Here are the best TV shows of the decade. The 2010s has been a period of great change for the small screen, one that has seen it catch-up and arguably surpass cinema, and certainly witnessed the lines between the two blur completely. Television used to be considered ’lesser’, and a movie star doing a TV show was the sign of a career in decline, but that’s no longer the case.
Thanks to the streaming wars, the Golden Age of Television, and Peak TV, the past decade has bore witness to increasing amounts of A-list actors appearing in TV shows, as well as series having visual effects and action sequences long associated with the big screen.
That’s made narrowing it down to just 20 TV shows from the decade a lot harder. For ground rules, the shows had to air the majority of its run in the 2010s. To keep things fair, Screen Rant editors and writers have all picked their own best TV shows of the decade, and the votes have been added up and weighted accordingly (top points for a show being placed number 1 on a list etc), and the result includes some obvious hits, a couple of surprises, but a great representation of the best TV on offer from 2010-2019.
20. Veep
Created by Armando Ianucci, the satire Veep has faced difficulty in staying ahead of the curve amidst an ever-changing, increasingly perplexing political landscape. That it has managed to do so is a credit to the show’s razor-sharp writing, and superb performances, led by multi-Emmy winner Julia Louis-Dreyfus). Telling the story of her fictional VP, Selina Meyer, Veep has been a constantly important and consistently hilarious voice across the past decade of upheaval.
19. Fargo
The Coen Brothers’ Fargo is a black comedy classic, and one that, on the face of it, invites very little follow-up. Step forward Noah Hawley, who took the spirit and tone of the Coens’ movie and turned it into one of the decade’s many great anthology series. With each season following a different set of memorable characters and gruesome crimes, Fargo is a darkly comic, violent, and thrillingly entertaining series that not only homages the original, but at its best can be considered a true equal.
18. Star Wars Rebels
When Disney purchased Lucasfilm back in 2012, there were plans to create not just movies but an array of other media offerings, from video games to novels and comics. Among the first was Star Wars Rebels, created by Lucasfilm veteran Dave Filoni. Set a few years before the original Star Wars and charting a ragtag band of fighters, Star Wars Rebels became a crucial part of Star Wars canon. With great animation, strong characters, and a real Star Wars feeling, this is among Disney’s best - and definitely least divisive - Star Wars offerings.
17. Community
Dan Harmon’s Community stands among the best sitcom offerings of the last decade. Picking up the baton of self-referential shows like Arrested Development, Community built a lot of warmth and humor around its main cast, a study group at a community college. With brilliant friendships, a meta touch, laugh-out-loud comedy, and a desire to take risks (be they paintball fights or a stop-motion Christmas episode), Community felt years ahead of its time, and still remains as fresh and funny now as it did 10 years ago.
16. The Marvelous Mrs Maisel
15. Better Call Saul
How do you follow-up Breaking Bad, one of the all-time great TV shows? Many felt it couldn’t be done, and that a spin-off featuring Saul Goodman was pointless or cheap. Better Call Saul proves the naysayers wrong in season 1, and only gets better from there. A quietly tragic downfall where Breaking Bad was a grand epic, Better Call Saul delivers enough of what fans of the original like, but is at its best when it’s doing something different. Driven more by sublime characters and performances than it is narrative, Vince Gilligan’s is the perfect way to do a prequel.
14. The Americans
AMC’s The Americans didn’t get a huge amount of attention, but it deserves to be remembered as one of the best dramas of the decade. Telling the story of Russian spies undercover in the U.S., The Americans was able to offer up exciting espionage when needed. It was even better, however, when acting as a family drama, where it wasn’t just thrilling but also deeply moving. It offered up a masterclass in building dramatic tension across both episodes and whole season arcs, with stunning performances from its two leads, Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell.
13. Brooklyn Nine-Nine
Few TV writers have had a better decade than Mike Schur, and among his many offerings is Brooklyn Nine-Nine, which he co-created with Dan Goor. One of television’s most reliably funny shows, Brooklyn Nine-Nine coasts on the chemistry between its characters and cast, but also the huge amount of heart imbued by all of those involved. Capable of tackling any topic and seemingly doing anything, Brooklyn Nine-Nine is so much more than its initial police procedural comedy suggested.
12. The Leftovers
Damon Lindelof’s TV comeback after the divisive response to Lost’s ending, The Leftovers experienced a difficult (but important) first season, dealing with grief and confusion in the aftermath of an event that saw two million people suddenly disappear. Across The Leftovers seasons 2 and 3, however, it became something else entirely. A beguiling, mysterious drama, it was able to place humanity at the core no matter how weird it got, ensuring a story that, by the end, was all about acceptance, love, and the connections we make. The Leftovers was one of the deepest, most touching, and yet also exciting series of the decade.
11. Westworld
Seemingly designed by HBO to be its new Game of Thrones, Westworld hasn’t quite taken on that title, but its own merits shouldn’t be disregarded because of that. Although it’s been known for Reddit-baiting, at its best Westworld has delivered genuinely astonishing plot twists. Even better, though, is that it backed them up with well-grounded character work, thrilling Wild West action, lavish production design, and an intriguing narrative that you want to follow through the maze, no matter if you know where it’s going or not.
