Best TV comedies of all time

The Office▲ Rising

Jim's slow-burn grin into the camera during Michael Scott's cringe-fueled disasters turned the mockumentary into America's comfort food. Steve Carell's fragile, needy boss made humiliation feel like love, and the show proved a workplace sitcom could become a religion, streamed on loop by millions who'd never worked at a paper company.

Premiered: 2005Seasons: 9IMDb: 9/10

added by IJRin 9 rankings

Seinfeld▲ Rising

The finale's parade of past victims aside, this was the show that weaponized nothing — a soup Nazi, a marble rye, a puffy shirt — into comedy's most influential architecture. It rewired sitcom logic around petty grievance and moral smallness, and every 'no hugging, no learning' show since owes it rent.

Premiered: 1989Seasons: 9IMDb: 8.9/10

added by IJRin 10 rankings

BoJack Horseman▲ Rising

A cartoon horse's spiral through Hollywood wreckage delivered some of TV's bleakest gut-punches, especially the underwater silence of 'Fish Out of Water.' It smuggled genuine depression and addiction narratives inside animal puns, expanding what an animated comedy was even allowed to feel.

Premiered: 2014Seasons: 6IMDb: 8.8/10

added by IJRin 8 rankings

Ted Lasso▲ Rising

A mustachioed American teaching British football players about biscuits and vulnerability shouldn't have worked, yet 'Believe' became a genuine cultural talisman during a bleak year. It made kindness feel radical again, proving comedy didn't need cynicism to hit hard, just a man who assembled a divorce puzzle to prove a point.

Premiered: 2020Seasons: 3IMDb: 8.8/10

added by IJRin 6 rankings

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia▲ Rising

Charlie eating cat food, Dennis's implication system, the gang's cheerful moral rot — this is the longest-running live-action sitcom in U.S. history precisely because it refused to soften its monsters. It proved audiences would follow irredeemable people forever if the writing stayed feral and fearless.

Premiered: 2005Seasons: 16IMDb: 8.8/10

added by IJRin 9 rankings

Friends▲ Rising

Ross screaming 'PIVOT!' up a stairwell is the whole show in miniature: broad, warm, endlessly rewatchable. It became the default hangout sitcom for a generation, turning a coffee shop couch into the most famous furniture in television history, and its gravitational pull on syndication and streaming numbers remains unmatched.

Premiered: 1994Seasons: 10IMDb: 8.9/10

added by IJRin 12 rankings

Curb Your Enthusiasm▲ Rising

Larry David turned his own neuroses into a weapon, riffing his way through social contracts nobody else even noticed existed, all scored by that plinking bass line of doom. It birthed the modern cringe-comedy playbook and gave permission for comedy to be about nothing but being right in the smallest, pettiest way possible.

Premiered: 2000Seasons: 12IMDb: 8.8/10

added by IJRin 6 rankings

Arrested Development▲ Rising

Chicken dances, never-nudes, and a banana stand joke that pays off seasons later made this the most rewatched-for-clues sitcom ever made. Its density of callback and structure influenced a decade of comedy writers even as the ratings tanked, becoming the ultimate 'it was too smart to survive' cult object.

Premiered: 2003Seasons: 5IMDb: 8.7/10

added by IJRin 5 rankings

Fleabag▲ Rising

A direct-to-camera glance that turns confession into indictment, Fleabag rewired what a half-hour comedy could carry emotionally, especially once the Hot Priest arrived and the fourth wall itself became a plot point. Phoebe Waller-Bridge made grief, guilt, and horniness feel like the same devastating joke.

Premiered: 2016Seasons: 2IMDb: 8.7/10

added by IJRin 6 rankings

The Office (UK)

David Brent's dance, the toe-curling silences, the sheer bleakness of Slough's stationery supply company — Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant invented the mockumentary cringe format that would colonize a decade of television worldwide. Its short, merciless run proved restraint could be as influential as any sprawling franchise.

