The 8 Greatest 4-Season Netflix Shows of All Time, Ranked

Published Sep 18, 2026, 6:09 AM EDT

Jessica is a young writer from Brisbane, Australia. An avid consumer and lover of all things Film and TV, you will never tear her away from a screen. A tendency rooted from childhood, she once had dreams of becoming a member of the famed kids-band 'Hi-5'. Perhaps that's what pushed her to secure an education with a theater background. But now, as dreams evolved, her passions have turned to admiring performances from afar. Frankly, she's just grateful that she can put her binging skills to good use. Outside of work, Jessica recently completed her undergraduate double degree in Arts/Communications. Other than that, she spends most of her free time with family and friends, probably never forgetting to talk about the new movie or show she watched the day prior.

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Netflix has no shortage of shows that arrive with a huge premise, dominate the conversation for a few weeks, and then disappear into the streaming abyss. The best four-season shows, however, have managed to become something far more lasting. They've built worlds worth returning to, introduced characters who feel like old friends (or spectacularly bad influences), and delivered enough story to feel substantial without becoming an endless commitment.

From chaotic coming-of-age comedies to bleak crime dramas, these series prove that some of Netflix's best original shows are also among its most rewatchable. Sure, they may have very different tones and ambitions, but they all share one important quality: they know just how to keep you coming back for more, especially with their succinct number of seasons.

8 'Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt' (2015–2019)

Image via Netflix

After spending 15 years in an underground bunker, Kimmy Schmidt (Ellie Kemper) is rescued from the doomsday cult that kidnapped her and moves to New York City to start a new life. Armed with an infectious optimism and absolutely no idea how the modern world works, Kimmy takes a job as a nanny, makes new friends, and attempts to experience all the things she missed while growing up in captivity.

Compared to other comedies, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt shines for its commitment to the ridiculous. Kimmy's fish-out-of-water perspective turns ordinary New York life into a series of bizarre discoveries, while supporting players like the fabulous Titus (Tituss Burgess) and Jacqueline (Jane Krakowski) give the show an endless supply of comedic chaos. Better still, beneath the vibrancy and surreal jokes lies a surprisingly warm story about rebuilding one's life. Think of it as wonderfully silly television with a big heart.

7 'Atypical' (2017–2021)

Image via Netflix

Sam Gardner (Keir Gilchrist) is an 18-year-old on the autism spectrum who decides he is ready to start dating. Along the way, his search for a girlfriend sets off a chain reaction in his family, as his parents and younger sister begin confronting their own changing relationships and expectations.

Atypical is at its best when it lets its characters be funny, complicated, and occasionally a little bit wrong. Gilchrist brings a wonderfully understated charm to Sam, while other members of the family are given plenty of personality. Atypical is a forgotten Netflix series with a knack for finding humor in everyday awkwardness, but it also makes room for genuinely touching moments about growing up and learning to let people change.

6 'Never Have I Ever' (2020–2023)

Image via Netflix

After the sudden death of her father, Devi Vishwakumar (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) is determined to make her sophomore year of high school her best one yet by becoming popular, getting good grades, and finally finding a boyfriend. Sadly, her plans are complicated by her grief, her complex relationship with her mother, and the fact that she is spectacularly bad at making sensible decisions.

Never Have I Ever is easily one of Netflix's most entertaining coming-of-age comedies, as they completely understand how funny, embarrassing, and occasionally painful adolescence can be. Ramakrishnan gives Devi a wonderfully messy energy, whether it's because she's experiencing drama in her romantic life or just typical teenage hijinks. Better still, the show is anchored by a genuine emotional center, particularly in its exploration of life's most heartbreaking moments.

5 'The Umbrella Academy' (2019–2024)

Image via Netflix

After the mysterious death of their adoptive father, seven estranged siblings with extraordinary abilities reunite at the Umbrella Academy. But as they attempt to uncover the truth about his death, they discover that the world is on the brink of apocalypse, forcing them to put aside their disorderly family dynamics and work together to save it.

From the minute the show appeared on the streaming network, The Umbrella Academy made a name for itself as the new, dysfunctional, semi-superhero show. The Hargreeves siblings are a wonderfully chaotic ensemble, with each character bringing a different kind of energy to the story. Sure, it can be messy—especially with the show's combination of time travel, bizarre mysteries, and eccentric villains—but that's often part of its charm.

Collider Exclusive · TV Medicine Quiz Which Fictional Hospital Would You Work Best In? The Pitt · ER · Grey's Anatomy · House · Scrubs

Five hospitals. Five completely different ways medicine goes sideways on television — brutal, chaotic, romantic, brilliant, and ridiculous. Only one of them is the ward your instincts were built for. Eight questions will figure out exactly where you belong.

🚨The Pitt

🏥ER

💉Grey's

🔬House

🩺Scrubs

FIND YOUR HOSPITAL →

01

A critical patient comes through the door. What's your first instinct? Medicine under pressure reveals who you actually are.

