Comic book adaptations, feudal uprisings, and one dysfunctional as hell restaurant from Chicago defined this year on the small screen.
By Brady Langmann, Adrienne Westenfeld and Josh Rosenberg
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Ma! Hey Ma! Imma give you the woild Ma! Just afta I finish writin' Esquiyah's best TV of the year list. I apologize, readers. To the great detestation of my colleagues, I'm still impersonating Colin Farrell's stellar performance as Oz Cobb in The Penguin, and I will continue to do so until the calendar flips to 2025. Capeesh?
Good. Now, the reason why we're here today: this is the time of year when Esquire narrows down its running list of the year's top television shows of the year into a neat and tidy top ten. And I have to admit—this was an especially tough year to figure out which ten deserved to stay on this countdown. Across the few years I've contributed to this list, I've never seen so much variation between each critics' and outlets' final rankings. Even Baby Reindeer is popping up in a few!
Well... why? The simplest reason is that, of course, there's so much damn television in the modern streaming-verse. Anyone who tells you they caught nearly everything this year is either lying or abusing the 1.5x speed button on Netflix. My theory is that this year lacked a true group of powerhouse series—last year, you'd have to look very hard to find a year-end list without Succession, The Last of Us, and The Bear.Hell, maybe everyone's holding their collective breath for the return of Severance in early 2025. (I sure am.)
Regardless, we feel confident in our final selection of shows. I hope you agree with at least a few of them. If not, well, I'm close with a certain Gotham-based mobster who would very much like to have a word with you about that.
View full post on YoutubeThe Office, Abbott Elementary, and every other mockumentary-style sitcom of the past decade loves to hurl normal folks into silly situations. What We Do in the Shadows is different. This comedy, about three immortal weirdos living in Staten Island, takes silly vampires and places them in completely normal situations. What if a vampire got a job at a corporate office? What if they thought that a chain email actuallycursed them for not passing it on to ten of their friends? It's a comedy gold mine. After six fantastic seasons, I’ll always remember the supernatural series as a show for viewers with good taste.
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View full post on YoutubeBetween Shōgun, My Brilliant Friend, The Sympathizer, Interior Chinatown, and many more, 2024 was another heck of a year for book-to-television adaptations. But FX and Hulu's adaptation of Patrick Radden Keefe's Say Nothing—which retells the story of the Troubles in Northern Ireland—was one of the very best. As Adam Morgan wrote in his review for Esquire, "While the TV series could have easily been a gray parade of bleakness, the writers and directors of Say Nothinghave accomplished something of a tonal miracle, deftly shifting between moments of laugh-out-loud comedy, propulsive action, heartwarming drama, and subtle but effective suspense."
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View full post on YoutubeTwenty-four years after it premiered, Curb Your Enthusiasmcame to an end this year with season 12. Say it ain’t so! But Larry David being Larry David, the series didn’t go out quietly. The final season finds our favorite curmudgeon on trial in Atlanta for the one act of kindness he’s ever performed in his life: handing a water bottle to a parched voter waiting in line to cast her ballot. (Yes, that’s really illegal in Georgia.) Enjoying newfound fame as a liberal folk hero, Larry returns to familiar pastimes: causing chaos at the country club, feuding with waiters, and sparring with the late, great Richard Lewis. Curb’s swan song plays the greatest hits, and we’re not complaining—why mess with perfection?
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View full post on YoutubeIf you’re expecting the sun-soaked decadence of Anthony Minghella’s 1999 version of The Talented Mr. Ripleyfrom Netflix’s new adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s beloved novel, you won’t find it here. The familiar contours of the story remain—New York conman Tom Ripley is sent to Italy to retrieve a shipping magnate’s dilettante son; murder and mayhem ensue—but that’s where the similarities end. Unlike the lavish excesses of Minghella’s version, each chilly black-and-white frame of writer-director Steven Zaillian’s noirish rendering is a work of art, rich in visual symbolism and aesthetic purpose. Andrew Scott dazzles as an older, harder version of Ripley, imbuing him with a downright sociopathic emotional remove. The series soars highest when it traces the minutiae of Ripley’s crimes, suspending us in agonizing, palm-sweating tension. Just how will he get away with it all? You may already know the answer, but even so, there’s endless pleasure in Zaillian’s bold new vision—a modern masterpiece of the small screen.
