The 10 Greatest Apple TV Shows of the Last 5 Years, Ranked

6 days ago 13

Published May 24, 2026, 8:22 AM EDT

Anja Djuricic was born in Belgrade, Serbia, in 1992. Her first interest in film started very early, as she learned to speak English by watching Disney animated movies (and many, many reruns). Anja soon became inspired to learn more foreign languages to understand more movies, so she entered the Japanese language and literature Bachelor Studies at the University of Belgrade.

Anja is also one of the founders of the DJ duo Vazda Garant, specializing in underground electronic music influenced by various electronic genres.

Anja loves to do puzzles in her spare time, pet cats wherever she meets them, and play The Sims. Anja's Letterboxd four includes Memories of Murder, Parasite, Nope, and The Road to El Dorado.

Apple TV is an impressive streamer that seems to prioritize quality over quantity. Most of their shows are high-quality content, from prestige dramas and mind-bending sci-fi thrillers to character-driven and gag comedies. The last five years have been especially strong, allowing Apple to show off their library and good taste all at once.

Whether you're into gothic horror mysteries, existential sci-fi, or good, old-fashioned spycraft with a side of dark comedy, Apple TV has curated some of the best and boldest television out there. Here are the ten greatest Apple TV shows of the last 5 years, ranked.

10 'Bad Sisters' (2022–Present)

Ursula, Eva, Becka, and Bibi singing karaoke in costumes in Bad Sisters Season 2.

Bad Sisters follows the five Garvey sisters—Eva, Grace, Ursula, Bibi, and Becka—who share a dark secret: they murdered Grace's abusive husband, John Paul (Claes Bang). The show jumps between flashbacks of John Paul's abuse and the sisters' plotting and present-day insurance investigations led by two determined agents who suspect foul play. Each episode reveals another layer of the sisters' complex history, revealing why each wanted John Paul dead and how they may have conspired to end his life.

Created by and starring Sharon Horgan (as the eldest, Eva), Bad Sisters is a black comedy thriller with a massive heart. The show blends dark humor and suspense, woven through a touching story about sisterhood. Horgan wrote the series as a remake of a Belgian show called Clan, but with Season 2, Bad Sisters turned into an original of its own merit. While Apple may keep the show on ice at the moment, a continuation of the show would be both a good and bad thing—the story is over, but the Garvey sisters are so charming we could watch them all the time.

9 'Pachinko' (2022–2024)

Anna Sawai, Yuh-Jung Youn and Jin Ha eating a meal in Pachinko Season 2 Episode 4

Pachinko is an epic saga that spans generations, following a Korean immigrant family from the early 1900s Japanese occupation until the 1980s. The story revolves around Sunja (Kim Min-ha/Youn Yuh-jung), a young woman who falls in love with a wealthy stranger, Hansu (Lee Min-ho), becomes pregnant, and is rejected by her family. She flees to Osaka, Japan, and marries a gentle, sickly minister, Isak (Steve Sang-Hyun Noh), who offers her a new start. At the same time, Solomon (Jin Ha), an ambitious financier in Tokyo, is confronted with his family's history of discrimination, poverty, and sacrifice while attempting to close a high-stakes real estate deal.

Adapted from Min Jin Lee's acclaimed novel, Pachinko is a sweeping, heartbreaking, and visually stunning meditation on identity, sacrifice, and the meaning of home. The performances by Youn Yuh-jung as the elderly Sunja and newcomer Kim Min-ha as the young Sunja are devastating and moving, while Lee Min-ho steps away from the classic K-drama formula to showcase a wider range of his acting skills. The series was shot on location in South Korea, Japan, and the United States, and it is a gorgeous historical series that is quietly one of the streamer's best.

