9 Essential Adult Animated Shows That Belong on Every Fan's Bucket List

Image via Adult Swim Published Oct 31, 2026, 9:53 PM EDT Jiminna Shillingford is an avid reader and a passionate storyteller. She is obsessed with all things TV, from anime and romantic fantasy to action-packed series. With that deep affection, Jiminna longs to share her excitement with all her readers through the Collider platform as a TV author. Through her writing she has created stories and blog posts of amazing book recommendations, showcasing her love of writing. Jiminna's goal is to inspire others to discover and embrace their love of stories in all of its forms. Sign in to your Collider account Adult animation has definitely evolved over the years, going far beyond generic sitcoms that offered the same basic storylines. Instead, the most recent mature animated series—and rare gems from the past—offer audiences a fantastic variety of stories that explore everything from thrilling sci-fi action and outrageous comedy to emotional drama, dark fantasy, and extremely thought-provoking social commentary. Thankfully, with the increase of these masterpieces in the genre, fans have quite a few options to select from to add to their watchlists. Amazing adult animated series like the incredibly underrated gem, Primal, which may use very little words, but somehow delivers a heart-wrenching emotional watch, and the fantastically popular sci-fi masterpiece, Rick and Morty, which wholeheartedly embraces the endless possibilities of science fiction, are just two of the best shows that demonstrate how ambitious, creative, and emotionally powerful the enticing genre can be, making them pretty essential experiences for any lover of the medium. Compiled on this list are shows that definitely belong on every fan's bucket list. 'BoJack Horseman' (2014–2020) Image via Netflix BoJack Horseman is a true must-watch for adult animation fans because it proves how emotionally complex the medium has become. The series follows the washed-up anthropomorphic horse, BoJack Horseman (Will Arnett), who was once beloved as a star, but is now living in Hollywood, steeped in old fame, money, addictions, and enormous self-loathing, with no idea how to be truly happy. BoJack Horseman may be a pretty bleak animated series, but the dark comedy gem had a hand in permanently demolishing the idea that adult animation had to choose between serious drama and outlandish silliness. It's an excellent series that wields the ability to expose a character's ugliest psychological defense mechanism and, minutes later, stage an elaborate background animal joke, all without making either feel fake. BoJack Horseman, with its strange blend of absurdity and dryness, stands as a perfect series to add to any fan's watch list. 'The Boondocks' (2005–2014) Image via Adult Swim This Adult Swim animated gem is as underrated as they come. The Boondocks centers around the young skeptic Huey Freeman (Regina King) and his unruly younger brother Riley Freeman (King), who move into the predominantly white suburb of Woodcrest with their elderly grandfather Robert Freeman (John Witherspoon). The Boondocks is quite frankly one of the most hilarious and completely insane animated series to make it onto television. The show is far from simply "edgy." Its best use of comedy is in contradictions within Black culture as well as racism imposed from outside it, giving the show's beloved humor far more complexity than most generic us-versus-them political cartoons. The Boondocks definitely has a few flaws, as some episodes have inevitably aged better than others, but really, it's an underrated classic that should definitely be added to every fan's bucket list. 'Archer' (2009–2023) Image via FX Archer is an underrated jewel and a true master class in dialogue rhythm. The hilarious series focuses on the talented but incredibly irresponsible secret agent Sterling Archer (H. Jon Benjamin) who, while trapped inside his personality of recklessness, alcoholism, and arrogance, takes on missions for a dysfunctional spy organization. From its mid-century-inspired art that makes the characters look sophisticated to its willingness to alter its genre—noir, space opera, island adventure, and more—without losing the ensemble's comic chemistry, Archer makes for an extremely good time. It's a frequently overlooked, high-quality adult series that deserves far more recognition than it has received. With its unique ensemble, elegant mid-century-inspired art that ensures the cast of characters look sophisticated while their behavior becomes increasingly childish, Archer is guaranteed entertainment for any fans of the adult animated genre. 'Primal' (2019–Present) Image via Adult Swim This work of art is a terribly underrated series, and it is quite frankly one of the best adult animated series to ever be created. Genndy Tartakovsky's brilliant gem, Primal follows the unexpected relationship between a dinosaur and a prehistoric warrior whose unlikely bond is pretty captivating as they struggle day-to-day in a brutal and unforgiving world. Primal is honestly among some of the rawest animated series centered around adventure and survival. The show offers expressive animation, a carefully constructed atmosphere, and extraordinary action. But what makes it a must-add to fans' bucket lists is the fact that even with so very few words, Primal stands as a surprisingly emotional story. With its easy alternation between savagery and tenderness, the Adult Swim series stands brilliantly among the most thrilling masterpieces—one that makes even casual brutality feel tragic rather than simply "cool." Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes Which Superhero Team Should You Join? Avengers · X-Men · Teen Titans · The Boys Every team is a personality test with a uniform. One saves the world and argues about it the whole way home. One has been fighting for the right to exist since the day it formed. One is still working out who it is while the fighting happens. And one has no powers at all, plus no intention of playing fair. Eight questions decide where you actually belong. 