31 Best Drama Shows on Hulu Right Now (September 2026): ‘R.J. Decker’ Season 2 and More

R.J. Decker (Scott Speedman) has a checkered past; he’s a former journalist who did some time behind bars. Looking for a fresh start, he decides to become a private investigator in South Florida, taking on cases no one will even touch. He has help from his journalist ex-girlfriend (Adelaide Clemens) and her detective wife (Bevin Bru), who help him solve mysteries he couldn’t unlock on his own. But R.J.’s life is complicated by the presence of  Emilia Ochoa (Jaina Lee Ortiz), the daughter of a powerful politician who helped put R.J. in jail the first time.

A modern-day Rockford Files, with just a dash of Burn Notice, R.J. Deecker was a big enough hit to warrant a second season. That’s a good thing for fans, as season 2 follows up on last season’s shocking finale. Victor Ochoa has been murdered, and R.J. needs to find the killer ASAP. He also has to solve other cases in the meantime, like a flash-mob pickpocket crime syndicate and the identity of the owner of a severed arm someone finds in a cooler. It’s never a dull day in R.J. Decker’s life, which is probably why he’s the lead character of a 10-episode-a-season series. 

Jax Stewart (Emayatzy Corinealdi) is a defense lawyer you’d want to hire – or fear if you’re trying a case against one of her clients. A professional attorney who will do anything for her clients, she’s focused 100 percent on her work – and that’s partly due to her messy personal life. With two kids to raise and an ex-husband who causes more problems than he needs to, it’s no wonder Jax wants to devote all her energy to helping her clients – and seeing justice prevail. 

Now in its fourth season, Reasonable Doubt is one of Hulu’s under-the-radar shows that deserves to be on everyone’s radar. Executive-produced by Kerry Washington, the one-hour legal drama blends compelling court cases with all the soapy melodrama fans of Shonda Rhimes’ hit Scandal couldn’t get enough of a decade ago. Season 4 promises even more fireworks, with Jaz fighting for her life (literally) after being shot at and her firm weathering a bruising media scandal involving one of their high-profile clients.

Alice Black (Emmy Rossum) is a walking cliche, and she knows it. She’s an FBI agent with a drinking problem, and she uses booze and sex to suppress traumatic issues from her past. But she’s good at her job, and she thinks she’s found a serial killer, Catherine (Lola Pettigrew), who is preying on men throughout Manhattan. But are Catherine’s victims random or somehow connected? If it’s the latter, that might be enough for Alice to find and capture her – if she can figure out the connection in time.

Furious is created by Elizabeth Meriwether, the genius behind the Zooey Deschanel sitcom New Girl, the Emmy-nominated dramedy Dying for Sex and the Amanda Seyfried miniseries, The Dropout. That’s an impressive pedigree, and Furious looks to join them in the showrunner’s perfect TVography. Rossum is still a criminally underrated actress, but this role gives her enough opportunities to showcase all of the dramatic skills she honed in Shameless. 

Furious drops its first three episodes on July 27. Each subsequent episode will be released weekly.

Ingrid Lewis (Emma Appleton) is a respected defense lawyer who is normally sensible. She makes a big mistake, though – she gets involved with one of her clients, John Webster (Colin Morgan), who is accused of stalking his ex-girlfriend. Ingrid wins her case, but she soon realizes John is guilty of the crimes he’s been accused of – and his next target is her.

Oh, what a spicy setup! The Killing Kind is a trashy thriller that looks and sounds like a prestige drama. It’s not, but instead, it’s stupidly entertaining, with the very smart Ingrid making some really dumb mistakes trying to get away from John. It’s all a bit absurd, but that’s part of its lurid appeal.

Is it a drama? Or a comedy? However you classify it, Rivals is fun as hell and probably the most deliciously wicked series currently streaming. How wicked? Expect full frontal nudity, more sex scenes than a ‘90s erotic thriller and language so blue it would make Quentin Tarantino blush. I told you it was fun.

Set in the “Greed is good” 1980s, Rivals stars David Tennant as Tony Baddingham, a media tycoon locked in a heated rivalry — no, not THAT kind — with the hedonistic Rupert Campbell-Black (Alex Hassell). They both want a lucrative TV station, and they’ll do just about anything—or anyone—to get it. 

Season 2 amps up the stakes (and shoulder pads), with Tony recovering from an unexpected assault and journalist Declan O’Hara (Aidan Turner) getting caught with his pants down in a hotel tryst. And that’s just the first two episodes! Season 2 is 12 episodes long, with the second six episodes arriving later in the fall.

