The best Showtime series you can watch right now

Showtime series may not get as much public recognition compared to series on HBO or Netflix. However, Showtime shows have consistently offered high-quality entertainment for many, many years. Showtime TV series have also received lots of Golden Globe and Emmy award nominations and wins. Let’s take a look at the best shows on Showtime that you can watch right now. plus a few honorable mentions. We even note a Showtime series that you can only currently watch on Netflix.

Read: Best Showtime movies

Where to watch Showtime shows

You can watch Showtime series the old-fashioned way on your local cable or satellite provider. You can also watch directly via the Showtime streaming service. In order to access that service, you can sign up for a 30 day free trial at the link below. After the trial period ends, the service costs $10.99 a month.

Showtime is also available as “channels” on Apple TV, Amazon Prime Video, and Roku platforms among others.

Best Showtime series:

Editor’s note: We will update this post when more Showtime series are released.

Dexter

One of the first major Showtime TV shows is still among its best. Based loosely on the series of Dexter novels, Michael C Hall plays the title character. To most everyone else on the show, he is a forensic technician for the Miami Police Department. In reality, Dexter is a serial killer, with a difference. His adoptive father recognized the darkness inside Dexter and trained him not to attack innocent people but other serial killers. This unique look inside the mind of a killer who wants to do good remains one of the best Showtime series. 

You can also check out the new revival of this series, Dexter: New Blood, with Hall returning as the title character.

Episodes

Another one of the best shows on Showtime is this very meta look at the making of a TV show. Two UK-based TV writers get the break of a lifetime; their British show is being remade in the US. However, their actual trials start when they reach Hollywood and are forced by the network to accept a lead actor they don’t want. That lead actor: Matt LeBlanc, who is played by . . . Matt LeBlanc. It’s a funny look at how show business is not all glamour, all the time. It also has a terrific over-the-top performance by LeBlanc, who clearly had fun played an exaggerated version of himself.

Homeland

This is another one of the great Showtime shows. It’s made by some of the same people who previously wrote and produced for 24. Both shows deal with the US fighting terrorism, but 24 is much more of an action series. Homeland, however, tried its best to offer a more realistic and nuanced look at how terrorist groups work and why they wish to attack the US. Claire Danes got the role of her career playing CIA Carrie Mathison, who has to deal with the bad guys and her problems with bipolar disorder. You can watch all eight seasons now on Showtime.

Ray Donovan

Much like Dexter, this is another classic Showtime TV show that centers on an outsider character. Liev Schreiber perfectly plays the title character, who works for a law firm in Los Angeles and later in New York City. He’s not a lawyer, though; far from it. Ray Donovan is a “fixer”; a man who covertly cleans up the mess of the firm’s clients, who are usually rich and famous. This crime drama is dark and dirty as Ray Donovan has to do questionable things for his employers. However, it still makes for one of the best Showtime series. You can watch all of the show’s episodes now. Showtime also has Ray Donovan: The Movie that officially concludes the series.

Shameless

Here’s a Showtime original series that’s a bit on the lighter side but still highly adult. Based on the UK series of the same name, the show focuses on the extended Gallagher family who lives in Chicago. The father figure, played terrifically by William H. Macy, is always drunk and is usually useless, so his six kids have to hustle and sometimes steal to survive. It’s not the ideal family unit, but it is funny to watch these characters as they get into all sorts of different situations. You can watch all of the episodes of this recently concluded series.

Twin Peaks: The Return

The original Twin Peaks was one of the greatest TV shows of all time when it ran for two seasons on ABC in the early 1990s. When co-creators David Lynch and Mark Frost announced they would revive the spooky drama series at Showtime, many thought they could never bring back the original’s greatness and weirdness. They were wrong. Twin Peaks: The Return may be better than the original. Fans of the first series will get to see lots of returning characters from the original, but Lynch and Frost bring in lots of new characters, storylines, and settings as well. Kyle MacLachlan, in particular, is a standout. He is back as FBI agent Dale Cooper, but he’s also playing several other characters as well. It may have only lasted one season (so far, anyway), but it’s one of the best shows on Showtime. 

