These are the 10 best Disney+ shows you can stream right now
These are the 10 best Disney+ shows you can stream right now
‘Andor’ still sits at the top, but ‘Maul - Shadow Lord’ just forced its way onto the list.
When Disney+ launched, I honestly figured I’d use it mostly for the old stuff. Throw on “The Lion King” or “Tangled” with my nieces and nephews and then “Home Alone” at Christmas (because it’s not Christmas without it). But the original shows ended up being a much bigger reason to keep coming back than I expected.
Marvel has tried some really weird things, “Star Wars” has gone in a bunch of different directions, and even old animated shows are getting new life. Some of it works. Some of it doesn’t. But there’s enough good stuff that this list keeps changing, and I like that it does. Disney+ is still young enough that one great new series can show up and immediately mess with the rankings. And that happened again, so read on to see which show cracked the top 10.
Top 10 all-time best TV shows streaming on Disney+:
No. 10: ‘X-Men ’97’ (2024) | Animated superhero drama
“X-Men ’97” could have very easily been one of those revivals that just reminds you how much you liked the old thing. Thankfully, it’s not. The series picks up after “X-Men: The Animated Series,” with Professor Xavier gone and the team trying to keep his dream alive in a world that still really doesn’t want mutants around. Cyclops, Jean Grey, Storm, Rogue, Wolverine, Beast, Jubilee, Morph, everybody’s back. Then Magneto steps into a role that changes the whole dynamic pretty quickly.
The show still looks and feels enough like the old cartoon that there’s an immediate familiarity to it, but the stories go harder than I expected. There’s romance, grief, politics, betrayal, and some pretty brutal turns mixed in with all the giant superhero action. That combination feels right for the X-Men, who have always been just as much about messy relationships and people arguing with each other as they are about fighting villains. You get the nostalgia, sure, but the show doesn’t just sit there admiring it.
X-Men ‘97
The X-Men, a band of mutants who use their uncanny gifts to protect a world that hates and fears them, are challenged like never before, forced to face a dangerous and unexpected new future.
No. 9: ‘Star Wars: Maul - Shadow Lord’ (2026) | Animated crime thriller
“Star Wars: Maul - Shadow Lord” looks fantastic, first of all. Janix is full of cops, crime syndicates, shady deals, and people trying to hang onto whatever power they have, so Maul fits into the place almost immediately. He’s there to rebuild after the “Clone Wars,” but things get more interesting once Devon Izara enters the picture. She survived Order 66, she’s pissed off, and Maul sees an opening. Of course he does.
I also love that putting him at the center of the story doesn’t suddenly turn him into somebody we’re supposed to root for. Sam Witwer gets a lot more room to play with the character here, especially that creepy ability Maul has to sound almost reasonable right before you remember who you’re listening to. Add some killer lightsaber fights and animation that might be among the best “Star Wars” has done on TV, and this one was pretty easy to add to the list.
Star Wars: Maul - Shadow Lord
After the Clone Wars, Maul plots to rebuild his criminal syndicate on a planet untouched by the Empire.
No. 8: ‘WandaVision’ (2021) | Superhero sitcom mashup
“WandaVision” was such a strange way for Marvel to start making shows for Disney+. Wanda and Vision are suddenly living inside an old black-and-white sitcom, complete with nosy neighbors and goofy domestic problems, and then the TV world around them keeps jumping forward through different decades. All of this is happening after “Avengers: Endgame,” so even when everybody’s smiling, you know this can’t possibly be okay.
I remember those early episodes being a little bit of a “just go with it” situation, because Marvel really makes you sit inside the sitcom idea before explaining much. Then the walls start coming down. What looked like a fun TV-history gimmick turns into Wanda desperately trying to live somewhere that her grief can’t follow her, and suddenly all those laugh tracks feel completely different. Elizabeth Olsen gets to take Wanda to some really painful places, Paul Bettany is great opposite her, and by the end you realize Marvel hid a pretty sad story inside this very weird little TV experiment.