Remember All’s Fair, the Ryan Murphy-produced legal drama starring Kim Kardashian as the lead of an all-female law firm? I don’t blame you if you’ve forgotten a show that one critic called “fascinatingly, incomprehensibly and existentially terrible.” Yikes! Well, The Split is the exact opposite — a fascinating, comprehensible and intelligent drama about a family of English lawyers, the Dafoes, with matriarch Hannah (Nicola Walker) leading their high-profile legal firm. 

Across three seasons, two specials and 20 episodes, the Dafoes tackle a variety of cases, like a comedian’s ex-wife suing him to prevent him from joking about their marriage and a client who is fighting for custody of her frozen embryos. There’s also personal drama, with all the usual affairs, betrayals and scandals any decent, upper-class English family possesses. Part Law & Order, part Brothers & Sisters, The Split is an entertaining British drama that shows lawyers are as messed up as their clients — maybe more so.

The Testaments takes place years after the events that transpired in The Handmaid’s Tale and follows two teenagers, the pious Agnes (Chase Infiniti) and new convert Daisy (Lucy Halliday). Together, the two young women bond as they navigate their home at Aunt Lydia’s (Ann Dowd) prep school for future wives, where punishment is doled out in brutal ways. The Testaments serves as a coming-of-age story for women growing up in Gilead, who have never known a world outside of its oppressive and hostile grasp. Nevertheless, these women must stick together if they want any hope of freedom from a life of servitude.

While The Handmaid’s Tale arguably overstayed its welcome by later seasons, The Testaments does manage to freshen up the source material into something new and exciting. It is, more or less, a “teen version” of The Handmaid’s Tale, but it injects an all-new angle by recentering on an adolescent perspective. Ultimately, the acting is phenomenal, the writing is stellar and the production design is deeply immersive. The Testaments is just as bleaky engaging as its predecessor.

Angelo Doyle (Patrick Dempsey) has spent years as a successful hit man, but the threat of inheriting his brother’s (Richard Clarkin) debilitating Alzheimer’s diagnosis has loomed large. Angelo had previously been able to compartmentalize his dual lives as a happy family man and photocopier salesman in upstate New York, and as a ruthless NYC contract killer. But complications arise in this separation of church and state, as symptoms of memory loss begin to crop up in Angelo’s day-to-day. Now, this genetic fate threatens to topple everything Angelo has worked for.

Memory of a Killer is based on the 2003 Belgian film De Zaak Alzheimer, which is itself based on a 1985 novel. The series sees Dempsey back in a long-awaited lead role in television, and the Grey’s Anatomy alum does a fantastic job portraying the complex psychological conflict of his character. The show is a fast-paced, character-driven thriller that offers a refreshingly straightforward story, which is gripping yet restrained. The series was just renewed for a second season, so book some time with Angelo and watch Memory of a Killer.

A drug known as “The Beauty” is prepared to be distributed as the best aesthetic treatment possible, granting users their ultimate physical attractiveness desires through tranformation and genetic alteration. At the same time, a viral variant of the drug spreads rapidly as an STD — and it has lethal effects. As the producers of The Beauty strive to conceal the spread of the disease, deaths pile up and panic spreads, while the FBI begins an investigation and a government conspiracy deepens.

The Beauty is a perfect fit for the salacious, maximalist and provocative trademarks that are typical of a Ryan Murphy production, and it has proven to be a better offering from his recent slate of TV shows. Even though critics agree that the commentary on modern beauty standards is more superficial than it could be, the show is a gonzo good time with some freakish body horror, beautiful technical aesthetics and engaging storytelling. The stacked cast includes Rebecca Hall, Evan Peters, Bella Hadid and Ashton Kutcher.

The Artful Dodger takes place fifteen years after the events of Oliver Twist and follows the eponymous pickpocket AKA Jack Dawkins (Thomas Brodie-Sangster) in Australia. There, Jack has reformed himself as a respected young surgeon. However, when his former surrogate father Fagin (David Thewlis) reemerges, Jack finds himself resorting to his criminal ways as his past and his present collide. In the meantime, Jack forms a romantic interest in Lady Belle Fox (Maia Mitchell), the governor’s daughter who aspires to be a surgeon herself. But can Jack balance the criminal life that he left with the honest life he covets?

After a well-received first season, The Artful Dodger returns with season 2 and is already being praised for its darkly comic tone, energetic editing, lavish costume designs and talented cast — particularly Thewlis and Brodie-Sangster. You don’t need to be familiar with the Charles Dickens source material to enjoy The Artful Dodger, and it stands as an entertaining and invigorating period story on its own.