Billions

Damian Lewis, who starred as the male lead in the first three seasons of Homeland, returned to Showtime to take the lead in Billions. His character, Bobby Axelrod, is a hugely successful hedge fund manager who wants to keep making more and more money. His tactics are not supported by Chuck Rhoades, a US Attorney played by Paul Giamatti. Rhoades thinks Axelrod is making his billions illegally, and the show mostly centers on the conflict between these two strong characters. It’s a tremendous fictional look at high finance and all of the characters and situations that go with it. It’s one of the best Showtime series.

The Affair

This drama series focuses primarily on four characters. Noah Solloway, played by Dominic West, and Alison Bailey, played by Ruth Wilson, are married to other people, played respectively by Maura Tierney and Joshua Jackson. However, Noah and Alison start seeing each other secretly, and that’s when their troubles really begin. The Affair sometimes takes some engaging narrative turns, with some episodes showing the same situations, but in the eyes and minds of other characters. This narrative shift and the great performances by the central actors make The Affair one of the best Showtime TV shows.

Penny Dreadful/Penny Dreadful: City of Angels

We are combining these two series as they take place in the same fictional universe. The original Penny Dreadful is a tremendous supernatural mashup series set in England in the late 19th century. The series follows many different characters as they battle evil forces. Park of the fun of the series is that it includes characters from horror literature of that period, including Dr. Franenstine and his creature, Count Dracula, Dorian Gray, and many more.

The new series is Penny Dreadful: City of Angels, which takes place in the same universe, but in 1930’s Los Angeles. It combines detective noir crime drama with the supernatural. This show centers on a murder mystery. The main characters have to deal with solving the crime and dealing with rising racial tensions in the city, Nazis, and a shapeshifting demon, played by Game of Thrones Natalie Dormer. This series is one of the best new shows on Showtime. However, the series only lasted one season.

Yellowjackets

This recent series takes place 25 years ago and in the present day. In the past, a plane crashes in the wilderness, trapping a girls high school soccer team. 25 years later, the surVivors of that crash are still dealing with what they had to do as teenagers to survive. It’s a brutal look at how far some people will go to stay alive.

Honorable mentions

Here’s a quick look at a few more Showtime shows you can check out:

• Black Monday – A funny satire on the later 1980s and specifically on Black Monday, the day in 1987 when the US stock market suffered a massive crash.
• Escape at Dannemora – This Emmy award-winning mini-series tells the true story of how two convicts seduced a female worker at the Dannemora prison in New York so she could help them escape.
• The Loudest Voice – Another fact-based limited series that looks at the rise of the Fox News cable channel. 
• Your HONOR – Bryan Cranston stars in this limited series about a New Orleans judge trying to protect his son from being discovered as the cause of a hit-and-run death. It’s been renewed for a second season.
• Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber – This limited series shows the rise of the ride sharing company Uber and the fall of its founder Travis Kalanick.

New and upcoming Showtime series

There is a bunch of new Showtime series to look forward to watching in the coming weeks and months ahead.

• American Gigalo — Jon Bernthal (The Walking Dead, The Punisher…) will star in this series. It’s a modern-day version of the 1980 film of the same name, with Bernthal playing the same male escort character that Richard Gere did in the movie.
• The Curse — Emma Stone will star in this comedy series, about a newly married couple who find themselves under the influence of an ancient curse.
• Let the Right One In — This will be a new TV series adaptation of the acclaimed horror film, about a 12-year-old boy who befriends a girl who looks as young as he is, but is actually a centuries-old vampire.
• Three Women — A TV show version of the best-selling novel about the lives of three women who live in different parts of the US.
• Ripley — This will be a show adapting the Tom Ripley novels, about a con man who manages to worm his way into high society.

Other FAQ

Read also: Hulu vs. Netflix

That’s a look at the best original Showtime shows that you can stream and watch right now.