The 20 Best TV Shows on Prime Video
Like Amazon shopping, Prime Video can sometimes feel like a bargain: a glut of TV shows and movies from every era, none of which are particularly well curated. There’s a lot to sift through, and the selection can be a bit overwhelming. Presentation issues aside, there are some real gems to be found if you’re willing to dig a bit—the streamer offers more than a few impressive exclusives, though they sometimes get lost in the noise.
Here are the 20 best TV shows Prime Video has to offer, including both current and completed shows.
Overcompensation (2025 – )
Comedian Benito Skinner plays himself in this raucous comedy about a former high school athlete who faces his freshman year of college while desperately trying to convince himself and everyone else that he’s as straight as everyone else (which makes sense, except for the jock part). Much of the show’s appeal is its clever blend of tones: It’s often a raunchy college comedy, but it’s also a sweet coming-of-age story about accepting yourself without worrying about what everyone else thinks. The impressive cast includes Adam DiMarco ( White Lotus ) and Rish Shah (Ms. Marvel). You can stream Overcompensating here .
Étoile (2025 –, renewed for a second season)
Amy Sherman-Palladino and David Palladino ( Gilmore Girls , The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel ) return to TV and the dance world (after Bunheads ) with this series about two world-famous ballet companies (one in New York and one in Paris) who decide to mix things up by swapping their most talented dancers. With each company on the brink of financial disaster, Jack MacMillan (Luke Kirby), director of the Metropolitan Ballet, and Geneviève Lavigne (Charlotte Gainsbourg), director of Le Ballet National, come up with a plan and recruit an eccentric billionaire (Simon Callow) to pay for it. Much of the comedy comes from the mismatched personalities of their swapped dancers, and there’s a palpable love of ballet that keeps things light despite the quirky title. You can stream Étoile here .
Aftermath (2024–, renewed for second and third seasons)
A shockingly effective video game adaptation, Fallout makes post-apocalyptic television with far more color and vibrancy than is usually attributed to the genre (in Fallout’s world, the 1950s aesthetic has lingered far longer than in ours). The setup is a bit complicated, but not hackneyed in the show itself: It’s the year 2296, on an Earth devastated two centuries earlier by a nuclear war between the United States and China, exacerbated by conflicts between capitalists and so-called communists. Lucy MacLean (Ella Purnell) emerges from the underground Vault where she’s lived her entire life, protected from the supposed destruction of the world above, hoping to find her missing father, who’s been kidnapped by raiders. The wasteland above ground is in the grip of various factions, each of whom views the others as dangerous cults and believes that only they know humanity’s path forward. It is also overrun by Ghouls, Gloopers, and other wild radiation monsters. Despite all this, Lucy remains the only person who believes in humanity or wants to make things better. You can stream Fallout here .
Deadloch (2023 –, renewed for a second season)
Both an excellent crime procedural and an effective satire of the genre, this Aussie import does about as well as setting up its central mystery as Broadchurch and its many (many) imitators. Kate Box plays Dulcie Collins, a scrupulous senior police sergeant in the fictional town of the title. When a body turns up dead on the beach, Dulcie is joined by Madeleine Sami’s Eddie Radcliffe, a gruff and generally unpleasant detective brought in to help solve the case. Unraveling the web of secrets and mysteries in a tiny Tasmanian town is legitimately addictive, with the added bonus of mercilessly lampooning cop thriller cliches along the way. You can stream Deadlock here .
The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power (2022–, third season on the way)
All the talk around The Ring of Power in the lead-up to the series has been about the cost of the planned five seasons, which are expected to be somewhere in the billion-dollar range. At that price, it’s tempting to expect a flop, but the resulting series is actually quite good, mixing epic conflict with more grounded characters in a manner that evokes both Tolkien and Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films. Set thousands of years before those stories, the series features a cast led by Morfydd Clark as the elven outcast Galadriel and, at the other end of the spectrum, Markella Cavenagh as Nori, a Harfoot (people we’ll only know much later as hobbits) with a yearning for adventure who finds herself caught up in the larger battles of a world about to see the rise of the Dark Lord Sauron, the fall of the idyllic island kingdom of Numenor, and the final alliance of Elves and Men. You can stream Rings of Power here .
Reacher (2022 – , fourth season to be released)
High praise for Lee Childs’ portrayal of the character (from fans of the books and the show alike) goes to Alan Ritchson ( Titans ), who plays Reacher with an appropriately imposing physical presence. In the first season, the former US Army military policeman visits the rural town of Margrave, Georgia… where he is quickly arrested for murder. His attempts to clear his name lead to him becoming embroiled in a complex conspiracy involving the town’s highly corrupt police force, as well as shady local businessmen and politicians. In subsequent seasons, our muscle-bound drifter reunites with members of his old Army Special Investigations unit, including Frances Neagley (Maria Stan), who is getting her own spin-off. You can stream Reacher here .
