Best TV shows to watch on Amazon Prime Video UK

The latest foreign jolly for Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May sees them take a road trip across central Europe, with Gdansk in Poland as the starting point and stop-offs in Slovakia, Hungary and Slovenia.

After a classic bout of unlikely car selections, the meandering odyssey is interrupted by horses, “Soviet-style Formula One”, a superstar racing driver and an ambush by deadly archers, before arriving at a climax with pretensions to rival the Fast and Furious film franchise. Rumours persist that Clarkson’s days on Prime Video are numbered, but he and his pals have already filmed another special: they’ll soon have sand in their carburettors as they race across Mauritania.

Jack Seale

From the brilliantly creative mind of Boots Riley – who wowed critics with his debut feature Sorry to Bother You – I’m A Virgo is a coming-of-age story like no other.

Jharrel Jerome follows acclaimed performances in Moonlight and When They See Us with this offbeat project, where he plays a 13-foot tall 19-year-old named Cootie. He has always been hidden away due to his enormous stature, but leaps at the first opportunity to experience the world – including a meeting with his idol, known simply as The Hero (played by Walton Goggins).

Critics have praised the show’s satirical commentary and unique visual style, while the performances are stellar across the board. Jerome and Goggins are joined by Mike Epps (The Upshaws), Carmen Ejogo (True Detective), Brett Gray (On My Block) and Kara Young (The Staircase).

David Craig

Based on the New York Times bestselling novel by Naomi Alderman, this fantasy series imagines a world where women suddenly become capable of firing electrical charges through their fingertips. The story follows several characters from across the globe, all of whom are profoundly affected as a new world order begins to take shape.

While perhaps not as impactful as the source material – few screen adaptations are – The Power is an intriguing concept through which Alderman explores society’s attitudes towards gender.

Meanwhile, the cast is a mix of established names like Toni Collette, John Leguizamo and Eddie Marsan as well as emerging talent including Chloe Auliʻi Cravalho, Heather Agyepong and Ria Zmitrowicz – all of whom bring their A-game to this exhilarating story.

David Craig

You wait ages for a TV remake of a controversial Jeremy Irons movie, then two come along at once: as well as Netflix’s Obsession, we have this bold re-imagining of the 1992 film where Jeremy Irons played identical twin gynaecologists. Now the twins are Rachel Weisz, playing flamboyantly unpredictable sisters (“If I’m a psycho, you’re a psycho!”) in a show that’s much more about fertility, motherhood and how society views women than the original film was. As a torrent of garish images and nightmarish ideas unfurls, Weisz visibly relishes the liberation of a daring double role.

Jack Seale

One of the best comedy dramas of recent years is enjoying a playful final season, jumping around in time to give us glimpses of where the beloved characters will end up – while still majoring on Rachel Brosnahan as Midge, a 1960s housewife turned stand-up comic whose career change has led us on a dazzling tour of the Manhattan comedy scene at its counter-cultural peak, offset by the wry take on Jewish New Yorkers provided by Midge’s family.

Jack Seale

Harlem is back and after the cliffhanger of season 1’s finale, something tells us that season 2 will carry on in the same hilarious and dramatic fashion. In a similar vein to comedy shows like Girlfriends and Insecure – and from Girls Trip writer Tracy Oliver – we follow four stylish and ambitious best girlfriends in Harlem NYC, the mecca of Black culture in America.

After blowing up her career and disrupting her love life, Camille (Meagan Good) has to figure out how to put the pieces back together, while the other members of the group are navigating self-discovery, career prospects and their big dreams. Be warned, though: it’s definitely the kind of series you can easily consume in a weekend.

Ever wondered what happens when you cross a comedy with a nail-biting thriller? Well, The Consultant answers that question and provides ludicrous action with subtle humour.

In the series, we follow the after-effects of an unspeakable tragedy that takes place at Compware, a games studio in downtown Los Angeles. But when mysterious consultant Regus Patoff comes into town, he demands to take charge. It’s a series that explores the sinister relationship between boss and employee, but be prepared for twists and turns aplenty.

Christoph Waltz stars as Patoff while Death Note’s Nat Wolff and The White Lotus‘s Brittany O’Grady star as the company’s employees Craig and Elaine.

Morgan Cormack

Few fans of the Next Generation felt that the crew got the farewell they deserved in 2002 box-office bomb Star Trek: Nemesis. But two decades on, that wrong is finally being righted.

