6 Best TV Shows Released Since 2020

Image via HBO Max Published Aug 14, 2026, 2:31 PM EDT Sign in to your Collider account Every so often, television gives us a show that just feels different from everything else airing at the time. The X-Files redefined what a genre show could be. Breaking Bad proved that a slow-burn character drama could dominate pop culture. Game of Thrones turned fantasy into must-watch TV for people who had never picked up a fantasy novel in their life. But the golden age of television is far from over. In fact, several shows have recently come out that feel like they’re on a similar trajectory, the kind of shows that will get talked about in film school lectures a decade from now. So, in this listicle, we're looking at six of the best TV shows released since 2020 that have all the makings of modern classics. 6 'The Studio' (2025-) Image via Apple TV+ Seth Rogen's Hollywood satire follows a bunch of studio executives as they try to balance their high-art creative ambitions with the absurd corporate demands of the movie business. Every episode takes a ridiculous Hollywood scenario and runs with it. One has the executives passing on Martin Scorsese’s epic passion project in favor of a commercial Kool-Aid Man movie. Another follows a disastrous attempt to shoot a one-take sequence, and in a genuinely impressive bit of filmmaking, the episode itself is shot in one continuous take. It is also filled to the brim with rapid-fire film references and cameos by A-list actors playing exaggerated versions of themselves, making it a must-watch for film nerds. The Emmys clearly agreed that something special was happening here. The Studio broke the single-season record for a comedy series, walking away with 13 Emmy Awards including Outstanding Comedy Series and a Lead Actor win for Rogen himself. 5 'Invincible' (2021-) Image via Prime Video On paper, Invincible sounds like just another superhero coming-of-age story. The series follows Mark Grayson, the son of the most powerful superhero on Earth, as he starts to develop his own powers. But describing it that way undersells just how brutal and devastating this show actually is. When superheroes fight in Invincible, they level entire cities and sometimes destroy whole planets. Skulls are crushed, and intestines are torn apart, but unlike The Boys, the violence is never just for shock value. It always has consequences, and those consequences actually stay with the characters and shape the story. We are used to heroes like Spider-Man, Batman, and Daredevil beating the bad guy, refusing to kill, and then showing up next week to do it all over again. Invincible starts off like that, but it asks what would actually happen if you kept letting these villains walk away, only for them to return and kill even more innocent people. You see Mark grapple with it over multiple seasons, and how this relentlessly optimistic kid from Season 1 slowly gets worn down by loss after loss until he stops pulling his punches and making choices he never thought he’d make. Season 1 holds a stellar 98% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes, and every season since has hit a perfect 100%. So, if you have been avoiding it because you assume an animated superhero show must be some lightweight kids' cartoon, we promise you, Invincible is anything but. 4 'House of the Dragon' (2022-) Image via HBO Set nearly 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon follows the Targaryen succession crisis that eventually erupts into the Dance of the Dragons, a civil war so devastating it wiped out nearly every dragon in the realm. Game of Thrones broke a generation of viewers with Ned Stark's (Sean Bean) execution and then broke them all over again with the Red Wedding. House of the Dragon has plenty of its own gut-punch moments that hit just as hard. It brings back everything that made Game of Thrones so enjoyable. The politics. The layered conversations that feel like chess matches. The constantly shifting alliances and the backstabbing. The epic battle sequences. The dragons. The iconic theme playing over the opening title. The sex and the nudity. It's all here, and it's done to perfection. Prestige TV doesn’t get much better than this. Collider Exclusive · Game of Thrones Personality Quiz Which Game of Thrones House Do You Belong To? Stark · Lannister · Targaryen · Baratheon · Tyrell Five great houses. Five completely different answers to the same question: how do you hold power in a world that will take it from you the moment you stop paying attention? Eight questions will determine where your loyalties — and your nature — truly lie. 🐺Stark 🦁Lannister 🐉Targaryen 🦌Baratheon 🌹Tyrell FIND YOUR HOUSE → 01 Someone powerful is acting dishonourably and everyone knows it. What do you do? In Westeros, the answer to this question has ended more than one great house. ACall it out, openly and on the record. If honour means anything, it has to mean something when it's costly. BUse it. Information about someone else's dishonour is leverage — and leverage is power. CAct decisively to correct it — with or without the approval of those around me. DChallenge them directly. Strength settles disputes more honestly than courtroom manoeuvring. ENavigate carefully — build alliances, apply quiet pressure, and create a situation where the right outcome becomes inevitable. NEXT QUESTION → 02 What is the source of your power? Every house endures because of something. What is it for yours? AThe loyalty of people who trust me — earned over generations, not bought with gold. BWealth, intelligence, and the willingness to use both without sentiment. CA legacy so fearsome and a vision so total that opposition becomes unthinkable. DPhysical strength, military force, and the respect that comes from being the kind of person nobody wants to fight. ECharm, connection, and the ability to make powerful people feel that my success is also theirs. NEXT QUESTION → 03 Who do you truly fight for? Strip away the banners and the words. The honest answer tells you everything. AMy family and my people — those who depend on me and have kept faith with me through everything. BMy family — the ones who share my blood, even when they exhaust me, even when they disappoint me. CMy cause — a vision larger than any single person, including me. DMyself, and those few who've proven themselves worth fighting beside. EMy house — its name, its future, the position I intend to leave it in when I'm gone. NEXT QUESTION → 04 How do you deal with your enemies? A house's method reveals its character as clearly as its words ever could. AHonestly — I face them directly, and I give quarter when it's warranted. BThoroughly — I don't leave loose ends, and I don't make the same enemy twice. CDecisively — fire answers questions that diplomacy only delays. DHead-on — I'd rather meet a threat on the battlefield than behind closed doors. EElegantly — I prefer to make former enemies into allies, or at least into people who owe me something. NEXT QUESTION → 05 What kind of ruler do you believe in? Westeros is full of answers to this question. Most of them end badly. AA just one — someone who serves the realm rather than using it, who leads by example rather than fear. BA capable one — someone smart enough to navigate the game, ruthless enough to win it, and realistic about what winning costs. CA transformative one — someone who doesn't just rule what exists but reshapes what's possible. DA strong one — someone whose authority is beyond question because the alternative is obviously worse. EA wise one — someone who understands that the realm is fed by more than armies, and that a full stomach keeps more peace than a sharp sword. NEXT QUESTION → 06 You suffer a devastating loss. How does your house respond? How a house handles defeat tells you more about it than how it handles victory. AWe grieve, properly and together — and then we endure, because endurance is what we do. BWe adapt. We reassess. And we ensure that whoever caused this loss comes to regret it completely. CWe burn hotter. Setbacks don't soften us — they clarify what needs to happen next. DWe hit back. Grief and revenge are the same motion in our house. EWe regroup quietly, rebuild our position, and return when we're ready — on our terms, not theirs. NEXT QUESTION → 07 Which of these truths about Westeros do you most believe? Every house has a philosophy. This is yours. AThe lone wolf dies, but the pack survives. Nothing matters more than the people you protect. BA Lannister always pays their debts — in gold or in kind. Reputation is built on consistency. CI am the blood of the dragon. Some destinies are written before the person who carries them is born. DOurs is the fury. When we move, we move completely — and we don't stop until it's done. EGrowing strong means knowing when to bloom and when to wait. Patience is its own kind of power. NEXT QUESTION → 08 The Iron Throne is within reach. What do you do? The answer reveals not just your ambition — but your character. AClaim it only if the realm needs me to — and rule in a way that makes it worth having. BEnsure someone who owes us sits in it. The power behind the throne is safer than the throne itself. CTake it. It was always meant to be mine — I feel that in my bones and in my blood. DSeize it — with both hands, without hesitation. Opportunity in Westeros does not wait to be asked. EPosition my house to be indispensable to whoever sits there — influence outlasts any single reign. REVEAL MY HOUSE → The Maester Has Spoken Your House Is…Your answers point to the great house whose words, values, and way of surviving in Westeros match your own. Bend the knee — or don't. That's very much up to you. 🐺 House StarkWinter is Coming — and you have always known it. You prepare not out of fear but out of duty, because the people who depend on you deserve someone who takes the long view. You lead with honour even when it costs you, because you understand that a reputation built on integrity is the only one worth having. Your loyalty to family and people runs deep — not as sentiment but as a code that doesn't bend when things get difficult. The North endures because Starks endure — not by being the cleverest players in the game, but by being the kind of people others are willing to follow into the cold. You are that kind of person. The pack survives. The lone wolf dies. You already know which one you are. 🦁 House LannisterYou understand the game — its rules, its exceptions, and exactly when the rules become the exception. You play it without illusions and without apology. You are sharper than most people realise, and you have learned to use that gap to your advantage. A Lannister always pays their debts — and you always keep your word, because your word is an instrument of power, and instruments must be kept in working order. You love your family with a ferocity that sometimes blinds you, and you know it, and you do it anyway. The lion doesn't concern itself with the opinion of sheep. Neither, in the end, do you. 🐉 House TargaryenYou carry a sense of destiny that is difficult to explain and impossible to ignore — the feeling that you are not simply participating in the world but meant to reshape it. You are capable of extraordinary things, and you know it, and that knowledge is both your greatest strength and your most dangerous quality. Fire and blood are not just words to you — they are a philosophy about what change requires and what it costs. The Targaryens at their best were transformative rulers who broke chains and defied the limits of what anyone thought possible. At your best, so are you. The dragon has three heads. You are one of them. 