As the year is drawing to an end, there have already been some big premiers from the top streaming services. Netflix is still riding off the high of the second season of The Witcher, which premiered at the end of last year and had over two billion watched minutes within its first week. HBO Max is still basking in the success of Peacemaker, becoming the DCEU's highest-rated property. Both have an impressive catalog of content that fans can binge endlessly. Sadly, when talking about streamers, Hulu tends to get left out of the conversation, but it’s never far behind.
Indeed, Hulu has some of the best story-based series there is, whether it be original or from other networks. It also allows fans to watch their favorite shows from said networks as they air. What's more, Hulu’s shows tend to feature more down-to-earth stories and have earned numerous nominations and awards. Some of their most critically acclaimed shows are on this list as well as other high-caliber shows from networks like FX, ABC, AMC, and much more. So, as the new year begins to take off, here are the best series to watch on Hulu right now.
Updated on September 9th, 2023, by Yosra Ben lagha: This article has been updated with additional content to keep the discussion fresh and relevant with even more information and new entries.
14 Ramy
3 Seasons
Ramy follows a first-generation American Muslim man on a spiritual journey in a politically divided New Jersey. In this Hulu original, the titular character finds himself caught between his native Muslim community who views all hardships as spiritual tests, and Millennials who see life as full of possibilities and live before a God who is always watching. Through all his religious turmoil, Ramy still tries to live his life and do things that guys like him are supposed to do, like go on dates.
Ramy is a critically acclaimed look into the life of a Muslim man in America who is just like everyone else. The series is based on Ramy Youssef's own life as he produces and stars in a show about a guy torn between praying on Friday and partying on Friday nights. This show has been praised for its nuanced portrayal of Muslim people when most shows in Western media tend to depict them using egregious stereotypes. Ramy has been renewed for a third season, so if viewers try and like this series, they'll be delighted to know there is more to come.
13 Pen15
2 Seasons
Described as "cringe comedy," Pen15 follows two middle school girls struggling to navigate teenage life. Maya Ishii-Peters is a shy and sensitive Japanese-American seventh grader and is best friends with Anna Kone. Maya can be immature, but she still manages to make friends with her class clown antics. Her friend Anna is a classmate of hers and has a hard time coming to terms with her parent's divorce. She is the more mature one between her and Maya, but she is also more likely to give in to peer pressure.
All this sounds like the premise of a great teen-comedy and coming-of-age story. What makes Pen15 different can be seen by looking at the image above. Both 13-year-old characters were played by 31-year-old adults who are acting opposite actual 13-year-olds, which likely contributes to the show's cringe factor. As odd as this premise may sound, this series is loved by critics and fans alike and ran for two hilarious seasons, with the second and final finishing late last year.
12 Only Murders In The Building
3 Seasons
Only Murders in the Building unites comedy legends Steve Martin and Martin Short with pop icon Selena Gomez in a tantalizing mystery-comedy Venn diagram that has critics buzzing. It follows a washed-up Broadway director, a former actor, and an artist who share an obsession with true crime. They suddenly find themselves wrapped up in a murder mystery in their apartment building in the Upper West Side of New York when one of their neighbors is found dead.
They investigate the case themselves with a deep knowledge of true crime while recording a podcast based on their findings. Unfortunately, their obsession soon begins to turn against them when they start discovering the hidden secrets of the building, as well as the ones they kept from each other before coming to realize the killer might very well be living amongst them. Can they discover the truth before it's too late? Watch and find out.
11 Reservation Dogs
3 Seasons
From visionary director Taika Waititi and co-creator Sterlin Harjo comes Reservation Dogs. This FX comedy follows four Indigenous teens from an Oklahoma reservation as they steal to raise money to escape their everyday lives and ride off into the sunset to the magical place they believe California to be. This dream comes from their friend Daniel, who died before the show's beginning. The task is not easy, though, as many obstacles stand in the way of their goal.
They face off against substance abusers, the law, a rival gang, and, of course, guilt. But as they race to achieve Daniel's dream, they aren't looking to leave with regrets and must first tie up loose ends before going. Reservation Dogs is not just funny, it's also groundbreaking. The series, which has been renewed for a second season by FX, is brought to the screen by all-Indigenous actors, writers, and directors.