10. Fleabag
The show that helped turn Phoebe Waller-Bridge into a household name (and rightly so), Fleabag achieved more in just 12 half-hour episodes than many shows do in three times as many. Written with an unmatchable wit, and yet also a real sense of poignancy as well, Fleabag was a wonderful, funny, gross, and moving portrayal of overcoming grief, of sisterhood, dating, and all other aspects of life in a way that feels simultaneously unique to Waller-Bridge’s sensibilities but also incredibly authentic and relatable.
9. Twin Peaks: The Return
David Lynch’s return to the world of Twin Peaks had almost impossible expectations, coming a quarter-of-a-century after his original series ended on a shocking cliffhanger. Twin Peaks: The Return defied all ideas of what season 3 would look like, and surpassed all presumptions about its quality. With Cooper replaced by Dougie, and Bad Coop wandering around as well, this wasn’t the damn fine coffee and apple pie Twin Peaks fans knew, but it was no less special. Gradually giving fans more of what they wanted and none of what they imagined, Twin Peaks: The Return is one of the most bizarrely brilliant, disturbing, and groundbreaking TV shows of the decade.
8. The Walking Dead
Although The Walking Dead has become an easy target now, following its steep ratings decline and fluctuating quality over the last few seasons, it’s worth remembering that this was at one point of the decade not only the biggest TV show in the world, but one of the best. Revitalizing the zombie genre, The Walking Dead was surprising, gory, intense, exciting, and could crush you with unexpected character deaths. Full of great (and underrated) performances, the series deserves a great legacy, no matter what it might’ve turned into.
7. Hannibal
Putting a new spin on Thomas Harris’ cannibal, NBC’s Hannibal fleshed out the flesh-eater in ways as deep as they were surprising. Putting the focus on the relationship between Hannibal and Will Graham (Hugh Dancy), Bryan Fuller’s series was a visual feast, full of sumptuous sets and glorious gore. But at its dark heat was also incredibly compelling character work that ensured the story and world gripped its fans, who were left devastated by its cancellation after just three seasons.
6. Parks & Recreation
Originally designed as a spin-off of The Office, Parks & Recreation struggled in its first season by trying to mimic that show too much. Once it found its own voice, however, it soared arguably even higher. Bursting with heart, full of an array of memorable characters, and packed with genius one-liners that remain hilarious and oft-quoted several years after its ending, Parks & Rec is a superb and warm sitcom that cuts through cynicism and allows being earnest to shine in a way few others do.
5. The Good Place
Completing the trio of Mike Schur sitcoms among the best TV shows of the decade, The Good Place is his bravest and most inventive work to date. Taking place in the afterlife, The Good Place is really a story about moral philosophy and ethics, packaged as a comedy filled with sight gags, puns, whip-smart dialogue, and a lovable band of characters. Its ability to deliver twist after twist and continually blow up its own premise is astonishing, but even more so are the character relationships - whether human, demon, or (not a) robot - at its heart.
4. The Haunting of Hill House
Mike Flanagan has carved out a reputation as one of the best directors working in horror right now, but his greatest achievement came on TV rather than cinema. Loosely based on the eponymous novel by Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House tells the story of the Crane family, who remain haunted by their experiences at the titular house. Alternating between two timelines, and using that technique to layer reveals deeply shocking and crushing, The Haunting of Hill House uses classic horror tricks (including a jump scare for the ages), but packages them into an emotional family drama that always keeps the focus on the core relationships. Brilliantly directed and acted, The Haunting of Hill House is terrifying and moving in equal measure, and an all-time great horror series.
3. Stranger Things
Netflix broke into the original content game in a major way this decade, but there’s been no zeitgeist-capturing phenomenon quite like Stranger Things. The streaming service’s biggest and buzziest show, Stranger Things is built upon a foundation of nostalgia and superb 80s references. However, there’s more to this than mere pastiche, because where Stranger Things truly excels is in crafting enticing mystery, world-building, and most of all the heartwarming friendships by its young leads, who give the series so much charm and are so easy to care about that everything else just falls into place.
2. Breaking Bad
Breaking Bad really took off this decade - in large part thanks to streaming on Netflix, but also because of an uptick in quality. Telling an increasingly epic crime story, Breaking Bad conjured up heart-racing drama and stirring character work across its five-season run. Enough superlatives have surely been waxed about the show by now, but it’s the kind of towering achievement in storytelling that doesn’t come around too often, even in a packed TV landscape. The rise and fall of Walter White, alongside the heart and humor provided by those around him, makes for one of TV’s most intense and indelible experiences; it’s not just one of the best of the decade, but among the best of all time.
1. Game Of Thrones
For all the backlash to Game of Thrones season 8, the outrage and criticisms spreading across the internet like wildfire, Game of Thrones remains an incomparable TV show that has both dominated and defined the past decade. The series changed the game for what TV could be, elevating it in terms of budget, production values, and sheer jaw-dropping scale. It re-wrote, broke, and wrote again the rules on character deaths and what to expect from a story. It delivered spectacle that no other show before or since has matched, but almost every step of the way there was gripping character work, quotable dialogue, and a fascinating, complex story to go alongside it. Game of Thrones leaves a footprint bigger than any other, which will continue to be felt long after this decade has ended.
Next: The Best TV Series Finales Of The Decade
