These were the 10 best streaming TV shows of 2022

2022 saw streaming services add not just a ton of new shows for subscribers to binge-watch but also a lot of returning shows that had their best seasons yet. It took a while, but we managed to pick our favorite streaming TV shows of 2022, along with a few extra honorable mentions. It’s highly unlikely that you have watched all of the shows on this list, so you can spend the rest of 2022 catching up on some of the best TV series of the year.

The best streaming TV shows of 2022

Stranger Things — Season 4 (Netflix)

What you need to know:

• Rating: TV-14
• Seasons: 4
• Director/Creator: The Duffer Brothers
• Main cast:  Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Millie Bobby Brown, Finn Wolfhard, Gaten Matarazzo
• Date released: 2016
• Ratings: 8.7 — IMDB / 92% — Rotten Tomatoes

We had a long wait for Stranger Things Season 4, and the wait was worth it. This season was split into several different plotlines and locations, from Eleven living a new life in a California town to Sherrif Hopper trying to get out of Siberia in the Soviet Union and back to Hawkins, Indiana, where a new threat from the Upside Down is killing teenagers. It’s jam-packed with surprises and huge changes for some of the characters we have loved over the past three seasons.

All of these storylines converge into two massive finale episodes which we won’t spoil here. Stranger Things will end with its fifth season in 2024, but it’ll be tough to top its penultimate season.

Star Wars Andor — Season 1 (Disney Plus)

What you need to know:

• Rating: TV-14
• Seasons: 1
• Director/Creator: Tony Gilroy
• Main cast:  Diego Luna, Stellan Skarsgard, Genevieve O’Reilly, Forest Whitaker, Adria Arjona
• Date released: 2021
• Ratings: 8.4 — IMDB / 96% — Rotten Tomatoes

While we have loved many of the Disney Plus Star Wars live-action shows, particularly The Mandalorian, Andor looks and feels like an entirely different show. It’s set at the height of the Galactic Empire, where a growing number of people, including thief Cassian Andor, are finally starting to secretly organize a rebellion.

Diego Luna leads a great cast in this series, and the more adult and gritty tone works very well inside the Star Wars universe. The second and final season of Andor can’t get here soon enough.

Evil — Season 3 (Paramount Plus)

What you need to know:

• Rating: TV-14
• Seasons: 3
• Director/Creator: Michelle King, Robert King
• Main cast:  Katja Herbers, Mike Colter, Aasif Mandvi, Michael Emerson, Christine Lahti
• Date released: 2019
• Ratings: 7.7 — IMDB / 95% — Rotten Tomatoes

Some people might think this show is a rehash of The X-Files. It’s not. Evil doesn’t have an alien mythology storyline. Instead, it’s all about a team (two skeptics and one possible believer) that’s sent out by the Catholic Church to investigate supposed supernatural occurrences.

The third season’s theme shows that demons are trying more and more to possess, or at least influence, humans. These demonic encounters really get into the minds of the three main characters in different ways. David, the priest, has an especially personal encounter with a demon that we won’t spoil here. Oh, and props to Michael Emerson — best known as Lost’s ultra-creepy Benjamin Linus — who pops in to play an even creepier character in this show.

Severance — Season 1 (Apple TV Plus)

What you need to know:

• Rating: TV-MA
• Seasons: 1
• Director/Creator: Dan Erickson
• Main cast: Adam Scott, Britt Lower, Patricia Arquette, Zach Cherry, Tramell Tillman
• Date released: 2022
• Ratings: 8.7 — IMDB / 97% — Rotten Tomatoes

Severance is like a great episode of The Twilight Zone but stretched out over a whole season. The premise is simple; we follow a man (Adam Scott) who works at a mysterious company in a department that requires workers to separate their memories in two. One half remains confined within the clinical walls of the company, while the other — the “outie” — lives a normal, work-free life on the outside.

We see some weird rituals at this company when Scott’s character is at work, but what’s even more interesting is seeing him outside of work, where he, and the audience, begin to realize that there’s something more sinister going on in this business.

Reservation Dogs — Season 2 (Hulu)

What you need to know:

• Rating: TV-MA
• Seasons: 2
• Director/Creator: Sterlin Harjo, Taika Waititi
• Main cast:  D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Devery Jacobs, Paulina Jewel Alexis, Lane Factor, Elva Guerra
• Date released: 2021
• Ratings: 8.1 — IMDB / 99% — Rotten Tomatoes

One of the best debut shows of 2021 continues to be one of the best streaming TV shows in its second season. This series is all about the funny and sometimes dramatic adventures of four Native American teenagers. They live on an Oklahoma reservation, but they believe they are actually big-time criminals. In the second season, one of the members of the group actually leaves the reservation to go live in California.

You would think that this show’s premise would limit the kinds of storylines you could watch, but you would be wrong. We learn much more about not only the core case but also the many supporting characters that have their own unique touches and quirks.

Peacemaker — Season 1 (HBO Max)

What you need to know:

• Rating: TV-MA
• Seasons: 1
• Director/Creator: James Gunn
• Main cast: John Cena, Danielle Brooks, Freddie Stroma, Chukwudi Iwuji, Jennifer Holland
• Date released: 2022
• Ratings: 8.1 — IMDB / 94% — Rotten Tomatoes

In a TV world full of superhero shows of all types, Peacemaker is definitely a standout. While not as gory or as wild as The Boys (more on that show later), Peacemaker is a unique look at the superhero character. Played by John Cena, the titular hero is a highly skilled assassin, but is a complete disaster in his daily life. He gets a second chance when he joins a secret team that’s investigating an alien invasion.

