The best TV shows of 2024, ranked, from 'Disclaimer' to 'Matlock'

This year may have felt as if it lasted as few decades, but it went by a little more quickly if you watched some of its best TV shows.

Yes, 2024 was full of historical and important political news, major weather events, pop culture milestones and breakout music stars, which is a lot to wrap our brains around. But it was also full of some beautiful, thrilling and thought-provoking TV series that entertained and diverted us through the hard parts.

The 10 best TV shows of 2024 didn't follow set formulas or play it safe. They were on streaming and network TV, featured movie stars and breakout new faces. These shows were profound, silly or both, and they had us begging for more even if the story was resoundingly resolved. Mostly they transported us out of our current time and place to somewhere new, and that is what the best storytelling is meant to do.

To see our longer list of the top 25 picks for the best TV shows of the year, scroll through the gallery below.

So here are the 10 best TV shows of 2024, from romantic comedies to dystopian science fiction to British punk rockers. We can't wait to see what TV in 2025 brings us.

10. 'Nobody Wants This' (Netflix)

Netflix's romantic comedy about an irreverent agnostic (Kristen Bell) and a super-cool rabbi (Adam Brody) who fall for each other is a fun, silly, opposites-attract story that could use a little help when it comes to its portrayal of some characters (particularly Jewish women). But what elevates the show is the palpable, blazing chemistry between Bell and Brody, so fiery your screen might be hot to the touch during their zingy meet-cute. The series' full embrace of romance − ooey-gooey, sometimes messy but always driven by a belief in the warmth and goodness of love − could be seen as cheesy and old-fashioned in our deeply cynical era of "Euphoria" and app dating. But this is no Hallmark Christmas movie. It is complicated and raw and honest and will make you believe in love, if only for 10 short episodes in its first season. Mercifully for our hearts, it's coming back for more.

9. ‘Silo’ (Apple TV+)

This dystopian science fiction drama about the (seemingly) last 10,000 people on Earth surviving in an underground silo is so deeply compelling and engrossing, it's easy to forgive its minor flaws. No show on TV can carry tension and drama from episode to episode like this mystery box starring Rebecca Ferguson. In an era of lazy binge-watch storytelling, “Silo” keeps you begging for more each week.

8. 'Matlock' (CBS)

Network TV isn't dead, you just have to wade through some of the lesser and lazier series to find true greatness. The team of Kathy Bates and Jennie Snyder Urman ("Jane the Virgin," "Charmed") perfectly molded a show that feels at home next to "NCIS" but offers something bigger and newer than your average procedural. Bates plays a septuagenarian lawyer who returns to the workforce at a fancy white-shoe New York law firm seemingly out of desperate financial need. But there's far more to her heart-wrenching story. Riding on Urman's snappy scripts and Bates' charm (she's still got it), "Matlock" is ridiculously watchable, even if it's not much like the 1980s Andy Griffith drama that inspired it.

7. ‘Manhunt’ (Apple TV+)

Who knew a Civil War-era TV show about an asthmatic bureaucrat hunting down the man who shot Abraham Lincoln could be such a rollicking good time? “Manhunt” turns a social studies lesson − what happened after Lincoln was assassinated, and the hunt for his killer − into an action-adventure banger. Anthony Boyle (“Masters of the Air”) gives a deliciously smarmy performance as assassin John Wilkes Booth, balanced with the almost too-upright portrayal of War Secretary Edwin Stanton by Tobias Menzies. Seventh grade history was never this much fun, or this effectively told.

6. ‘Fallout’ (Amazon Prime)

It might just be the golden age of video game adaptations, and it might just be because Hollywood has started making movies and TV based on good video games. “Fallout,” a post-apocalyptic thriller, blasted onto the scene this year with bright colors, a don't-give-a-hoot attitude and enough cheeky gore to paint the town very red. Set centuries after a nuclear armageddon, the series has an appealing cast, a uniquely irreverent tone, good jokes, bold visuals, cute dogs and is fun for all. Overly somber shows should take note: It's possible to be dark and lively at the same time.

5. 'Say Nothing' (Hulu)

Based on Patrick Radden Keefe's nonfiction book about Northern Ireland's Troubles, "Say Nothing" will shock and appall viewers unfamiliar with this period of recent history. In this world, portly Irish housewives hide guns in the garden and teenage girls choose between violent revolution and art school. Focused on young IRA soldier Dolours Price (Lola Petticrew, a force), the series does an exquisite job painting its 1970s Belfast setting in excruciating detail, balancing heavy darkness with levity and reminding us all that our societal troubles aren't that far behind us.

4. ‘True Detective: Night Country’ (HBO)

Literally chilling, shocking and impossible to look away from, HBO's anthology drama “True Detective” returned to its best form in its fourth season, subtitled “Night Country,” and with a new producer, Issa López. Set in the long period of winter darkness in Alaska, the mystic crime drama puts Chief Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster) and Detective Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis) to work investigating the frozen deaths of seven men at a research facility. The twists start early and don’t stop until the last few seconds of the finale. But even without such a bombastic story, the performances by Foster and Reis would be enough to keep your eyes glued to the screen.

3. ‘Shogun’ (FX)

Gloriously brought to life with intricate and gorgeous sets, costumes and performances, “Shogun” is a true epic with little pretension. The FX series contains a wealth of awe-inspiring moments big and small as it tells the story of the first English contact with feudal Japan. Violence, romance and politics collide in the exquisitely crafted (and multi-Emmy-winning) drama.

2. ‘We Are Lady Parts’ (Peacock)

The British series about an all-female Muslim punk band returned this summer, three years after its near-perfect first season, providing a reminder that any day without “Lady Parts” is a day robbed of joy. The second season sees our brilliant band dealing with money troubles (ugh, capitalism), a rival Muslim girl group and rom-com shenanigans in the most charming, delectable way possible. Some of the themes are heavier this time around, and the series superbly balances its thoughtfulness with it's giddy fun. And it doesn't hurt to have Malala Yousafzai make a cameo appearance for a music video.

1. 'Disclaimer' (Apple TV+)

"Gravity" and "Roma" director Alfonso Cuarón brought his Oscar-winning talents to TV for this limited series about secrets, the stories we tell ourselves and the assumptions we make about women. Although loaded with big ideas and thought-provoking themes, the story is intimate and direct, a narrative focused on the consequences of a meeting between a young mother (Leila George) and 19-year-old boy (Louis Partridge) on an Italian beach. Twenty years later, that woman (Cate Blanchett, as always a star) and the boy's father (Kevin Kline) must reckon with their lives then and now, and the complicated emotions of grief, rage and regret. Like Cuarón's other work, "Disclaimer" immerses you fully in its world, locking you in even when it's hard to watch. Too much TV in our current era is lightweight, simplistic fluff that can't make you stop scrolling long enough to pay attention. "Disclaimer" will make you pay attention.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: The best TV shows of 2024, from 'Disclaimer' to 'Matlock'