Game of Thrones
Dragons, leaks, and a finale that still starts dinner fights.
2010–2019
2010s: Peak TV & Peak Discourse
Thrones, stranger things in the suburbs, and a content arms race that turned every living room into a debate club.
Dragons, nostalgia reboots, and stan culture at full volume.
Highlight shows
10 shows that defined the 2010s
Stranger Things
80s nostalgia as franchise fuel — kids on bikes vs. the Upside Down.
The Crown
Royal prestige with casting reincarnations and tabloid bleed.
Succession
Billionaire family knife fight — insults as love language.
This Is Us
Tissue-box television with timeline gymnastics and superstar ensemble tears.
Black Mirror
Tech dread dessert — one episode ruins your relationship with your phone.
The Handmaid's Tale
Red cloaks as protest icon and prestige dystopia engine.
Better Call Saul
The prequel that dared to be quieter — and often better argued.
Fleabag
Fourth-wall confession as weapon — hot priest discourse included.
Atlanta
Surreal Black excellence and industry satire that slipped the leash.
Side shows
Companions from the same era
The Americans
Soviet spies as suburban parents — marriage, tradecraft, and Reagan-era dread.
True Detective
Anthology noir with movie-star detectives and seasons that live or die on vibe.
Fargo
Minnesota nice meets Midwestern murder — Coen-brothers spirit as prestige TV.
Veep
D.C. as a humiliation machine — Julia Louis-Dreyfus at full weaponized competence.
Schitt's Creek
Roses without money — small-town reboot for a family that used to own the room.
The Boys
Supes as celebrity-corporate monsters — cape genre with the safety off.
Euphoria
Teen melodrama on designer drugs and iPhone lighting — Zendaya as gravity well.
Chernobyl
Five episodes of institutional failure and radioactive truth — limited series as moral document.
Yellowstone
Ranch dynasty soap with open-sky violence — Kevin Costner-era modern western empire.
Downton Abbey
Edwardian upstairs/downstairs comfort epic — tea, titles, and soft class warfare.
The Walking Dead
Zombie apocalypse as endless road series — ratings juggernaut with spinoff mitosis.
Mr. Robot
Hacker vigilante unreality — capitalism, mental illness, and terminal windows as aesthetic.
Top 100 catalog
73 more essential 2010s shows
Expanded ranking beyond our highlight reel — full pages, cast, and editorial links.
House of Cards
Binge-era Washington noir — fourth-wall villainy as Netflix’s first big swing.
Orange Is the New Black
Prison ensemble as binge phenomenon — Piper’s entry ticket to a much bigger chorus.
BoJack Horseman
Hollywood horse depression epic — jokes that land, then bruise.
The Leftovers
Two percent vanished — grief as genre, mystery as mood.
Homeland
War-on-terror paranoia prestige — Carrie Mathison as brilliant, unstable center.
Sherlock
Holmes in texting-era London — coat-tail silhouettes and event episodes.
Westworld
Robot cowboy puzzle-box prestige — timelines as blood sport.
The Good Place
Afterlife ethics sitcom — twists that rewired what network comedy could do.
Big Little Lies
Monterey moms, movie-star cast, and murder under the fundraiser smile.
American Crime Story
True-crime anthology as prestige time machine — O.J. first, then Versace and beyond.
The Mandalorian
Baby Yoda industrial complex — Star Wars as prestige space western.
Insecure
Issa and Molly navigate friendship, dating, and L.A. Black professional life with awkward grace.
Pose
Ballroom houses, AIDS-era New York, and radical sincerity in gold light.
Killing Eve
Assassin and investigator obsession spiral — fashion kills, literally.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine
Precinct found family — jokes with a moral core and a damn fine captain.
Bob's Burgers
Belcher family burger chaos — weird kids, softer dad, endless musical asides.
Rick and Morty
Interdimensional grandpa nihilism — pickles, fan theories, and sauce riots.
Hannibal
Broadcast cannibal opera — food porn, mind palace, and queer-coded dread.
Justified
Raylan Givens’ hat, Harlan County grudges, and Elmore Leonard cool.
Girls
Millennial messy women in Brooklyn — deliberate discomfort as authorship.
Scandal
Olivia Pope’s gladiators — Shondaland live-tweeting as national sport.
How to Get Away with Murder
Annalise Keating’s class of killers — twist factory with Viola Davis gravity.
Transparent
A family reconfigures when a parent comes out as trans — early streaming intimacy.
Master of None
Dev’s New York curiosity machine — food, dating, immigrant parents, formal play.
