The 15 Best TV Shows On Amazon Prime Video, Ranked

In the modern era of streaming services dominating the television landscape, it can be difficult to find something to watch. This is especially true if you’re not one to keep up with great shows as they’re airing, as many of the best binge-worthy TV shows to watch can become buried in endless libraries of content, both new and old. With Apple TV+ ruling the cultural moment with shows like “Severance” and “The Studio,” you may have forgotten a time not too long ago when all the best shows were on Amazon Prime Video.

Amazon Prime Video might be a go-to streaming service when you’re looking for the latest theatrical release that’s hit digital, but there are also plenty of underrated TV shows on Prime Video you’ve probably never seen. Additionally, shows from Amazon Prime Video have also swept at the Emmys and racked up some of the highest budgets in modern-day TV. Fret not; this list is a guide to all the best shows on Prime Video you may or may not have seen already. 

You might have heard of “Daisy Jones & the Six” before, considering that before it was a hit show on Prime Video, it was an acclaimed novel by Taylor Jenkins Reid released in 2019. It tells the fictional story of the titular 1970s rock band, with Riley Keough as Daisy Jones herself. Keough is more than an inspired choice to play the lead singer of a classic rock band, considering she’s an actor you might not know is a nepo baby – she’s the granddaughter of Elvis Presley. Other main cast members include Sam Claflin as band leader Billy, Camila Morrone as his wife Camila, and Suki Waterhouse as keyboardist Karen. 

While the story takes inspiration from the real-life histories of bands like Fleetwood Mac and the Eagles, those who watch this series on Prime Video might walk away humming this band’s own fictional hits. Luckily, there’s lots to love about its soundtrack with contributions from Phoebe Bridgers and Marcus Mumford, making this a series worth watching, even if it’s an electrifying musical act that burns bright then fizzles out. 

“Upload” is quite unique for a streaming service sitcom, but it has some heavyweights behind the scenes, as its creator is the one and only Greg Daniels, who adapted the U.K.’s “The Office” into one of the best sitcoms of all time. It takes place in the near future, where humans can upload their consciousnesses to virtual worlds and continue living after they die, only for Nathan (Robbie Amell) to find himself trapped in an afterlife designed by his controlling girlfriend, Ingrid (Allegra Edwards), forced into a heaven meant to keep them together.

The show began in 2020 and has run for three seasons, with a fourth and final one on the way, making it the perfect show to watch if you want something short and original. It’s certainly one of the best sci-fi shows on Amazon Prime Video, and has a lot of uniqueness despite sharing some similarities in premise with another “The Office” writer/producer’s subsequent series, Michael Schur’s NBC sitcom “The Good Place.” 

On the opposite spectrum of sci-fi from “Upload,” “Outer Range,” which debuted in 2022, combines sci-fi mystery with Western aesthetics for a truly original series that should’ve been one of the most controversial TV show cancellations ever. Josh Brolin stars as Royal Abbott, a northwestern rancher who encounters a mysterious void on his property, and from it, an enigmatic young woman named Autumn (Imogen Poots), but that’s only just the beginning of this mind-bending sci-fi series that will remind audiences of shows like “Westworld” or “Stranger Things.” 

All in all, “Outer Range” is a sci-fi western carried by Brolin and the rest of the workhorse cast. Even though it was unjustly cancelled by Amazon Prime Video after two seasons, hopefully that won’t be the end of this fascinating world. As far as Prime Video exclusives go, “Outer Range” is one of the most underrated the streaming service has to offer, so maybe if everyone who reads this gives it a watch, Amazon will have no choice but to bring it back for a third season, or maybe even a movie?

Amazon had a bona fide hit on their hands last year with “My Lady Jane,” based on a novel by Jodi Meadows, Brodi Ashton, and Cynthia Hand. However, Prime Video canceled “My Lady Jane” shortly after the release of its first season, even though it had strong reviews and the approval of George R.R. Martin, whose recommendation in the world of TV fantasy should mean something. Maybe there’s still hope for it to be saved, but for now, Prime Video subscribers have eight episodes of it to enjoy. 

Emily Bader stars in the historical fantasy as Lady Jane Grey, in a version of Tudor-era England half-populated by Ethians, or humans who are capable of shape-shifting into animal forms. Jane is, typical for the time period, being forced into a marriage with Lord Guildford Dudley (Edward Bluemel), himself an Ethian, as they navigate a divided England on the brink of civil war between humans and shape-shifters. Amazon, take note, we wanna see “My Lady Jane” continue after that cliffhanger in episode 8!

The 1992 Penny Marshall film “A League of Their Own” might be the best sports movie of all time, so it’s no wonder Prime Video adapted it into a series in 2022 along with modern feminist sensibilities. Like the film version, “A League of Their Own” finds the MLB creating a women’s league to prevent bankruptcy during World War II. The cast includes Abbi Jacobson, D’Arcy Carden, Chanté Adams, and Kate Berlant as baseball players who not only struggle with making it in a male-dominated sport but are also exploring their sexualities while their husbands are away at war. 

