While Netflix seemingly led the way for other streaming networks to create compelling original programming, Hulu actually beat them all to the punch. In 2011, a year before Netflix’s Lilyhammer and two years before the arrival of House of Cards, the burgeoning streamer premiered The Morning After, a pop-culture-focused news show that ran for 800 episodes over three years.
Hulu has continued to make TV history in the years since, most notably in 2017 when it became the first streamer to win an Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series with The Handmaid’s Tale (which recently dropped its long-awaited final season). In the years since, the streamer has continued to match—and often exceed—that high bar for quality entertainment with shows such as Shōgun, which set an Emmy record in 2024 with 18 wins in a single season, and The Bear.
While more competition has popped up since Hulu started gaining critical credibility, the network has continued to stand out for its carefully curated selection of original series and network partnerships that make it the home of FX series and more. Below are some of our favorite shows streaming on Hulu right now.
Not finding what you’re looking for? Head to WIRED’s guide to the best TV shows on Amazon Prime, the best TV shows on Disney+, and the best shows on Netflix. Have other suggestions for this list? Let us know in the comments.
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A Thousand Blows
If Netflix’s Emmy juggernaut Adolescence has you seeking out more of Stephen Graham’s work, check out Steven Knight’s A Thousand Blows—the Peaky Blinders creator’s newest British historical drama in which crime and violence collide. In this case it’s an all-female crime syndicate, the Forty Elephants, who are at the center of the action, with Mary Carr (fellow Adolescence star Erin Doherty) as their leader. When Mary’s crew crosses notorious kingpin Sugar Goodson (Graham), she turns to Hezekiah Moscow (Malachi Kirby) and Alec Munroe (Francis Lovehall), two young men who have recently emigrated from Jamaica in order to make a better life for themselves, to help her escape Goodson’s wrath. On January 9, just two days before both Graham and Doherty won Golden Globes for their work on Adolescence, the second season of A Thousand Blows arrived on Hulu with both stars’ characters trying to climb their way back up from the bottom to reclaim their prior glory—a gritty prospect, but an intriguing one to watch.
Tell Me Lies
At first glance, Tell Me Lies—based on Carola Lovering’s 2018 novel—could sound like a bit of a guilty pleasure: Lucy Albright (Grace Van Patten) arrives as a freshman at the fictional Baird College, where she meets Stephen DeMarco (Jackson White) and they have what appears to be a casual fling. Despite a number of red flags, and being dealt some serious blows of personal trauma, Lucy finds herself seeking solace in Stephen. But their relationship is a complicated one, and really not a “relationship” at all most of the time. Yet their shared, and very messy, connection continues over a span of nearly a decade, with the narrative jumping back and forth in time to illustrate the ties that bind them. The first three episodes of season 3 arrived on January 13, with Van Patten continuing to impress as the show’s most compelling reason to watch.
The Manipulated
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