Because, for the first time since that damp squib of a send-off, Jean-Luc Picard’s (Patrick Stewart) former officers are reuniting as they take on a valedictory mission that feels very much like a Next Gen love letter. It’s also – it must be said – something of a necessary recalibration for the Picard spin-off itself, which has, up until now, been struggling on impulse power.

Seasons one and two remain available on Prime Video, but this third (and final) run is a standalone adventure that gives aficionados the chance to warm themselves in the glow of nostalgia, as we catch up with the likes of empathetic Dr Crusher, the burly Riker and Klingon warrior Worf.

David Brown

If watching the Stranger Things gang play Dungeons & Dragons has given you an interest in the real thing, The Legend of Vox Machina would be a great way to learn more about the fantasy role-playing game. This is an animated retelling of a real campaign originally played on popular web series Critical Role, which follows a ragtag group of adventurers as they seek to avenge murders committed by the evil Lord and Lady Briarwood.

In the recently launched second season, Vox Machina is faced with saving the world once again – this time, from a sinister group of dragons known as the Chroma Conclave. Expect adult humour along the way as well as big name guest stars, including David Tennant (Doctor Who), Stephanie Beatriz (Brooklyn Nine-Nine), Indira Varma (Obi-Wan Kenobi), Ralph Ineson (Willow) and Henry Winkler (Barry).

While this new action thriller has been heralded as many things, one thing’s for certain – it’ll certainly keep viewers intrigued till the very end.

The series, which is led by Line of Duty’s Martin Compston, is an exhilarating drama centred on the crew of the Kinloch Bravo oil rig. As a mysterious fog descends on them, though, they all struggle to keep themselves together and soon, questions of ecology and our relationship with the planet start to rear their head. While it’s been likened to BBC’s Vigil (on account of the similar claustrophobic setting), we say that it’s a sci-fi thriller that has notes of Doctor Who about it.

Morgan Cormack

With the release of this supernatural thriller from executive producer Steven Moffat, Prime Video invites audiences to ask the question – what exactly is The Devil’s Hour?

With a season premiere that features abstract imagery and a cavalcade of sensory assaults, the series never proves to be an easy watch. Five minutes in, Lucy (Jessica Raine) and Gideon (Peter Capaldi) are captured conversing in a blacked-out room. She is pale, bruised and defiant in the face of her interrogator who sits opposite, handcuffed yet commanding. Exposition is limited and other storytelling staples are thin on the ground, making this show almost impossible to pin down for audiences seeking context.

Martin Carr

Hacks has become a firm favourite among critics since its debut just last year. The showbiz comedy stars Jean Smart as Deborah Vance, a legendary Las Vegas comedian whose popularity is starting to wane. On a mission to revitalise her act, Vance reluctantly teams up with a “cancelled” young comedy writer named Ava Daniels (Hannah Einbinder).

It makes for a dynamite comedy pairing as the two take an instant disliking to one another but are forced to stick together for the sake of both their careers. The show just earned another round of Emmy nominations to go with last year’s wins, so be sure to catch up on the first two seasons now.

The Boys is set in a world where a sinister corporation owns a team of superheroes, who are secretly awful people with nothing but contempt for those they claim to protect. A ragtag group make it their mission to take down the corrupt “Supes” once and for all, by any means necessary. The result is a violent, inappropriate, shocking and riotously entertaining new spin on the saturated genre. Look out for stand-out performances from Antony Starr as unstable Superman allegory Homelander and Karl Urban as no-nonsense brute Billy Butcher. Season 3 is now streaming in full.

If you enjoyed seeing Jensen Ackles portray despicable wartime superhero Soldier Boy in The Boys season 3, you might be interested in revisiting his breakthrough role in this fantasy drama, also created by Eric Kripke. Here he plays Dean Winchester, who joins forces with his brother, Sam (Jared Padalecki), to battle all manner of demons, ghosts, monsters and other spooky beings. Originally envisioned as a five-season story, the show’s huge success ultimately kept it going for a whopping 15 years, culminating in its emotional end in November 2020. The whole saga is streaming now.

If you enjoyed cartoon comedy/existential drama Bojack Horseman, then you’ll love this trippy animation from the same creators. Starring Rosa Salazar and Bob Odenkirk, the series is a psychological comedy-drama, which tells the story of Alma, a young woman who, after getting in a car accident, discovers she has a new relationship with time and uses this ability to find out the truth about her father’s death.