Many critics felt the “A League of Their Own” series was a bold swing that only partly misses, praising the cast and the recreation of iconic moments from the original film. Of course, there are some moments that are impossible to do justice to, including the memorable moment that came from one throwaway line, but it definitely felt like a step backward for Amazon to opt to cancel the series rather than let this incredibly progressive and refreshing project keep going. 

It seems like a lost cause to explore the world of Middle-Earth without the visionary genius of Peter Jackson, but that’s only part of what makes “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” one of the most ambitious TV projects in recent years. Debuting in 2022, “The Rings of Power” takes the case as one of the most expensive TV shows ever made, with the first season’s budget reportedly crossing the $1 billion threshold. But as the best moments in “The Rings of Power” prove, that ballooned budget is all going towards the sheer scale of the action. 

Taking place thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien’s original books, “The Rings of Power” stars Morfydd Clark as a young Galadriel, who is suspicious that the era of peace in Middle-Earth is coming to an end. This turns out to be true, as unbeknownst to her, Sauron is about to rise. The second season earned even more praise than the first for raising the stakes and being the most visually impressive fantasy show on TV, though some may always view the sweeping fantasy series as yearning to recapture the magic of Peter Jackson’s trilogy. 

It’s certainly impossible to recapture the chemistry between Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie from the 2005 film “Mr. & Mrs. Smith,” but thankfully, the 2024 Amazon series takes a different approach to the premise of two spies being married to each other. Co-created by Donald Glover and Francesca Sloane, Glover stars as “John,” an assassin hired to adopt a new identity with a stranger, “Jane” (played by Maya Erskine), as a married couple, only for their actual romance to complicate the high-octane missions they’re assigned. 

Although some expected “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” to go out on a high note after season 1’s ending, Amazon has renewed it for a second season, turning it into an anthology. Whether those future seasons live up to the first remains to be seen, but there’s enough to appreciate about how elegantly the first season is done. That includes its star-studded list of guests, including John Turturro, Parker Posey, and Paul Dano, who also help make it worth watching. 

Although “Catastrophe” is not an Amazon original, as it debuted on Channel 4 in the U.K. in 2015, each series headed straight to Prime Video for the United States. Rob Delaney and Sharon Horgan star as two strangers who, after a week-long fling, must become a couple when she discovers she’s pregnant with his baby. Though it mostly aired in obscurity during its four-season run that ended in 2019, “Catastrophe” still might be one of the best comedy shows on Amazon Prime right now. 

While “Catastrophe” has a lot of laughs, it’s worth a mention mostly for its heart. The relationship between Rob and Sharon evolves beautifully over the course of the show, which is a testament to their stellar performances. Speaking of performances, one recurring actor who definitely deserves a mention here is Carrie Fisher, who appeared as Rob’s mother in five episodes of the show before her untimely passing in 2016. 

Movies and TV shows based on video games have a pretty bad reputation, mostly because even the best video game movies are wildly inaccurate to the source material they’re based on. One surprising exception to this was last year’s stellar video game adaptation “Fallout,” a Prime Video series based on the post-apocalyptic RPG franchise of the same name. In the near-future setting of “Fallout,” nuclear war has forced the population of Earth into a series of underground vaults, where inhabitants are unknowingly subjected to psychological experimentation. 

Ella Purnell stars as Lucy, a young woman who leaves Vault 33, where she’s lived her entire life, in search of her father, played by Kyle McLachlan. On the road, she encounters many eclectic characters, including Walton Goggins as the enigmatic Ghoul, a bounty hunter who has been gravely deformed from nuclear mutation. The show’s already been renewed for two additional seasons, indicating that Amazon has a lot of faith in the longevity of this series as a pop culture phenomenon, so if you haven’t seen it already, why stay out of the loop?

“The Legend of Vox Machina” is the sole animated series on this list, but it’s definitely the one such show on Prime Video you should watch, whether you’re a fan of “Dungeons & Dragons” or not. The show is based on the first campaign of the “D&D” web series “Critical Role,” which features voice actors including Matthew Mercer, Ashley Johnson, and Laura Bailey, all of whom reprise their characters for the TV adaptation. It’s a story about finding strength in faith and friendship, but you don’t have to have seen any of “Critical Role” to enjoy this series. 

Condensing “Critical Role” for “The Legend of Vox Machina” was as hard as it sounds, as the show maintains the beautiful, natural narrative of the tabletop RPG campaign as well as the stellar performances of its cast. After its first season was released to critical acclaim in 2022, the second and third seasons premiered in 2023 and 2024, respectively, with a fourth currently in production. If you love fantasy TV of any kind, “The Legend of Vox Machina” is not one to ignore. 

