Best new TV shows to watch in 2025

Michelle Monaghan as Jaclyn Lemon in The White Lotus

(Image credit: Fabio Lovino / HBO / Shutterstock)

last updated 3 April 2025

Highly anticipated series have already landed in 2025, but there are plenty more to come in what looks to be a bumper year for television. Small-screen favourites such as "The Last of Us" and "The Bear" will be back with new seasons, while fresh shows promise to keep us entertained.

Adolescence

I've watched a lot of TV over the years, but I'm rarely "as blown away" as I was by Netflix's new drama "Adolescence", said Deborah Ross in the Daily Mail. With each episode shot "in one continuous take with no edits", the series "puts you right in the middle of the action" – and makes for "shattering" viewing. It begins with a sequence in which armed police, led by two detectives (Ashley Walters and Faye Marsay), storm into a family home at 6am to arrest a 13-year-old boy who is suspected of murder. Jamie's family "reel with shock", convinced the police have made a mistake.

The audience, too, is bewildered: could this "sweet-looking boy with dark, tousled hair" have committed a terrible crime, or is it a case of mistaken identity? We follow as Jamie (Owen Cooper) is driven to the local nick, processed and put in a cell, said Nick Hilton in The Independent. His desperate parents (Christine Tremarco, and Stephen Graham, who created the drama with Jack Thorne) arrive as this nightmarish scenario is unfolding.
Netflix, out now

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"There has been a veritable glut of films and TV shows about the movie business of late," said Tom Peck in The Times. But these shows ("content about content") have to get over the problem that, for most of us, Hollywood's inner workings are "just not that interesting". Apple TV+'s "The Studio", however, "sails straight over that hump and proceeds directly to the stratosphere", because it is "extremely funny" and "top-tier satire too".

Co-writer and director Seth Rogen plays Matt Remick, a "well-meaning" exec who is promoted to the head of a fictional studio, only to be torn between his desire to make great films, and the need to kowtow to "malign corporate interests". Remick is a "movie guy's movie guy", said James Poniewozik in The New York Times. He really wants to make art. Instead, he is co-opted by his boss (Bryan Cranston) into making a Kool-Aid Man movie: the studio has acquired the IP to the drink brand's mascot, and Remick is ordered to create a "billion-dollar hit", in the manner of Barbie.
Apple TV+, out now

Charlie Brooker's dark satire series is back for a seventh season in 2025, with more "sci-fi scenarios spanning dystopias and tackling themes of surveillance, AI, and societal issues", said TechRadar. As usual, expect an "all-star cast" taking on the individual stories of each episode, as well as returning characters from the season four episode "USS Callister". Brooker said the six episodes will continue to be mixed in tone: some are "deeply unpleasant, some are quite funny, and some are emotional".
Netflix, April

It's been a long three-year wait for fans of "Severance" after the "truly astonishing" first season finale ended with a dramatic cliffhanger, said Empire. Season two picks up in the "immediate aftermath" and answers some of the burning questions. The acclaimed dystopian drama stars Adam Scott, of "Parks and Recreation" and "Big Little Lies", whose character has undergone a procedure to separate work and personal memories. Season two is "by turns gripping, tense, bewildering, and darkly, absurdly funny".
Apple TV+, watch now

Creator Mike White promised ahead of release that it would be a "supersized 'White Lotus'" that will be "longer, bigger, crazier". A trailer released in January teased fans with a "flashing montage of parties, guns and boat trips", said Marie Claire. "One of the most intriguing plot threads" looks likely to feature the 29-year-old Aimee Lou Wood from "Sex Education" and the 53-year-old Walton Goggins as a couple with a "noticeable age gap".
HBO/Sky UK, watch now

The "jaw-dropping" season finale of "The Last of Us" left masses anxiously awaiting the return of the video-game adaptation and, now, fans can "finally rejoice" as season two has been confirmed for 2025, said Tribune. Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey will return for more post-apocalyptic adventures, joined by newcomers Isabela Merced and Jeffrey Wright. Catherine O'Hara, of "Beetlejuice" fame, appears in a new trailer, which gives the impression that she will play a therapist helping Pascal's Joel Miller open up about the events of the first series.
HBO/Sky, 14 April

Nominated for five Golden Globes, "The Bear" is one of the most critically acclaimed shows on TV right now and the new season is expected to air in June. The ending of season three was "daunting", said Somiyah DeMercado in CBR, leaving the fate of the restaurant up in the air as Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) prepares to begin her own venture. Jeremy Allen White, who won the best actor Golden Globe, will return as Carmy Berzatto in the high-stress kitchen for a season "filled with even more emotional breakdowns and foul language".
Disney+, June 2025

After a delay to filming due to the 2023 writers' strikes, the final season of Netflix's hit sci-fi horror saga finally wrapped shooting in December and is earmarked for release in late 2025. Season five will be a "culmination" of a story arc "planned out seven years ago" by the show's creators, the Duffer Brothers, said Radio Times. The eight-episode season will "pick up shortly after the events of season four" and is set in 1987, though little more is known of the plot. The long-standing cast all return in their roles, while "The Terminator" actor Linda Hamilton joins the line-up for the final season.
Netflix, late 2025

The latest "Game of Thrones" prequel based on George R.R. Martin's "Tales of Dunk and Egg" novellas, is set to premiere on HBO in 2025. The series will follow Ser Duncan the Tall (Dunk), played by Peter Claffey, and Aegon Targaryen (Egg), played by Dexter Sol Ansell, on a series of adventures. Following "House of the Dragon", this upcoming drama has been criticised for deviations from Martin's source material, but the author has visited the set and has only positive feedback for "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms", reported ScreenRant. The characters "look as if they walked out of the pages of my book", he said.
HBO/Sky UK, late 2025

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