If the premiere of The Beauty just a few weeks ago already had you hankering for more Ryan Murphy content, look no further than Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette. An offshoot of the American Story anthology series, this historical docu-drama takes a look at the whirlwind romance and tragic fate of a mythologized real-life couple. JFK Jr. and Bessette are played by newcomers Paul Anthony Kelly and Sarah Pidgeon, while the supporting cast features Naomi Watts, Grace Gummer, Alessandro Nivola and Constance Zimmer.

The nine-episode Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette is one of our most anticipated series of February, and its deep-dive into one of the most famous love stories of all time is right up Murphy’s alley. With the stacked cast and impressive visuals as seen in the trailer, we’re sure that Love Story will match beautifully with Murphy’s typically maximalist aesthetic.

The two-episode season 3 premiere of Tell Me Lies dropped in mid-January, and we couldn’t be more excited. The series follows the relationship between Lucy Albright (Grace Van Patten) and Stephen DeMarco (Jackson White), charting their courtship across eight years and beginning with when they meet at the fictional Baird College in 2001. Over the span of nearly a decade, the two experience the high highs and low lows of two people who just can’t quit each other. Season 3 kicks off with the toxic lovers back together, promising that things will be different this time.

Tell Me Lies has been praised for its uncompromising portrayal of a toxic relationship while also tactfully depicting the hookup culture specific to the 2000s. More than just a guilty pleasure show, Tell Me Lies is enhanced by terrific performances and absorbing realism that elevate it far beyond being a saucy and salacious romantic drama into something much more nuanced.

Fresh off his recent 2026 Golden Globe win for his performance in last year’s Adolescence, Stephen Graham returns for the second season of A Thousand Blows. The show centers on two warring underground subcultures in 1800s East End London, and the two Jamaican immigrants caught in between them. Hezekiah (Malachi Kirby) wants to make it as a lion tamer, but he and his best friend, Alec Munroe (Francis Lovehall), find themselves involved with Henry “Sugar” Goodson (Graham) of London’s illegal boxing world and Mary Carr (The Crown‘s Erin Doherty), the leader of the all-female crime group the Forty Elephants.

Inspired by true stories, A Thousand Blows was created by Peaky Blinders’ own Steven Knight, and gives Knight’s penchant for the gritty London crime world a refreshing spin with that same old genre flair. With intelligent, profound storytelling, resonant themes and top-notch performances from the cast, A Thousand Blows is an engaging and entertaining period drama that will satisfy Peaky Blinders fans who want more of Knight’s vision.

Castle Rock attempts to weave the interconnected mythology of Stephen King’s New England-set stories alongside his penchant for rich character writing. It shapes an episodic supernatural drama that starts off about a suspicious young man known only as The Kid (Bill Skarsgård). Lawyer Henry Deaver (André Holland) — who went missing as a child — arrives in his hometown of Castle Rock, Maine to represent The Kid, who was found locked in an underground cage at Shawshank Prison.

Castle Rock is a fantastic horror-drama peppered with plenty of allusions and references to delight fans of King’s work, while also offering an original piece of character-focused mystery storytelling. The stand-alone second season featured Lizzy Caplan, Barkhad Abdi and Tim Robbins.

White picket fences, designer bags and 401ks make up the perfect facades for a group of women living on Wisteria Lane. Desperate Housewives kicks off with the mystery surrounding the suicide of their friend and neighbor, Mary Alice Young (Brenda Strong), whose eyes and narration the series is told through. The show follows the dramatic lives of Susan (Teri Hatcher), Lynette (Felicity Huffman), Bree (Marcia Cross) and Gabrielle (Eva Longoria) across a span of fifteen years.

This classic network melodrama was well-received by critics and viewers alike, garnering a slew of Emmy and Golden Globe nominations during its nearly decade-long run. Desperate Housewives featured fantastic performances, great mystery writing and plenty of dark comedy to keep audiences hooked.

Kaitlin Olson, star of The Mick and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, brings us another wonderfully messy character in the form of single mom Morgan, a cleaning lady for the LAPD who happens to possess an IQ of 160. When she helps to solve a high-profile murder case, she lands a job as a consultant with the homicide department — much to the chagrin of her new partner, Adam Karadec (Daniel Sunjata). 

High Potential is a welcome addition to Hulu’s stable of charming crime dramas, with its likable heroine, intriguing mysteries and talented supporting cast. (Some of our favorite ensemble members include Scrubs‘ Judy Reyes as Morgan’s boss and SNL‘s Taran Killam as her lovably dopey ex.) The balance of humor and heartfelt drama makes it one of Hulu’s most watchable new series.