8 'The Afterparty' (2022–2023)

Sam Richardson and Zoe Chao in The Afterparty Season 2

The Afterparty is a two-season anthology series; Season 1 is set during a high school reunion that ends with the death of a pop star. Detective Danner (Tiffany Haddish) arrives at the scene to interrogate each attendee, resembling a single-room mystery like Poirot. While every suspect recounts their version of events, their stories play out in a different film genre: an action film, a musical, a noir thriller, and even an animated fantasy. Season 2 is set up in a similar way but takes place after a wedding and follows some of the same characters from Season 1 (most notably Aniq and Zoë, played by Sam Richardson and Zoë Chao).

The Afterparty uses its genre-bending concept to show off a story full of brilliance and laughs; each episode feels fresh, and the cast, which includes Ken Jeong, Ben Schwartz, and Dave Franco, is completely committed to their roles. The show puts together some of the best comedians of our generation in one room, but it never feels like overkill or a clash of personalities; you can tell lots of them are friends off-screen, too, as the chemistry sizzles. The Afterparty was canceled after two seasons, but it's one of the shows worth watching and rewatching (even if you know who the killer is).

7 'Your Friends & Neighbors' (2025–Present)

Your Friends & Neighbors follows Andrew "Coop" Cooper (Jon Hamm), a recently divorced hedge fund manager who loses his job and thus his ability to maintain his upscale lifestyle in Westmont Village, a gated community. To hide his ruin from his ex-wife, Mel (Amanda Peet), his teen kids, and judgmental neighbors, he resorts to burglary, targeting the homes of other wealthy residents. Coop knows best who has valuables they wouldn't miss, and while Season 1 sets him up for potential ruin, Season 2 places a formidable adversary as his obstacle.

Your Friends & Neighbors is an engrossing thriller on Apple TV that quickly became a phenomenon. Created by Jonathan Tropper (Banshee, Warrior), the series currently holds an overall 84% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes, and it's currently the most-watched show on Apple TV, dethroning every other series on the platform. It's a tense, character-driven drama with dark humor, and Hamm gives one of his best performances since Mad Men. His character appears to be an inversion of his iconic role as Don Draper, portraying a man in freefall whose "evil" choices are motivated by vulnerability rather than power.

6 'Slow Horses' (2022–Present)

Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb in a hat and glasses looking to the side in Slow Horses.

Slow Horses is set in Slough House, a dumping ground for MI5 agents who are competent enough to avoid firing but not competent enough to stay on. The "slow horses" are led by Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman), a brilliant spy with legends surrounding him, despite his unassuming appearance. Each season is based on one of Mick Herron's Slough House novels, with a different espionage disaster that the rejects must solve, often because no one else will.

Slow Horses is the best spy series since The Americans. Oldman gives a career-best performance as the flatulent and chain-smoking genius, Lamb. The show's pacing is tight (six episodes per season), the dialogue is sharp, and the twists are often truly shocking. The supporting cast, which includes Kristin Scott Thomas as the icy MI5 deputy director and Jack Lowden as the idealistic River Cartwright, is flawless. It's the anti-glamour spy thriller: messy, bureaucratic, and brilliant, and given Herron's prolific writing career, the show could last as long as Oldman and Apple are interested.

Collider Exclusive · Sci-Fi Survival Quiz Which Sci-Fi World Would You Survive? The Matrix · Mad Max · Blade Runner · Dune · Star Wars

Five universes. Five completely different ways the future went wrong — or sideways, or up in flames. Only one of them is the world your instincts were built for. Eight questions will figure out which dystopia, galaxy, or desert wasteland you'd actually make it out of alive.

💊The Matrix

🔥Mad Max

🌧️Blade Runner

🏜️Dune

🚀Star Wars

TEST YOUR SURVIVAL →

You sense something is deeply wrong with the world around you. What do you do? The first instinct is often the truest one.

APull on every thread until I understand the system — then figure out how to break it. BStop asking questions and start stockpiling — food, fuel, weapons. Questions don't keep you alive. CKeep my head down, observe carefully, and trust no one until I know who's pulling the strings. DStudy the patterns. Every system has a rhythm — learn it, and you learn how to survive it. EFind the people fighting back and join them. You can't fix a broken galaxy alone.