Bondsman (2025, one season)
It’s tempting to leave Bondsman out of Prime’s best shows, given that it’s representative of an increasingly abhorrent trend: shows that get canceled before they ever really get a chance. The Kevin Bacon-starring action-horror did well with critics and on the streaming charts, and it was a consistent presence among Prime’s top 10 streaming shows, but it still got a pink slip. What we did get, though, was a lot of fun: Bacon plays Hub Halloran, a bounty hunter who dies on the job, only to find himself resurrected by the actual devil he now works for. It leads to a moderately satisfying conclusion, despite the cancellation. You can stream Bondsman here .
The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power (2022–, third season on the way)
All the talk around The Ring of Power in the lead-up to the series has been about the cost of the planned five seasons, which are expected to be somewhere in the billion-dollar range. At that price, it’s tempting to expect a flop, but the resulting series is actually quite good, mixing epic conflict with more grounded characters in a manner that evokes both Tolkien and Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films. Set thousands of years before those stories, the series features a cast led by Morfydd Clark as the elven outcast Galadriel and, at the other end of the spectrum, Markella Cavenagh as Nori, a Harfoot (people we’ll only know much later as hobbits) with a yearning for adventure who finds herself caught up in the larger battles of a world about to see the rise of the Dark Lord Sauron, the fall of the idyllic island kingdom of Numenor, and the final alliance of Elves and Men. You can stream Rings of Power here .
The Expanse (2015–2022, six seasons)
Picked up by SyFy after that network nearly got out of the original series business, The Expanse started off strong and only got better with each subsequent season. Starring Steven Strait, Shohreh Aghdashloo, and Dominique Tipper among a sizable cast, the show is set in a near-future in which we’ve spread across the solar system while largely accepting all the usual political nonsense and conflicts that come with it. A rescue team stumbles upon an alien microorganism that could potentially upend just about everything if humanity can stop fighting over scraps long enough for it to matter. The show brings a sense of gritty realism to TV sci-fi without completely sacrificing optimism — or at least the idea that well-intentioned people can make a difference. You can stream The Expanse here .
Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2024–, renewed for a second season)
Outselling the Brad Pitt/Angelina Jolie film it’s based on, Mr. & Mrs. Smith stars Donald Glover and Maya Erskine as a pair of spies tasked with posing as a married couple while coordinating (and sometimes competing) on missions. Cleverly, each episode takes on a different mission in a different location, while complicating the relationship between them and gradually raising the stakes until the season finale, where they face off against each other. The show is returning for a second season, though it’s unclear whether Glover and Erskine will return or if we’ll get a new Mr. and Mrs. You can stream Mr. & Mrs. Smith here .
Good Omens (2019–, to be concluded)
Michael Sheen and David Tennant are delightful as, respectively, the hopelessly naive angel Aziraphale and the demon Crowley, who have wandered the Earth for millennia, determined not to let the eternal conflict between their two sides get in the way of their mismatched friendship. In the world of the show, from the 1990 novel by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, Heaven and Hell don’t represent good and evil, but rather hidebound bureaucracies more interested in scoring points with each other than doing anything useful for anyone down here. It has a sly, quirky, sometimes silly sense of humour, even as it asks some big questions about who gets to decide what’s right and what’s wrong. After some depressingly harsh revelations about writer and showrunner Gaiman, it was announced that he would be leaving the production and the third season would be cut down to a movie-length conclusion at a date to be announced. You can stream Good Omens here .
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (2017–2023, five seasons)
Mrs. Maisel was one of Prime’s first and most high-profile original series, a comedy-drama from Amy Sherman-Palladino (Gilmore Girls) about Midge Maisel (Rachel Brosnahan), a late-1950s New York City housewife who discovers a talent for stand-up comedy. Inspired by the real-life careers of comedians like Totie Fields and Joan Rivers, the show is both warm and funny, with great performances and dialogue; it also achieves something rare in being a show about comedy that’s actually funny. You can stream Mrs. Maisel here .
