From Shōgun to Star Wars, here are the best series on Disney+

Disney+ has a wide range of TV shows, from exclusive originals like Star Wars: The Mandalorian and WandaVision to classic animated series including The Simpsons and Gargoyles.

That’s not even mentioning decades of Marvel cartoons, all the Star Wars animated series, loads of the best shows from the Disney Channel, a few Pixar spin-offs, and somehow even more besides, with a library that’s grown even bigger with the inclusion of Star, opening up a huge collection of shows from Hulu, FX, Fox, and more.

Luckily for you, we’ve watched hours of the stuff, and here are the shows you shouldn’t miss – we’re keeping it updated every month too.

If you’d prefer a film, then take a look at our picks of the best movies on Disney+. We’ve also rounded up the best TV shows on Amazon Prime, Netflix, and Now TV. 

Only Murders in the Building

This comedic whodunnit features some incredible cameos, snappy editing and clues scattered throughout that will have you putting on your detective cap every week.

Charles, Oliver and Mable first meet when a person in their apartment building is found dead under suspicious circumstances. United by their love of true crime podcasts, the three come together to track down the killer and record their findings.

Now is the perfect time to start this series, as season 4 of Only Murders in the Building is rolling out now on Disney+. This time, the podcasting trio is heading to Hollywood.

Shōgun

FX’s limited series Shōgun has been taking audiences by storm, with incredible cinematography and an equally thrilling plot.

The show follows the story of English sailor John Blackthorne, who is shipwrecked near the Izu Peninsula on the southwestern coast of Japan, making him the first Englishman to reach the country. After arriving, he becomes a pawn in multiple people’s plans for power over the country.

The Mandalorian

Let’s be honest – this is why most people came to Disney+ in the first place. The Mandalorian is a live-action Star Wars spin-off by Jon Favreau. If you’d like to see a Western take on the biggest space franchise out there – and watch one of the cutest side characters ever – then this is one to watch.

Three seasons are available, with a fourth and a movie on the way. Plus, multiple spin-off shows have been made (or are in the works).

WandaVision

The first original Marvel show on Disney+ is a doozy. Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany star as Avengers members Scarlet Witch and Vision, but this time around they’re the stars of their own ’50s sitcom. Which suddenly, becomes a ’60s sitcom, then moves to the ’70s… and why can’t either of them remember where they’re from or how they got here?

WandaVision is weird, wonderful, and not like any Marvel movie or show so far – plus it’s essential viewing for Agatha All Along, which is rolling out now.

The Simpsons

Netflix has Friends, Amazon has The Office, and Disney+ has The Simpsons. In the long run, this’ll be the most popular thing on the platform – and with more than 30 seasons worth of comedy to binge, there’s no chance you’ll run out any time soon. They’ve even fixed the aspect ratio so you can watch old episodes in the original 4:3.

Overwhelmed by the options? We’ve picked out the best Simpsons episodes ever to help you decide where to start.

Ms. Marvel

This Marvel mini-series is another attempt to branch out from the superhero staples.

Newcomer Iman Vellani plays Kamala Khan, a Pakistani-American teenager in New Jersey who’s also a superhero obsessive herself. It’s while cosplaying as Captain Marvel that she discovers her own powers, awakened by an ancient bracelet.

The show is both a great exploration of a young, ground-level superhero dealing with small-scale threats, and an amazing look inside a community that’s always been under-represented in American TV. It helps that Vellani is a monumental talent, quickly elevating this to some of the most joyous Marvel output yet.

She’ll also appear alongside Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel this year in big screen outing The Marvels, so make sure you tune into the show to get caught up beforehand.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars

Dave Filoni’s CGI Star Wars series was always more than the kids’ cartoon it appears to be, but it’s since gone on to become the cornerstone of the modern Star Wars universe.

Not only did it spawn other animated series in Stars Wars Rebels, Resistance, and now Disney+ exclusive The Bad Batch, but characters that Clone Wars introduced are now key to The Mandalorian and its own upcoming spin-offs.

Over seven seasons and an introductory movie the show dug deep into the galaxy’s grandest conflict, building from a childish cartoon to something as intense and emotional as any of the films. It almost makes up for the prequels.

If you want even more, check out Genndy Tartakovsky’s 2D shorts, billed on Disney+ as ‘Clone Wars 2D Micro-Series’. They’re a quick watch, but great fun.

Loki

Tom Hiddleston’s Disney+ standalone show is devoted to his Marvellous take on the Norse god of mischief.

This spin-off follows a Loki captured by the Time Variance Authority – including Owen Wilson’s Agent Mobius – and tasked with helping them to catch a killer threatening the safety of all space and time. 

Needless to say things are not so straightforward, but across the series’ twists and turns we get a fascinating explanation of a character searching for his glorious purpose, and a whole lot of twisty Marvel lore too – especially in season two.

Atlanta

Another of Disney+’s Stars acquisitions, Atlanta originally aired on FX in the US. This comedy from Donald Glover (a.k.a. Childish Gambino) follows an up-and-coming rapper in Georgia, but only takes that as a loose set-up to explore race in modern America (and beyond).

This is a show that’s not afraid to get weird, so expect surreal humour and a pretty loose narrative, but it’s well worth sticking with it.

Andor

Rogue One remains the odd-one-out of the Star Wars movies, but at least now it has some company in prequel series Andor.

