The 15 Best TV Shows on Paramount+

Paramount+ came about during the second wave of the streaming wars — it formed from CBS All Access following a corporate merger between CBS and Viacom — along with Peacock, HBO Max, Disney+, and Apple TV+, but despite a slow start, it was always seen as a sleeping giant because of its vast library headlined by catalogs from CBS and Paramount Pictures. Now, the streamer is churning out hit after hit, with a clear identity that its competitors seem to lack. This is CBS for the modern age, and there's a reason CBS has spent most of the 2000s as the most-watched network on television: It knows what the mainstream wants.

Now, with shows like Landman, MobLand, Tulsa King, and more, Paramount+ is a hefty player in the space, mixing originals with on-demand access to CBS hits and others from Paramount Global's vast network of media brands, like Showtime, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, and MTV, as well as streaming debuts of movies from the Paramount Pictures portfolio, like Top Gun: Maverick and the Mission: Impossible films. 

Whether you're new to Paramount+ or just looking for something to watch tonight, here are the best TV shows to watch on Paramount+. To make things easier, we've divided this list into new releases, essential Paramount+ titles, classics, and more. 

Note: Paramount+ has two subscriptions tiers, the standard Paramount+ subscription and Paramount+ Premium, formerly Paramount+ with Showtime. Shows that are only available with Paramount+ Premium are denoted with an asterisk (*).

More on streaming:

• New movies and shows on Paramount+
• The best shows on Netflix
• The best shows on Prime Video
• The best shows on Max

The best new and returning TV series on Paramount+

From series premieres to new seasons, these are the most recent additions to the service that are worth watching

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

Star Trek has come a long way since its debut in 1966, evolving into multiple movie franchises, animated series, TV sequels, and streaming originals, but it's Star Trek: Strange New Worlds that takes it full circle by bringing back the spirit of the original series. Strange New Worlds, set on the Enterprise during the leadership of Captain Kirk's predecessor, Captain Christopher Pike (a spectacularly coiffed Anson Mount), works like a mystery grab bag, as you never know what you'll get with each episode. Will it be sci-fi horror? An action epic? A body-swapping comedy? A sweeping romance? It's all of those, and that's just in Season 1. The best thing about it? You don't already have to be a Star Trek fan to appreciate the best series in the franchise's modern era. Season 3 premiered on July 17.

Dexter: Resurrection*

Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall) is back! The latest adventure of the serial killer of serial killers is a follow-up to 2021's Dexter: New Blood and follows Dexter as he heads to New York City in pursuit of his son, Harrison (Jack Alcott), while being tailed by Angel Batista (David Zayas). But the title of the series doesn't just refer to how Dexter cheated death; it's a wink at Dexter as a whole, as Resurrection has brought the franchise back to life. And as Dexter meets a new group of serial killers in the Big Apple, the series has a great opportunity for some commentary about the public's questionable fascination with murderers. Peter Dinklage, Uma Thurman, and a whole bunch of familiar faces also star. 

MobLand

Paramount+'s hot streak with original crime dramas — Tulsa King! Landman! Lioness! Mayor of Kingstown! — continues with Guy Ritchie's MobLand. Originally envisioned as a prequel to Ray Donovan called The Donovans as recently as mid-2024, MobLand changed directions and became an original story about a fixer (Tom Hardy) for a mob boss (Pierce Brosnan) doing his best to prevent all-out chaos during an increasingly violent war with a rival crime family. Don't worry; he only does his job sort of well. There's plenty of violence!

Essential Paramount+ TV shows

The most popular titles, and exclusive originals you won't find anywhere else

Landman

Paramount+ was built to bring Landman into the world. The series, one of many from prolific producer Taylor Sheridan, stars Billy Bob Thornton as Tommy Norris, a resourceful oil company executive in Texas who does whatever it takes to keep the black gold flowing, even if that means tangling with a local cartel who wants a cut of the business. But that's the easy part of the job for Tommy. His rollercoaster family life, which includes his on-again-off-again ex-wife Angela (Ali Larter) and rambunctious teenage daughter Ainsley (Michelle Randolph), will kill him first. The thrilling, cutthroat business drama gets the attention, but it's the addition of the unexpected family comedy that makes Landman rise to the top of the crop.

Yellowjackets*

Showtime's buzzy thriller is about a New Jersey high school girls soccer team stranded in the Canadian wilderness after their plane crashes, leading to a Lord of the Flies situation and some *gulp* cannibalism. But the show also follows the survivors decades later in their adult lives, from the difficult relationships that came out of their shared traumatic experience to the long-buried secrets that hide the grisly truths of what really happened in their teen years. The cast is A-plus, and includes Melanie Lynskey, Juliette Lewis, Christina Ricci, Tawny Cypress, and Ella Purnell.  

