From Shogun to Slow Horses, these are best streaming shows of 2024 and where to find them
From comedy to drama to historical epics, it was another strong year on the streaming platforms and here’s where to find the year’s best for some quality holiday viewing.
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From historical dramas, to spy thrillers and musical witches to guilty pleasure bonkbusters, there’s plenty of 2024 quality to catch up on over the holidays.
SHOGUN
Disney+
There’s a good reason this historical drama based on James Clavell’s doorstopper novel won a record 18 trophies at this year’s Emmys – it’s a modern masterpiece. Whereas the novel told the grand, sweeping, clash-of-cultures story through the eyes of English sailor John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis), who turns up in feudal Japan and must navigate its alien customs just to survive, the 10-part series shifts the focus to the powerful, scheming war lord Toranaga and his interpreter Lady Mariko (Hiroyuki Sanada and Anna Sawai, both of whom won Emmys and are nominated for Golden Globes). Not only is the storytelling of rival clans and shifting alliances top-notch, but the sumptuous recreation of the era’s costumes, weapons and buildings – under the watchful eye of cultural consultant Sanada – is utterly transportive.
More please: Although Clavell’s subsequent historical novels never returned to the world of Shogun, a second season is now in the works with all the key creatives. It’s still in the writing phase and likely won’t return until 2026 at the earliest.
SLOW HORSES
Apple TV+
Based on the book Spook Street from Mick Herron’s Slough House series of spy thrillers, the fourth season of Slow Horses continues the trend of each season being better than the last. While Oscar-winner Gary Oldman is still strangely compelling as the sly, booze-soaked, flatulent spymaster Jackson Lamb, it’s rewarding to see the stories deepen for his crew of misfits and cast-off agents disdainfully referred to as the Slow Horses. As the team hunt for those responsible for a street bombing in London, its Jack Lowden’s River Cartwright who has the most at stake personally and professionally, particularly with the emergence of Hugo Weaving’s shady ex-spy, Frank.
More please: Filming has already been completed on season five, which is due for release mid next year and season six has also been confirmed.
THE DAY OF THE JACKAL
BINGE
Eddie Redmayne just got better and better over the ten episodes of this slick and compelling reimagining of Frederick Forsyth’s much loved 1971 political thriller of the same name. Audiences met him as a master of disguise who specialised in killing from a distance and then vanishing without a trace. But as the tenacious pursuit of Lashana Lynch’s unyielding MI6 agent Bianca Pullman got ever closer to preventing him assassinating a tech billionaire, the masks began to be stripped away to reveal the sociopathic tendencies of an amoral former soldier sitting at odds with his aspiration to be a family man. Terrifically paced, smartly scripted and genuinely tense.
More please: After the shocking conclusion and that major death in the final episode, Redmayne confirmed in an Instagram post last week that he will be back as the Jackal. “If there’s one thing that the Jackal can’t stand, it’s a loose end,” he said.
HACKS
STAN
Jean Smart won her third consecutive Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Emmy this year for her role as the veteran stand-up comedian Deborah Vance and the show finally nabbed the Outstanding Comedy Series on the third attempt. It’s indicative of a whip-smart, searing comedy that’s going from strength to strength fuelled by the love-hate relationship between Vance and her protégé Ava (Hannah Einbinder) that is just getting more and more complicated. Among the well-drawn characters and endless zingers, the barbs at ageism, sexism and cancel culture are as on point as ever.
More please: After the very satisfying season three finale, the fourth season of Hacks is in production for release next year.
RIPLEY
NETFLIX
This noirish 10-part adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s psychological thriller The Talented Mr Ripley was slower, more sedate and ultimately more satisfying than Anthony Minghella’s 1997 movie with Matt Damon in the title role. Andrew Scott’s take on the repressed, slightly reptilian conman who sets about assuming the identity of rich gadabout Dickie Greenleaf was an utterly mesmerising blend of blandness and ruthlessness that made his increasingly desperate actions all the more plausible. Filmed on the Amalfi coast village of Atrani (also home to Denzel Washington’s The Equalizer 3) and entirely in black and white, it was also stunning to look at.
