27 Best TV Shows of 2026 (So Far): Top Streaming Series to Watch Right Now

Cast: Mia McKenna-Bruce, Martin Freeman, Helena Bonham Carter 

The great murder-mystery revival rolls on with another adaptation of the grand dame of the genre’s back catalogue. Seven Dials is not Agatha Christie’s most robustly plotted series, a foray into spy-thriller terrain more elegantly essayed by John Buchan and Erskine Childers, but this Netflix three-parter is brisk fun for anyone tempted by a blend of Enola Holmes’ vivacity in Downton Abbey settings. Mia McKenna-Bruce and Martin Freeman nail the assignment as the gutsy amateur sleuth and wry detective on the case of a mysterious conspiracy. 

Watch Agatha Christie's Seven Dials now on Netflix

📍 The real-life filming locations behind Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials

Cast: Idris Elba, Neil Maskell, Christine Adams

Idris Elba returns for yet another hazardous trip on public transport in this follow-up to 2023’s hugely enjoyable plane-in-peril series. This time, it’s a Berlin-based subway train that goes (metaphorically) off the rails, as Elba’s Sam Nelson finds himself juggling terrorist demands and trigger-happy polizei. A commandeered locomotive (especially one making regular stops) might be inherently less tense than an airborne hostage crisis, but despite the venue downgrade, there are ridiculous twists and turns aplenty, and Elba remains hugely watchable as the growly commuter who should probably consider just buying a bike.

Watch Hijack now on Apple TV

Cast: Charlie Cox, Vincent D'Onofrio, Margarita Levieva

Last year, Daredevil: Born Again marked an engaging shift from the oversaturated MCU, reintroducing Charlie Cox’s blind lawyer-turned-vigilante years after the original Netflix series was cut short. A bold, combat-heavy second run marks Born Again out as more than a one-trick pony. And as America dabbles in detention camps and ICE agents, Daredevil’s battles against Kingpin’s anti-vigilante task force seem more relevant than ever. With a surprising redemption arc for villain Bullseye (​​Wilson Bethel) and cameos from some OG Marvel heroes, it’s a show finding its groove. 

Watch Daredevil: Born Again now on Disney+

The anarchic anti-superhero show has gone to places even proctologists fear to go since 2019, so we’ll forgive the inertia that crept into its final run. After all, it wouldn’t be the first TV saga to fluff a few of its final lines. But when it arrived, the ending was worth the wait as Homelander (the award-worthy Antony Starr) and Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) delivered the face-off we’d all been waiting for. We’ll miss the buckets of gore, Butcher saying ‘Oi! Cunt!’ and The Deep… well, just generally. Now it’s time to reflect on how a show this gross could be so topical.

Cast: Holly Hunter, Sandro Rosta, Paul Giamatti

The O.C. in space? Not quite but Star Trek’s first YA show does an admirable job of folding teen melodrama into a 32nd century package. The bumpy first episode strains to set the scene (a class of teens sign up to Starfleet’s space college – think Hogwarts with an Apple store aesthetic and more Klingons), but an engaging rhythm of didactic space fable and hormone-fuelled misadventure soon kicks in. Trek references abound, but this works perfectly well as a standalone teen romp, and Holly Hunter and Paul Giamatti lend it all gravitas.

Watch Star Trek: Starfleet Academy now on Paramount+

Cast: Sophie Turner, Archie Madekwe, Jacob Fortune-Lloyd

A timely commentary on capitalism and the insidious corruption of greed? Possibly. But subtext takes second place to the full-pelt sprint of this barnstorming and gloriously daft crime thriller, which begins with a group of armed robbers storming the trading floor of a City of London pension fund. Game of Thrones’ Sophie Turner is the junior analyst swept up in it all, delivering a steely performance as she unravels the conspiracy over six hugely fun episodes. 

Watch Steal now on Prime Video

Cast: Tomohisa Yamashita, Fleur Geffrier

A boozy Succession based on an oenophile manga, this French-American-Japanese drama was a curio even by Apple’s standards when it arrived in 2023. Season 1 had Camille (Fleur Geffrier) and Issei (Tomohisa Yamashita) competing for their father’s inheritance in a series of fiendish wine challenges, and now the pair join forces to investigate a mysterious yet legendary vintage. Some of the wilder flights of fancy have been decanted, but the epicurean sibling rivalry remains compelling. A rare vintage worth savouring, once you get a taste for it.

