It’s a strange fact of the streaming era that, even in relatively scant years like this one, there will always be great TV shows that most people never hear about, much less watch. Among 2024’s underseen standouts are a slew of (non-crime) documentaries, British imports, and foreign-language series—few of which got the promotion they deserved on stateside platforms.
Dazzling docuseries
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Omnivore (Apple TV+)
For the Chef’s Table crowd, internationally renowned Noma chef René Redzepi travels the globe in this visually stunning series that explores one ingredient—from salt to tuna to bananas—in each episode. Watch it from beginning to end or skip around according to your interests.
The Stanford Prison Experiment: Unlocking the Truth (Nat Geo)
You probably know that the Stanford Prison Experiment, which set up a mock prison on the university campus and divided college-student subjects into prisoners and guards, was wildly unethical. But what you may not realize, over half a century after it was aborted as conditions in faux-lockup took a turn for the miserable, is how extensively its findings have been debunked. Juliette Eisner’s shrewdly structured three-part doc explores the many conflicting perspectives on the study—and why we shouldn’t take the received wisdom around it at face value.
Social Studies (FX) and Citizen Nation (PBS)
Shot, chaser: Social Studies, a bracing yet empathetic investigation into the effects of growing up with social media, finds the sociologically insightful Queen of Versailles filmmaker Lauren Greenfield following Los Angeles high schoolers and (with their permission) tracking their online lives. The results are illuminating, if also unnerving. Anyone prone to losing sleep over the fate of Gen Z would do well to seek comfort in Citizen Nation, which profiles impressive, idealistic young people from around the country as they compete in a nationwide civics competition.
Stax: Soulsville USA (HBO) and Disco: Soundtrack of a Revolution (PBS)
Each of these brief, lively series turns a sociopolitical lens on a musical movement driven by Black artists and saturated with the spirit of liberation. Start in late-’50s Memphis with Stax, which chronicles the triumphs and tribulations of the label that pioneered Southern soul. Then party on into the ’70s, as Disco explores how race, gender, sexuality, and industry greed collided amid a new form of dance music that had glitter-dusted urbanites queuing behind velvet ropes.
Subtitled standouts
Billionaire Island (Netflix)
Love Island. Temptation Island. FBoy Island. Billionaire Island? Don’t worry, this isn’t some kind of dating show for the .001%. It’s a pithy Norwegian dramedy about rival families who each control a major salmon-farming business—and who happen to live in the same exclusive island community. You can probably imagine why it’s been called “Succession with salmon.”
Like Water for Chocolate (HBO)
This sumptuous adaptation of Laura Esquivel’s internationally renowned novel of love, longing, and culinary enchantment during the Mexican Revolution feels grander and more emotional—but also more thoughtfully engaged with the politics of its era—than the great 1992 film version. And the news that HBO has just renewed it for a second season means you can watch the first six episodes without fear of an incomplete story.
La Maison (Apple TV+)
From The New Look to Halston to Becoming Karl Lagerfeld, TV has brought us plenty of disappointing dramatizations of real designers’ biographies in recent years. But if you’re looking for a fashion show that’s actually good, try this French-language series about a (fictional) family-owned Paris couture house that’s plunged into crisis after its patriarch’s racist tirade goes viral. As with Billionaire Island, comparisons to Succession abound, though the tone is more soapy than darkly funny.
Pyramid Game (Paramount+)
Is this ice-cold teen drama about app-enabled bullying at a girls’ high school the best show to come out of South Korea this year? Probably not. But the Heathers-meets-Squid Game saga’s slick stylization, Machiavellian protagonist (Kim Ji-yeon), and some dementedly committed performances from the young cast do make for devilishly enjoyable viewing.
Where’s Wanda? (Apple TV+)
OK, yes, it’s another missing-teen-girl show. This surprisingly fun German series isn’t trying to be The Killing or Top of the Lake or Under the Bridge, though. A black comedy informed by our global obsession with such stories, it follows a pair of desperate parents who take the investigation of their daughter’s disappearance into their own supremely incompetent hands.
Wonderfully weird
Extraordinary (Hulu)
TV’s best superhero show—and it’s not close—made last year’s version of this list, and it’s back for Season 2 because I still don’t hear enough people talking it up. For those who remain unfamiliar, Extraordinary is set in an alternate-universe London where every person spontaneously develops a superpower at around the age of 18. Sadly, our heroine Jen (Máiréad Tyers, hilarious) remains tragically unenhanced in her mid-20s. While the first season of this raunchy, surreal comedy focused on her struggle to come to terms with her de facto disability, the second homes in on her fledgling relationship with a guy who can shapeshift into a cat.
