Netflix is trimming its library, so if you’re looking for the best TV shows to stream in January 2026, now’s the time to lock them in.
Stranger Things season 5 is almost over. Once it ends, that era is done — and if you’ve already watched the best TV shows of 2025, the hunt for your next binge is about to begin.
Even with Friends leaving Netflix, there’s no shortage of strong replacements. If you want a new series that actually delivers, you’ve got plenty of solid options.
The best Netflix series
15. Run Away
Minnie Driver and James Nesbitt star in Harlan Coben’s Run Away (Credit: Netflix)
Genre: Thriller
Year: 2026 (on Netflix from January 1)
Cast: Ruth Jones, James Nesbitt, Minnie Driver, Alfred Enoch
Creator: Harlan Coben
Length: 1 season, 8 episodes
What it’s about: A desperate father searching for his runaway daughter gets caught up in a murder case — and stumbles upon secrets which could destroy his family for good.
Why to watch: You probably don’t need us to convince you to watch this. Face it, it’s a Harlan Coben thriller that’ll almost definitely have you hooked from the first episode. There will probably be a jaw-dropping twist. And, to really seal the deal, it features Ruth Jones in a serious, long-overdue role.
14. Arcane
Arcane is the best video game adaptation on TV (Credit: Netflix)
Genre: Animation, Sci-fi
Year: 2021 – 2024
Cast: Hailee Steinfeld, Ella Purnell, Kevin Alejandro, Katie Leung
Creator: Christian Linke, Alex Yee
Length: 2 seasons, 18 episodes
What it’s about: In the utopian city of Piltover, two sisters – Vi and Jinx – find themselves on both sides of a magical, bloody conflict with Zaun, its oppressed, poorer underworld.
Why to watch: Arcane shouldn’t work. It’s a show based on League of Legends – a massive, lore-heavy game most people have never touched.
But, against all odds, it’s one of the most visually stunning and emotionally charged series Netflix has ever made. Forget The Last of Us and Fallout – this is the gold standard for video game adaptations.
13. After Life
Ricky Gervais will break your heart in After Life (Credit: Netflix)
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Year: 2019 – 2022
Cast: Ricky Gervais, Diane Morgan, Tom Basden, Tony Way
Creator: Ricky Gervais
Length: 3 seasons, 18 episodes
What it’s about: After his wife dies from cancer, Tony considers killing himself. Instead, he decides to punish the world by doing and saying whatever he wants, when he wants, regardless of how it makes people feel, all while working for his town’s local newspaper.
Why to watch: As a portrait of grief, After Life has a heartbreaking, rightly uncomfortable candour, and then it can swing to the saccharine in the same episode.
Ricky Gervais’ dramatic tact is definitely Marmitey (Derek certainly wasn’t for everyone), his comedic chops aren’t up for debate. It’s likely you’ll cry, either from laughing or its frequently devastating moments.
12. Beef
Beef is an intense road rage thriller (Credit: Netflix)
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Year: 2023
Cast: Steven Yeun, Ali Wong, Joseph Lee, Young Mazino
Creator: Lee Sung Jin
Length: 1 season, 10 episodes (renewed for season 2)
What it’s about: Two strangers – Danny Cho, a struggling contractor, and Amy Lau, a businesswoman on the verge of a huge deal – nearly crash into each other in a car park. Their respective rage goes far beyond the road, with the feud impacting every part of their lives.
Why to watch: An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind, something shockingly and addictively illustrated by Beef, one of the best series on Netflix.
Steven Yeun and Ali Wong’s characters are a masterclass in writing: a rock to another’s hard place, both equal parts deplorable and sympathetic. Everyone’s experienced road rage, but Beef will make you think twice about beeping your horn.
11. Normal People
Normal People is already one of the decade’s most iconic love stories (Credit: BBC)
Genre: Drama, Romance
Year: 2020
Cast: Daisy Edgar-Jones, Paul Mescal
Creator: Alice Birch, Sally Rooney, Mark O’Halloran
Length: 1 season, 12 episodes
What it’s about: Marianne and Connell, two teens in a small Irish town, begin a secretive relationship in school. They have a strong, intimate connection, but complications arise as they grow up and go to university, whether it’s other partners or their own anxieties.
Why to watch: Normal People is one of the most intimate and sexually vivid shows that’s ever aired on British TV. As tempting as it is to talk about it on those terms (don’t watch it with your mum and dad), and as inseparable as it is from why the series works, it’s much, much more than that.
It’s among the most soul-stirring love stories ever written, and the fact that people struggle to accept Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones not being a couple in real life tells you everything you need to know.
