The best dystopian TV shows

Adam Scott in Apple TV series, Severance.

Adam Scott in the 'fantastically stylish, clever, trippy and compelling' Severance

(Image credit: Alamy / Pictorial Press Ltd)

last updated 1 August 2025

There's something particularly unsettling about shows that depict a dark vision of things to come. Dystopian dramas cover a variety of scenarios, from evil totalitarian governments to apocalyptic worlds ravaged by flesh-eating zombies. Here's our pick of the best series to stream now.

Station Eleven

This moving series about life after a devastating pandemic is a "beautifully wrought piece of storytelling", said Jen Chaney in Vulture. Set in the Great Lakes region surrounding Chicago, the action focuses on a rapidly spreading flu bug with a survival rate of just one in 1,000. But despite the harrowing scenario, "Station Eleven" is, "at its core, an uplifting reaffirmation of the value of life and human connection". Instead of getting bogged down in explaining the "catalytic event", the show focuses on "how human beings cope when they try to go on after losing nearly everything". It's a "profound" piece of television.
Amazon Prime

The fourth season of Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan's "knotty sci-fi thriller" proved "far more gripping" than the third instalment, said Richard Lawson in GQ. Set in Westworld, a futuristic Wild West-themed amusement park where sophisticated robots cater to the demands of wealthy guests, the final season feels like a cross between an "elegant" "Terminator" movie and "Bladerunner". As ever it looks "mind-bogglingly expensive" ("all gleaming buildings and haunted desert"), and the excellent cast are back in "peak snarling, purring, quipping form".
Amazon Prime

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The second season of this "Star Wars" spin-off is "as thrilling as ever", said Jack Seale in The Guardian. Exploring the events that lead up to the 2016 film, "Rogue One", the action follows thief-turned-rebel-spy Cassian Andor (Diego Luna). Like everything in the franchise, the series is about an "underdog rebel movement fighting against a totalitarian empire in space". But writer Tony Gilroy swaps the "magic and myth" for the realities of the "anti-fascist struggle". This is "Star Wars" for grown-ups.

Adapted from a novel by Colin O'Sullivan, this "paranoia-soaked" series blends mystery, dark comedy and dystopian sci-fi elements with "understated verve", said Ed Power in The Irish Times. Rashida Jones stars as Suzie, an American woman living in Kyoto and "reeling" from the death of her Japanese husband and their son in a plane crash. She soon joins forces with a "cuddly android" called Sunny to try to find out what happened. Another "worthy addition" to Apple's growing collection of "superior sci-fi", it manages to reach "peak Kubrickian menace" right from the start.
Apple TV+

"Paradise" is packed with so many "narrative zig-zags", you can never be sure how the series will unfold, said Robert Lloyd in the Los Angeles Times. The show follows Xavier Collins (Sterling K. Brown), a Secret Service agent investigating the murder of a former US president (James Marsden) in a "picture-perfect" American town. Of course, something is "fishy" and by the end of the first episode it's revealed the "pretty little city" is not what it seems.
Disney +

Based on the 2013 video game, this "superb" post-apocalyptic drama combines "epic" action with "breathtaking emotional swerves", said Ed Power in The Telegraph. Season one saw hardened survivor Joel (Pedro Pascal) and teenager Ellie (Bella Ramsey) trek through a desolate America overrun by "fungus-ridden" infected creatures to deliver the uniquely immune Ellie to a group of rebels who believed she may hold the key to a cure that could "save all of humanity". Things didn't go to plan and the second instalment picks up five years later when the pair are "uneasily getting on with life" in Jackson, Wyoming. Expect "gobsmacking set pieces" including a battle scene to "rival 'Game of Thrones'", and "reliably forceful" performances from Pascal and Ramsey. In all, season two takes everything that was good about the first series and "cranks it up to the absolute maximum".
Apple TV+

The first season of "Silo" laid out some "captivating foundations", said Nicola Austin in Empire. Based on the best-selling trilogy of novels by Hugh Howey, it "charted the aftermath of an apocalyptic event" that saw thousands of people forced underground to live in a giant bunker known as the silo. No one knows who built it or why, but they do know one thing: the outside world is toxic and leaving will result in almost certain death. Season two picks up after the "doozy of a cliffhanger" at the end of the first instalment, and "turns the temperature up on this pressure-cooker of a dystopia". Apple TV+

Following a "fantastically stylish, clever, trippy and compelling" first series, "Severance" is back on the small screen, and somehow it's even better than before, said Lucy Mangan in The Guardian. The first instalment follows Mark Scout (Adam Scott), an employee at the sinister Lumon Industries corporation, who has opted into the severance procedure to have his non-work memories separated from his work memories, giving him an "innie" and "outie" life. In the second season, "mysteries and revelations, clues and new enigmas are rolled out in perfect syncopation, getting wilder and weirder" as the show goes on.
Apple TV+

The "bouncy, eye-popping energy" of this "post-apocalyptic action-comedy" makes for "perfect bingeing", said Ed Power in The Telegraph. Based on the video game of the same name, "Fallout" is set in the year 2296, two centuries after the "downfall of humanity", in a postwar America "devastated by a nuclear conflagration". Wealthy survivors have taken refuge in subterranean Vaults but they are eventually forced to emerge into the "Californian wasteland": a "hellscape, teeming with zombie-like mutants". Delivering the "perfect payload of OTT action and childish humour", it makes for a surprisingly "fun" watch.
Amazon Prime

Charlie Brooker's anthology series is back for a seventh season and it's another "eye-popping, brain-melting run of episodes", said John Nugent in Empire. Over a decade since it began, the show is still somehow managing to pull "the rug from under our feet in thrillingly ambitious ways". Paul Giamatti gives an "awards-worthy performance" in "Eulogy", an "'Eternal-Sunshine-esque exploration of memory and lost love"; and the show's first sequel episode, "USS Callister: Into Infinity", a "hugely enjoyable" follow-up to the first episode of season four, is a "sci-fi smash". "Satirical, strange and very, very sad indeed", the show remains "the same force it's always been".
Netflix

Irenie Forshaw is a features writer at The Week, covering arts, culture and travel. She began her career in journalism at Leeds University, where she wrote for the student newspaper, The Gryphon, before working at The Guardian and The New Statesman Group. Irenie then became a senior writer at Elite Traveler, where she oversaw The Experts column.