Premiered: 2001Seasons: 2IMDb: 8.5/10

added by IJRin 8 rankings

Scrubs

J.D.'s fantasy sequences and the hospital's oddball found family balanced slapstick with genuine gut-punch mortality, most famously in 'My Screw Up.' It proved a comedy could kill off characters and crack wise in the same breath, quietly influencing a generation of tonally adventurous sitcoms.

Premiered: 2001Seasons: 9IMDb: 8.4/10

added by IJRin 10 rankings

South Park

Cartman's scheming, Kenny's endless deaths, and a satirical machine fast enough to skewer the news within the same week it happened — this is shock comedy with a moralist's heart underneath the construction-paper crudeness. Two decades of untouchable targets later, it's still the show everyone's afraid to be the subject of.

Premiered: 1997Seasons: 27IMDb: 8.7/10

added by IJRin 7 rankings

Parks and Recreation

Leslie Knope's binder-fueled optimism turned government bureaucracy into a love letter to earnest ambition, culminating in a friendship (and waffle order) so pure it became meme currency forever. It's the anti-cynical sitcom, proving kindness and competence could be just as funny as dysfunction.

Premiered: 2009Seasons: 7IMDb: 8.6/10

added by IJRin 11 rankings

The Bear

Screamed orders, clattering pans, and a trauma-soaked kitchen that barely qualifies as comedy but earns the label through sheer nervous-system intensity — 'Review' 's single unbroken take is a stress dream that redefined the genre's edges. It's the argument that comedy can be a panic attack and still be brilliant.

Premiered: 2022Seasons: 4IMDb: 8.5/10

added by IJRin 10 rankings

The Simpsons

Homer strangling Bart, Mr. Burns's 'excellent,' Springfield's endless supply of background gags — this is the show that basically invented modern animated satire and never stopped running. Its golden-era seasons remain a comedy Rosetta Stone, quoted so often people forget they're quoting a cartoon.

Premiered: 1989Seasons: 36IMDb: 8.7/10

added by IJRin 12 rankings

Veep

Selina Meyer's staff spiraling through profanity-laced humiliation redefined political satire as pure, operatic incompetence, with insults so inventive they became their own art form. It arrived just before reality made its satire feel like documentary, and never lost its blistering, filthy precision.

Premiered: 2012Seasons: 7IMDb: 8.4/10

added by IJRin 6 rankings

Brooklyn Nine-Nine

Captain Holt's deadpan 'cool cool cool' energy and Jake Peralta's man-child charm turned a police procinct into a joyful, surprisingly progressive hangout comedy. Its Halloween heist episodes became annual comedy events, proving broad network sitcoms could still be sharp, inclusive, and structurally inventive.

Premiered: 2013Seasons: 8IMDb: 8.4/10

added by IJRin 9 rankings

30 Rock

Liz Lemon's night cheese, Jack Donaghy's corporate koans, and jokes fired at a density no other network show dared attempt — Tina Fey built a machine-gun surrealist satire of television itself inside network television. It's the show writers quote to each other like scripture.

Premiered: 2006Seasons: 7IMDb: 8.3/10

added by IJRin 9 rankings

Atlanta▼ Falling

The invisible car, the Teddy Perkins episode, a show that abandoned plot for mood and let dread sit inside jokes like a splinter — Atlanta blew up what 'comedy' even needed to mean. Donald Glover made surrealism feel like the only honest way to depict being Black and broke in America.

Premiered: 2016Seasons: 4IMDb: 8.6/10

added by IJRin 10 rankings

Frasier▼ Falling

A spinoff that somehow eclipsed its source, Frasier turned sibling rivalry, opera tickets, and door-slamming farce into elegant, verbally dazzling comfort food. Niles and Daphne's slow-burn romance and the Crane brothers' pretensions gave sitcom comedy a rare dose of genuine wit and structure worthy of stage farce.

Premiered: 1993Seasons: 11IMDb: 8.2/10

added by IJRin 8 rankings