Diego Luna is back as the eponymous Cassian Andor, here seen as he’s recruited by the Rebel Alliance and begins the journey that will eventually take him to Scarif and the Death Star plans.

It’s a touch darker than other Star Wars fare, but the real achievement here is a crystallised aesthetic, rock-solid casting, and an exploration of sides of the Empire and the Star Wars universe that we genuinely haven’t seen before.

Perhaps best of all, it’s confirmed that it will only run for two seasons in total, so you know exactly what you’re in for.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

A show that needs no introduction. 

Disney+ has all seven seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer – and now its LA-set spin-off Angel too – and if you can get past some supremely ’90s styling there’s still a lot to love here.

Creator Joss Whedon has since been disavowed by many fans for alleged abusive behaviour, both on this set and others, but Buffy itself stands above that, and the series remains a high watermark for genre TV.

X-Men

Anyone who’s ever seen Fox’s ‘90s X-Men series is already humming the theme tune to themselves while reading this – it’s impossible not to.

Probably the best thing to come out of the Disney/Fox merger is this – and the similar Spider-Man series – making it onto the Disney streaming service, thanks to its potent mix of golden era X-Men costumes, high melodrama, and totally rad guitar riffs.

Disney even has a ’90s-themed revival of the show available to stream now, so there’s no better time to revisit the original.

Futurama

Regular schlub Fry is accidentally cryogenically frozen and wakes up a thousand years into the future, into a world of aliens, robots, and most of the same mundane problems as the 21st century.

Matt Groening’s first show after The Simpsons may not have gone on to quite the same stratospheric success as its predecessor, but Futurama is just as sharp and well-written as The Simpsons’ best seasons – and at least it mostly ended on a high, even when it was revived years after the original few seasons.

That is until its second revival, with an eleventh season of the show now airing on Disney+.

Daredevil

All of Netflix’s Marvel TV shows have now moved to Disney+ – including Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, The Punisher, and The Defenders – but the best of the bunch is clearly Daredevil.

The series that kicked off Netflix’s grim ‘n gritty corner of the Marvel universe, and so far the only one to survive (with both Charlie Cox’s Matt Murdoch and Vincent D’Onofrio’s antagonistic Kingpin appearing in recent MCU entries Hawkeye and She-Hulk, and a new Disney+ show for the pair on the way soon).

That makes it required viewing for the Marvel faithful, but you should really watch it anyway, as it offers layered characterisation, some interesting themes around faith and guilt, and the MCU’s best fight choreography yet.

Lost

For better or worse, Lost changed the face of American network television. It was perhaps the most influential show in the move away from episodic plots and towards serialised shows with arcs playing out not only through a season, but across several.

Yes, it got a bit silly. Yes, the ending was a disappointment. And no, they clearly hadn’t planned all the mysteries out from the beginning. But set that aside and the ride remains pretty spectacular.

Agent Carter

Hayley Atwell’s Peggy Carter was always the best part of the first Captain America movie (sorry Chris, America’s ass earned its keep in the sequels) so it was a treat when she got her own show.

This short-but-sweet ‘50s-set series only ran for 18 episodes over two seasons, but a host of deep-cut Marvel references and James D’Arcy’s Edwin Jarvis make this one of the MCU’s best small-screen outings yet.

And with Peggy earning a new lease on life as Captain Carter in What If…? and Doctor Strange 2, why not revisit the show that made her a hit?

Gargoyles

Disney had a bit of a golden age of TV animation in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s with the likes of Duck Tales and Darkwing Duck, but our favourite of the era has to be Gargoyles.

This unexpectedly moody, gothic series feels like a Disney take on the same decade’s Batman series, boosted by a voice cast that’s a) great, and b) basically a giant Star Trek reunion for some reason.

Just skip season three, which is pretty pants if we’re being honest.

Welcome to Wrexham

Nobody knew what to expect when Hollywood superstar Ryan Reynolds and Hollywood not-quite-superstar Rob McElhenny (don’t hate us, we love It’s Always Sunny too) joined together and bought Welsh National League football team Wrexham, but a docu-series was probably a safe bet.

Welcome to Wrexham is a surprisingly touching look at the once-great team that’s now down in the dumps, helped along by focussing far more on its fans than its millionaire owners – or even the football.

You don’t have to be a fan of the beautiful game to appreciate this look at how much the local team means to the local community, or the optimism that runs right through it.

Star Wars: Visions

Star Wars: Visions is a little unlike the other Star Wars shows so far. It’s an anthology produced by a variety of animation studios.

The first season was made by Japanese animators, resulting in a series of shorts each exploring what happens when you mash Star Wars up against various anime tropes. Given the obvious Japanese influences on the original Star Wars movies, it’s fitting to give some anime masters the chance to put their stamp on the series, and the results are as charming as they are varied.

Season two spreads out even further, allowing studios around the globe to have a go, for an even more diverse spread of styles.

What We Do in the Shadows

When an American TV remake of Taika Waititi’s ace Kiwi horror mockumentary movie What We Do in the Shadows was announced, it was quite obviously a terrible idea. Except, somehow, against all the odds, it’s great. And not just great – better than the film.

A main cast of relative unknowns (Matt Berry excepted) play the central trio of vampire housemates, also joined by a fourth ‘energy vampire’, living in Staten Island and out of step with the modern world – their only link being their human familiar Guillermo.

This is comedy that’s unafraid to be dark, gory, and downright crude – but whip-smart too, and better than it has any right to be.