WandaVision
Wanda Maximoff and Vision—two super-powered beings living idealized suburban lives—begin to suspect that everything is not as it seems.
No. 7: ‘Wonder Man’ (2026) | Hollywood satire with superheroes
Hollywood inside the MCU is already a funny idea before “Wonder Man” even gets going. Simon Williams is an actor in Los Angeles trying to book work, survive auditions, deal with his own ego, and somehow make a career happen while carrying around one fairly important secret: he has superpowers, and Hollywood has banned superpowered people from working there. Not ideal when you’re trying to land a part in a giant superhero movie.
And the show mostly just hangs out in that problem, which I appreciate. Simon doesn’t immediately get yanked away from Hollywood so he can save the planet. His career is the problem. His insecurity is the problem. Ben Kingsley’s Trevor Slattery popping back up makes perfect sense here too, since putting that guy around actors and movie sets is basically asking for trouble. “Wonder Man” gets to make fun of Marvel, actors, the business, and the whole ridiculous machine without feeling like it needs to stop every 10 minutes and remind you what the next MCU project is.
Wonder Man
Simon and Trevor, two actors at opposite ends of their careers, chase life-changing roles.
No. 6: ‘Star Wars: Visions’ (2021) | Animated sci-fi anthology
The easiest way to enjoy “Star Wars: Visions” is to stop asking where any of it fits. Seriously. “Star Wars” has enough timelines already. Here, different animation studios get their shot at the galaxy and pretty much run wherever they want with it. Volume 1 is heavily anime-inspired, Volume 2 brings in studios from around the world, and Volume 3 keeps changing things up. One short might feel like an old samurai movie. Another is quiet and strange. Then you get something small and emotional that catches you completely off guard.
That unpredictability is the show. You can watch one episode and leave. You can skip around. You can find the ones you love and never bother ranking the rest. There’s no giant canon puzzle waiting at the end and no homework beforehand, which honestly feels refreshing for “Star Wars.” Some Disney+ shows are there to fill in another missing piece of a franchise. “Visions” gets to make something cool and move on.
Star Wars: Visions
This anthology of animated shorts from around the world celebrates the mythos of Star Wars through unique cultural lenses.
No. 5: ‘Star Wars: Skeleton Crew’ (2024) | Sci-fi adventure
Four kids get lost in space. That’s basically the engine of “Star Wars: Skeleton Crew,” and I like that it doesn’t need much more than that to get moving. They’re far from home, surrounded by people and places they don’t understand, and suddenly every bad decision matters. There’s an obvious “Goonies” thing happening here, right down to that kids-in-way-over-their-heads adventure energy.
The difference is that “Skeleton Crew” actually lets these kids be in danger. It’s funny, but it’s not constantly winking at you and saying everything will be fine because the heroes are young. Jude Law also gives the story this extra question mark because his Force-adjacent character is helpful enough to keep around but mysterious enough that you probably shouldn’t relax. There are little bits of “Stranger Things” in the kid-group dynamic, but mostly it just feels like a very easy “Star Wars” adventure to fall into. You don’t need a chart. You don’t need three previous shows. You can just watch it.
Star Wars: Skeleton Crew
Four ordinary kids search for their home planet after getting lost in the Star Wars galaxy.
No. 4: ‘The Mandalorian’ (2019) | Space western
Grogu completely wrecks Mando’s nice, uncomplicated life. He’s a bounty hunter in “The Mandalorian,” bouncing around the outer rim after the Empire falls, taking a job, getting paid, then heading to the next one. Clean system. Then he gets hired to retrieve this tiny green kid and eventually decides he doesn’t want to hand him over…
That choice gives the entire show its heart, and it still works even after all the mythology and bigger “Star Wars” connections start piling up. Pedro Pascal somehow makes Mando feel like a tired dad through a helmet, while Grogu mostly stares at things, eats stuff he probably shouldn’t, and causes problems. Around them, the series has this dusty western thing going on with frontier towns, creatures, gunfights, and practical-looking worlds that actually feel dirty. “The Mandalorian” was also the first show that made Disney+ feel like it could create something people would show up for every week, not just host Disney’s old library. Now “Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu” is continuing the story after Season 3, so now is a good excuse to go back.