Watch Drops of God now on Apple TV

Cast: Tobias Santelmann, Joel Kinnaman

If you want something done properly, do it yourself. After 2017’s lamentable movie adaptation, The Snowman, Norwegian novelist Jo Nesbø brings his own Nordic noir novels to life as screenwriter. Taken from the sixth Harry Hole (‘Hoh-la’) book, The Devil’s Star, this is an artfully woven tapestry of police corruption, gang violence and a serial killer with a diamond fetish. Hole (Tobias Santelmann) himself is almost comically hard-boiled, but this is nonetheless a potent mix of dark character work and labyrinthine Scandi-crime that will hopefully prove to the first season of many.

Watch Detective Hole now on Netflix

The other sexy ice hockey series, this NSFW adaptation of Elle Kennedy’s YA novels brings with it an assortment of boobs, bums and sweaty shenanigans as bookish college student Hannah (Ella Bright) pretends to date arrogant hockey captain Garrett (Belmont Cameli), in an attempt to stir the interest of emo band boy Justin (Josh Heuston). The set-up may be trite, but these eight bubbly episodes are packed with wit and charm, forefronting characterisation as much as full-frontalling the characters. Add to that an unwavering commitment to the female gaze (the showrunner and directors are women), and it’s easy to see why this hetero companion piece to Heated Rivalry has become a breakout hit. 

Cast: Tom Hiddleston, Hugh Laurie, Olivia Colman

Would this John le Carré spy thriller still compel and surprise ten years on and without the input of the great espionage writer? For a few episodes, it seemed not. Tom Hiddleston’s jaded spook roamed London and Medellin in crisply ironed shirts looking for a suitably gripping storyline and flirting with Diego Calva’s brooding gun-runner Teddy Dos Santos. Then – spoiler alert – Hugh Laurie’s alpha dog Richard Roper rose from the grave and it was game on again. The finale was a jolt of pure small-screen nihilism too. 

Watch The Night Manager now on Prime Video

📍 The globe-trotting locations behind The Night Manager season 2

If the frustration of mystery shows is the glacial pace at which they drip-feed info, then there’s reason to rejoice, because this third season of Apple’s underground odyssey finally gives up the goods. Based in large part on the second of Hugh Howey’s novel series, Shift, season 3 is propulsive, sliding back and forth between twin plotlines as Rebecca Ferguson fights authoritarianism in the post-apocalyptic future, while Jessica Henwick and Ashley Zukerman uncover a conspiracy surrounding the silo’s construction in the past. All of which paves the way for a rug-pull finale that will have you counting down until next year’s final season. 

Exec produced by the Duffer Brothers, this ‘OAP Stranger Things’ pits a more mature group of friends against otherworldly atrocities. Alfred Molina leads a stacked cast as a bereaved man who’s packed off by his kids to live at The Boroughs retirement community. There the widower befriends a kooky bunch of senior citizens (Geena Davis, Alfre Woodard, Bill Pullman, Clarke Peters), only to discover that not all the residents’ deaths are down to natural causes. As much Goonies as Cocoon, The Boroughs is a blast, deftly balancing laughs and scares, while maintaining a sweetly sentimental heart. 

Few things are less obviously attractive than a middle-aged weatherman commuting to work on a recumbent bicycle, making this an entirely appropriate image for DTF: St Louis – a deliberately unsexy take on the old-school erotic thriller. Clark (Jason Bateman) and Floyd (David Harbour) are two suburban husbands who sign up to the titular app in an attempt to spice up their respective marriages, only to end up in a tangle of adultery, resentment and homicide. With a fractured chronology, oddball sensibilities, and a plot that pinballs from one place to the next, this midlife murder mystery is an unexpected treat.