Writer-director James Gunn gives this show a 1980s heavy metal look and feel, which includes one of the best TV show openings of all time. Gunn is now in charge of all of DC’s movies and TV shows, but we hope he will have some time to write and direct some of this show’s second season.

The Boys — Season 3 (Amazon Prime Video)

What you need to know:

• Rating: TV-MA
• Seasons: 3
• Director/Creator: Eric Kripke
• Main cast: Karl Urban, Jack Quaid, Antony Starr, Erin Moriarty, Dominique McElligott
• Date released: 2019
• Ratings: 8.7 — IMDB / 93% — Rotten Tomatoes

The Boys keeps getting better from season to season. This show has become infamous for how its group of superheroes get really violent and gory, but season three gives the characters a bit more time to just talk to each other. Homelander is trying to reform his public image. Things get even more complicated when a previously lost superhero, Soldier Boy (a thinly veiled satire on Captain America) is brought out of stasis. Homelander feels threatened, and that conflict keeps escalating as the season progresses. Oh, and there’s the Herogasam episode. We won’t say anything more.

The Bear — Season 1 (Hulu)

What you need to know:

• Rating: TV-MA
• Seasons: 1
• Director/Creator: Christopher Storer
• Main cast: Jeremy Allen White, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Ayo Edebiri, Abby Elliott, Lionel Boyce
• Date released: 2022
• Ratings: 8.4 — IMDB / 100% — Rotten Tomatoes

This Hulu series came out of nowhere, with very little publicity and advanced hype, and it turned into a cult hit. The premise is that a well-trained high-end chef comes back to his family’s neighborhood restaurant in Chicago to try to bring it back to life with his own menu. He has to deal with his employees, who may not appreciate that he’s trying to elevate the restaurant’s cuisine.

This show is not only about family and redemption. It’s also about food, and how it can bring people together. This drama shows how such a restaurant can create a community, both inside and outside.

For All Mankind — Season 3 (Apple TV Plus)

What you need to know:

• Rating: TV-MA
• Seasons: 3
• Director/Creator:  Ronald D. Moore, Matt Wolpert, Ben Nedivi
• Main cast: Joel Kinnaman, Shantel VanSanten, Jodi Balfour, Sonya Walger, Krys Marshall
• Date released: 2019
• Ratings: 8.0 — IMDB / 90% — Rotten Tomatoes

While this is not the first TV show that takes place in an alternate timeline, it may be the best example of a show in the subgenre. In a timeline where the Soviet Union put a man on the moon first, For All Mankind extrapolates what the Earth would be like after that event.

In the third season, we time jump to this universe’s version of the 1990s. The Moon is now colonized so the next step for the space programs of this world is to head to Mars. Not only are the US and the Soviet Union trying to be the first to the red planet, but a third major force is making its own attempt. It’s great stuff for sci-fi fans and TV drama as well.

The Sandman — Season 1 (Netflix)

What you need to know:

• Rating: TV-MA
• Seasons: 1
• Director/Creator: Neil Gaiman, David S. Goyer, Allan Heinberg
• Main cast:  Tom Sturridge, Gwendoline Christie, Vivienne Acheampong, Boyd Holbrook, Charles Dance
• Date released: 2022
• Ratings: 7.7 — IMDB / 86% — Rotten Tomatoes

This very faithful adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s acclaimed fantasy-horror comic covers the first few issues of the original run. We see Dream, a member of the magical group called the Endless, get captured and held for decades by a cult on Earth. Dream, also known as the Sandman, is finally freed of his magical prison and goes out to rediscover not only himself but other beings that he was in charge of before his capture.

The Sandman is one of the best-looking TV shows of 2022 and is very faithful to the source material. Thankfully, we will be getting a second season at some point.

Best streaming TV shows of 2022 — honorable mentions

Here are a few more great streaming TV shows that just missed our top 10 list:

• The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power — Season 1 (Amazon Prime Video) — The first season of this prequel to the J.R.R. Tolkien novels was a bit uneven, but it looked awesome, and the storylines got better as the season went along.
• Slow Horses — Seasons 1-2 (Apple TV Plus) — A terrifically funny UK spy series with a stand-out performance by Gary Newman.
• Ms. Marvel — Season 1 (Disney Plus) — 2022’s Marvel Cinematic Universe TV shows were not quite as good as 2021’s, but this youth-orientated series about a teenage superhero was light-hearted fun.
• Hacks — Season 2 (HBO Max) — Jean Smart is still funny but also a bit sad as the Las Vegas comedy legend who, in season two, takes her act on the road.
• Harley Quinn — Season 3 (HBO Max) — This R-rated animated comedy set in the DC superhero universe is still as funny and outrageous as ever.
• Our Flag Means Death — Season 1 (HBO Max) — This was marketed as a pirate comedy, but stay with it: It’s actually about something else.
• Shining Girls — Season 1 (Apple TV Plus) — Elizabeth Moss is excellent in this wibbly-wobbly serial killer drama.

Those are our picks for the best streaming TV shows of 2022. Do you agree with our list? If not, which shows would you include? Let us know in the comments!