NEXT QUESTION →

In a world of scarcity, what resource do you guard most fiercely? What we protect reveals what we believe survival actually requires.

AKnowledge. If you understand the system, you don't need resources — you can generate them. BFuel. Everything else — movement, power, escape — runs on it. CTrust. In a world of fakes and informants, a truly reliable ally is rarer than any commodity. DWater. And after water, information — the two things empires are truly built on. EShips and credits. The galaxy is big — you survive it by being able to move through it freely.

NEXT QUESTION →

What kind of threat keeps you up at night? Fear is useful data — if you're honest about what you're actually afraid of.

AThat reality itself is a lie — that everything I experience has been constructed to keep me compliant. BA raid. No warning, no mercy — just the roar of engines and then nothing left. CBeing identified. Once someone with power decides you're a problem, you're already out of time. DBeing outmanoeuvred — losing a political game I didn't even know I was playing. EThe Empire tightening its grip until there's nowhere left to run.

NEXT QUESTION →

How do you deal with authority you don't trust? Every dystopia has a power structure. Your approach to it determines everything.

ASubvert it from the inside — learn its rules well enough to weaponise them against it. BIgnore it and stay out of its reach. The further from any power structure, the better. CAppear to comply while doing exactly what I need to do. Visibility is the enemy. DManoeuvre within it carefully. You can't beat a system you refuse to understand. EResist openly when I have to. Some things are worth the risk of being seen.

NEXT QUESTION →

Which environment could you actually endure long-term? Survival isn't just tactical — it's physical, psychological, and very much about where you are.

AUnderground bunkers and server rooms — cramped, artificial, but with access to everything that matters. BOpen wasteland — brutal sun, no shelter, constant movement. At least the threat is honest. CA dense, rain-soaked city where you can disappear into the crowd and nobody asks questions. DMerciless desert — extreme heat, no water, and something enormous living beneath the sand. EThe fringe — backwater planets and busy spaceports where the Empire's attention rarely reaches.

NEXT QUESTION →

Who do you want in your corner when things fall apart? The company you keep is the clearest signal of who you actually are.

AA tight crew of believers who've seen behind the curtain and have nothing left to lose. BOne or two people I'd trust with my life. Any more than that and someone talks. CNobody, ideally. Alliances are liabilities. I work alone unless I have no choice. DA community bound by shared hardship and mutual survival — people who need each other to last. EA ragtag team with wildly different skills and total commitment when it counts.

NEXT QUESTION →

Where do you draw the line — if you draw one at all? Every survivor eventually faces a moment that tests what they're actually made of.

AI won't harm the innocent — even the ones who'd report me without hesitation. BI do what I have to to protect the people I've chosen. Everything else is negotiable. CThe line shifts depending on who's asking and what's at stake. DI draw a long-term line — nothing that compromises my people's future, even if it'd help now. ESome lines, once crossed, can't be uncrossed. I know which ones they are.

NEXT QUESTION →

What would actually make survival worth it? Staying alive is one thing. Having a reason to is another.

AWaking others up — dismantling the illusion so no one else has to live inside it. BFinding somewhere — or someone — worth protecting. A reason to keep moving. CAnswers. Understanding what I am, what any of this means, before time runs out. DLegacy — shaping the future in a way that outlasts me by generations. EFreedom — for myself, for others, for every world still living under someone else's boot.

REVEAL MY WORLD →

Your Fate Has Been Calculated You'd Survive In…

Your answers point to the world your instincts were built for. This is the universe your temperament, your survival instincts, and your particular brand of stubbornness were made for.

The Matrix

You took the red pill a long time ago — probably before anyone offered it to you. You're a systems thinker who can't help but notice the seams in things.

You're drawn to understanding how the system works before figuring out how to break it.
You'd find the Resistance, or it would find you — your instinct for spotting constructed realities is the machines' worst nightmare.
You function best when you have access to information and the freedom to act on it.
The Matrix built an airtight prison. You'd be the one probing the walls for the door.

