The 10 Best TV Shows of 2022

Over the past week, MovieManifesto has ranked every single TV show we watched in 2022—that’s right, all 110 of them. At long last, we’ve arrived at the finish line. But if you want to check out prior batches in the rankings, you can find them at the following links:

#s 110-96
#s 95-81
#s 80-61
#s 60-41
#s 40-31
#s 30-21
#s 20-11

10. Euphoria (HBO, Season 2; 2019 rank: 9 of 101). I know it’s ridiculous. The whole point is that it’s ridiculous. The chaotic, outlandish happenings on Euphoria—the blackmails and beatings, the kidnappings and shootouts, the elaborate student play whose production budget surely exceeded Harvard’s endowment—aren’t meant to be plausible. They’re designed to tap into the series’ melodramatic conception of teen angst—the idea that when you’re in high school, every kiss and every spat feel like seismic, life-altering events. Naturally, Season 2 expands the show’s already-sizable scope and ambition (no, I wasn’t previously familiar with Chloe Cherry’s work, why do you ask?), but the twin hearts of Euphoria remain a kind of heightened double helix: the soaring, doomed romance between Zendaya and Hunter Schafer, and the cyclonic energy of Sydney Sweeney, who plays every scene as if she’s either the neediest girl in the world or the fucking Terminator. And while Sam Levinson is far from the most subtle artist around, there’s real craft underlying his sledgehammer style, with rich colors and striking camera moves. In literal terms, Euphoria is nothing like high school. But given how boldly it evokes the swirling emotions of your past, it may as well be a documentary.

9. The White Lotus (HBO, Season 2; last year: 11 of 108). On a recent episode of the SportsAlcohol.com podcast, we debated who’s the worst character on this show. The correct answer, of course, is all of them, as Mike White has once again assembled a cluster of insufferable assholes and loaded their collective tourist voyage with heaps of jealousy, snobbery, and betrayal. But despite all of the bad behavior on display in The White Lotus, it isn’t an unpleasant sit, nor is it a clumsy indictment of American cluelessness. It is instead a surprisingly thoughtful exploration, poking beneath its miasma of wretchedness to uncover provocative insights—about the complexity of marriage, the challenges of parenthood, the corruptibility of wealth—with frankness and sincerity. In particular, the show’s juxtaposition of two relatively young couples—the seemingly enlightened one, played by Aubrey Plaza and Will Sharpe (both pitch-perfect), and the more openly superficial one, embodied by Meghann Fahy and Theo James (both revelatory)—is jarring in how it reveals uncomfortable similarities. Yet all the while, the show remains very funny and very sexy (hello, Simona Tabasco), and White’s anthropological precision doesn’t detract from his punchy entertainment. Everyone on The White Lotus may be awful in their own individual way, but together they provide one hell of a vacation.

8. Conversations with Friends (Hulu, Season 1). My favorite TV show of 2020 was Normal People, which adapted Sally Rooney’s popular novel with astonishing dynamism and grace. To say that this follow-up—which returns much of the same creative team, including director Lenny Abrahamson and writer Alice Birch—isn’t quite as masterful is to state the obvious, but the difference is less attributable to quality than modesty. Conversations with Friends is a more unassuming series, narrower in scope and quieter in tone. Yet in certain moments, it can still seem enormous, capturing huge swells of feeling with piercing clarity. As a love story, it’s classically wrenching, charting the swings from elation to heartbreak with both rigor and compassion. Yet as a study of female friendship, it’s something else; between them, newcomer Alison Oliver and emerging talent Sasha Lane (American Honey) develop a chemistry that ebbs and flows in strange and surprising ways. The title may suggest mundane chitchat, but despite its finely textured realism, this is a powerful show that will give you plenty to talk about.