10 Wu-Tang: An American Saga
3 Seasons
Wu-Tang: An American Saga follows a fictionalized account of the legendary rap group Wu-Tang Clan. Set in the early 90s at the height of the crack cocaine epidemic in New York City, we follow the group's formation as a vision from Bobby Diggs, aka The RZA, and their rise to stardom amongst the excess and dangers that came with the epidemic. Diggs sought a way out of the drug-infested city through music, seeking to escape using achieving fame and success, as opposed to his older brother's way of working in the drug trade to provide for their family.
In this three-season series, we see how one of the most influential groups in hip-hop came together when a group of young Black men united through music to fight for recognition, battle against the drug trade, and struggle not to throw in the towel. The third and final season of the saga has been ordered and will conclude the series.
9 Lost
6 Seasons
The hit ABC original series that had everyone talking back in the 2000s is on Hulu in its entirety. Lost follows the survivors of a plane crash on a remote island as they struggle to survive and wait for help. This sounds like a survival drama, but what follows is far more complex. The story is a mystery that twists and turns relentlessly. Just when the viewer thinks they know the answers, the show changes the questions. The survivors on the island each came from different walks of life.
They were each facing some sort of dilemma before their plane crashed, making for compelling dynamics and personal stories that are gradually affected by a landscape that is far more sinister than it seems. Unfortunately for them, other forces present don't want them there and will stop at nothing to protect the islands' secrets. Fans who watched the series over a decade ago have a chance to fall in love with the series all over again. In contrast, fans who haven't seen it can experience what everyone was buzzing about before Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, and other contemporaneous hits they already know.
8 Normal People
1 Season
Nominated for two Emmys in 2020, this hit Hulu original follows two Irish students as they fall in and out of each other's love lives. While in high school, Connell is popular. Everyone loves him, but he comes from a low-class house and secretly deals with anxiety. Marianne is a social outcast but top of her class. She deals with a tumultuous home life and struggles with feeling unworthy. They both find each other from two different worlds as Connell's mom works at Marianne's house as a cleaner.
The two enter into a secret relationship, but social statuses and personal issues get in the way. However, they switch roles when they make it to college and give love a second try. Normal People is a touching, down-to-earth tale of love, acceptance, and growing up that is both wistful and tear-jerking. It's easy for viewers to see something of themselves in this show, and it's one they won't soon forget.
7 What We Do In The Shadows
5 Seasons
In a hilarious and gut-busting take on the documentary format, What We Do in the Shadows follows a group of vampires as they unleash high jinks and mayhem around Staten Island. The hit FX series is based on a film by Jemaine Clement and producer Taika Waititi's 2014 film of the same name but expands upon it. We follow three vampire roommates, their human familiar, and a being described as so dull that he sucks the life out of anyone he talks to.
They all have different personalities that tend to clash as they go through basic roommate things and deal with a technologically advanced world that both loves and fears them. This show shouldn't work as well as it does, but the concepts and characters have kept this series the funniest on network television for three straight seasons, with a fourth on the way.
6 It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia
16 Seasons
It's Always Sunny in Philidelphia is a show that has not only refused to allow its characters to grow as people but insists that they become gradually worse. The series follows the lives of "the gang," a group of irredeemable, morally corrupt, horrible people who own and operate a bar called Paddy's Pub. The 30-minute format allows the show to blow itself up every week before resetting things by the next episode.
When you accept that these people aren't going to get better over time and are in every sense unlikable, this is a fantastic show. It's over 15 seasons of bad people getting themselves into bad, often illogical, situations and then getting punished for their awfulness. This style has worked well, as it's expected to run for at least another three seasons. The series has been a crowd-pleaser for over a decade and is well on its way to becoming the longest-running comedy in history, and it's earned it, not just for managing to go so long but for remaining consistent in making fans laugh.