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View full post on YoutubeIn the sensational second season of Interview with the Vampire, the interview continues—but this time, Old World vampire Armand joins in the telling. In an opulent penthouse in Dubai, gentleman vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac unspools the story of his eternal life for journalist Daniel Molloy, picking up right where season 1 left off. Flashbacks transport us to postwar Paris, where Louis and his sister-daughter Claudia settle after their apparent murder of their maker, Lestat. They soon fall in with the Théâtre des Vampires, a flamboyant coven of vampires hiding in plain sight as vaudevillian bloodsuckers, with Armand at the helm of their onstage productions. But as the present timeline reveals, Louis is an unreliable narrator—and his longtime companion Armand has his own designs on the story. Interview with the Vampireis a singular achievement: Luscious and gothic, poetic and brutal, it weaves some of the finest performances on television into an astonishing tale of desire, revenge, and the slipperiness of truth.
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View full post on Youtube“So what, a normal amount of pickles is one?” is a real quote from The Penguin’s premiere episode. Really, all I have to tell you about The Penguin—HBO’s spin-off of Matt Reeves’s The Batman—is that a goofy line like this, earnestly delivered by Colin Farrell’s Oz Cobb (aka the Penguin) just works. Farrell literally transformed into a different human for the series, which tracks Cobb’s rise to power in Gotham following the events of The Batman. It’s a testament to Farrell’s talent that he’s corny, scary, lovable, and despicable all at the same time. If you’re skipping The Penguin simply because it’s a comic-book adaptation, then you’re missing out on the titanic performances of Farrell and Cristin Milioti, who plays his opponent in Gotham’s criminal underworld—the formidable Sofia Falcone.
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View full post on YoutubeThree seasons (and oodles of Emmy nominations) into its run, Hacksjust keeps getting better and better. Season 2 ended with legendary Vegas comedian Deborah Vance and her loyal writer Ava Daniels parting ways, but season 3 quickly reunites them in pursuit of a new dream: late-night television, an old boys club in sore need of disruption. Once grudging colleagues, now friends and true creative partners, Deborah and Ava are in dogged pursuit of their latest goal, which makes for thrilling television. But of course it’s a bumpy ride through the psyches of these complicated, confounding comics, masterfully brought to life by Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder. We were looking forward to season 4 well before season 3 wrapped, but after that cliff-hanger ending, now we’re truly locked in.
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View full post on YoutubeSometimes a legendary director pairs up with legendary talent, then—guess what?—a legendary television series comes from it. In Disclaimer*, the director is Alfonso Cuarón, and the stars include Cate Blanchett, Sacha Baron Cohen, and Kevin Kline. Adapted from the novel of the same name, the Apple TV+ series is a haunting, painful, and ultimately soaring exploration of trauma, loss, and what it truly takes for a family to put itself back together. If you somehow haven't seen the series, make it a must-watch over the holidays—its finale is one of the best television episodes of the year.
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View full post on YoutubeI’ll keep this one short. The Bear season 3 didn’t quite live up to its supersized expectations, but that doesn’t mean the latest serving of episodes fell short. Quite the opposite; it just means The Bear takes our second spot instead of the first. Season 3, episode 1 was a brave, experimental reentry into Carmy’s orbit. The Ayo Edebiri–directed episode 6 is one of the year’s best vignettes. And the finale? I bet we’ll remember it as the episode that made this season soar.
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View full post on YoutubeFX’s sumptuous adaptation of James Clavell’s seminal novel is truly epicin every sense of the word. Set in feudal Japan, it follows the fateful collision of two men: Lord Toranaga, a principled leader fending off his political rivals through shrewd strategy, and his unlikely ally John Blackthorne, an English sailor shipwrecked in Japan. But Shōgunis ultimately about a collision of cultures, values, and ideas; we see this most keenly in the extraordinary scenes between Blackthorne and Lady Mariko, the mysterious highborn woman assigned to be his translator. Shōgunis filled with grand battles and visuals, but it’s Blackthorne and Mariko’s thorny discussions about death, honor, and freedom that leave the deepest mark.
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