Tulsa King

Sylvester Stallone's crime comedy Tulsa King is yet another feather in Taylor Sheridan's cap. (He's gonna need a bigger cap!) Sly stars as a New York City mafia capo fresh out of a 25-year stint in the joint who is sent to Tulsa, Okla., to start a new criminal operation. It's a fish-out-of-water comedy with plenty of charismatic criminal characters and a cast that includes Andrea Savage, Martin Starr, and Dana Delany. 

1923

Paramount+ doesn't have the streaming rights to Yellowstone (we'll mention that more than once in this list), so it did the next best thing and made Yellowstone spin-offs. Two prequel series have aired so far — 1883 and 1923 — both set in the respective years of their titles and following Dutton family ancestors as they settle the land that Kevin Costner's John Dutton would fight to protect in present day. And while both are absolute must-watches for Yellowstone fans, 1923 is the better show if you just jump into one. It has two seasons, compared to just one for 1883, and boasts acting legends Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren as its protagonists, Jacob and Cara Dutton, who battle Prohibition, drought, and the Great Depression. 

The Good Fight

Robert and Michelle King's political and social masterpiece spin-off sticks close to its critically acclaimed CBS source material, The Good Wife, but takes full advantage of the creative freedom of the streaming world for a drama/comedy/satire that's as good at predicting the future as it is at spotlighting the present. Christine Baranski's Diane Lockhart is the central Good Wife carry-over here, as she joins Lucca Quinn (Cush Jumbo) at a Black-owned law firm in Chicago pursuing social justice cases. It's politically charged as heck, but the Kings look at hot topics — #MeToo, fake news, Trump, and a lot more — through a nuanced lens that delivers clever and surprising results, shredding moral convention through the gritted teeth of reality. The excellent cast includes Audra McDonald, Delroy Lindo, and Andre Braugher, as well as a rotating list of familiar guest stars. And, as if we had to mention it, everyone looks great.

Hidden gems and underrated favorites on Paramount+

The best of the rest

Evil

Few shows on any streamer are as good as Evil, a TV Guide favorite and our onetime pick for the best show on TV. Robert and Michelle King's supernatural drama follows a trio of investigators, played by Katja Herbers, Mike Colter, and Aasif Mandvi, looking into claims of demonic possession on behalf of the Catholic Church. The basic setup will be familiar to fans of classics like The X-Files, but Evil, which aired its first season on CBS before moving to Paramount+, is its own beast. The scripts are sharp and unpredictable, dancing from wicked humor to spiritual horror. The cinematography is operatic. And the cast — which also includes Michael Emerson as the team's gleeful antagonist — expertly balances the show's off-kilter tone. Evil is prestige TV in the form of a procedural, which is, if anything, twice as impressive as your average cable drama. -Kelly Connolly

Colin From Accounts

The charming Australian romantic comedy Colin From Accounts works largely because of the chemistry between its creators, writers, and stars Patrick Brammall and Harriet Dyer, who'd better have good chemistry since they're husband and wife in real life. It's a raunchy, laid-back comedy about two people who can't seem to stay away from each other, and the messy, comedic misadventures they find themselves in.

Joe Pickett

The little-known neo-Western Joe Pickett began as a Spectrum original before being lassoed by Paramount+ for its second and final season, no doubt because the streamer wanted to ride the wild success of fellow Western Yellowstone, which Paramount fumbled the streaming rights to. (In our opinion, Joe Pickett is better than Taylor Sheridan's juggernaut.) The always charming Michael Dorman stars as Joe, a game warden in Wyoming who makes a lot of enemies — mostly poachers — just because he's doing his job protecting the wilderness around Yellowstone National Park. When he stumbles upon the body of a hunter, the mystery begins, and Joe unearths a conspiracy involving a well-known local family. The series loves to lean into the kooky residents of the area, making it a bit more fun to watch than Yellowstone, and it still has a solid mystery at its core to keep you hooked.  

Review

Comedy Central was on a heater in the mid- to late-2010s, with a rotation that included Nathan for You, Workaholics, Key & Peele, Kroll Show, Broad City, Detroiters, and Corporate (all of which are streaming on Paramount+ and should be immediately added to your queue). But we're calling out Andy Daly's wonderfully demented Review, an adaptation of an Australian format that sees one brave man named Forrest MacNeil (Daly) review, on a scale of one to five stars, life experiences as submitted by viewers of the show. What's it like to quit your job? What's it like to put your pet to sleep? What's it like to eat 15 pancakes? Forrest has but one rule: He must fully commit himself to each review, no questions asked, which leads to his life turning into a complete disaster. We give Review five stars.