5 Cruel Summer
2 Seasons
Cruel Summer is definitely a catch for psychological thriller and teen drama fans. The first season follows the story of the sudden and mysterious disappearance of a very popular teenage girl: Kate (Olivia Holt) and an underdog called Jeanette (Chiara Aurelia) who idealizes her so much that she tries to take over her life during her absence. The story is told across three years in the early '90s, from two widely different perspectives: that of the victim and her unpopular friend. Jeanette's dark agenda is later revealed and her fight against the defamation that befell her almost always failed.
Season two tells a very different story. It's about another beloved teen drama theme: the famous love triangle; a bit like The Summer I Turned Pretty but not quite. When Megan's family welcomes Isabella, an exchange student who is there for a year, the two develop an intense relationship which is made even more complicated by the presence of Luke, Megan's best friend. Cruel Summer is thrilling, intense, suspenseful, and a treat for the right audience.
4 Saint X
1 Season
Hulu's limited series, Saint X, is a psychological drama based on the acclaimed 2020 novel of the same name by Alexis Schaitkin which is about the heinous rape and murder of Emily Thomas's older sister, Alison. The murder took place on an exotic vacation trip to the Caribbean 20 years earlier. Emily's dangerous journey to solve her sister's murder mystery is never given the appropriate closure as the focus, of the show is not so much on the murder itself as it is on Emily's trauma and her attempts to come to terms with such a tragic loss of someone she truly idealizes.
This compelling series displays the family drama in exciting timeline jumps that mimic Emily's fractured sense of time and self after the murder. In a broader sense, the show also offers a gentle critique of themes like race, class, Christian upbringing, and the stigma around grief.
3 The Great
3 Seasons
For those looking for visually compelling in which costumes, design, and production are a total work of art, The Great is a 'great' place to start. Created by the Oscar nominee Tony McNamara, and Starring the exquisitely talented Elle Fanning, and Nicholas Hoult, the show is a historical and satirical black comedy about the life of a woman who rises to the ruling class of Russia by marrying the emperor Peter III. Her dream life is quickly shattered when she spends enough time with her new husband to realize his selfish, childish behavior will never change. After suffering ordeal after ordeal at her husband's cruel hands, she decides to overthrow him and take his place.
Her deeply embedded belief that, in her own words: "...greatness was in store for me. A Great life, I felt. Like God himself had spat me forth to land on this Earth and in some way transform it. That I was here for a reason, a purpose." helped her have the courage to pursue her great destiny at all costs. Aside from being the most visually pleasing show on Hulu, The Great is a real testimony of female resistance in the face of unflinching masculine aggressivity. Despite all the award nominations for the show and its overwhelming popularity, Hulu, unfortunately, canceled its fourth season.
2 Tiny Beautiful Things
1 Season
Tiny Beautiful Things is a comedy-drama based on the 2012 book of the same name by Cheryl Strayed. The show stars Kathryn Hahn in one of her best performances as Claire, a 49-year-old- columnist whose present is affected by the past trauma of her mother's sudden, premature death. The timeline is split between the present, where Claire is unconsciously bringing the complexities of her trauma into her current relationships, namely with her husband Danny, and daughter Rae.
The rest takes place in the past in which she is still a teenager, played by Sarah Pidgeon, at the dawn of her mother's death. Prepare to be moved to tears, and to shiver in empathy with the character as she goes through the tough emotions of guilt, loss, anger, and shame. The series does, however, live up to its title as it displays brief sublime and blissful moments where life is not that complicated. Tiny Beautiful Things is everything anyone would want to see before they dive into a journey of introspection and self-reexamination.
1 UnPrisoned
1 Season
Comedy series UnPrisoned stars the charming Kerry Washington as Paige, an Instagram-active therapist, and single mother of a 16-year-old teenager. Her quiet routine is turned upside down when her father turns up at her doorstep after serving 17 years in prison. The series dives into several issues surrounding the reintegration of ex-cons back into the normalcy of civil life and how family plays a vital role in facilitating this integration.
The funny, witty, and light dialogue manages to mitigate the seriousness of the topic and offers the audience a chance to know the comedy actor Kerry Washington whose excellence in delivering dramatic performances sometimes overshadows her natural humor. She made bonding with an absent father, who has 17 years worth of trauma behind bars, less impossible than it looks. With a 95% Rotten Tomatoes score, this series is now considered a massive surprise hit for Hulu.