AStay completely present — block everything else out and work through it step by step, right now. BTriage fast and delegate — get the right people on the right problems immediately. CTrust my gut and move — I work best when I stop overthinking and just act. DAsk the question everyone else is ignoring — what's the thing that doesn't fit? ETake a breath, make a joke to cut the tension, and then get to work — panic helps no one.

NEXT QUESTION →

02

Why did you go into medicine in the first place? The honest answer says more about you than the one you'd give in an interview.

ABecause I wanted to be where it matters most — right at the edge, when someone's life is actually on the line. BBecause I wanted to help people — genuinely, one patient at a time, in a system that makes it hard. CBecause I was drawn to the intensity of it — the stakes, the drama, the feeling of being fully alive. DBecause medicine is the most interesting puzzle there is — and I needed a problem worth solving. EBecause I wanted to make a difference — and also, honestly, I didn't know what else to do with my life.

NEXT QUESTION →

03

What do you actually want from the people you work with? Who you want beside you under pressure is who you are.

ACompetence and calm — I need people who don't fall apart when things get bad. BTrust and reliability — I want to know that when I pass something off, it's handled. CConnection — I want colleagues who become family, even if that gets complicated. DIntelligence and the willingness to be challenged — I have no interest in people who just agree with me. EFriendship — people I actually like spending twelve hours a day with, because those hours are going to happen either way.

NEXT QUESTION →

04

You lose a patient you fought hard to save. How do you carry it? Every doctor who's worked a long shift has had to answer this question.

AI carry it. All of it. I don't look for ways to put it down — that weight is part of doing this work honestly. BI process it and move — you have to, or the next patient suffers for the one you just lost. CI feel it deeply and lean on the people around me — I don't think you're supposed to handle that alone. DI go back over every decision — not to punish myself, but because I need to understand what I missed. EI grieve it genuinely, find some way to laugh about something unrelated, and try to be kind to myself — imperfectly.

NEXT QUESTION →

05

How would your colleagues describe the way you work? Your reputation on the floor is usually more accurate than your self-image.

AIntense and completely present — no small talk during a shift, but exactly who you want there. BSteady and dependable — not the flashiest in the room but never the one who drops something. CPassionate and occasionally chaotic — brilliant on the hard cases, prone to drama everywhere else. DBrilliant and difficult — right more often than anyone else, and everyone knows it, including me. EWarm and self-deprecating — not the most intimidating presence, but genuinely good at this and easy to like.

NEXT QUESTION →

06

How do you feel about hospital protocol and procedure? Every institution has rules. What you do with them is a choice.

AProtocol is the floor, not the ceiling — I follow it until the patient needs something it can't provide. BI respect it — the system is broken in places, but the structure is there for a reason and I work within it. CI follow it until my instincts tell me not to — and my instincts are usually right, even when they cause problems. DRules are for people who haven't thought hard enough about when to break them. EI try to follow it and mostly do — with a few memorable exceptions that still come up in meetings.

NEXT QUESTION →

07

What does this job cost you personally? Nobody works in medicine without paying a price. What's yours?

AEverything outside these walls — I've given this job my full attention and the rest of my life has gone around it. BMy idealism, mostly — I came in believing the system could be fixed and I've made a complicated peace with that. CStability — my personal life has been as chaotic as the OR, and that's not entirely a coincidence. DMy relationships — I am not easy to know, and the people who've tried to would probably agree. EMy sense of gravity — I use humour as a coping mechanism, which not everyone appreciates in a hospital.

NEXT QUESTION →

08

At the end of a long shift, what keeps you coming back? The answer to this question is the most honest thing about you.

AThe fact that it's real — that nothing else I could be doing would matter this much, right now, today. BThe patients — individual human beings who needed something and got it because I was there. CThe people I work with — I have walked through impossible things with these people and I'd do it again. DThe next unsolved case — there's always another puzzle, and I'm not done yet. EBecause despite everything — the exhaustion, the loss, the absurdity — I actually love this job.

REVEAL MY HOSPITAL →

Your Assignment Has Been Made You Belong In…

Your answers have pointed to one fictional hospital above all others. This is the ward your instincts, your temperament, and your particular brand of dysfunction were built for.

The Pitt

You are built for the most unsparing version of emergency medicine television has ever shown — one that puts you inside a single fifteen-hour shift and doesn't let you look away.

• You need your work to be real, not romanticised — meaning over drama, honesty over aesthetics.
• You find purpose inside the work itself, not in the chaos surrounding it.
• You've made peace with the fact that this job takes from you constantly, and gives back in ways that are harder to name.
• Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center demands exactly that kind of person — and you would not want to be anywhere else.

ER

You are the person who keeps the whole floor running — not the most brilliant in the room, but possibly the most essential.

• You show up, do the work, absorb the losses, and come back the next day without needing the job to be anything other than what it is.
• You care about patients as individual human beings, not as cases to solve or dramas to live through.
• You believe in the system even when it fails you — and you understand that emergency medicine is about holding the line just long enough.
• ER is television about endurance. You have it.