Mad Max

The wasteland doesn't reward the clever or the well-connected — it rewards those who are hard to kill and harder to break. That's you.

You don't need comfort, community, or a cause larger than the next horizon.
You need a vehicle, a clear threat, and enough fuel to outrun it — and you're good at all three.
You are unsentimental enough to survive that world, and decent enough — just barely — to be something more than another raider.
In the wasteland, that distinction is everything.

Blade Runner

You'd survive here because you know how to exist in moral grey areas without losing yourself completely.

You read people accurately, keep your circle small, and ask the questions others prefer not to answer.
In a city where humanity is a legal designation rather than a feeling, you hold onto something that keeps you functional.
You're not a hero. But you're not lost, either.
In Blade Runner's world, that distinction is everything.

Dune

Arrakis is the most hostile environment in the known universe — and you are precisely the kind of person it rewards.

Patience, discipline, and political awareness are your core strengths — and on Arrakis, they're survival tools.
You understand that the long game matters more than any single victory.
Others come to Dune and are consumed by it. You'd learn its logic and earn its respect.
In time, you wouldn't just survive Arrakis — you'd begin to reshape it.

Star Wars

The galaxy far, far away is vast, loud, and in a constant state of violent political upheaval — and you wouldn't have it any other way.

You find meaning in being part of something larger than yourself — a cause, a crew, a rebellion.
You'd gravitate toward the Rebellion, or the fringes, or whatever pocket of the galaxy still believes the Empire's grip can be broken.
You fight — not because you have to, but because standing aside isn't something you're capable of.
In Star Wars, that willingness is what makes all the difference.

↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ

5 'Black Bird' (2022)

Black Bird was based on a true story, and Taron Egerton plays Jimmy Keene, a charismatic drug dealer sentenced to ten years in a minimum-security prison. He is offered a full pardon if he agrees to transfer to a maximum-security prison for the criminally insane and befriends suspected serial killer Larry Hall (Paul Walter Hauser). Hall admitted to murdering a young woman, but his lawyer is appealing the conviction; Jimmy's mission is to extract a confession that will lead to Hall's life imprisonment. The miniseries follows Jimmy's harrowing months inside, where he must gain Hall's trust while dealing with violent inmates, corrupt guards, and his own deteriorating mental health.

Black Bird is a masterclass in performance; Hauser won a Critics' Choice Award, a Golden Globe, and an Emmy for his haunting, nuanced portrayal of a man who is a hidden monster—his Larry Hall is soft-spoken, childlike, and terrifyingly ambiguous. Egerton demonstrates his dramatic prowess, and the late Ray Liotta delivers one of his final, most moving performances as Jimmy's father. The show's slow-burning tension is unbearable, and the final episode leaves you wondering if Jimmy found out the truth. The real Keene produced the series, which was based on his autobiography.

4 'Shrinking' (2023–Present)

Harrison Ford sitting in between Lily Rabe and Jason Segel as they stand next to him in Shrinking Season 3

Shrinking follows Jimmy Laird (Jason Segel), a bereaved therapist who lost his wife. He has withdrawn from his family, stopped caring for his own health, and crossed all professional boundaries. Desperate for a way to express his emotions, he begins telling his patients exactly what he thinks, abandoning clinical detachment in favor of harsh, often hilarious honesty. He advises one patient to leave his terrible wife, another to confront her abusive boss, and even takes a patient into his guesthouse. Jimmy tries to heal himself while also helping others, with the help of his mentor Paul (Harrison Ford), a gruff, elderly therapist with his own secrets, and his irritated neighbor Gaby (Jessica Williams).