This prequel to the Alien franchise from FX television veteran Noah Hawley (Fargo, Legion) focuses on the efforts of Earth’s corporations to achieve immortality. One of these techniques involves downloading the consciousness of humans into the bodies of synthetic beings. Wendy (Sydney Chandler), the lead character, is one of these hybrids — the mind of a dying child uploaded into an adult synthetic body. She and her fellow hybrids, known as the “Lost Boys,” undertake a dangerous mission aboard the USCSS Maginot, a deep-space research vessel, to find extraterrestrial specimens — bringing them into the path of the Xenomorphs that will eventually appear in Alien.

Scary, stylish and intelligent, Alien: Earth enriches the world of the Alien franchise while tackling big philosophical questions about what it means to be a human being.

This post-apocalyptic political thriller follows a murder investigation taking place in a secret underground city after an extinction-level event, and it’s one of the most gripping shows on Hulu. Paradise has been nominated for several Emmys, including Outstanding Supporting Actor for James Marsden in his role as the murdered President of the United States and Outstanding Lead Actor for Sterling K. Brown as the Secret Service agent trying to uncover the truth.

Full of shocking twists, imaginative worldbuilding and compelling performances, Paradise has been a breakout hit that will have you craving a second season — luckily, it’s already been renewed for one.

Connell Waldron (Paul Mescal), a popular and good-looking rugby player, is the son of a housekeeper who works for the family of his awkward and unpopular classmate, Marianne Sheridan (Daisy Edgar-Jones). The duo finds an unexpected connection that starts as clandestine sex but develops into something much more complicated. Based on the novel by Sally Rooney, Normal People follows Connell and Marianne through the end of high school into their young adult lives at Trinity College in Dublin and beyond. 

The beautifully filmed and emotionally intelligent series explores how each character’s past experiences inform their relationship — and how their insecurities and assumptions keep them from communicating what they actually want. The subtle nuances of their relationship are portrayed beautifully by Mescal and Edgar-Jones. It’s poignant and heartbreaking, yet ultimately an uplifting exploration of identity, intimacy and love.

Created by Dan Fogelman, This Is Us explores the lives of the Pearson family, juxtaposing siblings Kevin (Justin Hartley), Kate (Chrissy Metz), and Randall (Sterling K. Brown) — known as the “Big Three”— alongside their parents, Jack (Milo Ventimiglia) and Rebecca (Mandy Moore). The narrative intricately weaves together past and present, revealing how pivotal moments and decisions shape the family’s dynamics over the years. Through its emotional storytelling, the series examines themes of love, loss, and the enduring bonds that tie family members together, resonating deeply with audiences because of its relatable portrayal of life’s challenges and triumphs.

In addition to giving us one of our favorite TV dads ever in the form of Jack Pearson, This Is Us blends drama with humor throughout every character’s setbacks and triumphs. It’s a character-driven story that explores universal human experiences. Ventimiglia, Brown and Moore deliver particularly unforgettable performances.

Will Trent is a police procedural with an unconventional hero at the heart of the series. Will (Ramón Rodríguez) is a gifted investigator for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation who struggles with dyslexia and the trauma he endured growing up in foster care.

No one understands what Will went through more than Angela Polaski (Erika Christensen), his on-and-off-again lover and a homicide detective with the Atlanta PD. Will and Angela frequently have to work together, but their relationship may prove to be toxic for both of them. And yet they seem destined to remain in each other’s orbit no matter what.

Gregory House (Hugh Laurie) isn’t known for his friendly bedside manner in the TV series that shares his name. But Dr. House is the medical equivalent of Sherlock Holmes and an expert in his field. He’s also difficult to deal with, even among the people he considers friends.

For the early part of the series, House works with three younger doctors — Eric Foreman (Omar Epps), Robert Chase (Jesse Spencer) and Allison Cameron (Jennifer Morrison) — to crack some of the most difficult cases in modern medicine. But it was House who kept bringing viewers back with his acerbic wit and his hilariously sour demeanor. 

The old West lives on in the form of Justified‘s lead character, Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant). Raylan handles himself like a gunslinger, and he’s been known to shoot first and shoot later. 

As punishment for his unconventional style of justice, Raylan is banished to the Kentucky field office, not far from his crime-infested hometown, Harlan. Raylan’s frenemy, Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins), is both his ally and his adversary throughout the show’s six-season run. Each season follows an unfolding storyline that dramatically brings Raylan and Boyd back into each other’s orbits.

Only the first 20 seasons of Law & Order are streaming on Hulu, but that should be more than enough to keep you binge-watching through the end of the year. Series creator Dick Wolf pioneered the modern legal procedural drama as we know it, and the Law & Order franchise hasn’t been off TV since the original series debuted in 1990.

