/thriller, starring an ensemble cast including Adam Scott, Zach Cherry, and Britt Lower.

Not since LOST has a show given so much for viewers to analyze and chew on than Severance…here’s hoping we find out what the deal is with the goats in Season 2!

The Studio

Creator: Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Peter Huyck, Alex Gregory, Frida Perez
Cast: Seth Rogen, Catherine O'Hara, Ike Barinholtz, Chase Sui Wonders, Kathryn Hahn
Genre: Comedy
Rating: TV-MA
Number of Seasons: 1

The Studio may just be AppleTV+’s Curb Your Enthusiasm. Equal parts satire and cringe comedy, the series follows Matt Remick (Rogen), a lifelong movie lover and studio executive who is appointed to the head of a film studio and must make his mark in the industry he loves. Overflowing with cameos from A-list directors and actors, each rapid-fire episode is laugh-out-loud funny, with jokes ranging from preposterous brand-based IP movies about Kool Aid to Matt’s attempts to give a note to the famously-nice filmmaker Ron Howard (director of A Beautiful Mind, Apollo 13, and Cinderella Man, among many, many others).

Silo

Creator: Graham Yost
Cast: Rebecca Ferguson, Rashida Jones, David Oyelowo
Genre: Science-Fiction, Drama
Rating: TV-MA
Number of Seasons: 2

Based on a trilogy of dystopian novels by Hugh Howey, Silo takes place in an underground community living in a silo. While the inhabitants are told that the societal regulations in this bunker are meant for their protection, not everything as it seems. This puzzle box series (or is it “puzzle cylinder?”) is given a star turn from Rebecca Ferguson, who plays Juliette, an engineer in the depths of the Silo.

One genre AppleTV+ has been keenly focused on as it fills out its library of original content is science-fiction, and Silo delivers everything you could want when it comes to world-building, production design, and acting.

Shrinking

Creator: Bill Lawrence, Jason Segel, Brett Goldstein
Cast: Harrison Ford, Jason Segel, Jessica Williams
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Rating: TV-MA
Number of Seasons: 2

Jimmy Laird (played by Jason Segel) is a grieving therapist who decides to abandon traditional norms and decorum and start telling all of his patients what he really thinks. This radical approach to honesty has its pros and cons in the world of the TV show, but for viewers the result is the same: Shrinking is a consistently funny series with great performances from Jason Segel and Harrison Ford.

Offering a similar blend of humor and heart to another AppleTV+ hit, Ted Lasso, Shrinking also excels at finding ways to explore darker topics like grief while keeping the empathy and comedy perfectly balanced.

Prime Target

Creator: Steve Thompson
Cast: Leo Woodall, Quintessa Swindell, Sidse Babett Knudsen
Genre: Drama, Mystery/Thriller
Rating: TV-14
Number of Seasons: 1

In this drama/thriller miniseries from Steve Thompson, Leo Woodall plays Edward Brooks, a mathematician getting his post-grad degree at Cambridge. When Brooks discovers that his research into prime numbers is at risk due to its potential to access every computer in the world, he teams up with an NSA agent in a race to get to the bottom of a global conspiracy.

Ted Lasso

Creator: Jason Sudeikis, Bill Lawrence, Brendan Hunt, Joe Kelly
Cast: Jason Sudeikis, Hannah Waddingham, Jeremy Swift
Genre: Sports, Comedy
Rating: TV-MA
Number of Seasons: 3

Ted Lasso is one of AppleTV+’s clearest hits, the type of show that you subscribe to the service just to binge. The story centers on football coach Ted Lasso (a charming Sudeikis), who is sent overseas to take charge of a failing British football team (what we Americans would refer to as soccer). The show gained acclaim for its clever writing, humorous plots, and its infectious, optimistic energy. You just can’t help but smile while rooting for Ted and the rest of the AFC Richmond crew.

As of writing, it’s not clear whether or not the show will come back for a fourth season. But if it doesn’t, the season three finale feels like a fitting end for one of the streamer’s best shows.

