20 Best Dark Comedy Shows to Watch Right Now

You’re the Worst is the story of the relationship between Jimmy and Gretchen, or lack thereof. Jimmy (Chris Geere) is a smart but insensitive British novelist, a lone wolf with an excess of confidence. Equally smart and self-involved, Gretchen has clinical depression and a distinctive self-destructive streak. They meet, they have sex, she steals his car. As you do.

What ensues is, to some extent, a classic will-they-won’t-they comedy between two very cynical but often likeable people with a lot of humor drizzled on top. The electric chemistry between the two leads is topped off by their two weirdo sidekicks: Edgar, a war-veteran who suffers from PTSD, and Lindsay, a self-proclaimed “hot awesome sex fox” who married a nerd for money.

Written and created by Stephen Falk, one of the writers and producers for Orange Is the New Black and Weeds, You’re the Worst acts as if it cares about the standards of the genre, but, especially in season two, it also deals fearlessly with the subject of Gretchen’s mental health, which some have called the best explanation of clinical depression on television ever. Thanks to its witty writing, You’re the Worst will likely start off as the perfect watch-two-episodes-over-dinner-every-night series, until the plot sucks you in and you find yourself so hooked that you can’t watch anything else.

Succession centers in on a global mega-corporation called Waystar RoyCo (based loosely on Disney) and the Roy family that runs it, who might also evoke parallels to other well-known real-world dynasties. Following the declining health of Logan Roy, the pater familias played by Brian Cox, the company’s heir apparent Kendall Roy (Jeremy Strong) sees himself challenged for succession by his siblings Roman (Kieran Culkin, yes, he’s Macaulay’s younger brother), Connor (Alan Ruck), and sister Shivy (Sarah Snook).

The writing of this HBO-produced series is sharp, the humor biting, and anarchy abundant, but watching Succession feels like a vice: it’s a guilty sneak-peek into the privileged but scary world of the mega-rich, making you a spectator of family dysfunction. Guilty also because you constantly find yourself rooting for people and causes, that are actually pretty awful. In addition to writing and wit, the cast and characters are all amazing, but watch out for Cousin Greg!

Former SNL cast member and comedy legend Bill Hader is the writer and main protagonist of the HBO-produced and three-time Emmy-winning series Barry. Part psychological thriller, part dark comedy – one of many new series in the “dramedy” genre – deals with the unlikely premise of a PTSD-ridden low-rent assassin, who, after travelling to LA to execute an actor, decides to dedicate his life to the amateur theatre scene. (Watch out for the always amazing Henry Winkler as the acting class teacher! He was rightly nominated for an Emmy for this performance.)

In typical Bill Hader fashion, this genre-mix is still a lot more comedy than thriller and one cannot help but root for hapless Barry, while he dodges one bullet after the other, as it were, navigating Chechnyan mobsters, the FBI, and his intense acting peers. A lovely, funny, and smart show about a seemingly emotionless guy trying to escape his past.

Patriot is about a secret agent meddling with the Iranian elections to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. Ok, so like Homeland? Yes, and also very much no. Its protagonist is not a hardened, larger-than-life secret operative but a singer-songwriter stoner with PTSD.

As far as spy dramas go, Patriot certainly takes a lot of risks. Professional assassin John Tavener (played by Michael Dorman), whose dad (played by the amazing Terry O’Quinn from Lost) is the intelligence chief, is on an undercover mission in Iran. But, he’s not sure he wants to be. On top of that, he faces an incompetent federal bureaucracy, challenges to maintaining his cover, and bouts of mental illness.

Tavener is no hero. Patriot is more a mix between offbeat spy thriller and workplace comedy with a lot of dark humor in between.

The White Lotus follows a group of vacationing tourists in Hawaii who, in their wealth and entitlement, get into some pretty horrific (but largely entertaining) mishaps. It’s always fun to satirize the rich, but what really gives The White Lotus its edge is a brilliant understanding of the trickle-down dangers of privilege. We’re made to witness the uncomfortable ways in which the service industry twists itself to accommodate the guests, and how time and again these efforts are lost to the upper class. Biting, witty, and relevant, The White Lotus effortlessly stands out in the recent slew of class consciousness content.

In the dark comedy This Is Going to Hurt, Ben Whishaw stars as junior doctor Adam, who’s barely keeping it together in the understaffed and under-equipped ob-gyn ward of Britain’s NHS hospital. We see, often in sad and graphic detail, what goes on in a public hospital and the heavy toll this takes on both the patients’ and medical staff’s personal lives. It’s hard to look away, especially when Adam addresses us in the first person. 

Even more upsetting? The miniseries is based on a memoir. Former medical trainee Adam Kay wrote a best-selling book detailing his horrific time at the NHS, and now he serves as executive producer and writer of the series.

Industry has all the markings of an HBO show: an abundance of sex, drugs, alcohol, and sure enough, an inextinguishable affinity for the F word. Like Succession, The Sopranos, and even Euphoria before it, it revels in its freedom to explore the nitty-grittiest parts of its subject matter and put its gruesome findings on full display. But instead of capitalism, organized crime, or teenhood, Industry incisively takes on hustle culture.

Through the eyes of four new hires at a premier investment bank in London, we see the dangerous means people put themselves through in order to achieve some semblance of respect, recognition, or at the very least stability. Bullying is rampant, hazing is normalized, competition is encouraged, and blind loyalty is rewarded. The characters are so flawed and damaged, you’ll often find yourself rooting for their demise. But you’ll also be glued to their arcs and storylines. Will they break the cycle of abuse or continue it? Can they actually change the system from within or does that remain a utopian dream? These questions are hardly charming, but Industry has a way of making them engaging, exciting even. It fully inhabits the meanness you can and should only enjoy behind the safety of a TV screen.

Bad Sisters is an Irish miniseries that is part romance, part murder mystery, and all-around cheeky, bold fun. It follows the Garveys, five sisters who’ve developed a tight bond after the untimely death of their parents. They protect each other mainly from their brother-in-law John Paul, whose antics have become increasingly threatening and toxic over the years.

The series is very much in the vein of Big Little Lies, Dead to Me, and Good Girls, where women who’ve kept up with so much for so long finally let loose in a fit of violent rampage. But Bad Sisters narrowly escapes cliches thanks to a winning ensemble and deft handling of its weighty subject matter.

Baby Reindeer is a tough watch, starting out with out of kilter comedy that eventually and unrelentingly reveals its darker and darker sides. But not only was this a hard show to watch, this story is genuinely difficult to tell, because of how entangled all the threads of Donny’s trauma gets– it’s not a straightforward story about going through one traumatic incident and then immediately moving to logical forms of healing. It’s about one traumatic incident keeping him stuck and leaving him and his loved ones vulnerable to even more abuse. It’s a terrifying situation. And it’s terribly, terribly honest.

An amazing binge-worthy show that is a mix between a coming-of-age story, a romance, and a crime thriller. It tells the story of James, a 17-year-old who believes he is a psychopath (for some very convincing reasons). James decides he wants the victim of his first murder to be a new schoolmate, Alyssa.  He befriends her and keeps waiting for the perfect moment to kill Alyssa until he finds himself on a journey with her to escape her home. Somewhere near the middle of the show, and without you fully realizing it, it transforms from an original coming-of-age story or odd-boy-meets-odd-girl story to an intriguing view on adolescent insecurities and the role of parents into shaping them. It transforms from a mysterious, almost charming story to an interesting character study.  This is when the show will blow your mind.  It’s a fresh, smart, funny yet disturbing emotional thrill ride.