🦌 House BaratheonYou are a force — direct, powerful, and difficult to ignore when you enter a room or a conflict. You do not negotiate with challenges. You meet them. Ours is the fury — and yours is a kind of intensity that commands attention, respect, and occasionally fear from those who underestimate what's behind it. You value strength and straight dealing. You'd rather know where you stand in a fight than navigate a web of courtly whispers. The Baratheons built their house on the back of one of the greatest military victories in Westerosi history — and then struggled with what came after. The lesson of your house is that winning is not the end of the story. Governing is. You are learning that too. 🌹 House TyrellYou understand that power does not always announce itself — that sometimes it arrives with flowers, good wine, and a smile that doesn't quite reach the eyes. Growing strong is your house's motto, and you live it: patiently, strategically, always investing in the relationships and resources that will matter most when it counts. You are charming by choice and calculating by nature — a combination that makes you one of the most effective players in any room you enter. The Tyrells fed King's Landing and shaped its politics without ever sitting on the Iron Throne — and they were arguably more powerful for it. You know that the person who controls the food controls the kingdom. And you always know where the food is. ↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ 3 'The Rehearsal' (2022-) Image via HBO The Rehearsal is almost impossible to describe because there is genuinely nothing else on television quite like it. The basic premise is that Nathan Fielder uses a massive budget to build hyper-realistic, full-scale replicas of real locations so ordinary people can rehearse stressful situations like parenthood or initiating a breakup before they go on and do it in real life. Fielder's commitment to accuracy is borderline unhinged here. In Season 2, he transports air from San Jose to Los Angeles to recreate the exact sensory conditions a dog was raised in! It is utterly insane, and somehow, this is only scratching the surface. These elaborate reconstructions slowly spiral out of control as the people inside them become more emotionally invested in the simulations. Child actors begin confusing the fake world with real life, and Nathan eventually steps inside his own experiment. That is where the show becomes even more fascinating. You can never quite tell where the scripted performance ends and raw, unscripted human emotion begins, and it creates this bizarre uncanny valley of television that constantly makes you question what is actually real. 2 'The Pitt' (2025-) Image via HBO Max The Pitt is a medical drama unlike anything we've seen in a long time. Each episode covers roughly one hour of a grueling ER shift, and the entire season plays out over the course of a single day. The characters are fleshed out and incredibly easy to care about, but the show never gets bogged down by the romantic triangles, soap-opera drama, and larger-than-life personalities that have become staples of shows like Grey’s Anatomy or The Good Doctor. Here, the medical procedure comes first. You watch doctors and nurses deal with one emergency after another, make split-second decisions and try to keep people alive while barely having time to breathe themselves. The show makes you feel like you’re standing in the ER right alongside them. A huge part of that realism comes from the way The Pitt is filmed. The camera stays roughly at the height of an ordinary person and has just enough handheld movement to feel like someone is actually standing in the room rather than watching a perfectly composed TV shot. There is also no musical score constantly telling you how to feel. Season 1 swooped up five major Emmys, including Outstanding Drama Series. And somehow, Season 2 has gone even bigger, leading every other series with 25 Emmy nominations! For a show that is basically just people working an ER shift, it is ridiculously good television. 1 'The Bear' (2022-2026) Image via FX The Bear is about Carmy Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White), a fine dining chef who returns home to run his late brother's struggling Chicago sandwich shop. What follows is one of the most stress-inducing depictions of professional kitchen chaos ever put on screen, so accurate that people who've actually worked in kitchens have reportedly refused to watch it because it hits too close to home. But reducing The Bear to "intense cooking show" misses the point entirely. What actually makes it the best show of the last six years is the writing and the characters. Every single person in this cast is insanely charismatic, and you just want to keep spending time in this world, even when it's stressing you out. Two episodes in particular put this show on another level entirely. The first is Season 2's "Fishes," a flashback bottle episode that drops you into a disastrous Christmas Eve dinner with the Berzatto family. It starts off insanely funny before slowly curdling into one of the most visceral depictions of what it’s like to grow up in a dysfunctional family. A place where the peace is always fragile and one wrong word can turn a happy occasion into one of the worst days of your life. Then comes "Forks," the episode right after it, and while “Fishes” leaves you emotionally wrecked, “Forks” picks you right back up and sends you walking away with a huge smile on your face and happy tears in your eyes. Up until that point, Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) had been incredibly unlikable. A loud, obnoxious jackass who seemed to make every situation worse. And then, over the course of a single episode, he becomes the show’s most beloved character. That’s an insane feat to pull off in a single episode, and it’s a character arc that belongs in the same conversation with all-time greats like Jaime Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and Steve Harrington (Joe Keery). The Bear Release Date 2022 - 2026-00-00 Network Hulu Cast Richard 'Richie' Jerimovich Showrunner Christopher Storer