Couples Therapy*

Ignore your own issues by snooping in on someone else's. Couples Therapy, a critically acclaimed Showtime original docuseries, is exactly what it sounds like: intimate, unfiltered, and authentic therapy for New York City couples (and sometimes throuples) looking for help in their relationships as seen through hidden cameras during actual sessions. The star is Dr. Orna Guralnik, a therapist so good at her job that even you'll come away with breakthroughs. Some of the series' most insightful moments come from Guralnik seeking help from her mentor, showing the inner workings of therapists and how their clients affect their lives. It's a mesmerizing look at human psychology and the work we all need to do to be the best partners we can be.

Penny Dreadful*

Epic romance in a gothic setting might not sound too unfamiliar, but trust us when we say you have never seen a show like Showtime's Penny Dreadful. John Logan's drama features a shared universe of popular figures from literary horror, including Dr. Frankenstein and his monster, Dorian Gray, and Dr. Jekyll, as well as vampires and Lucifer, and mashes them all up in a story about human desire and supernatural power. At the center of things are Josh Hartnett's Ethan and Eva Green's Vanessa, a star-crossed couple battling demons to stay together, and Sir Malcolm Murray (Timothy Dalton), who is on a quest to find his missing daughter, Mina Harker. Green's performance is one of the most furious of the decade, and Penny Dreadful never looks anything less than gorgeous.  

The Bureau

The French series The Bureau is no stranger to being tossed around in the same sentence as The Wire and The Sopranos on account of its attention to detail, writing, and acting, and is widely considered to be one of the best spy dramas ever made. That's a lot of praise for a TV series that most people have never heard of, but give it a chance and see for yourself. It's set in the world of France's equivalent to the CIA, specifically in the department that handles deep undercover counterintelligence, and focuses on an agent (Mathieu Kassovitz) who returns from a six-year stint undercover in Damascus as he readjusts to his family life while also contending with his lover from Damascus. Showtime adapted the series in 2024 under the name The Agency, but The Bureau is much better.

The legacy classics and deep cuts

Paramount+ is the streaming home for CBS's back catalog, so alongside contemporary shows like NCIS, Tracker, and Ghosts, you'll also find I Love Lucy, The Andy Griffith Show, and Medium. Older TV shows created by Paramount Television are also included, meaning Paramount+ has popular series that aired on other networks, including the Star Trek franchise, Twin Peaks, Cheers, The Twilight Zone, and more. And of course you'll find titles from Showtime, MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, and other brands that Paramount Global owns. 

However, just because a show aired on CBS, it doesn't mean it's on Paramount+. Streaming licensing rights are usually negotiated with the studios that made the shows, as opposed to the networks that the shows aired on, so a popular CBS sitcom like The Big Bang Theory, which was made by Warner Bros. Television, isn't on Paramount+ because Warner Bros. Discovery owns HBO Max. It's complicated! But here's a partial list of some classic shows and staff favorites you can find on Paramount+:

• Avatar: The Last Airbender (Nickelodeon)
• Awkward. (MTV)
• Beavis and Butt-Head (MTV)
• Billions* (Showtime)
• Chappelle's Show (Comedy Central)
• Cheers (NBC)
• Dexter* (Showtime)
• Everybody Loves Raymond (CBS)
• Frasier (NBC)
• Freaks and Geeks (NBC)
• The Game (BET)
• The Good Wife (CBS)
• Happy Days (ABC)
• Hawaii Five-O (1968) (CBS)
• Hell on Wheels (AMC)
• Jericho (CBS)
• Key & Peele (Comedy Central)
• Kroll Show (Comedy Central)
• The L Word* (Showtime)
• Longmire (A&E)
• Love Fraud* (Showtime)
• Nathan for You (Comedy Central)
• NCIS (CBS)
• The Ren & Stimpy Show (Nickelodeon)
• Reno 911! (Comedy Central)
• RuPaul's Drag Race (Logo TV/VH1/MTV)
• SpongeBob SquarePants (Nickelodeon)
• The Star Trek franchise (various)
• Teachers (TV Land)
• The Twilight Zone (CBS)
• Twin Peaks (ABC/Showtime)
• Wonder Showzen (MTV2)