7. Industry (HBO, Season 2; 2020 rank: 23 of 124). In its own way, Industry is as absurd as Euphoria, with its unending parade of sex and drugs and suffocating pressure. But while the series features very good-looking actors (Marisa Abela, Harry Lawtey, did I mention Marisa Abela?) doing very bad things, it’s far richer than its “finance babes on coke” logline suggests. As a portrait of a toxic workplace, it manages to be incisive without lapsing into pedantic talking points; its cavalcade of awfulness flows organically from the depth of its characters. And while Succession is deservedly acclaimed for the way it turns corporate warfare into Shakespearean theater, Industry’s second season is extraordinary for how it imbues seemingly prosaic scenarios with legitimate suspense; the moment in the penultimate episode when a once-vanished character waltzes into a meeting carries the force of a tidal wave. In fact, the writing shines on every level: the long-form plotting, the flavorful dialogue, the macho preening, the meticulously chosen panoply of pop-culture references. Against all odds, HBO is (theoretically) bringing the series back for a third season. Buy low while you can.

6. We Own This City (HBO, Season 1). I never bought into the critique that The Wire was copaganda—not when one of its central themes was that the police departments are fundamentally intransigent bureaucracies more focused on shining their statistics than preventing systemic crime. Still, it’s striking to see David Simon and George Pelecanos return to the world of Baltimore law enforcement with newly sharpened knives. Based on the book by Justin Fenton, We Own This City is unashamedly political, depicting a showboating task force as a cesspit of greed and corruption. But as is ever the case with Simon and Pelecanos, they burnish their argument through consummate intelligence and painstaking detail. The time-looping narrative can be difficult to track, but the series is gripping in its ground-floor particulars: the golden faucet of overtime pay, the red tape of consent decrees, the numbing boredom of surveillance. Yet for all its fastidiousness, the show is also indecently entertaining, most notably in Jon Bernthal’s electrically scummy performance as a black-hearted sergeant who lends the title unnerving credibility. The police’s conventional motto may be to protect and serve the people, but under Bernthal’s totalitarian swagger, you are less a civilian than a subject.

5. High School (Amazon Freevee, Season 1). What, you may ask, is Amazon Freevee? It’s the no-cost, ad-infested service formerly known as IMDb TV. Why, you may ask, was High School—the spiky, rapturous Canadian series inspired by the memoir of twin musicians Tegan and Sara—shunted to such an unglamorous platform? For that, I have no answer. The good news is that you only need an internet connection (not even a Prime subscription!) to plug in and be instantly transported to the immersive world of High School, a universe of cheap beer, cold nights, and big dreams. Ostensibly the story of the Quin sisters’ burgeoning infatuation with the art form that would one day make them famous, the show is insistently small-scale, chronicling a series of traditional milestones—first party, first breakup, first time plucking a guitar—with plainspoken artistry. Yet despite its modest length and efficient style, High School quickly develops a surprising sweep, along with a structural ambition that belies its economy. As befits its central duo, it bifurcates its episodes, and in so doing it quickly accommodates additional characters (including the twins’ mother, played by a quietly devastating Cobie Smulders), all of whom receive the same degree of empathy and generosity. It’s a heartwarming approach, and its enveloping sense of love extends to its viewers, compelling you to long for a world where these two petulant, loyal, innately gifted siblings might somehow age into rock stars.

4. Fleishman Is in Trouble (FX on Hulu, Season 1). Toby Fleishman is an asshole. You know this because of what he says and how he acts, but mostly because he’s played by Jesse Eisenberg, who’s unfairly well-cast as a condescending New York doctor. And from a thousand-foot view, Fleishman Is in Trouble scans as yet another portrait of an obnoxious moneyed white dude—an exposé of the first-world problems unique to coastal elites. But as the series progresses, it uncovers new vectors for its shifty story, infusing each of them with uncommon nuance and angular peculiarity. What begins as a modern sex comedy (“This is going to be fun,” an associate says when introducing Toby to dating apps) quickly morphs into an unsettling mystery (just where is his wife?) before pivoting once again into a poignant meditation on love and friendship in middle age. In articulating Toby’s frustration and entitlement, Eisenberg is preternaturally convincing, while the relatively underused Claire Danes demolishes her own private episode. Fleishman’s secret weapon, however, is Lizzy Caplan, whose honeyed voiceover lends shape to its novelistic approach, and whose independent, inchoate dissatisfaction adds strength and depth to its persistent curiosity and humanity. “You are right now as young as you will ever be,” she declares in the finale. It’s a haunting truism that’s also a helpful suggestion. Time’s wasting. Better consume great art while you can.

