The best TV shows of 2017
The top 3 according to 678 votes from people: The Leftovers · Twin Peaks: The Return · The Handmaid's Tale. (Updated Nov 26, 2025.)
The year of The Leftovers' finale, Twin Peaks: The Return, The Handmaid's Tale and Big Little Lies: the 2017 shows that topped the critics' tally at CriticsTop10 and Variety's critics' lists.
Top 14
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1
The Leftovers
Season 3: the finale of Damon Lindelof's series, number one on many critics' lists.
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2
Twin Peaks: The Return
David Lynch and Mark Frost go back to the town 25 years later.
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3
The Handmaid's Tale
Elisabeth Moss in Margaret Atwood's Gilead.
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4
The Good Place
Michael Schur's afterlife comedy, with its big twists.
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5
Big Little Lies
Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon and a death in Monterey.
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6
Better Things
Pamela Adlon as a single mother of three in Los Angeles.
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7
The Deuce
David Simon and the birth of the porn industry in seventies New York.
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8
Insecure
Issa Rae and her friends in Los Angeles.
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9
Halt and Catch Fire
The final season of the drama about the personal computer boom.
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10
Master of None
Season 2: Aziz Ansari in Italy and New York.
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11
GLOW
Women's wrestling on TV in the 1980s.
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12
BoJack Horseman
Season 4 of the animated series about a washed-up sitcom star.
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13
Mindhunter
David Fincher and the FBI agents who interviewed serial killers.
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14
The Crown
Season 2 of Netflix's series about Elizabeth II.
How is this ranking ordered? By people's votes: each ▲ adds a point and each ▼ takes one away. Anyone can vote and add what is missing.
Is something missing?
Comments (8)
Mindhunter getting cancelled is still one of the great TV crimes
2017 was peak TV for real. Big Little Lies season 1 was perfect
GLOW was so much fun, I miss it
The Good Place at #1 on that tally is wild but honestly deserved, that season 1 twist
The Leftovers finale is the best ending of any show ever. I'll die on this hill
Twin Peaks: The Return episode 8 broke my brain in the best way
Part 8 is basically an art film on network-ish TV, still can't believe they aired it
Halt and Catch Fire never got the audience it deserved