Shrinking was written by Bill Lawrence (Ted Lasso, Scrubs), and it's a warm, wise, and delightfully messy comedy about grief. Segel gives a career-best performance, combining slapstick physical comedy and raw emotion, while Ford plays a grumpy, foul-mouthed, but unexpectedly tender father figure. The show hits its emotional points without sacrificing character development for a cheap laugh. Seasons 2 and 3 grew the cast by introducing new patients and complications, and the show was unexpectedly renewed for a fourth season in January 2026, making Shrinking one of Apple TV's most successful original shows.

3 'Ted Lasso' (2020–Present)

Richmond huddles together in Ted Lasso's Season 3 finale

Ted Lasso (Jason Sudeikis) is an American college football coach from Kansas who has no soccer experience, but he was still hired to coach AFC Richmond, a struggling English Premier League club. Rebecca Welton (Hannah Waddingham), the team's new owner, secretly hopes Ted fails to exact revenge against her ex-husband, who adored the club. Instead, Ted's unwavering optimism, folk wisdom, and genuine kindness gradually win over the cynical players, the skeptical press, and, eventually, the entire Richmond football club. Ted Lasso chronicles the team's unexpected rise, the players' personal struggles, and the friendships that form both on and off the field.

Though it came out in 2020, Ted Lasso's final two seasons (2021 and 2023) are within a five-year window, cementing the show's legacy. It's a warm embrace for a series that became a cultural phenomenon during the pandemic; Sudeikis' Ted Lasso is a beacon of hope and respect, but the show never feels saccharine; its emotions are earned through genuine character development. The supporting cast—Brett Goldstein as the gruff Roy Kent; Juno Temple as the unwaveringly optimistic Keeley Jones; and Waddingham as the frail, wounded Rebecca—is flawless. Despite a definitive ending confirmed by Sudeikis, Ted Lasso will return for Season 4 in a slightly different format in August 2026.

2 'Widow's Bay' (2026–Present)

Matthew Rhys gripping a bag and staring dully ahead in Widow's Bay

Widow's Bay follows the residents of a struggling island off the coast of New England, who believe they have been cursed for over a century. Tom Loftis (Matthew Rhys), the island's new mayor, has taken a desperate gamble to save the town's dying economy by rebranding it as a "haunted tourism destination." Tom secretly doesn't believe in the curse, but he must confront both his own grief and the terrifying possibility that the curse is, in fact, real, especially as he begins to witness improbable supernatural events that confuse him as much as they motivate him to get to the bottom of things and exact his will.

Widow's Bay is still running, but it's shaping up to be one of the best shows of 2026. The series has a 97% critics' rating and a 92% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and it's a genre-bending masterpiece that will have you laughing out loud one minute and gripping the edge of your seat the next; it's artful, addictive, and unique. Rhys is a delightful lead who takes the show to incredible heights with his somewhat naive but determined performance. It's one of the best new shows you're probably missing, but there's still time to catch up on episodes.

1 'Severance' (2022–Present)

Britt Lower and Adam Scott talk in an office hallway in Severance

Severance is set in a dystopian corporate world, where Lumon Industries employees undergo a "severance" procedure in which a chip in their brain separates their work memories from their personal ones. Mark Scout (Adam Scott) leads a team of severed workers in the Macrodata Refinement (MDR) department, who sort seemingly random numbers into bins with no idea what they're doing. When a new employee, Helly (Britt Lower), joins the team, cracks appear in Lumon's facade. Over the course of two seasons, we watch the MDR team discover the truth behind Lumon's activities and learn more about their outside selves.

Severance is a masterpiece of paranoid science fiction. The show's retro-futuristic production design, haunting score (by Theodore Shapiro), and meticulous pacing create a tense atmosphere unlike anything seen on television. Ben Stiller's precise direction emphasizes the characters' isolation through wide shots and sudden close-ups, heightening the terror. The cast is flawless, with Scott, Lower, John Turturro, Zach Cherry, Patricia Arquette, and Tramell Tillman. Season 2 expanded the mythology without losing the existential horror at its core, making the show even more dystopian in its philosophy and emotional impact. It's a perfect show.