The 40 Best Shows on Apple TV, WIRED’s Picks (December 2025)

The 40 Best Shows on Apple TV, WIRED’s Picks (December 2025)

Slowly but surely, Apple TV (previously Apple TV+) found its footing. The streaming service, which at launch we called “odd, angsty, and horny as hell,” has evolved into a diverse library of dramas, documentaries, and comedies. Now its library is so packed that we’ve declared it “the new HBO.”

Top Picks for Apple TV

Curious but don’t know where to get started? Below are our picks for the best shows on the service. Meanwhile, if you’re looking for more recommendations, check out our guides to the best shows on Netflix, best movies on Hulu, and best movies on Amazon Prime.

Down Cemetery Road

Do you like Emma Thompson? Slow Horses? Conspiracies? Well, this show has all three. For one, it’s executive produced by the same team that made Slow Horses—which, if you keep reading, you’ll know is one of our favorite shows. It also, yes, stars Thompson.

Pluribus

Watch the trailer and you may think Pluribus is a zombie show. Or some kind of sunny apocalypse fable. Perhaps a commentary on AI-curated sameness. It’s sci-fi, yes, but also a deeply thought-out character drama.

The Morning Show

Every streaming service needs a flashy mainstream drama with Hollywood heavyweights to pull in viewers. Apple TV has The Morning Show. When Alex Levy (Jennifer Aniston) loses her morning news program cohost Mitch Kessler (Steve Carell) following sexual misconduct accusations, she gets paired up with Bradley Jackson (Reese Witherspoon) to revamp the show.

Slow Horses

As we wrote last year, Slow Horses is the ideal show for people who want a Pizza Hut–Taco Bell-esque combination of John Le Carré–style espionage thrillers and The Office. Based around the misfits of Slough House, where MI5 agents are sent when they biff it as spies, the show effortlessly jumps from shoot-outs and car chases to quirky conversations and camaraderie.

Platonic

Look around and you’ll see plenty of stories about how men are lonely and struggle to keep their friendships as they get older. That doesn’t happen on Platonic, a show about two longtime friends—Sylvia (Rose Byrne) and Will (Seth Rogen)—who are figuring out how to keep their relationship going even as romantic relationships and careers test the bonds they built when they were younger.

Chief of War

Set in the late 1700s, Chief of War tells the story of Ka’iana, a warrior who attempted to unite the Hawaiian islands before the arrival of colonizers from the West. Written and executive produced by star Jason Mamoa (Aquaman), it’s a nine-episode miniseries based on true events that is also a passion project for Mamoa and cocreator Thomas Pa‘a Sibbett.

Foundation

WIRED called Foundation a “flawed masterpiece” in our review of the first season. Considering the complexities of adapting a sprawling Isaac Asimov book series, it was high praise. Starring Jared Harris as Hari Seldon, a math professor who, along with his loyal followers, is exiled for predicting the oncoming end of the galactic empire that rules over them, the show often suffers under the weight of its own massive scope.

Stick

Pryce Cahill is a former pro golfer who flopped during a big tournament 20 years ago and hasn’t been the same since. His marriage fell apart; his life is a shambles. Then one day he meets a kid who swings a club “like a dream” and decides to go all-in.

Murderbot

Fans of Martha Wells have been waiting for Murderbot for a long time, pretty much since Apple TV announced in 2023 that it was adapting the sci-fi author’s 2017 novella All Systems Red. That beloved book—and the series of stories and novels that followed it—serve as the basis for this splashy series and also for the big expectations that come with adapting a fan favorite.

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