10. Mindhunter
Mindhunter is one of the best true crime dramas ever made (Credit: Netflix)
Genre: Thriller, Crime
Year: 2017 – 2019
Cast: Jonathan Groff, Holt McCallany, Anna Torv
Creator: Joe Penhall
Length: 2 seasons, 19 episodes
What it’s about: What makes a serial killer tick? That’s the basic question in Mindhunter, David Fincher’s series that follows agents Holden Hord and Bill Tench as they interview imprisoned murderers. Alongside psychologist Wendy Carr, they try to apply their learnings to ongoing cases.
Why to watch: There are two reasons Mindhunter is on this list. One, it brought David Fincher’s cerebral, precise, and icy style to TV in one of the most expertly crafted true crime thrillers in the history of streaming.
Secondly, if we remind Netflix how much everyone loved (and still loves) it, maybe they’ll finally make season 3.
9. Peep Show
Peep Show is an all-time British comedy (Credit: Channel 4)
Genre: Comedy
Year: 2003 – 2015
Cast: David Mitchell, Robert Webb, Olivia Colman, Matt King
Creator: Jesse Armstrong, Sam Bain, Andrew O’Connor
Length: 9 seasons, 54 episodes
What it’s about: Mark and Jez met at university. Years later, they’re roommates in a depressing, dreary flat in South London, but their efforts to succeed as adults are almost always undone by how pathetic they are.
Why to watch: Is Peep Show the most miserable sitcom ever made? Almost nothing good happens to Mark and Jez; they are losers caught in a self-imposed cycle of non-stop embarrassing blunders. You don’t even really root for them, either.
Yet, thanks to David Mitchell and Robert Webb’s hysterical writing (not to mention the show’s ingenious POV camerawork), it never falls victim to cringe. Here’s to the El Dude Brothers [half-hearted honk, honk].
8. Dept Q
Dept Q only dropped this year, but it’s a must-watch (Credit: Netflix)
Genre: Thriller, Crime, Drama
Year: 2025 – present
Cast: Matthew Goode, Kelly Macdonald, Chloe Pirrie, Kate Dickie
Creator: Scott Frank, Chandni Lakhani
Length: 1 season, 9 episodes
What it’s about: DCI Carl Morck, a miserable but brilliant cop in Edinburgh, is exiled to the basement to take charge of Department Q, a cold case unit that slowly unravels the truth behind a prosecutor’s disappearance.
Why to watch: Scott Frank already has two entries on this list, so why not add a third? Dept Q is his strongest series to date, and one of the very best shows on Netflix.
Think Slow Horses with a dash of Luther; grim, intelligent, and incisively written, anchored on Matthew Goode’s performance as a grumpy, first-rate detective. You’ll binge it in a weekend (or maybe even one night).
7. Adolescence
Adolescence is Netflix’s best show of 2025 (Credit: Netflix)
What it’s about: A family’s life is upended when Jamie, a 13-year-old boy, is arrested after the murder of a teenage girl. As the investigation unfolds, they’re forced to reckon with the truth and how it led to such a tragedy.
Why to watch: Adolescence, a tragic, masterful ‘real-time’ series from the team behind Boiling Point, forces you to reckon with the corruption of young boys growing up in the ‘manosphere’. That’s extremely uncomfortable for a lot of people – and that’s why everyone needs to see it.
That, and it stars Stephen Graham (who surely qualifies for legend status), starring alongside small-screen stalwart Christine Tremarco and Owen Cooper, who became the youngest person in the history of his category to win an Emmy.
As trite as it may sound, this is an important TV show – and, quite frankly, unmissable.
6. Baby Reindeer
Richard Gadd won two Emmys for Baby Reindeer (Credit: Netflix)
Genre: Drama, Thriller, Comedy
Year: 2024
Cast: Richard Gadd, Jessica Gunning, Nava Mau, Tom Goodman-Hill
Creator: Richard Gadd
Length: 1 season, 7 episodes
What it’s about: Based on the true story of Richard Gadd’s stalking ordeal, Baby Reindeer follows Donny, a struggling comedian who works in a London pub. When he takes pity on an upset woman, she takes a bit of a liking to him, but it spirals into a violent obsession.
Why to watch: Baby Reindeer should be recognised as one of Netflix’s defining achievements: an overwhelming, harrowing, and indelible account of a man’s grief and trauma that took everyone by surprise when it dropped on the platform.
Its aftermath may have overshadowed its success (its alleged real-life subject is suing the streamer), but as Gadd said when he accepted an award for writing the series, “The only constant factor in any success in television is good storytelling.” This is (almost) as good as it gets.
5. Squid Game
Squid Game has been a phenomenon since it started (Credit: Netflix)
Genre: Thriller
Year: 2021 – present
Cast: Lee Jung-jae, Lee Byung-hung, Wi Ha-joon
Creator: Hwang Dong-hyuk
Length: 3 seasons, 22 episodes
What it’s about: In a secret, faraway location in South Korea, 456 players compete for a life-changing fortune in a series of playground games. The only catch? If they lose, they die.