The Mandalorian
After the fall of the Galactic Empire, lawlessness has spread throughout the galaxy. A lone gunfighter makes his way through the outer reaches, earning his keep as a bounty hunter.
No. 3: ‘Loki’ (2021) | Time-bending fantasy
For one glorious moment in “Loki,” Loki thinks he beat everybody. He grabs the Tesseract during “Avengers: Endgame,” disappears, and surely he’s off to create another giant headache somewhere. Nope. The TVA immediately grabs him and basically tells the god of mischief that his escape was an administrative error.
That whole TVA world is probably my favorite thing about the series. It looks like some bizarre government office that has been processing reality since before anybody invented decent office furniture, and dropping Loki into it is very funny. Then Owen Wilson shows up, Sylvie complicates everything, timelines start splitting, and suddenly this little bureaucratic nightmare is sitting in the middle of a multiverse problem. Tom Hiddleston obviously knows Loki inside and out by this point, but the show gets him away from the usual Thor-family drama and forces him to spend a lot more time wondering who he actually is. Somehow the conversations stick with me as much as all the reality-breaking stuff.
Loki
After stealing the Tesseract during the events of “Avengers: Endgame,” an alternate version of Loki is brought to the mysterious Time Variance Authority, a bureaucratic organization that exists outside of time and space and monitors the timeline. They give Loki a choice: face being erased from existence due to being a “time variant” or help fix the timeline and stop a greater threat.
No. 2: ‘Daredevil: Born Again’ (2025) | Superhero legal drama
Matt Murdock has always had a pretty ridiculous contradiction at the center of his life. He’s a lawyer who genuinely believes the legal system matters, then night comes, and he puts on a mask because sometimes he’d rather handle things with his fists. “Daredevil: Born Again” doesn’t run away from that contradiction. If anything, it makes it worse by putting Wilson Fisk on the other side of it, except Fisk is now chasing political power instead of staying comfortably inside the criminal world.
That’s where this version gets really interesting for me. Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio don’t have to oversell the history between these two anymore. It’s already there. Put them in a room together, and you feel it. The show famously got reworked during production, but what made it to the screen feels like it knows the Matt-Fisk relationship is the thing worth protecting. Fisk getting closer to legitimate power also creates a much nastier problem. Daredevil knows what to do with some guy in an alley. A crime boss with the system behind him is another story.
Daredevil: Born Again
Matt Murdock, a blind lawyer with heightened abilities, is fighting for justice through his bustling law firm, while former mob boss Wilson Fisk pursues his own political endeavors in New York. When their past identities begin to emerge, both men find themselves on an inevitable collision course.
No. 1: ‘Andor’ (2022) | Political thriller
There’s a prison in “Andor” where people spend their days building things for the Empire without really knowing why, and that whole storyline gets at why I love this show better than almost any plot summary can. Nobody’s waiting around for a Jedi to show up. These are regular people trapped inside a system that knows exactly how frightened and exhausted they are, and eventually some of them decide they’d rather risk everything than keep living like that.
Cassian starts the series nowhere near that point. Years before “Rogue One,” he’s mostly a guy trying to survive and avoid getting swallowed up by everybody else’s cause. We know that doesn’t last. Watching the Empire slowly make neutrality impossible for him is the story, and the show takes its time getting there. Surveillance, fear, sacrifice, prison labor, rebellion happening in little rooms before it ever becomes a giant battle. It’s heavy stuff, but it never feels like “Star Wars” trying to prove how adult it is. It just feels true to this particular corner of the galaxy. For my money, Disney+ still hasn’t made anything better.
Andor
In an era filled with danger, deception and intrigue, Cassian Andor will discover the difference he can make in the struggle against the tyrannical Galactic Empire. He embarks on a path that is destined to turn him into a rebel hero.