🛡️Avengers(Marvel Studios) 🧬X-Men(Marvel) 🐦Teen Titans(DC) 💊The Boys(Prime Video) FIND YOUR TEAM → 01 What kind of power would you actually want? The power matters less than what you would be willing to do with it. ASomething enormous and obvious. I would not hide it. BSomething I was born with, whether I wanted it or not. CSomething still growing that I cannot quite control. DNone at all. I would rather nobody sees me coming. NEXT QUESTION → 02 Why join a team at all? Nobody puts on the suit for the reason they say out loud. ABecause some threats are too big for anyone alone. BBecause people like me are safer together than apart. CBecause I did not want to do any of this alone. DBecause somebody has to hold these people accountable. NEXT QUESTION → 03 How do you feel about the people in charge? Every team has a chain of command. Very few of them survive contact. AI will follow a good leader and argue with a bad one. BThey have never protected people like me. I expect nothing. CI am still learning who to trust, and getting it wrong. DThey are the problem. That is the entire point. NEXT QUESTION → 04 What is your role inside a group? Every roster needs the same handful of people to function. AThe big personality. I take up room and I earn it. BThe one who protects whoever arrived most recently. CThe heart. I keep everybody talking to each other. DThe one who says the uncomfortable thing out loud. NEXT QUESTION → 05 How do you win a fight you should lose? This is the scene the entire film gets built around. AOverwhelming force, and a very good landing. BWorking together in a way nobody saw coming. CRefusing to give up long after I should have. DPreparation, leverage, and one extremely dirty trick. NEXT QUESTION → 06 What is this work costing you? Nobody does this for free. The bill just arrives differently for everyone. AMy private life. Everybody knows my face now. BMy safety. The world is frightened of me. CMy childhood. I grew up faster than I should have. DMy peace. I cannot stop now that I know. NEXT QUESTION → 07 How should the world see your team? Half of this job is public relations, and everybody knows it. AAs icons. The team everyone is relieved to see arrive. BAs people. Just people, which is all we ever asked. CAs proof the next generation is going to be fine. DThey should not see us at all until it is done. NEXT QUESTION → 08 The offer arrives. What makes you say yes? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides your team. AThe scale. If the world is ending, I want to be there. BThe promise that I would not have to hide anymore. CThe people. I would be joining friends, not an employer. DThe chance to take down somebody who deserves it. REVEAL MY TEAM → Recruitment Is Complete Your Team Is…Four teams, four completely different reasons to put yourself in danger for strangers. This is the roster you actually belong on, what they would want from you, and what it would cost you to stay. The AvengersYou belong where the stakes are largest and the personalities are loudest. This is a team of people who are all used to being the most important person in the room, which is exactly why it works and exactly why it keeps nearly falling apart. The Avengers are not friends who became a team. They are a team that slowly and reluctantly became friends, and you would recognise every stage of that process. You can hold your own among big egos without needing to win every exchange, which is the real entry requirement here. The arguing is part of the method. This group does its best thinking mid-disagreement, usually at volume, usually in a very expensive building. When the sky opens, they are who shows up. You would want to be standing in that line. The X-MenYou have never had the luxury of being thanked for this. The X-Men protect a world that has never once been comfortable with them existing, and something in you understands exactly why they keep doing it anyway. This is the only team on the list whose central conflict is not a villain. It is being wanted gone by the same people they keep saving. You know what it is to be the outsider in a room and to decide, anyway, that you will not make yourself smaller so everyone else is comfortable. The X-Men are the most genuine found family in comics. People arrive with nowhere else to go and are never once asked to explain themselves. You would not be joining for the glory. There has never been any. The Teen TitansYou do not want colleagues, you want your people. The Titans are the team where the friendship came first and the world-saving turned up afterwards as an inconvenient side effect. Every Titan is somebody's sidekick who decided to stop being one. That decision, not the villain of the week, is what the team is actually about. You would be joining people who are all working themselves out at the same time as you, which is far less lonely than being the only one. The Titans lose regularly. Then they eat together and come back better, which is a more honest model of growing up than any other team here manages. The tower would be loud, chaotic, and the first place that ever felt like yours. The BoysYou are not asking who to trust. You worked out the answer a while ago and it was nobody in a cape. This is where you go once you have decided the people in charge need watching, and that nobody else is going to do it. The Boys have no powers, no mandate and no funding. What they have is leverage, patience, and a very high tolerance for consequences. You are the person in the room who notices the thing everybody else has quietly agreed not to mention. This is not a heroic team and it has never pretended otherwise. It is a group of damaged people doing necessary work in ways nobody would call clean. You would