The best Netflix TV shows of 2024 so far

The streaming panorama could also be on the cusp of change, however on this kingdom of content material, Netflix continues to be the supreme ruler. Networks could also be cracking down on password sharing and pulling back on output, however there’s nonetheless a dizzying quantity of issues to observe on the streaming large — and listed below are the best new shows from the largest streaming platform on the market.

These simulcast anime hits, long-awaited science-fiction epics, cult hits rescued from cancellation, and gripping actuality competitors shows show that there’s nonetheless a cause to treasure your Netflix password.

Listed here are the best Netflix collection of 2024.

Scrumptious in Dungeon

Scrumptious in Dungeon begins out very episodic, with the group of plucky adventurers venturing deeper right into a dungeon and discovering new monsters to cook dinner. However the decrease they descend, the upper the stakes rise. There’s a second about halfway by the season the place the plot takes a pointy, chilling flip and immediately, the present turns into one of essentially the most thrilling fantasy tales on the market. The worldbuilding is intricate and interesting, the characters are all compelling. However even with bloody chimeras and harrowing backstories, the core of the present is in regards to the transcendent energy of sharing an excellent meal with buddies. —Petrana Radulovic

Bodkin

Picture: Netflix

Bodkin isn’t so positive true crime podcasts get the entire story. So what — who isn’t pondering that as of late? However this homicide thriller drives straight at this level by largely dropping it utterly. Although ostensibly a couple of group of journalists despatched by The Guardian to make a podcast in regards to the return of a competition with a darkish previous within the small Irish city of Bodkin, it’s probably not. Whereas Gilbert (Will Forte) desires to inform a heartfelt story stuffed with sappy podcast cliches, Emmy (Robyn Cara) is determined to show herself, and Dove (Siobhán Cullen) is usually seeking to get out of there.

The present is extra about what they discover once they get there, their wacky adventures, and the way the reality has a humorous means of searching for the sunshine even when everybody desires to maintain it shrouded, and it’s all of the smarter for it. It’s humorous and poignant, and good in regards to the true crime increase with out lingering on it. In any case, that story’s performed out — and the Bodkin staff is chasing the following huge factor. —Zosha Millman

Girls5Eva season 3

Photograph: Emily V. Aragones/Netflix

Netflix introduced the Peacock comedy again to life for a brand new viewers, and thank goodness for that. A one-hit surprise early-2000s lady group reunites once they’re all of their 40s, and hilarity ensues. Tons of hilarity. The 4 ladies navigate the tumultuous world of the music business, whereas juggling the extra mundane points of their lives like PTA electronic mail lists and breakups. Not solely is the present extremely humorous, with essentially the most excellent pop-culture parodies, the music can also be infectiously catchy. When you begin watching a couple of episodes, you gained’t be capable of get the theme music out of your head. —PR

Candy Tooth season 3

Photograph: Matt Klitscher/Netflix

Candy Tooth is an adaptation that’s nearly nothing like its supply materials, and that’s precisely how Jeff Lemire, author and artist behind the unique Candy Tooth collection, needed it. By the point the comedian was picked up for adaptation, Lemire advised Polygon in 2021, so a lot stark, post-apocalyptic TV had come and gone that he was excited to provide showrunners Jim Mickle and Beth Schwartz the liberty to discover a special approach on the story.

Netflix’s Candy Tooth begins with Gus the Deer Boy touring together with his gruff guardian “Big Man” on a quest to search out his mom by miles and miles of post-apocalyptic wilderness. Society was felled by twin threats: The rise of a lethal plague recognized solely because the Sick, and a mysterious quirk in human replica that causes all youngsters to be born as animal-human hybrids. The present has been a really distinctive fable, darkish and hopeful, dreamy and earnest — a family-friendly collection a couple of international pandemic with Creature Store vibes.

This 12 months’s third and closing season closes the e-book on this Americana-laced fairy story about how we reply to a way of cultural doom, and the way we would reckon with feeling complicit in our personal destruction. —Susana Polo

The Gents

Picture: Netflix

That is really the second time Man Ritchie has created a tv spin-off for one of his gangster motion pictures, following 2000’s Lock, Inventory…, a Channel 4 manufacturing that included a pre-The Workplace Martin Freeman and a pre-Sport of Thrones Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. However this time, the supply materials wasn’t practically as robust — whereas The Gents did properly on the field workplace and has its followers, it’s lower than the identical customary as Lock, Inventory and Two Smoking Barrels or any of the director’s best works.

Fortunately, Ritchie’s on a bit of a scorching streak as of late, delivering banger after banger since The Gents film. Wrath of Man and The Covenant are among the many best motion pictures in his filmography, and Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre and The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare are ludicrous and enjoyable in equal measure. Whereas Netflix’s The Gents present doesn’t attain the heights of his best current work, it’s nonetheless considerably higher than the film model and a enjoyable time that will get by on the charisma of its stars.

When his father dies, former Military captain Edward Horniman (Theo James of the Divergent motion pictures, The White Lotus) inherits his father’s huge property and the title of Duke of Halstead. This surprises each Edward and his older brother Freddy (Daniel Ings), who was anticipated to be next-in-line. However the Hornimans have one other shock in retailer: Their father had secretly struck a cope with a prison empire to permit their land for use to develop weed. And that leaves Edward to make use of all his wits and appreciable expertise to navigate this new relationship with the calculating gangster Susie Glass (Kaya Scodelario, of the Maze Runner motion pictures and Crawl). It’s a sensible set-up for a present, and James and Scodelario are each implausible because the leads. Add in robust supporting performances from Giancarlo Esposito (enjoying to sort) and Vinnie Jones (enjoying towards sort), and you’ve got a enjoyable, very Man Ritchie time. –Pete Volk

John Mulaney Presents: All people’s in L.A.

