100 Best Shows from the Last Five Years

There are only 20 seats in Formula 1 each year, meaning that drivers are not only racing to win but to be kept on the roster. With the big stars, Ferrari and Mercedes, habitually shrouded in secrecy, Formula 1: Drive to Survive focuses more on the back of the grid. Lewis Hamilton, the five-time world champion, is rarely seen, for example, giving more room for other stories to unfold, including that of Günther Steiner, the Italian team principal of the Haas Formula One Team. That is not to say there are no big reveals. Even if you think Formula 1 is a decadent, testosterone-driven sports for rich Europeans, Drive to Survive might be welcome crash course into what makes this sport so appealing for many and might also have the potential to change your mind. If not, it is still a very well-made, slick, and engaging docuseries that will have enthusiasts and newcomers thoroughly entertained.

Meet Rilakkuma, a relaxed teddy bear (which is indeed what his name translates to in Japanese), and Kaoru, a Japanese office worker in her mid-thirties, who lives with said bear as well as a smaller white bear named Korilakkuma and a yellow chick by the name of Kiiroitori. As whimsical as all this may sound, the show offers up endearing and humane life lessons to go with all the heart-warming cuteness as Kaoru navigates being single, her apartment building being demolished, and her job stressing her out. It combines charming stop-motion characters with great writing, adorable animation, and a beautifully quiet tone. You might be surprised at the profundity of a show that, at the surface, is about a Japanese girl with cuddly toy roommates. It’s hard to compare it to anything else!

From the producers of Superbad and Pineapple Express, stoner filmmakers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, comes a deft deconstruction of the ubiquitous superhero genre on Amazon Prime. Based on the comic book of the same name by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, it is set in a world where god-like superheroes, or Supes, are recognized as heroes but are increasingly self-absorbed, arrogant, and corrupt underneath their flying capes. The best of them are called The Seven, aggressively marketed and monetized by the Vought Corporation, complete with Instagram likes, energy drink advertisements, and TV appearances. It all starts to slowly deteriorate when the girlfriend of Hughie Campbell (Jack Quaid) gets obliterated by A-Train (Jessie Usher), a super-fast hero modelled on Flash, galvanizing The Boys, a crazy normal-human vigilante group led by Butcher (Karl Urban, pictured above), who are sick and tired of the Supes and their corruption. This show packs a multitude of wacky characters, including Frenchie, our favorite, a hilarious and romantic French bomb expert. Don’t forget to fasten your seatbelts because this is a fast-paced, mean-spirited bloodbath that is as wild as it is entertaining.

At first glance, those who enjoyed Hulu’s Ramy might be tempted to view this as the UK version of it. However, Man like Mobeen is a bit more street than Ramy and a lot more British. It’s also not so much about being a good Muslim. Mobeen (Guz Khan), Eight (Tez Ilyas), and Nate (Tolu Ogunmefun) are three mates from Birmingham. Two of them happen to be Muslim but it’s not a big deal. Except it is because of the way Western society sees them. Mobeen, the head of the group, takes care of his sister, Aks (Dúaa Karim), in the absence of his parents, trying to be a good guy, while also trying to escape his past as a drug dealer. In the first episode, a transaction to buy a laptop results in three SWAT teams closing in on them for no reason. (When Nate runs off, the police officer asks the others why he ran, and Mobeen says: “If I had to guess, I’d say it’s because he’s black.”) Much of Man like Mobeen is laugh-out-loud comedy, but there’s a healthy dose of wokeness to be found here, too. Teenage knife crime (in the second season), the rise of right-wing sentiment, and the police’s history of violence towards immigrants are effortlessly woven into gags. Very funny!

With true crime hitting an all-time high, and Making a Murderer making millions, here comes Netflix’s The Keepers. However, while the two shows share a common genre and general tone of voice, The Keepers is a much more interesting show. For one, it focuses on the victims and their stories, instead of the grisly perpetrators. Second, it trades cliffhangers for substance without compromising on breathtaking twists and revelations. Across seven taut episodes, it meticulously examines the unsolved murder of Catherine Cesnik, a Baltimore nun in 1969, who is suspected of being murdered to cover up sexual abuse at the Catholic high school she taught at. Adroitly edited, beautifully shot, and featuring great music by Blake Neely, The Keepers unfolds a horrific tale and emphatically captures the pain still lingering on five decades later.