Grey's Anatomy

You came to medicine with your whole self — your ambition, your emotions, your relationships, your history — and you have never quite managed to leave any of it at the door.

• You feel things fully and form deep attachments to the people you work with.
• Your personal and professional lives are permanently, chaotically entangled — and that entanglement drives both your greatest disasters and your most remarkable saves.
• You understand that extraordinary medicine often happens at the intersection of clinical skill and profound human connection.
• It's messy at Grey Sloan. You would not have it any other way.

House

You are drawn to the problem above everything else — the symptom that doesn't fit, the diagnosis hiding underneath the obvious one.

• You're not primarily motivated by the patient as a person — though you are capable of caring, even if you'd deny it.
• You work best when the stakes are highest and the standard answer is wrong.
• Princeton-Plainsboro exists to house one extraordinary, impossible mind — and everyone around that mind is there because they're smart enough to keep up.
• The only way forward here is to think harder than everyone else in the room. That is exactly what you do.

Scrubs

You understand that medicine is tragic and absurd in almost equal measure — and that the only sane response is to hold both of those things at the same time.

• You are warm, self-aware, and funnier than most people in your field.
• You use humour to get through terrible moments — and at Sacred Heart, that's not a flaw, it's a survival strategy.
• You lean on the people around you and let them lean back. The laughter and the grief are genuinely inseparable here.
• Scrubs is a show about learning to become someone worthy of the job. You are still very much in the middle of that process — which is exactly right.

↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ

4 'Sex Education' (2019–2023)

Image via Netflix

When awkward teenager Otis Milburn (Asa Butterfield) begins giving relationship advice to his classmates, he discovers that his knowledge of sex and relationships is far more useful than he expected. Seeing a lucrative opportunity, Otis, his best friend Eric (Ncuti Gatwa), and the ambitious Maeve (Emma Mackey) open an unofficial sex-therapy clinic on campus where Otis can help his peers navigate everything from first love to sexual insecurity.

Sex Education stood out among the coming-of-age genre as it brilliantly balanced its outrageous humor with genuine affection for its characters and themes. A true ensemble piece, filled with memorable personalities, the show had a knack for making even the most awkward teenage situations feel both hilarious and surprisingly relatable. Its willingness to talk openly about sex and identity was extremely refreshing, all while its emotional moments gave the comedy a true sense of weight. Even when it gets a little too ambitious, Sex Education remains wonderfully significant in how it explores what it means to truly grow up.

3 'Castlevania' (2017–2021)

Image via Netflix

When his human wife is executed by the people of Wallachia, Dracula (Graham McTavish) declares war on humanity and unleashes an army of monsters upon the country. The only people standing in his way are Trevor Belmont (Richard Armitage), the last surviving member of a disgraced monster-hunting family, powerful magician Sypha Belnades (Alejandra Reynoso), and Alucard (James Callis), Dracula's half-human son. Together, they must work together to stop Dracula's campaign of revenge before it destroys the world.

Combining brutal action with a surprisingly rich emotional tale, Castlevania has become one of the most impressive adult animated shows of the last few years. The artwork is gorgeous, the fight scenes are spectacular, and the characters are far more complicated than the usual heroes and villains set up. The core trio has fantastic chemistry, while Dracula's grief gives the story a tragic center that makes the violence feel more than just spectacle. It's dark, stylish, and occasionally very funny, with a world that feels completely and fully realized.

2 'The Sinner' (2017–2021)

Image via USA Network

With every season following a different crime, Harry Ambrose (Bill Pullman) investigates what initially appears to be a straightforward case before uncovering the complicated history behind it. And rather than simply asking who committed the crime, the show focuses more on why someone would do something so terrible, gradually revealing the secrets, trauma, and psychological pressures that led to the violence.

What makes The Sinner so compelling is its ability to turn a familiar crime-story formula into something much more psychologically unsettling. Pullman gives Ambrose a wonderfully flawed, introspective presence, while the changing cases allow the show to explore a range of disturbing and often unexpected human motivations. It's not always an easy watch, but it's constantly atmospheric and intriguing, resulting in a truly underrated crime anthology that feels less interested in tidy answers than in the uncomfortable questions that remain.

1 'Ozark' (2017–2022)

Image via Netflix

When a money laundering deal goes terribly wrong, financial adviser Marty Byrde (Jason Bateman) is forced to move his family from Chicago to the Ozarks. There, he must find a way to launder millions of dollars for a Mexican cartel to save their lives. Meanwhile, his wife, Wendy (Laura Linney), becomes increasingly involved in the criminal world, leading their decisions to draw them deeper into a dangerous web of corruption.

Ozark is easily one of Netflix's most gripping crime dramas simply because it knows how to make even the smallest decision spiral into the most catastrophic of consequences. Bateman and Linney are both formidable forces, with their performances giving the Byrdes a complicated dynamic that makes their relationship as fascinating as the criminal plot itself. The show is dark, tense, and often genuinely unsettling. But it also has a strangely sharp sense of humor that keeps it from becoming relentlessly bleak (as would other tales of ambition and survival).

Ozark