The Boys (2019–, fifth and final season)
There’s no doubt that there are a lot of superhero things out there, but since there’s never been a show quite like the Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson comic book on which this show is based, there’s nothing quite like The Boys . The deeply dark satire imagines a world where superheroes are popular with the public, but whose powers make them no better than the average jerk. When his girlfriend is brutally murdered by a superhero who doesn’t care (collateral damage, you know), Wee Hughie (Jack Quaid) is hired by the agency. Led by Billy Butcher (Karl Urban), The Boys monitor the world’s superpowered people, suppressing them when necessary and possible. A fifth and final season is on the way, as is a second season of a live-action spin-off ( Gen V ). An animated miniseries ( Diabolical ) is set to premiere in 2022.
The Man in the High Castle (2015–2019, four seasons)
Based on the novel by Philip K. Dick (whose work inspired Blade Runner , Total Recall , Minority Report , A Scanner Darkly , and many others), The Man in the High Castle is set in an alternate history in which the Axis powers won World War II, and in which the United States is split in half, with Japan ruling the West and Germany in the East. However, the title of Man in the High Castle suggests an alternate viewpoint in which the Allies actually won, with the potential to rally opposition to the Axis rulers. As the show progresses over four seasons, the parallels to our increasingly authoritarian-friendly world make it one of the most relevant shows in recent years. You can stream The Man in the High Castle here .
Wheel of Time (2021–2025, three seasons)
An effective example of fantasy storytelling, The Wheel of Time follows Moiraine Damodred (Rosamund Pike), a powerful mage who believes one of their own is the Dragon reborn: a being that will either heal the world or destroy it entirely, as she takes five people from a secluded village. The show has an epic scope while cleverly focusing on the very otherworldly villagers, who are experiencing much of it at the same time as the audience. This is another mixed recommendation, as while the show itself is pretty good, it was just cancelled after its third season, which was when it really got into its groove. The show takes place through books four and five of Robert Jordan’s fantasy series, so I suppose you could always jump to the novels to finish the story. You can stream The Wheel of Time here .
The Devil’s Hour (2022–, renewed for a third season)
Jessica Raine ( Call the Midwife ) joins Peter Capaldi ( The Thick of It , Doctor Who ) for a slightly twisted but unsettling series that dangles almost every horror trope you can imagine, while still managing to ground things in the two leads. Raine plays a social worker whose life is falling apart on almost every level: she’s caring for her ageing mother, her marriage is falling apart, her son has become withdrawn, and she wakes up at exactly 3:33am every morning. She’s as convincing in her role as Capaldi is absolutely terrifying as a criminal linked to at least one murder who knows a lot more than he’s letting on. You can stream The Devil’s Hour here .
Batman: The Caped Crusader (2024 – , second season to be released)
I know there’s a lot of Batman out there. But this one has a real style, harking back to Batman: The Animated Series from the 1990s (no surprise, considering Bruce Timm also designed it). With a 1940s-style setting, the show eschews some of the more outlandish superhero tropes to instead focus on a Gotham City rife with crime, corrupt cops, and gang warfare. There’s enough in the first season of the series to keep it addictive. You can stream Caped Crusader here .
Secret Level (2024–, renewed for a second season)
It’s pretty fun: an anthology of animated shorts from different creative teams that tell stories set in the worlds of a variety of (15 at the moment) video games, including Unreal, Warhammer, Sifu, Mega Man , and Honor of Kings . It’s hard to find consistent themes given the variety of source material, but that’s the point: there’s a little something for everyone, and most of the shorts don’t require any extensive knowledge of the game — though they’re naturally a little more entertaining for those who are. The voice cast includes the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger, his son Patrick Schwarzenegger, Keanu Reeves, Gabriel Luna, Ariana Greenblatt, and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje. You can stream Secret Level here .
Cross (2024–, renewed for a second season)
James Patterson’s Alex Cross novels have been adapted for the screen three times now, to mixed results: Morgan Freeman played the character twice, and Tyler Perry took over in 2012. Here, the forensic psychologist/police detective from dozens of novels is played by Aldis Hodge ( Leverage , One Night in Miami… ), and he finally seems to have nailed it. There are plenty of cop drama tropes at play, but the series is fast-paced and intense, and Hodge is instantly compelling in the iconic lead role. You can stream Cross here .
Fleabag (2016–2019, two seasons)
Fleabag isn’t a Prime Original series per se, or even a co-production, but Amazon is the show’s US distributor and still labels it as such, so we’re going to count it. There’s no synopsis here, but Phoebe Waller-Bridge stars as the title character (always known as Fleabag) in the comedy-drama about a free-spirited but also deeply angry single woman living in London. Waller-Bridge won individual Emmy Awards as the series’ star, creator, and writer (all in the same year), while co-stars Sian Clifford, Olivia Colman, Fiona Shaw, and Kristin Scott Thomas all received well-deserved nominations. You can stream Fleabag here .