not sleep well. You would keep going anyway. ↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ 'Invincible' (2021–Present) Image via Prime Video Invincible is a true Prime Video animated icon, a fantastic coming-of-age superhero fantasy that eventually broadens into a story about betrayal, moral responsibility, family, inherited violence, and the physical cost of attempting to save people. The series centers around teen Mark Grayson (Steven Yeun), who has finally received his superpowers after spending most of his life waiting for these inherited gifts from his seemingly heroic father, Omni-Man (J. K. Simmons). Invincible is the type of watch that genuinely surprises its viewers. Whether it's with shocking plot twists or tremendous gore, the series makes sure to leave its audience completely stunned after every episode. Invincible is far from the most generic superhero animated series. It's a story that contains plenty of blood, but also ensures the blood spilled matters somehow. The series is a true must-see for fans as it stands as the perfect top-tier mature animated gem that sustains its character work beneath its brilliant spectacle. 'Blue Eye Samurai' (2023–Present) Image via Netflix This Netflix animated series is one that deserves far more recognition than it has received since its astonishing debut. Set in Edo-period Japan, Blue Eye Samurai focuses on the mixed-race swordfighter Mizu (Maya Erskine), who spends her days disguised as a man as she pursues the white men who could be responsible for her birth. From action and storytelling to fantastic visuals and admirable characters, Blue Eye Samurai stands as one of the finest essential adult animated series because very few in the medium feel as cinematic. The show doesn't treat its animation as simply a way to deliver spectacular action; instead, it uses its artistic possibilities to strengthen an already captivating historical adventure. Blue Eye Samurai is an underrated masterpiece that delivers both beauty and brutality, marking it a series every fan should discover. 'King of the Hill' (1997–Present) Image via Hulu King of the Hill is a truly beloved classic that delivers extraordinary entertainment in the most ordinary aspects of American life. King of the Hill follows Hank Hill (Mike Judge) and his family in suburban Texas, as he tries his best to preserve his ideas about responsibility, work, manners, and common sense in a world that constantly challenges his comfort zone. King of the Hill has the entertaining habit of letting characters be wrong without treating them as worthless. It's one of the most grounded series on this list of adult shows, one good enough to earn itself a revival after so many years off-air. King of the Hill is defiantly unlike most in its genre as it refuses to simply rely on outrageous situations, instead discovering some of the funniest moments through rather recognizable human behavior. The animated sitcom is definitely an essential masterpiece that is not only enduring in its genuine affection for the people it portrays, but also brilliant in finding heart and laughs in everyday life. 'Rick and Morty' (2013–Present) ​This incredible sci-fi icon does quite the unusual trick: it grabs on to a truly ridiculous science-fiction idea and takes it much farther than most viewers would expect, then finds an emotional consequence to hide inside the joke, gifting its audience something to really think about. Rick and Morty centers on the alcoholic super-genius Rick Sanchez (Justin Roiland and Ian Cardoni) as he drags his extremely anxious grandson Morty Smith (Roiland and Harry Belden) through alien civilizations, portals into alternate universes, increasingly catastrophic scientific experiments, and parallel Earths. From simulated worlds, memory alteration, and cloning to parallel selves and cosmic nihilism, Rick and Morty makes for quite the thrilling sci-fi adventure. It's a genuinely peak series that wields a brilliantly elaborate plot which has an addictive habit of rewarding obsessive rewatching. Rick and Morty stands as one of modern animation's most recognizable achievements because of its combination of sci-fi antics, crude humor, and surprisingly dark emotional storytelling, marking it a must-have on any fan's adult animation bucket list. 'The Legend of Vox Machina' (2022–Present) Image via Prime Video The Legend of Vox Machina is an adult fantasy series with an incredible cast of characters that are both extremely hilarious and absolutely lovable. The underrated fantasy series follows a dysfunctional group of adventurers as they take on challenges that may lead to the end of the world as they know it. The Legend of Vox Machina is an animated fantasy that is quite impossible to ignore once started. It's a terribly underrated series that stands as a strong masterpiece due to its ability to transform traditional fantasy adventure into something extremely violent, hopelessly chaotic, and truly heartfelt. The Legend of Vox Machina is as unconventional as they come, a well-crafted balance of ridiculous humor with genuine emotional investment, marking it as an excellent adult animated series for every fan's bucket list. The Legend of Vox Machina Release Date January 27, 2022 Network Prime Video Cast Taliesin Jaffe Percy (voice) Showrunner Brandon Auman Directors Young Heller, Eugene Lee, Alicia Chan Writers Eugene Son, Travis Willingham, Chris Wyatt, Kevin Burke, Suzanne Keilly, Mae Catt, Todd Casey, Ashly Burch, May Chan, Marc Bernardin Main Genre Animation Seasons 4 Producers Ashley Johnson, Chris Prynoski, Sam Riegel, Taliesin Jaffe, Ben Kalina, Brandon Auman, Laura Bailey, Liam O'Brien, Matthew Mercer, Marisha Ray Creator(s) Chris Prynoski Story By Sam Riegel Streaming Service(s) Prime Video Executive Producer(s) Ashley Johnson, Chris Prynoski, Sam Riegel, Taliesin Jaffe, Ben Kalina, Brandon Auman, Laura Bailey, Liam O'Brien, Matthew Mercer, Marisha Ray