More please: There are plenty of other Ripley novels to adapt, but no plans for a second series yet.
FALLOUT
PRIME VIDEO
After decades of duds, it was a relief to see that the stunning The Last Of Us wasn’t a flash in the pan for video game adaptations. Fans of the long-running post-Apocalyptic Fallout series found plenty of Easter eggs to enjoy but the story of privileged, optimistic Vault-dweller Lucy (Ella Purnell), who is forced to make her way through the brutal, violent irradiated Wasteland outside she didn’t even know existed worked just as well for uninitiated. The world building, with its mutant monsters (special shout-out to Walton Goggins’ Ghoul) warring factions and strange locations, was top notch and the blend of big action and black comedy highly addictive.
More please: Season two has already begun filming but it’s unlikely to arrive before 2026.
THE PENGUIN
BINGE
Colin Farrell’s extraordinary transformation – courtesy of three hours in the make-up chair each day – into the scarred and deformed gangster Oswald Cobb was the reason to come to this comic book movie spin-off, but a well-fleshed out and superbly executed backstory for one of the iconic Batman villains was the reason to stay. The exploration of Gotham’s seedy underworld and the constant tensions between the haves and the have nots was strong enough that it didn’t even need an appearance by the Caped Crusader, while the interplay between Cobb and the overlooked and unjustly treated mafia heiress Sofia (a magnificent Cristin Miloti) drove some stunning action as they jockeyed for control of the city, all the way up to a genuinely shocking finale.
More please: Farrell’s Penguin has already been confirmed to appear in Matt Reeves’ The Batman: Part II, due in 2026, and talks are underway for second season.
AGATHA ALL ALONG
DISNEY+
While there have been some misses along the way, the great strength of the ever-expanding Marvel Cinematic Universe has been its ability to duck off on strange and satisfying side quests to explore unsung or seemingly peripheral characters. After making her MCU debut in the excellent WandaVision, the first of TV spin-offs, Kathryn Hahn makes the most of her solo vehicle as the Salem witch Agatha Harkness, trying to regain the magic powers that were stripped from her by Elizabeth Olsen’s Scarlett Witch. Her oddball, sometimes musical, journey down the Witches’ Road with her new coven and a mysterious teen takes in comedy, tragedy and action and builds to a surprisingly emotional conclusion.
More please: A second season is not yet confirmed, but Hahn is game for more and in the MCU, anything can happen.
BOY SWALLOWS UNIVERSE
NETFLIX
It was always going to be a tough ask to adapt Trent Dalton’s much-loved, semi-autobiographical novel about growing up adjacent to Brisbane’s criminal underworld in the 1980s, but Netflix knocked it out of the park and was duly rewarded with five Logie Awards, including best Miniseries or Movie. Key to its success was the spot-on casting, including the hugely talented newcomer Felix Cameron as teenage protagonist Eli Bell, Simon Baker as his learned but broken father, Phoebe Tonkin as his loving but troubled mother and national treasure Bryan Brown as the ex-crim with a heart of gold, Slim.
More please: Alas, that’s it for that story, but author Dalton has written several books since including All Our Shimmering Skies and Love Stories.
RIVALS
DISNEY+
Is this saucy, spicy adaptation of Jilly Cooper’s 1980s-set novel of the same name likely to trouble the Emmys or the Golden Globes this year? Hell, no. But is it a whole of trashy fun and the guilty pleasure viewing of the year? Hell, yes it is. Between playing nude tennis, quaffing champagne like it’s going out of style and Olympic levels of bonking in the fictional village of Rutland as rival TV execs vie for supremacy in the big-money and big excess era, the quality cast including David Tennant, Aidan Turner and Alex Hassell looks to be having a while of time. And you will too.
More please: Executive producer Dame Jilly Cooper has already confirmed a second series – no doubt featuring even more bums and boobs.
Originally published as From Shogun to Slow Horses, these are best streaming shows of 2024 and where to find them
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