Cast: Tatiana Maslany, Jake Johnson, Dolly de Leon

Beloved among TV nerds for her breakthrough performance in sci-fi drama Orphan Black, Tatiana Maslany finally lands another role worthy of her talents in this twisty and twisted dark comedy, playing a New York soccer mom and professional fact-checker who turns detective when her online toyboy and emotional confidante is (allegedly) kidnapped. Sharply observed and unpredictable, it’s also crammed with a host of fun supporting characters, notably the great Dolly de Leon as the NYPD’s smallest, spikiest homicide detective.

Cast: Erin Doherty, Malachi Kirby, Francis Lovehall

Of Steven Knight’s countless projects, A Thousand Blows best recaptures the rock ‘n’ roll swagger of Peaky Blinders. But the bruises are mounting up in a slightly grimmer second season: bull-necked brawler Sugar has hit the bottle; disgraced Jamaican boxer Hezekiah Moscow is forced into the underground fight circuit; and arch thief Mary Carr has been toppled from her perch as head of all-girl crime gang the Forty Elephants. Erin Doherty’s Carr remains a shining light, wrapping the entire show around her like a voluminous Victorian ballgown.

Watch A Thousand Blows now on Hulu/Disney+

Cast: Riz Ahmed, Guz Khan, Aasiya Shah

Between Apple TV’s The Studio and HBO’s The Comeback, we’ve been spoiled for sharply-written, toe-curling Hollywood satire of late. This six-part series from writer/star Riz Ahmed offers something rather different, though, with Ahmed as struggling actor Shah Latif, whose career ignites after he auditions to be the next James Bond. The resulting exploration of fame, racism and ingrained self-loathing is seasoned with wild flights of fancy (Patrick Stewart cameos as a pig’s head) and the meta movie commentary is entirely on-point. But it’s the culture-clash comedy mined from Shah’s archly-observed dynamic with his Pakistani family that delivers the real goods here.

Watch Bait now on Prime Video

Cast: Winston Sawyers, Lox Pratt, David McKenna

William Golding’s GCSE staple gets the Jack Thorne treatment in this svelte BBC adaptation of the 1954 novel. After a plane crash leaves a bunch of tweenage schoolboys marooned on a desert island, social norms swiftly melt away, leaving tribal savagery in this classic cautionary tale of feral youth. Seven decades on the story has lost none of its bite, delving into the mire of humanity’s worst instincts in a Darwinian nightmare that puts Yellowjackets to shame. In an inspired move, each of the four episodes unfolds from a different boy’s perspective giving far deeper insight into both their backgrounds and motivations — great for audiences, upsetting for Golding purists.

Watch Lord of the Flies now on Netflix

On paper, Spider-Noir sounds like distraction while we wait for the next animated Spider-Verse film. After all, why would a secondary Spider-Man need an entire series with two colour formats? But with Nicolas Cage playing the webslinger in high-camp mode, this spin-off is nothing but bingeable. Cage’s Ben ‘the Spider’ Reilley is more private investigator than superhero in a Prohibition-era New York. No other Spider-Man would indulge in such drunk ramblings and operatic outbursts.

Cast: Josh Finan, Francis Lovehall, Gerard Kearns

Prison dramas tend to show the very worst of incarcerated life but this Dennis Kelly drama looks for the light inside. Based on the memoir by Andy West, it does an admirable job of humanising its inmates as anxiety-riddled teacher Dan (Josh Finan) takes a job teaching a philosophy class at HMP Kenworth. Fully-realised characters do an exemplary job of portraying the hope, sadness, vulnerability and emotional toll of prison, while Dan’s own exploration of masculinity and the dark shadow of his abusive ex-con father are tragic, tearful and painfully honest. 

Watch Wait for the Out now on BBC

Cast: Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, Cailee Spaeny, Charles Melton

The delightfully dark and deranged Netflix black comedy ups its stakes by shifting locations to a White Lotus-style country club and throwing in some thrillingly absurdist subplots that stretch as far as the Seoul high life. While it might lack the grounded bite of its more streamlined precursor, Beef season 2 makes for chaotically comedic binge, complete with Coens-esque chases, Carey Mulligan and Oscar Isaac trapped in a Scenes from a Marriage reprise, and a spine-chilling turn from Oscar-winner Youn Yuh-jung – a country mile from the cuddly grandma in Minari.

