The 8 best comedy series of 2025
From quarterlife crises to Hollywood satires, these were the funniest shows of 2025
Comedy writers had their work cut out for them in 2025, with the United States in political crisis and a mass culture that increasingly revolves around short-form video and manufactured outrage. It was also the year that studios tackled some of these problems directly, resulting in a crop of astute and sometimes discomfiting comedy offerings.
‘Adults,’ season 1
Anton (Owen Thiele), Billie (Lucy Freyer) and Issa (Amita Rao) are twenty-something friends living together in the Queens-based family home of Samir (Malik Elassal), all trying and failing to launch careers, relationships and even Zoom job interviews. An episode in which the helpless quartet attempts the seemingly simple task of roasting a chicken for a dinner party deliriously walks the line between critique and mean-spirited generational warfare.
With their brains “poisoned with all the anxieties of their internet-obsessed cohort,” the characters on FX’s Gen Z hang-out comedy connect most successfully when their antics are “just straight-up zany,” said Esther Zuckerman at The New York Times. (Hulu)
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‘The Chair Company,’ season 1
Tim Robinson has cemented himself as an auteur of workplace cringe humor, In “The Chair Company,” Robinson plays Ron Trosper, a middle-aged mall designer for a firm called Fisher Robay whose wife, Barb (Lake Bell), and children, Natalie (Sophia Lillis) and Seth (Will Price), treat him with a mixture of bemusement and resignation.
At a presentation to unveil the firm’s newest shopping center, a desk chair collapses under him, sending Ron down a rabbit hole trying to figure out whether its shadowy manufacturer, Tecca, is the leading edge of a global conspiracy. A comedy about “man who will invent circles upon circles of spiraling conspiratorial lore to mask his inability to deal with the way his life has turned out,” it is ultimately a commentary on a world “designed to make it easy for you to go insane,” said Phillip Maciak at The New Republic. (HBO Max)
‘Deli Boys,’ season 1
Mir (Asif Ali) and Raj (Saagar Shaikh) are brothers who inherit what they believe to be a Philadelphia-based convenience store and retail empire when their father, Baba (Iqbal Theba), is killed in a golfing mishap. But Aunt Lucky (Poorna Jagannathan) is forced to share the bad news that the whole enterprise was a drug-running operation, and if they don’t right the ship quickly they’ll all be killed.
A lot of the laughs stem from the wildly mismatched brothers: Mir is an MBA-wielding straight man, while Raj is a brain-addled failson who spends most of his time curating his own drug experiences. Highlighted by the “genuine warmth of the relationships within this murderous crime family,” the Hulu comedy “balances bloody knuckles with a tender heart,” said Judy Berman at Time. (Hulu)
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‘English Teacher,’ season 2
This uproarious ensemble comedy about a group of Austin, Texas, high school teachers went out with a bang with its second and final season after sexual assault allegations against creator and star Brian Jordan Alvarez (as well as an inability to find a larger audience) led FX to pull the plug. Alvarez is Evan, a gay English teacher delicately navigating various Trump-era fixations as the school’s principal, Grant (Enrico Colantoni), tries and usually fails to keep the school on the right side of whatever culture war has erupted most recently.
It’s mostly a buddy comedy, with fellow teachers Markie (Sean Patton) and Gwen (Stephanie Koenig) participating in hijinx or joining together to battle the students as in a memorable episode where the students launch an off-books, R-rated scavenger hunt at an overnight lock-in. A show whose “characters, comedy and rhythm seemed to come into the world fully formed,” its second season “continues to thrive in a comfortable groove,” said Ross McIndoe at Slant Magazine. (Hulu)
‘I Love LA,’ season 1
Another Gen Z hangout comedy that feels like a concerted effort to lure its target demographic away from their phones, “I Love LA” stars social media sensation Rachel Sennott as Maia, an office assistant at Alyssa 180, an eponymous talent agency overseen by a self-satisfied millennial boss (Leighton Meester) who refuses to give Maia a promotion.
When Maia’s best friend, Tallulah, an influencer perpetually riding the Hot Mess Express, returns to Los Angeles, she gives Maia a new career opportunity while also upsetting the delicate friendship dynamics of her band of hapless young narcissists. A show “populated by delusional strivers running on the fumes of substance-free hype,” it succeeds best as a “piece of sociology about the influencer era,” said Alison Herman at Variety. (HBO Max)
‘Mo,’ season 2
A comedy about a Palestinian refugee seeking immigration status in the United States couldn’t possibly have turned out to be more timely when its second season was released in January 2025. Comedian Mo Amer plays Mohammed “Mo” Najjar, a somewhat aimless Palestinian who was brought to the U.S. as a child.
In the second season he is marooned in Mexico City, performing in wrestling matches to get by, while his family fights to find him a legal pathway to residency in Houston. “Mo,” which concluded with this season, “excels in humanizing people of all stripes, and in being as sidesplittingly funny as it is unapologetically dark,” said Hannah J Davies at The Guardian. (Netflix)
‘Platonic,’ season 2
Friendship is the essence of virtually every project that Seth Rogan has ever been involved with and so it is fitting that he tackles the subject head-on in the underrated “Platonic.” Rogan is Will, a forty-something doofus who reconnects with his college buddy Sylvia (Rose Byrne at the top of her comedy game) after he gets divorced.
Sylvia is a stay-at-home mother of three married to a tightly-wrapped lawyer named Charlie (Luke Macfarlane). Season 2 picks up where the first left off, with Will set to marry straight-edge girlboss Jenna (Rachel Rosenbloom) and Sylvia agreeing to serve as the wedding planner. Anchored by leads “who excel at physical-comedy hijinks, electric banter and sincere conversations,” the Apple TV+ comedy is “rooted in laughs, crafting a chill, low-stakes story along the way,” said Saloni Gajjar at The AV Club. (Apple TV+)
‘The Studio,’ season 1
“The Studio” is both a showcase for Seth Rogan’s nervous, socially awkward talents and a love letter to a Hollywood striver whose creative integrity is being destroyed. Rogan plays Matt Remick, thrust into the role of chief executive at fictional Continental Studios, where he is immediately faced with a demand to turn “IP” into franchises, starting with the Kool-Aid Man.
Ike Barinholtz, Chase Sui Wonders and Kathryn Hahn steal scene after scene as his hapless underlings, with each episode centered around some massive screw-up, including Remick wrecking a delicate sunset shot for Sarah Polley, one of many stars who play versions of themselves in single-episode arcs. “The Studio” succeeds not just because of its ”attention to craft and its uniformly strong ensemble cast” but also because of its “unironic love for the medium of cinema,” said Dana Stevens at Slate. (Apple TV+)
David Faris is a professor of political science at Roosevelt University and the author of "It's Time to Fight Dirty: How Democrats Can Build a Lasting Majority in American Politics." He's a frequent contributor to Newsweek and Slate, and his work has appeared in The Washington Post, The New Republic and The Nation, among others.