Photograph: Adam Rose/Netflix

In a day and age when speak shows have develop into chaste and boring, All people’s in L.A. exists to be not that — or, a minimum of, to borrow their type so as to create one thing new, distinct, and bizarre. Hosted by John Mulaney, All people’s in L.A. felt at first prefer it needed to be half of one thing larger: one thing for Mulaney to parlay right into a late-night internet hosting gig? Netflix’s play for extra stay (and profitable) programming? An prolonged bit?

In the end, All people’s in L.A. works as a result of it’s only a very particular type of bizarre. It’s hyper targeted on Los Angeles, however solely as a jumping-off level into individuals and their environments (even when, yeah, we’re all the time circling again around to the 213). The entire factor is constructed on curveballs, be they sudden friends or peculiar segments. If it’s a bit, it’s an amazing one, and I’d positively be down to observe greater than a bit extra. —ZM

Useless Boy Detectives

Photograph: Ed Araquel/Netflix

Useless Boy Detectives is a supernatural procedural that has some great quirks, together with however actually not restricted to: a walrus-turned-man who owns a curio retailer, a horny cat boy who can’t be regular a couple of crush, a pair of closely swearing tiny individuals who stay in a jar, a scorching Goth butcher, and the life-changing energy of yaoi. Principally, it guidelines. The two titular useless boys find yourself in Port Townsend, Washington, the place they resolve some supernatural mysteries with their psychic buddy. It has some fairly chilling moments, however there are lots of laughs and a robust bond between all of the characters to steadiness that out. —PR

Masters of the Universe: Revolution

Picture: Netflix

Kevin Smith’s loving continuation of the classical, Eighties-style cartoon adventures of He-Man is nice as a result of it takes its action-figure supply materials each useless severely, and never severely in any respect. Smith doesn’t smirk on the outlandish camp and day-glo heavy-metalness of the characters; he celebrates it. However he additionally gleefully — nearly subversively — overwrites the lore when he feels prefer it, as a result of Masters of the Universe just isn’t about continuity. It’s in regards to the continuous escalation of ridiculous energy, and the characters’ fixed evolutions into cool (and saleable) new types. By the ability of Grayskull — everybody has the ability! —Oli Welsh

Bodily 100: Underground

Picture: Netflix

To look at a actuality competitors present is to grasp how shortly you’ll be able to go from admiring one thing as an outsider to grading it like an insider. Watching Bodily 100, I felt this acutely; I routinely critiqued grip maintain or technique, all whereas I sat on my sofa additionally affirming to myself I’d merely by no means do that; RIP to this grandpa however I’m totally different. And but nonetheless, Bodily 100 presents all of the sturdy pleasures of an excellent competitors present, drawing you into narratives and personalities all whereas thinning the herd in agonizing shows of power. Though you’ll by no means catch me in a single of these competitions, I’ll fortunately watch one other 10 seasons of this. Carry on the muscle tissue. —ZM

The Brothers Solar

Photograph: Michael Desmond/Netflix

This enjoyable however inconsistent Netflix unique was sadly canceled after only one season — it’s the sort of collection that was properly on its technique to hitting its stride and will have had very enjoyable follow-up seasons. As an alternative, we’ll should make do with the season we bought — a mash-up of genres with some impressed performances.

A culture-clash comedy set inside one household, The Brothers Solar follows two very totally different brothers: Bruce (Sam Track Li), an inspiring improv comic, and Charles (Justin Chien), an notorious gangster. After being separated as youngsters when their mom (Michelle Yeoh) moved with Bruce to america, the brothers reunite when Charles surprises them in Los Angeles with the information that their father has survived an assassination try.

It’s a enjoyable setting for the 2 brothers to conflict over their lifestyle, and Chien particularly excels in a breakout efficiency that, in a simply world, could be a ticket to A-list action-star initiatives. The Brothers Solar has inconsistent writing (primarily in its overwritten dialogue), however makes up for it with robust course and a few of the best (and silliest) battle scenes on tv. —PV

3 Physique Downside

Picture: Netflix

For 5 years, the names Benioff and Weiss couldn’t be talked about with out an acknowledgement of the dismal response to the top of Sport of Thrones. But when Netflix’s sci-fi epic 3 Physique Downside reminds us of something, it’s that when the 2 showrunners have strong materials to adapt, they’ll make nice rattling tv.

Primarily based on Cixin Liu’s internationally bestselling science-fiction novel trilogy Remembrance of Earth’s Previous, 3 Physique Downside encompasses a suite of characters discovering an unimaginably highly effective alien race’s plans to invade Earth, first by destroying humanity’s capability for scientific development after which, as soon as they end their 400-year journey by interstellar house, by conquest. It’s additionally a crash course in fashionable Chinese language historical past, and perhaps one of the best depictions of a fictional online game in cinema? Go determine. —SP

Child Reindeer

Photograph: Ed Miller/Netflix

Richard Gadd’s extraordinary autobiographical collection, about his time as a struggling comedian coping with an obsessive stalker, has been mired in controversy because it blew up and followers (with heavy and unlucky irony) tracked down and outed the actual girl behind the present’s fictionalized “Martha.” There are positively inquiries to be requested about whether or not the producers and Netflix did sufficient due diligence to guard everybody concerned. However these shouldn’t obscure Child Reindeer’s uncooked honesty and its unnerving combine of darkish comedy, responsible thrills, and tragedy, all rooted in Jessica Gunning’s riveting efficiency as Martha. The present is extra beneficiant to Martha and significant of Gadd’s personal function in its ethical quagmire than the scandal would possibly lead you to consider. A concurrently queasy, thought-provoking, and irresistible marathon. —OW