Disclaimer

Creator: Alfonso Cuarón
Cast: Cate Blanchett, Kevin Kline, Sacha Baron Cohen
Genre: Thriller, Drama
Rating: TV-MA
Number of Seasons: 1

It’s not often you get a director as accomplished as Alfonso Cuarón (Children of Men, Gravity, Roma) at the helm of a television series. Working with an A-list cast led by Cate Blanchett, Disclaimer is a non-linear thriller about a journalist who realizes she’s a character in a novel that reveals a dark secret about her past.

Disclaimer is full of twists, making you happy that it’s a miniseries and can be binged quickly in order to solve the mystery as quickly as possible.

Bad Sisters

Creator: Sharon Horgan, Dave Finkel, Brett Baer
Cast: Sharon Horgan, Anne-Marie Duff, Eva Birthistle
Genre: Mystery, Drama
Rating: TV-MA
Number of Seasons: 2

Set in Ireland, Bad Sisters is a murder mystery where every member of the Garvey sisters has a motive for killing Grace Garvey’s abusive husband, John Paul. In fact, they have so many motives that every episode makes you think one of them is the clear culprit, only to have those thoughts upended the very next episode.

Before

Creator: Sarah Thorp
Cast: Billy Crystal, Jacobi Jupe, Maria Dizzia
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Rating: TV-MA
Number of Seasons: 1

In Before, a widowed child psychologist (played by Billy Crystal in a rare dramatic turn) faces a mysterious child as a client. It’s not often that a miniseries appears on a streaming platform that wasn’t adapted from a novel, making Before all the more original.

The show packs its creepy premise with plenty of horror imagery and jump scares, but what makes it most compelling to watch is seeing Crystal play against type. Assuming, that is, that you can get over the fact that the haunted child psychologist has the same voice as Monsters, Inc.’s Mike Wazowski.

Slow Horses

Creator: Will Smith
Cast: Gary Oldman, Jack Lowden, Kristin Scott Thomas
Genre: Drama, Spy
Rating: TV-MA
Number of Seasons: 4

Created by Will Smith (no, not that Will Smith), Slow Horses is adapted from Mick Herron’s spy books, Slough Horses. In the show, Gary Oldman plays Jackson Lamb, the head of an administrative limbo that MI5 spies can be sent to after messing up a task but not earning a lay-off.

Even though this placement is supposed to be dull and monotonous, the Slough Horses somehow find their way into real cases of espionage, making the show darkly comedic as less-than-ideal spies are tasked with important duties. It’s one of AppleTV+’s most addictive shows. Good thing there are four seasons to binge, with more on the way.

Pachinko

Creator: Soo Hugh
Cast: Soji Arai, Jin Ha, Jun-woo Han
Genre: Drama
Rating: TV-MA
Number of Seasons: 2

Based on the 2017 novel by Min Jin Lee, Pachinko follows four generations of a Korean family. Starting in 1915 and continuing through the late 1980s, the show chronicles the way Korean immigrants who moved to Japan were treated in a drama that is simultaneously intimate and epic in scope and subject.

Noted for its great acting, cinematography, and editing — and a killer title sequence, too! — Pachinko is the kind of show that illustrates how streaming has allowed series that would be deemed too risky for traditional television to truly thrive.

Presumed Innocent

Creator: David E. Kelley
Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Ruth Negga, Bill Camp
Genre: Legal, Thriller
Rating: TV-MA
Number of Seasons: 1

In this courtroom drama led by an excellent Jake Gyllenhaal, a prosecutor becomes the main suspect in his colleague’s murder. Making matters even thornier, the pair were having an affair. If you think you’ve heard of Presumed Innocent before, you probably have. Before becoming a television series, it was a book and a movie starring Harrison Ford and Brian Dennehy. Even so, the story has everything you could want from a legal thriller, making AppleTV+’s Presumed Innocent worth watching whether or not you’re familiar with the story.