3. The Dropout (Hulu, Season 1). Is Elizabeth Holmes a human being, or a monster? Obviously, the answer is both, but The Dropout does more than just rigorously recreate its titular fiend’s (d)evolution from Stanford admittee to ballyhooed millionaire to disgraced convict. In its broad scale, it paints a harrowing portrait of corporate greed in which junk science can be passed off as creative genius, and in which the principles of scholarly discipline and technical rigor are sacrificed at the altar of the almighty dollar. (The late scene, in an episode pointedly titled “Old White Men,” where desperate investors abandon all sense of prudence and literally chase after Holmes is both hilarious and disturbing.) Yet as engrossing as The Dropout may be from a “How on earth did this happen?” perspective—and it’s queasily entertaining in that regard, providing a detailed look at how Holmes, in her grotesque brilliance, manipulated everyone in her orbit—it’s even more riveting as a vertiginous character study, watching impassively as one woman continually relinquishes her grip on her own humanity. To that end, the series’ greatest asset is Amanda Seyfried, who imbues Holmes with a sickly, performative detachment (not to mention a distinctly creepy voice); as her schemes grow increasingly perilous, she slices away her soul piece by piece, until she’s numbed herself to anything beyond the compulsion to succeed. It’s a phenomenal performance, one that makes you wonder whether the monster was lying within Holmes all along, or if it was a creature she slowly brought into being—the only true invention she ever made.

2. The English (Amazon, Season 1). If there’s one unheralded artist working in modern television whom I could champion, it would be Hugo Blick, the British showrunner whose prior series—which include The Shadow Line, The Honourable Woman, and Black Earth Rising—are all marvels of labyrinthine intrigue and self-contained suspense. The English is in some ways his simplest work; it has comparatively fewer characters, and its tale of old-West conflict is relatively accessible. In other ways, it’s his most ambitious series yet, with wide-screen compositions and sprawling emotions and a story that spans decades and continents. Part soaring romance, part action movie, and part elegiac lament, The English crams a massive amount of material into its six tidy episodes, yet it never feels hectic or overstuffed. As its central pairing, Emily Blunt (decked out in multiple magnificent dresses) and Chaske Spencer bring the necessary yearning, but this is more than a keening love story; it’s a meditation on the whole damn American experiment, complete with branded bodies and ungodly rifles and new frontiers ripe for desecrating and pillaging. (Appearing in just two episodes, Rafe Spall creates one of the most mesmerizing and despicable villains I’ve ever seen.) It’s an unflinching look at the rapacious ugliness of our nation’s history. It’s also beautiful.

1. Better Call Saul (AMC, Season 6; 2020 rank: 2). Boring choice, I know. But among the many lessons Better Call Saul taught us over six spectacular seasons is that long-anticipated outcomes can still surprise you. As the series delivers its final episodes, the once-mild concerns about its split personality—how it needed to make room for its own “lawyer show” while constantly inching ever closer to the landmark events of its predecessor—have vanished. It is now a relentless thriller and a silky legal drama at the same time, and as it speeds ever faster toward its inexorable conclusion—finally achieved with a time jump set to a Journey song that will surely go down as one of television’s signature moments—it never relinquishes its lightning-quick wit or its filigreed sense of detail. The set pieces are breathless in their tension and staging, while the acting—in particular the achingly subtle glances and gestures of Rhea Seehorn—is note-perfect across the board.

So let’s ask straight up: Is Better Call Saul better than Breaking Bad? Honestly, I’m not really interested in answering that question; that it can even be seriously asked is a testament to the prequel’s exquisite craft and ceaseless reinvention. Still, I can’t help but wonder. Among the many memorable totems sprinkled throughout the show’s venerable iconography is the “World’s 2nd Best Lawyer” mug that Seehorn’s Kim gifts Bob Odenkirk’s Jimmy—both a playful jab of superiority and a gesture of genuine affection. One can imagine Breaking Bad bestowing similar praise on its follow-up. Yet in the end, for all its audacious twists and turns, the most shocking thing about Better Call Saul is how it calls the accuracy of that mug into question. With its masterful writing and bravura execution, it arguably renders the ordinal superfluous.

(For the complete list of our 2022 TV rankings, click here.)