Watch Beef now on Netflix

John D MacDonald’s novel The Executioners and its two film adaptations (including Martin Scorsese’s Cape Fear with a sleazy, tattooed Robert De Niro) offer a still-relevant template: an ex-con stalks the lawyer who put him behind bars. This terrific update transplants that pulpy premise to the era of criminal reform, digital surveillance and the manosphere. Javier Bardem is on top form as Max Cady, a rumoured wife-killer who clears his name and is out for revenge against the couple (Amy Adams and Patrick Wilson) behind his miseries. The episodic format allows for more exploration of Cady’s toxic psyche and more slow-burning tension.

Cast: Hudson Williams, Connor Storrie

If you entered 2026 not realising an ice hockey drama would dominate your early year viewing, you’re in good company. This adaptation of Rachel Reid’s novel series, with Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie as ice hockey players whose match day feuding evolves into a passionate affair, is a sweaty, sexy romp of a show that takes its stickhandling seriously both on and off the ice. The central relationship between Canadian all-star and Russian bad-boy is sweet and believable too.

Watch Heated Rivalry now on HBO Max

Cast: Matthew Rhys, Stephen Root, Dale Dickey

Balancing broad comedy with visceral horror is a trick very few can pull off – get it right and the two can amplify one another to giddy extremes; get it wrong and they cancel each other out. Starring Matthew Rhys as the long-suffering mayor of the eponymous island off the coast of New England – a place with a rich history of hauntings, disappearances and bloody murder – Widow’s Bay absolutely nails the tone, blending goofball small-town humour with some proper, gnarly scares.

Cast: Myha'la, Marisa Abela, Ken Leung 

Having started out as a little-watched satire about London bankers, Industry is now a phenomenon, evolving beyond a Square Mile Hunger Games into a fascinating character study of Machiavellian finance types that reinvents itself each season. Here, the ever-relevant narrative brings in Stranger Things’ Charlie Heaton as an investigative reporter, delivers Kit Harington an extraordinary episode 2 showcase, and reunites dream team Myha’la and Ken Leung. Nasty, ingenious and relentlessly compelling – though you will need a shower after every episode.

Cast: David Thewlis, Jason Watkins, Asim Chaudhry, Posy Sterling

This three-part UK docudrama about illegal sewage dumping in England's waterways could be the year's most important TV series. David Thewlis and Jason Watkins play the accidental activists who uncover an industry-wide stink after their local river in Oxfordshire turns brown; Charlotte Ritchie and Vicki Pepperdine are suitably shifty as cogs in the corporate machine that allows water companies to prioritise profit over cleaning up their act. You'll be gripped and enraged in equal measure.

Watch Dirty Business now on Channel 4

Cast: Peter Claffey, Dexter Sol Ansel

If you’ve ever wondered what all the Game of Thrones fuss was about but couldn’t face wading through all eight seasons (not to mention the House Of The Dragon prequel), then this low-stakes, bite-sized, newbie-friendly spin-off might be the perfect fantasy on-ramp. Based on George RR Martin’s ‘Dunc & Egg’ novellas, this sees Peter Claffey as leggy swordsman Ser Duncan The Tall, who, alongside his diminutive squire Egg, enters a tourney to scrape together some coins, only to blunder into some thorny court politics. Set over six (mainly) half-hour episodes, this has laughs aplenty (beginning with a perfectly pitched poo gag) but doesn’t pull any punches (or kicks, or maces to the head) with its show-stopping tourney sequences. 

Watch A Knight of Seven Kingdoms now on HBO Max

Cast: Noah Wyle, Tracy Ifeachor, Patrick Ball

Finally arriving on UK screens alongside the entirety of its first season, this second run of the award-hoovering medical drama takes place 10 months after the A&E carnage of season 1. Noah Wyle’s Dr Robbie clocks on for his last shift before an extended road trip, butting heads with his sassy sabbatical cover (Sepideh Moafi’s Dr Al-Hashimi), while struggling with the return of his disgraced former protégé. As before, this real-time account of a single shift in a Pittsburgh ER starts small – a sore tooth, a fractured coccyx – only to shift up a gear both in terms of its gruesome medical detail (you’ll never look at a shard of glass the same way) and the compelling inter-character drama. Unmissable. 

Watch The Pitt now on HBO Max