Mythic Quest

Creators: Charlie Day, Megan Ganz, Rob McElhenney
Cast: Rob McElhenney, Ashly Burch, Jessie Ennis, Imani Hakim
Genre: Comedy
Rating: TV-MA
Number of Seasons: 4

What sort of hijinks do the developers of one of the biggest MMORPGs out there get up to when they aren’t writing code or deploying updates? In AppleTV+’s hit comedy, Mythic Quest, you get to find out. From virtual meetings during the pandemic to debates about adding a shovel as an in-game item, this workplace comedy is like The Office for the internet age.

Side Quest

Creator: Ashly Burch, John Howell Harris, Katie McElhenney
Cast: Derek Waters, Anna Konkle, Rob McElhenney
Genre: Comedy
Rating: TV-MA
Number of Seasons: 1

In this anthology companion series to Mythic Quest, viewers are treated to a hilarious look inside the additional players, fans, and employees whose lives are impacted by the fictitious MMORPG at the heart of AppleTV+’s hit series. Formerly known as “Mere Mortals,” each thirty-minute episode explores a different, tangential off-shoot to the events and characters of the main show. 

From an art director struggling to enjoy his vacation to a cellist touring with a video game orchestra, each episode goes down easy while expanding the world of one of Apple’s most enjoyable comedies to date. It’s a great expansion of an already great universe.

Drops of God

Creator: Quoc Dang Tran
Cast: Tomohisa Yamashita, Fleur Geffrier, Tom Wozniczka
Genre: Drama
Rating: TV-MA
Number of Seasons: 1

In this wine-soaked drama, a young woman is left her father’s sprawling estate and extensive wine collection… assuming that she can best his apprentice in a series of wine-based tasks. The competition is cutthroat, and the show squeezes its characters to the breaking point while still treating them as three-dimensional humans that viewers can understand and root for. If it sounds a little crazy, it is, but the show is a blast to watch.

As evidenced by its adaptation into a video game, it seems like others also agreed with the high-stakes fun to be had on a vineyard.

See

Creator: Steven Knight
Cast: Jason Momoa, Sylvia Hoeks, Hera Hilmar
Genre: Action, Adventure
Rating: TV-MA
Number of Seasons: 3

Set in a dystopian world where humanity has lost the ability to see (so much so that it’s considered mythological), See feels like AppleTV+ attempts to capture some of the fandom shows like Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon have garnered. Brimming with fantastical places and names, See features warring tribes, twins born with the power of sight, and plenty of bloody action.

Like the first season of Game of Thrones, it all takes a bit to get oriented, too, but by the time you’re finishing the first season and heading into Season 2, you’re totally along for the ride.

Dark Matter

Creator: Blake Crouch
Cast: Joel Edgerton, Jennifer Connelly, Alice Braga
Genre: Drama, Sci-Fi
Rating: TV-MA
Number of Seasons: 1

In Dark Matter, Joel Edgerton plays Chicago physicist Jason Dessen, who is warped into an alternate version of his life and must fight for his family in the process. Adapted by Blake Crouch from his 2016 novel of the same name, Dark Matter shows that AppleTV+ has no problem putting its money where its mouth is when it comes to realizing exceptional science-fiction television.

At a time when multiverses and alternate realities are incredibly popular, Dark Matter brings something new to the table, with an air of anxiety that permeates the show’s first season and leaves you wanting more.

The Morning Show

Creator: Jay Carson
Cast: Jennifer Anniston, Reese Witherspoon, Steve Carell
Genre: Drama, Satire
Rating: TV-MA
Number of Seasons: 3

Even though this series has a sunny logo, the workplace drama at the heart of The Morning Show is anything but sunny. Juxtaposing the sunny dispositions of anchors on a TV news show with issues of tokenism, sexual harassment, and appropriation, The Morning Show is a biting satire brimming with hot-button topics.

Jennifer Anniston and Reese Witherspoon dive in head first, making the fast-and-furious show what it is. In each season, they’re complemented by a totally-game cast.

