The American Film Institute has released its picks for the best TV shows of 2023, with its annual list of titles this time around spotlighting both new and returning series from Netflix, HBO, Hulu, and Apple TV+. Amazon’s Freevee service also grabbed one spot on the ranking, for its hilarious mockumentary Jury Duty — while Amazon’s other streaming TV service, Prime Video, was shut out completely.
Four of the TV shows are freshman series, while four are also now into their third year. The institute announced the AFI Awards 2023 recipients in Los Angeles on Thursday, and the actual awards will be handed out in January during an event at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills. AFI’s best TV shows of the year include:
- Abbott Elementary
- The Bear
- Beef
- Jury Duty
- The Last of Us
- The Morning Show
- Only Murders in the Building
- Poker Face
- Reservation Dogs
- Succession
“As our nation and our world continue to navigate difficult times, AFI is honored to shine a proper light upon these works of art that lift us up and, ultimately, lead us to empathy,” said Bob Gazzale, AFI President and CEO, in a statement. “That we do so without competition is AFI’s hallmark, and we are proud to gather this community of artists together — as one — to celebrate their extraordinary contributions to our time.”
Overall, it’s a fairly decent, if not largely predictable, list. Some of the TV shows missing from it, in my opinion, include Apple’s Drops of God — an emotional powerhouse of a series about a succession battle over the estate of a French wine expert — as well as Netflix’s still relatively new-ish Blue Eye Samurai. Meanwhile, go deeper into our coverage of all things streaming TV content right here.
