60 Greatest Sitcoms of All Time, Ranked

The word sitcom is an abbreviation of situation comedy, essentially meaning a show where the same group of characters is continually shown being involved in amusing situations. For the purposes of ranking the best sitcoms of all time below, the term is applied loosely, as indeed, some of the shows below—while funny—do branch out into other genres, including drama (sitcoms don't mind getting sad sometimes, after all). But the following comedic shows can all be labeled as sitcoms, representing this type of TV at its best, and are shown below from great to greatest.

60 '3rd Rock from the Sun' (1996–2001)

An underrated sitcom that aired mostly in the 1990s (creeping into the early 2000s a little, too), 3rd Rock from the Sun is one of many family sitcoms, but with a twist. The family being followed here is actually aliens in disguise, and they’ve all been sent to Earth to blend in with the human population and learn information about the planet and the people who inhabit it.

So, if you like the “family in disguise” aspect of The Americans and want to see a science fiction and comedic spin on it, well, here’s 3rd Rock from the Sun. It was quirky and generally pretty solid as far as family-friendly sitcoms more or less about “family” go. It’s also nice to see John Lithgow in something light-hearted, and his range is really demonstrated by the fact that he won Emmys for both 3rd Rock from the Sun (three times, funnily enough) and the very different Dexter.

59 'That '70s Show' (1998–2006)

That '70s Show began airing in the late 1990s and went back in time just over 20 years to, you guessed it, the 1970s. Nostalgia occurs in waves, so in the 2020s, there was also a (less successful) That ‘90s Show, and whether things repeat in the future, and the 2040s or 2050s sees the airing of That ‘10s Show… well, the world will just have to wait and see.

As for That ‘70s Show, it’s mostly focused on teenagers dealing with the various ups and downs of being a teen, generally playing things for laughs but occasionally touching upon more serious topics. The show’s chronology starts in 1976, and it was potentially more popular overall than expected, given that the years 1976 to 1979 are covered in the show, but That ‘70s Show ended up being on air between 1998 and 2006.

58 'Get Smart' (1965–1970)

Shortly before he began making movies, Mel Brooks was the co-creator of Get Smart, which was arguably ahead of its time in terms of its sense of humor. It was a show that aimed to parody the spy genre, and, like various things attached to Brooks, was generally chaotic and jam-packed with jokes, but it ended up being palatable enough to air more than 100 episodes.

Like a good many sitcoms of its time, there was more of a premise here than an overall story in the traditional sense, but having a heightened world of spying/espionage naturally led to plenty of opportunities to introduce weird gadgets and outlandish scenarios. It was like a sillier James Bond, and it aired on TV before James Bond (arguably) got pretty damn silly as a series itself.

57 'Malcolm in the Middle' (2000–2006)

In Malcolm in the Middle, a mostly dysfunctional family is focused on, but the titular Malcolm himself isn’t really dysfunctional. He’s a child prodigy, while his brothers and parents are all not nearly as clever as he is, so that’s where most of the comedy comes from. It’s simple, but it works. Well, it did work, for an impressive seven seasons in the end.

Also, Malcolm in the Middle has endured enough to spark ongoing talks of a potential revival, though nothing has been officially confirmed. The original run of the series holds up and can count itself as one of the better family sitcoms of the 2000s, ultimately remaining on the air for more than half of the decade.

56 'Taxi' (1978–1983)

As far as sitcoms from the 1970s go, Taxi holds up surprisingly well. By no means is it perfect or 100% resistant to age, but it’s held up better than many of its contemporary shows. It also continues to hold some amount of relevance because numerous cast members have either stayed well-known or become more well-known since the show finished airing, including the likes of Judd Hirsch, Danny DeVito, Christopher Lloyd, and Carol Kane.

The show revolves around people who work at a cab company in Manhattan, surviving brutal night shifts while also contending with a frequently antagonistic dispatcher (DeVito’s character). It’s also probably the show for which Andy Kaufman is best known… unless you want to count Saturday Night Live. The infamous and unique comedian died, unfortunately, young in 1984, one year after Taxi finished airing, at the age of just 35.

55 'The IT Crowd' (2006–2013)

Admittedly, The IT Crowd isn't the most consistent of shows, running out of steam a little after its first two of four seasons, but the stuff that is good here is genuinely hilarious. It’s a workplace sitcom, but one with a focus on the IT department rather than revolving around the people doing the office work necessarily, with things being pretty goofy as far as tone goes.

There’s only so much you can do with a fairly small-scale show like this, but The IT Crowd does enough, again, for at least two seasons. Also, Moss (played by Richard Ayoade) may well be one of the single funniest sitcom characters of all time, so The IT Crowd certainly has that going for it. Also, the “musical” episode (not in the usual way, but it is about a musical) is a pitch-perfect farcical comedy.

54 'New Girl' (2011–2018)

New Girl has plenty of familiar elements as far as sitcoms go, balancing some character drama with generally comedic storylines, and focusing on a small group of characters forced to live/be with each other. Oh, and there are inevitably romantic plots that develop from this, with different characters developing inevitable feelings for each other, and either falling in—or out—of love across numerous seasons.

It's not what you sometimes do with sitcoms narratively, but how enjoyable the characters are to spend time with, and the people who live together throughout New Girl are just fun to hang out with. There are plenty of memorable episodes (and a lot of New Girl episodes, which might be good news for anyone who wants a long-running comfort show), and it’s pretty good stuff overall.

53 'Abbott Elementary' (2021–Present)

Showing that people haven’t yet grown tired of either mockumentary sitcoms or workplace sitcoms, Abbott Elementary counts as both these things and started airing in the 2020s. As of the time of writing, it’s still ongoing, so that always makes it risky to call it outright great… but there have been four seasons of Abbott Elementary now, and all of them have been of relatively high quality.

The titular Abbott Elementary is a public school in which most of the show is set, with the focus being on the staff who work there and the struggles they face because of consistent underfunding. But there’s also hope here, given it’s primarily a sitcom, and it’s one of those rare shows that finds humor without necessarily laughing at its characters. It has a good heart and all, for those who like comedic shows of that sort.

52 'The Young Ones' (1982–1984)

On the complete other end of things tonally to Abbott Elementary is The Young Ones, which is entirely cynical and anarchic, and derives all its humor from laughing at its characters. The four main ones are all extremely dysfunctional university students, living within the one sharehouse, and basically making life a living hell for each other due to all their heightened flaws as people.

Undeniably, The Young Ones is distinctly of its time, and probably not for everyone, but it’s absolutely understandable why it’s amassed a cult following and will probably always feel like a cult show. It only aired for two ridiculous seasons, with a dozen episodes in total, but that’s all it really needed. It also helps that it certainly ends with a bang, with perhaps the sitcom's darkest and most out-there episode.

51 'Brooklyn Nine-Nine' (2013–2021)

Another workplace sitcom, this one taking place inside a police precinct, Brooklyn Nine-Nine was one of the most popular American comedy shows of the 2010s, and it crept into the 2020s, too, with its last couple of seasons. It could technically be described as a crime show, too, but the emphasis is almost always on very broad comedy rather than anything particularly tense or thrilling.

That’s okay, though, because Brooklyn Nine-Nine was always meant to be a workplace sitcom with a somewhat unusual workplace centered on throughout. There are inevitable romance subplots here, as you'd expect with this kind of sitcom, and the show generally gets funnier the more you become familiar with the main cast of characters, in typical sitcom fashion (and as far as recurring/supporting characters go, Brooklyn Nine-Nine has some pretty strong ones, too).