It may seem like a no-brainer to adapt the “Jack Reacher” novels by Lee Child (the pseudonym of author Jim Grant) into live-action, but nobody could’ve predicted “Reacher” would become TV’s best action show. Surprisingly, the Tom Cruise-led adaptation in 2012 was the one that received backlash from fans, while Alan Ritchson appears to be a much more accurate Reacher for fans. In the series, Reacher is a former military major who drifts across the United States, fighting crime and investigating local homicides. 

For what it’s worth, “Reacher” perfectly adapts the action that has garnered the book series so many fans, with even its detractors admitting that it’s an easily bingeable, pulpy series that’s been missing from the television landscape for the past few years. The show premiered in 2022 and has since aired two additional seasons as of 2025, with a fourth currently in production. The show’s not only well-reviewed and popular, but it also received a surprise visitor on the set recently in former president Joe Biden. 

“The Boys” might be one of the most popular shows on Prime Video at the moment, but it’s far from the most easily digestible. Based on the comic book series by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, “The Boys” takes place in a world where superheroes are corporatized by a company known as Vought International. Antony Starr plays Homelander, a sociopathic Superman-type who leads a superhero team known as The Seven, which is opposed by the titular non-superpowered vigilante team, including Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) and Hughie (Jack Quaid). The ensemble cast also includes Erin Moriarty, Chace Crawford, and Karen Fukuhara, who all play superheroes on various spectrums from good to evil.

You don’t have to be watching this show to know about the most brutal moments in “The Boys,” many of which have drawn criticism for their depiction of sexual assault and for garnering a right-wing fanbase. You can love it or hate it, but there’s no denying that there are few shows on television as bold and unapologetic as “The Boys,” even if it might make you long for the days when the Marvel Cinematic Universe made genuinely good movies. 

Philip K. Dick’s 1962 novel “The Man in the High Castle” is one of the most iconic alternate history stories of all time, taking place shortly after the end of World War II in a timeline where the Axis Powers defeated America, resulting in a country controlled by both Nazi Germany and Japan. Alexa Davalos stars as Juliana, a young woman living in a Japanese-controlled San Francisco, who joins an antifascist resistance led by the titular Man in the High Castle (Stephen Root), who has newsreels depicting the Allied victory over the Axis Powers from other universes. 

“The Man in the High Castle” aired for four seasons between 2015 and 2019, and was one of the biggest early successes of Amazon’s original series. It was an incredibly prescient series as it originally aired, and only gets more relevant as it ages. If any Amazon original series gave the streamer the credibility it now has, it was this beautifully done drama that is as underrated as it gets. 

Amy Sherman-Palladino is a prolific writer in television, having wrapped up a seven-year stint creating and showrunning “Gilmore Girls” a decade before the premiere of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.” However, it’s hard to imagine Sherman-Palladino will ever top “Mrs. Maisel,” a comedy following what happens after a housewife in the late 1950s, Midge (Rachel Brosnahan), whose husband Joel (Michael Zegen) abruptly leaves her for his dim-witted secretary, stumbles into a comedy club looking for her Pyrex and ends up on stage discovering that, according to barkeep Susie (Alex Borstein), she has a gift for stand-up. 

The first two seasons are picture-perfect, and while there’s some narrative stumbling that goes on during the third and fourth, the series finished strong, with season 5’s riskiest choice improving the show in every way. It’s no surprise, though, that during its high point, Brosnahan and Borstein walked away with acting Emmys, as did Tony Shalhoub (who plays Midge’s short-tempered father) and Luke Kirby (who plays the legendary Lenny Bruce), and the show won plenty of other awards to boot. Rightfully so, because it’d be unfair not to reward a show that leans on performances as dynamite as the ones in “Mrs. Maisel.” 

How many reasons can we give you to watch (or re-watch) “Fleabag” right this second? Not only is it one of the best British TV shows of all time, with a total of 12 episodes that are as short as they incredible, but it’s also just flat-out funny. Who among us did not burst out in laughter at the end of the iconic monologue that kicks off the show’s first episode? Phoebe Waller-Bridge stars as a young woman struggling to get her life together after the sudden death of her best friend and business partner, with a stellar supporting cast including Sian Clifford as her stiff sister Claire, Olivia Colman as her evil stepmother, and in season 2, Andrew Scott as an enigmatic but charming priest. 

It’s easy to write “Fleabag” off as just a funny show, but what really makes it one of the most incredibly shows ever made is the fact that Waller-Bridge is so adept at walking the line between comedy and drama. The show is as heartbreaking as it is hilarious, able to switch back and forth between highs and lows effortlessly. It’ll make you laugh, it’ll make you cry, it’ll make you laugh so hard you cry and cry so hard you laugh. TV just simply does not get better than this show, so hopefully the folks at Amazon Prime Video count their blessings every day that its American release is exclusive to their streaming service.