For All Mankind

Creator: Ronald D. Moore, Matt Wolpert, Ben Nedivi
Cast: Joel Kinnaman, Michael Dorman, Sarah Jones
Genre: Drama, Historical Fiction
Rating: TV-MA
Number of Seasons: 4

In this piece of dramatic historical fiction, the space race never ended. Instead, the Soviet Union has bested the United States in landing a man on the moon, and each season, while grounded in history, takes several creative liberties to create an engrossing story across several decades. Combining incredibly filmed space travels with intimate, character-based drama, For All Mankind is a fascinating “what-if” of a series that showcases some great performances, too.

Hijack

Creator: George Kay, Jim Field Smith
Cast: Idris Elba, Neil Maskell, Eve Myles
Genre: Drama
Rating: TV-MA
Number of Seasons: 1

In a post-9/11 world, it’s hard to get on an airplane or go through security without at least briefly considering some sort of catastrophe befalling you on your way to vacation. Hijack capitalizes on those anxieties in one suspenseful season, telling the story of an airplane hijacking during a flight from Dubai to London. Starring Idris Elba as a corporate negotiator whose skills are put to the test, Hijack dedicates each of its tense seven episodes to one of the seven hours the plane is in the air. The result is an intimate and thrilling series where every second counts.

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters

Creator: Chris Black, Matt Fraction
Cast: Kurt Russell, Anna Sawai, Kiersey Clemons
Genre: Action, Adventure
Rating: TV-14
Number of Seasons: 1

Who wouldn’t want to watch a TV show set in the world of Godzilla? Set in 2015 after Godzilla has re-emerged, this series serves as a sequel to the 2014 reboot of everyone’s favorite dinosaur-inspired kaiju. In it, siblings Cate and Kentaro work to discover the link between their missing father and the secret “Monarch” organization, known for tracking Godzilla and his ilk. In one of AppleTV’s best IP-grabs yet, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters delivers small-scale human drama alongside monster-sized action. Season 2 can’t come soon enough.

Foundation

Creator: David S. Goyer, Josh Friedman
Cast: Jared Harris, Lee Pace, Lou Llobell
Genre: Sci-Fi, Drama
Rating: TV-14
Number of Seasons: 2

Yet another science-fiction epic in a crowded field, Foundation is absolutely worth making the time for. Based on Isaac Asimov’s stories, this dense sci-fi series feels more akin to Dune than Star Trek. Centered around a group of exiles and featuring a futuristic world populated by humanoid robots and an omniscient school of thought, “psychohistory,” there is plenty to think about in this well-acted, well-designed science fiction series.

Foundation, like much of Apple’s sci-fi canon, shows that the studio recognizes how to invest its money in exciting projects that can be expertly realized. We can’t wait to keep digging in with season 3 on the way.

The Afterparty

Creator: Christopher Miller
Cast: Tiffany Haddish, Sam Richardson, Zoë Chao
Genre: Mystery, Comedy
Rating: TV-MA
Number of Seasons: 2

High school reunions can be stressful enough, but in The Afterparty they become the setting for a murder mystery with a colorful cast of characters whose alibis explore various styles of film and TV. While the concept of The Afterparty is reason enough to watch this series, what really makes the show stand out is its ensemble cast with hilarious performances from Tiffany Haddish, Ilana Glazer, Ben Schwartz, John Cho, and Zach Woods across its two anthology seasons.

Acapulco

Creator: Austin Winsberg, Eduardo Cisneros, Jason Shuman
Cast: Enrique Arrizon, Damián Alcázar, Eugenio Derbez
Genre: Comedy
Rating: TV-14
Number of Seasons: 3

Heartwarming comedies seem to be a lane that Apple does well in, if Ted Lasso and Acapulco are anything to judge by. In this comedy, Maximo Gallardo (Derbez) gets the opportunity of a lifetime in the 1980s to take over Acapulco’s most popular resort. However, he quickly discovers he’s in over his head as he struggles with everything from nailing important dinners to helping wealthy resort-goers with the marriage proposal of their dreams.

Bursting with color, character, and charisma, Acapulco is a show that many people are still sleeping on — despite its three seasons.

Looking for more streaming recommendations? Check out our guides to the best TV shows available on Netflix, Hulu, Peacock, and HBO Max, plus the best movies on Netflix, Hulu, Peacock, Disney+, and Tubi.