Why to watch: Squid Game is Netflix’s most-watched show of all time. When it arrived, out of nowhere and becoming a phenomenon, it was often (reductively) touted as, “Takeshi’s Castle… but people die!”
Uber-popularity is a surefire route to people claiming something is overrated, but Squid Game doesn’t qualify. It’s always felt genuinely novel; horrifically brutal, with a twisted sense of humour baked into its righteous, anti-capitalist story.
Season 1 was great, season 2 was better, and it finished on a high with season 3.
4. Broadchurch
Broadchurch is one of the best ITV dramas (Credit: ITV)
Genre: Drama, Crime
Year: 2013 – 2017
Cast: David Tennant, Olivia Colman, Jodie Whittaker, Vicky McClure
Creator: Chris Chibnall
Length: 3 seasons, 24 episodes
What it’s about: When the body of a young boy is found on a beach, a small coastal town becomes the focus of a major police investigation and a media frenzy, with two detectives forced to work together to figure out what happened.
Why to watch: Simply put, Broadchurch is one of the best British crime dramas this side of the millennium; a show that came and went on its own terms with three superb seasons, each just as good as the last (season 1 is the best though). Chris Chibnall’s Doctor Who work may be divisive, but this is unanimously revered.
Stranger Things put the streamer on the map (Credit: Netflix)
Genre: Sci-fi, Horror
Year: 2016 – present (finale drops New Year’s Day)
Cast: Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Millie Bobby Brown, Finn Wolfhard, Gaten Matarazzo
Creator: The Duffer Brothers
Length: 5 seasons (planned total of 42 episodes)
What it’s about: November 6, 1983: Will Byers, a 12-year-old boy in Hawkins, mysteriously disappears without a trace. As his friends and family try to figure out what happened, they uncover a dangerous “Upside Down” world and meet a young girl with extraordinary abilities.
Why to watch: Stranger Things is a product of ’80s nostalgia. Its ingredients are shamelessly blatant: Stand By Me, The Goonies, It, Ghostbusters, and The Thing, to name a few.
But, unlike the onslaught of movies and shows it inspired that fetishise the same era, this is a heart-rendingly affectionate ode to some of the greatest, most beloved stories ever written. And, as a bonus, it’s absolutely amazing. It’s Netflix’s flagship series for a reason; it’ll be a sad day when it ends.
The Haunting of Hill House will give you nightmares (Credit: Netflix)
Genre: Horror, Drama
Year: 2018
Cast: Michiel Huisman, Carla Gugino, Timothy Hutton, Henry Thomas, Elizabeth Reaser, Kate Siegel, Victoria Pedretti
Creator: Mike Flanagan
Length: 1 season, 10 episodes
What it’s about: When the Crain family moves into Hill House, they experience paranormal phenomena beyond their worst nightmares. Decades later, they’re reunited by a horrific tragedy, forcing them to confront the trauma and fear that’s always haunted them.
Why to watch: The Haunting of Hill House isn’t just the best original series Netflix has ever made: it’s the greatest horror TV show of all time.
Mike Flanagan knew that to make a series scary – not just giving you the heebie-jeebies; proper mind-festering stuff that will keep you up at night – you need weighty, powerful drama.
And, despite its frights (keep an eye out for the hidden ghosts), it isn’t a one-and-done experience, with repeat viewings just as rewarding. Turn the lights off, and as R.L. Stine famously wrote, “Beware… you’re in for a scare.”
1. Breaking Bad
Breaking Bad is one of the most acclaimed shows of all time (Credit: AMC)
Genre: Drama, Crime
Year: 2008 – 2013
Cast: Bryan Cranston, Aaron Paul, Anna Gunn, Dean Norris, Bob Odenkirk
Creator: Vince Gilligan
Length: 5 seasons, 62 episodes
What it’s about: When high school chemistry teacher Walter White discovers he has cancer and only two years to live, he resorts to cooking meth to secure his family’s financial future. However, he develops a taste for the wealth and power of becoming a drug kingpin.
Why to watch: Is Breaking Bad the greatest TV show ever made? According to hundreds of rankings across the web, the answer is yes – and they could be right.
It has everything: Bryan Cranston’s iconic, against-type performance, a superb supporting cast, striking visuals, and a rich, shocking, and unpredictable rise-and-fall story. Also, don’t listen to anyone who says it doesn’t get good until Season 2. They’re wrong: it’s phenomenal from start to finish.
If you’re a fan, there’s a prequel on Netflix too: Better Call Saul… and some say it’s even better.