Fantasmas (HBO)
Critics loved SNL alum, Los Espookys creator, and Problemista filmmaker Julio Torres’ dreamy sketch comedy that casts the creative polymath as, well, a creative polymath hustling to get by in a dreamy, dystopian New York. (Not for nothing did it crack the top half of my own 2024 top 10 list.) But whenever I recommend Fantasmas to someone, they tell me they didn’t even know Torres had a new show on HBO. Now that you know, you can come for the insane list of guest stars and stay for the timely commentary on art in the age of surveillance capitalism.
The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy (Amazon)
The year’s best new entry in the increasingly shoddy “adult animation” category got so little attention, even I almost forgot it existed. Which is a shame, because it’s a real delight. Keke Palmer and Stephanie Hsu give voice to space-alien surgeons and best buds who work at the titular intergalactic facility, operating on all manner of bizarre life forms. The colorful animation and a voice cast that includes everyone from Kieran Culkin and Greta Lee to executive producers Natasha Lyonne and Maya Rudolph make for a perversely fun viewing experience.
The Vince Staples Show (Netflix)
The good news: Netflix has renewed this semi-autobiographical comedy from one of our most consistently fascinating rappers, which plunges down the rabbit hole into an uncanny version of Vince Staples’ Long Beach, Calif. hometown, for a second season. The bad news: The Vince Staples Show has yet to break out the way comparable, hip-hop-adjacent shows like Atlanta and Dave did. (Netflix’s midyear data dump ranked its popularity between an old season of House and an old season of The Rookie.) The best news: You can catch up quickly, seeing as the five-episode first season clocks in at well below the runtime of the average superhero movie.
Singular female leads
Diarra From Detroit (BET+)
People get ghosted every day. Few react to that indignity by scouring the streets in a quest to confront the unfortunate soul who left them hanging. One outlier is Diarra (played by creator Diarra Kilpatrick), the heroine of this comic noir, whose inability to let things go results in a hunt for a date who stood her up that evolves into an investigation of a decades-old crime. From Kilpatrick’s endearing intensity to a supporting cast that includes Phylicia Rashad and Morris Chestnut, Diarra From Detroit is well worth the price of yet another streaming subscription.
Queenie (Hulu)
Candice Carty-Williams’ acclaimed 2019 novel got a richly deserved TV adaptation in this witty and poignant UK dramedy. Rising star Dionne Brown is magnetic as Queenie, a 20-something Jamaican British aspiring writer in London who’s navigating concurrent professional, romantic, and familial crises.
We Are Lady Parts (Peacock)
An excruciating three years after its perfectly punchy first season, Nida Manzoor’s British comedy about an all-female, all-Muslim band returned with six more episodes of intersectional feminism and punk-rock fury. This time, the women of Lady Parts have to face the hazards of increased visibility—including a particularly rude copycat act—while trying to record a debut album for a label that pressures them to write “funny Muslim songs” and stay away from politics.
It’s on what streaming service?
Big Mood (Tubi)
It’s been quite a year for Nicola Coughlan, the Derry Girls alum and Bridgerton breakout who finally took center stage in the latter Regency romance series’ third season. Less widely celebrated—though even easier to access, thanks to the invaluable but oft-derided free streaming service Tubi—was her excellent performance, in this dramedy that originally aired on the UK’s Channel 4, in the challenging role of a bipolar, 30-something playwright who’s convinced she needs to choose between medicated stability and creative inspiration.
Boarders (Tubi)
Another shrewd British import from Tubi, Boarders follows five talented Black scholarship students recruited to diversify an old-money boarding school in the wake of a scandal. Class- and race-conscious teen dramas aren’t in short supply these days, but this one distinguishes itself by infusing social commentary and coming-of-age tropes with humor and warmth.
The Change (BritBox)
BritBox: It’s not just for cozy mysteries anymore. Also from Channel 4, The Change casts creator Bridget Christie as a menopausal mother who’s so fed up with all the invisible work she does for her family that she revs up her old motorcycle and leaves them in the dust. The sense of freedom this gentle, character-packed comedy conjures is contagious.
The Fortress (Viaplay)
If you can stomach a show built on anxieties about pandemics, isolationism, and the refugee crisis, don’t miss this smart political thriller that comes to the U.S. via Nordic streaming service Viaplay. The series is set in a near-future Norway where, years after closing its borders, scientists discover a lethal bacterium infecting the country’s staple protein, salmon. And yes, thanks for noticing, it is the second Norwegian title on this list that hinges on the fate of the salmon industry.