Think of Dix pour cent, or Call My Agent!, as it was so horribly translated, as a smart French version of Mark Wahlberg’s Entourage or, as the director once quipped, Desperate Housewives with actors and their agents. Ten percent (dix pour cent) is the fee that said French agents receive as compensation from the actor’s fee. It chronicles the life of an aspiring talent agent at a French casting agency. New to Paris, she lands her dream job, but now has to deal with a variety of very stressed-out, capricious characters on both sides of the bargain. It is one of those shows that finds hilarity in the fact that nobody actually talks to each other over sometimes simple issues. On the actor’s side, many of the appearing A-listers star as themselves. The countless cameos include the likes of Jean Reno, Monica Belucci, and Charlotte Gainsbourg. It’s basically a soap opera but so well-written and complex, you might refrain from binging it too hard just to make it last longer.

Very violent, very Western, and, in a breath of fresh air: very female. Godless is a grim and visually stunning series about a small New Mexico town populated almost entirely by women, including Alice Fletcher, a reserved and self-reliant widow played by Michelle Dockery. Roy Goode (played by Jeff Daniels, who won an Emmy for it) is an outlaw chased by a much worse outlaw, Frank Griffin, who is taking in by the mysterious, gun-toting widows. Written and directed by Scott Frank and executive-produced by Steven Soderbergh, Godless is an honest and powerful show with amazing performances. So amazing, it’s hard to single one of them out. If you love Westerns but sometimes find them too foreseeable, this show is for you.

If you’re like us, there’s always room for good 20-minute comedy show in your life. But we also live in the “age of the cerebral”, so you’re typically getting some really deep stuff to go with it. Written with a lot of heart by Alison Bell (who you might know from Laid), the female lead, and Sarah Scheller, The Letdown perfectly captures the transition from being a care-free thirty-something to becoming a mother, where everything feels too much and failing feels only a second away. It doesn’t help that new mother Audrey Holloway seeks help at a parenting group with a rather unhelpful maternal health nurse (Noni Hazlehurst). Audrey’s career-focused husband Jeremy (Duncan Fellows) also has a penchant for being unhelpful and so it’s up to her to somehow make things right. Anybody who has had a child or knows somebody that does will be able to confirm the hilarious honesty of The Letdown’s writing and performances. And from that honesty comes a lot of dramatic realness but also a very funny, well-paced show.

Unlike Lovesick, which rightfully changed its name from Scrotal Recall, Schitt’s Creek is still called Schitt’s Creek many seasons in. After flying under the radar for a while, the sitcom about a wealthy, Arrested-Development-style family coping with the sudden loss of their fortune is starting to get the attention it deserves. Warm and witty writing, very gif-able catchprases, and a great main cast have turned this slightly slim-sounding premise into a long-running cult classic. The great Catherine O’Hara plays Moira Rose, the cynical matriarch, while many of you 00s kids will immediately recognize the male lead, Eugene Levy, as “Jim’s dad” from American Pie aka them most embarrassing dad ever to grace a screen. In all its simplicity, the steadily fleshed out riches-to-rags plot is hilarious, undemanding, and witty, exactly what you want a sitcom to be.

Co-created and co-produced by an amazing duo, Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle, who play fictional versions of their 13-year-old selves among a bunch of actual adolescents, Hulu’s PEN15 is a painfully funny teen sitcom about two friends going through middle-school together. With meticulous detail, it is set in the 2000s, including the discmen, the khakis, and the AOL dial-up sounds, but you certainly don’t have to be 30+ to enjoy the masturbation, boys, overall awkwardness, and other superbly spun teen comedy tropes. Erskine and Konkle’s middle-school experience was obviously all about being the lesser cool kids and they embody this to the fullest. It’s hilarious and cringey, sometimes gross, but also insightful. A lot of fun!