Dealing with themes surrounding mental health, family and culture, with a (potential) sci-fi twist, it’s at once hilarious and also devastatingly sad. The show’s unique look is created using rotoscope animation, meaning the actors performed the scenes live and animators then drew on top of them. It makes for a gorgeous looking series, which helps to heighten the un-reality of it all.

David E Kelley previously had great success adapting Liane Moriarty’s bestselling novel Big Little Lies, so it’s no surprise that he returned to her work this year for new series Nine Perfect Strangers. With an extremely star-studded cast – including Nicole Kidman, Melissa McCarthy, Michael Shannon and Luke Evans – this is glossy prestige TV at its most intriguing, telling an unusual and unpredictable story about nine strangers who arrive at a wellness retreat where strange things very quickly begin to occur.

Hit French comedy Call My Agent! has created a big buzz worldwide since it started airing in 2015, so it’s no surprise that this British version has now landed on Prime Video. The series explores the world of talents agents and their celebrity clientele, and features some seriously starry guest appearances (hello, Helena Bonham Carter!). However, the real highlight is the delightfully crafted and perfectly cast characters and their relationships – from Jack Davenport’s smarmy son of the agency’s founder to Lydia Leonard’s often fearsome agent character Rebecca, they all get their own arcs and are properly fleshed out as individuals beyond their work lives. With a biting humour but a warm heart, it’s one not to miss.

For viewers missing the To All the Boys film franchise, adapted from Jenny Han’s bestsellers, look no further than this next Prime Video offering, based on Han’s other famous teen book series.

The Summer I Turned Pretty is a coming-of-age, multi-generational trilogy of books now adapted for the screen, with Lola Tung in the role of Belly, a girl who suddenly finds herself in a love triangle with two brothers who also happen to be the sons of her mother’s best friend.

Swarm is the kind of series that’s rather difficult to put into words – you just have to watch it. Created by Donald Glover and Janine Nabers, who both worked together on Atlanta, the series shares the same slightly comedic tone and is unexpectedly thought-provoking throughout.

We follow Dre, brilliantly played by Dominique Fishback (Judas and the Black Messiah), a devoted fan of fictional R&B icon Ni’Jah. But Dre takes things all too far in her quest to get closer to her icon, resulting in her taking a dark cross-country journey, leaving devastation in her wake.

The series has glaring (intentional) similarities to the real-life Beyhive, but also shines an important light on fandoms, parasocial relationships and the pile-on culture that dominates the internet.

Morgan Cormack

It’s the big one – the one we’ve all been waiting for. Amazon purchased the rights to The Lord of the Rings back in 2017, and have been steadily putting together this series, based largely on appendixes from those books, ever since. The result is The Rings of Power, a visually dazzling series which is reportedly the most expensive show ever made.

It takes us back to Middle Earth but not as we know it, with the series set thousands of years before The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and features, elves, dwarves and the Hobbit-like Harfoots. If you’re looking for sweeping fantasy, epic vistas and a plot to intrigue as we delve in the world JRR Tolkien first created like never before, then this one’s for you.

If you’re looking for a taste of musical nostalgia then look no further than Daisy Jones & The Six, which transports you into the heady world of ’70s rock and roll, where the titular band reigns supreme.

They’re on top of the world, touring America and living out the kind of lifestyle they’d previously only ever dreamed of. But one fateful night, that all comes crashing down and the band disbanded soon after. What was the fateful catalyst that broke Daisy Jones & The Six up?

Through the talking heads style of the ’90s documentary that’s being made about the band, we see how the events of the ’70s impacted them and continue to, making for an easy watch of a series with songs you’ll struggle to get out of your head.

Morgan Cormack

In the years since Game of Thrones drew to a close, several new fantasy shows have emerged in an attempt to become the next big thing – and the latest is The Wheel of Time. The show is based on Robert Jordan’s book series of the same name, and given that series is made up of 14 novels it’s not likely they’ll run out of source material anytime soon. Starring Rosamund Pike in the lead role, this is high production value, grippingly told stuff – and seems sure to appeal to all fantasy fans.

This account of Viking life isn’t always historically accurate, but has nonetheless enthralled viewers with its action-packed and unpredictable story. The series began by adapting the Norse legend of Ragnar Lothbrok (Travis Fimmel), but has since shifted focus towards other key figures in his tribe of warriors. The final episodes of Vikings debuted on Amazon Prime Video at the tail end of 2020, bringing the epic saga to a close after seven years of thrilling twists and turns – so there’s never been a better time to binge watch.