Narcos
Pablo Escobar saga as bilingual prestige — danger, kingpins, and DEA cat-and-mouse.
Mindhunter
FBI interview rooms and serial-killer psychology — Fincher frost on streaming.
Ozark
Money-laundering family vacation from hell — Jason Bateman’s dead eyes in the lake light.
Peaky Blinders
Shelby family gangster opera — haircuts, coats, and Nick Cave needle drops.
Outlander
Time-travel romance epic — kilts, politics, and book-fandom power.
Vikings
Ragnar’s saga on basic cable — raids, gods, and prestige dirt under the nails.
The Expanse
Belters, Earthers, Martians — hard SF politics saved by fandom and Amazon.
Daredevil
Hell’s Kitchen Catholic noir — hallway fights that broke the superhero TV ceiling.
Key & Peele
Sketch dual mastery — substitute teachers, Obama anger translators, viral forever.
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
Longform late-night investigations — net neutrality explainers as comedy events.
Watchmen
Lindelof’s Tulsa-to-masks remix — legacy sequel as American racial reckoning.
When They See Us
Central Park Five tragedy as four-act indictment — DuVernay’s fury and craft.
Twin Peaks: The Return
Lynch’s 18-hour film on Showtime — coffee, horror, and Part 8 as nuclear poetry.
Barry
Hitman takes an acting class — Bill Hader’s violence-and-vulnerability two-step.
Silicon Valley
Startup satire with compression algorithms and venture-capital humiliation.
Jane the Virgin
Telenovela love letter — accidental insemination premise, maximal heart.
New Girl
Loft hangout comedy — Jess’s adorkable chaos and Nick’s bartender poetry.
black-ish
Upper-middle-class Black family sitcom that smuggled essays into multi-cam comfort.
Empire
Lyon family hip-hop dynasty soap — boardroom knives and chart-topping synergy.
Power
Ghost’s double life — nightclub glam over drug-empire rot.
American Horror Story
Murphy’s annual scare roulette — ensemble reincarnation as brand.
Boardwalk Empire
Prohibition Atlantic City — Nucky Thompson’s empire in Scorsese-sheen.
Halt and Catch Fire
1980s PC and internet pioneers — ambition, code, and heartbreak in beige boxes.
Rectify
Death-row release into small-town time dilation — quiet TV as radical act.
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
Musical rom-com deconstruction — mental health with showstopping weird songs.
You're the Worst
Anti-rom-com about terrible people trying — depression arc done right.
Better Things
Single-mom actor life — Pamela Adlon’s half-hour as lived-in art film.
GLOW
1980s women’s wrestling neon — friendship, betrayal, and spandex politics.
Russian Doll
Death loop on a birthday night — Natasha Lyonne’s downtown Möbius strip.
Catastrophe
Accidental pregnancy rom-com for adults — filthy, tender, Anglo-Irish-American.
Broad City
Abbi and Ilana’s NYC chaos — weed, hustle, and female friendship as sitcom jet fuel.
Nathan for You
Business advice from hell — deadpan cringe that becomes oddly profound.
Steven Universe
Empathy as superpower — queer-friendly gem wars with musical heart.
Gravity Falls
Twin kids vs. paranormal summer — journals, codes, and Bill Cipher chaos.
The Legend of Korra
Avatar sequel with a tougher hero — politics, pro-bending, and spiritual stakes.
Arrow
Oliver Queen’s hooded crusade — the show that built the Arrowverse.
The Flash
Scarlet speedster optimism — multiverse soap with heart-on-sleeve heroics.
Line of Duty
AC-12 anti-corruption thrillers — interview-room warfare as national event.
Happy Valley
Catherine Cawood’s Yorkshire grit — trauma, toughness, and moral weather.
Luther
Idris Elba’s haunted detective — London gothic with Alice Morgan’s smile.
Broadchurch
Small-town murder grief — Colman and Tennant against a coastline of secrets.
The Night Of
One wrong ride — Riz Ahmed’s breakout and prison-system dread.
Sharp Objects
Amy Adams goes home to a Missouri murder town — Southern Gothic self-harm poetry.
Olive Kitteridge
Frances McDormand’s Maine sharpness — short-story mosaic of ordinary ache.
The Jinx
Robert Durst docuseries — hot-mic ending that broke true crime open.
O.J.: Made in America
Five-part O.J. epic — sports, race, fame, and the trial as American mirror.
Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown
Bourdain’s global table — food as politics, loneliness, and grace.
Superstore
Big-box workplace sitcom — strikes, ICE raids, and Cloud 9 fluorescent truth.
Dark
German time-travel knot — family trees as crime scenes.