Each episode splits the focus between the police attempting to solve a crime before giving way to the prosecutors who try to find justice for the victims. Many of the stories are “ripped from the headlines” of the time, but Law & Order episodes are also textbook examples of one-off stories that leave audiences wanting more.

For her follow-up to Mad Men, Elisabeth Moss starred in Hulu’s adaptation of Margaret Atwood‘s The Handmaid’s Tale. In the near future, the United States has been overthrown by the Republic of Gilead, and most of the women have few rights under the new regime.

Moss plays June Osborne, a woman who becomes a handmaiden known as Offred in the service of Commander Fred Waterford (Joseph Fiennes), and subordinate to Fred’s wife, Serena Joy Waterford (Yvonne Strahovski). June is little more than a slave to her new masters, but she also has a desire to be free, which will help her spark a revolution against Gilead and all that it stands for.

It took a decade for FX’s remake of James Clavell‘s Shōgun to come to fruition, and it was worth the wait. This show broke an Emmy record with 18 wins for a single season, including Best Drama and Best Actor and Actress in a Drama for Hiroyuki Sanada and Anna Sawai.

In the early 15th century, English sailor John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis) survives a shipwreck only to find himself a prisoner of Lord Yoshii Toranaga (Sanada), one of the most powerful Shoguns in Japan. Toda Mariko (Sawai) serves as Blackthorne’s translator and his gateway into a culture that seems like a foreign world to him. Meanwhile, Toranaga is facing a pivotal crisis that will determine which Shogun rules Japan, and Blackthorne may prove to be very useful to him, whether he desires it or not.

Jurassic Park author Michael Crichton leaned on his medical training to create ER, one of the most influential drama series of the last three decades. The medical drama was uncommonly grounded and it made stars out of several cast members, including George Clooney, Anthony Edwards, Julianna Margulies, Noah Wyle, Eriq La Salle and more.

For 15 seasons, the show chronicled the lives of the doctors and nurses at Cook County General Hospital. Cast members came and went over the series’ long run, but ER maintained a high level of quality that has largely been unmatched by any similar shows that came after it.

Mariska Hargitay holds a TV record for playing the same character for 26 consecutive seasons across the length of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. This spinoff from Law & Order originally focused on Detectives Olivia Benson (Hargitay) and Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni) as they investigated sexually based crimes.

Following Meloni’s departure, Benson moved to the forefront and eventually became the captain in charge of SVU’s team, including Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T) and a new generation of detectives. Benson has also become an icon, and her legacy as a character continues to play out over a quarter century after her debut. 

In 2002, FX needed a signature original series that was on the same level as The Sopranos. The Shield was exactly what the network needed to put it on the map and establish FX as one of the top destinations for dramas. Michael Chiklis had a transformative performance as Detective Vic Mackey, the hard-nosed leader of a strike team in LAPD’s Farmington district.

For Vic, there are no lines he won’t cross to put a bad guy away. And as revealed in the pilot episode, Vic and the strike team are also corrupt and willing to murder fellow cops to protect themselves. Vic and his right-hand man, Shane Vendrell (Walton Goggins), helped define the era of the antihero, and their story is unforgettable.

Following a season-long stint on The Shield, Glenn Close headlined her own FX drama series, Damages. The series focused on Ellen Parsons (Rose Byrne), a young law associate who comes to work for Patty Hewes (Close), one of the most feared litigators in New York. Patty’s skills in court are only matched by her ruthless streak. She’s the Vic Mackey of lawyers.

Each season of Damages includes a flash forward story that offers tantalizing hints about what will happen to Ellen and Patty as the season plays out. In season 1, Ellen is accused of murdering her fiancé, and she’s convinced that Patty is the one who put a hit out on her. Each episode slowly catches up to the future events before revealing to the audience how the storylines tie together.

The main characters of The Americans aren’t actually Americans at all. In this ’80s Cold War thriller, Elizabeth (Keri Russell) and Philip Jennings (Matthew Rhys) are Russian spies embedded in Washington, D.C. to carry out espionage assignments for the KGB. Although they don’t initially love each other, they also have two children, Paige (Holly Taylor) and Henry (Keidrich Sellati), who have no idea their parents are foreign operatives.

The Jennings’ lives are complicated when FBI agent Stan Beeman (Noah Emmerich) moves in next door just as Phillip and Elizabeth develop real feelings for each other. This family gets a lot of blood on their hands in the name of their homeland, and the Jennings are split over the KGB’s desire to recruit Paige to join them.