10 Most Perfect Sitcoms of the Last 5 Years, Ranked

Published Sep 21, 2026, 7:14 PM EDT

Christine is a freelance writer for Collider with two decades of experience covering all types of TV shows and movies spanning every genre. With a particular affinity for dramas, true crime, sitcoms, and thrillers, if it's a top TV show, Christine has likely watched it and is eager to share her thoughts. When she's not furiously writing away, you can find her enjoying the next binge obsession with a glass of wine in front of the TV.

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There have been so many great sitcoms through the decades that today, it's tough to top the cream of the crop. Yet a handful of new sitcoms from the last five years have managed to do just that. Sitcoms like Schitt's Creek and Ted Lasso started ushering in a new generation of comedies in the last decade, and since 2021, a handful of shows in the genre have upped the ante.

Many of the shows have won numerous awards, yet a few of them have flown under the radar, despite the positive reception. From networks to streamers, they include everything from medical sitcoms to one hilarious period show that serves as a prequel to a funny comedy movie franchise, mockumentaries, and more.

10 'Girls5eva' (2021–2024)

Image via Netflix

From the brilliant comedic minds of Tina Fey and Meredith Scardino (The Colbert Report, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt), Girls5eva is a musical comedy that will especially appeal to younger Gen Xers and older millennials who grew up in the '90s boy band and girl group era. The group Girls5eva was once the hottest thing around, but their star has long since flamed out. That is, until a hot new young rapper samples one of their songs. All of a sudden, they're popular again. Who cares if they're in their 40s now with careers, families, and aching bodies? It's time to don the sparkles and miniskirts again and sing their hearts out to capitalize on this revitalized career.

Girls5eva is a coming-of-age comedy for middle agers, a hilarious homage to the '90s music scene, and a poignant tale about following your dreams. The cast is hilarious with great chemistry; the humor completely absurd and embellished. It's a shame the series, which started on Peacock and moved to Netflix for its third season, was canceled after that. But the 22 episodes will still make you laugh, especially if you're around the same age as these ladies.

9 'Jury Duty' (2023–Present)

Image via Prime Video

Initially expected to be a one-hit wonder, three years after the first season was released, the concept in Jury Duty returned with another that was just as strong. Jury Duty is a reality hoax sitcom that plays an elaborate joke on the unsuspecting star. In Season 1, that's Ronald Gladden, a young man called in for jury duty who believes he's also participating in a documentary about serving in this capacity. What he doesn't know is that all the others are actors, and they're purposely doing ridiculous things to see how he'll react. James Marsden shines as an exaggerated version of himself, a celebrity who is angered that he has to take time out of his busy schedule to do this.

In Season 2, called Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat, Anthony Norman is a temp worker hired to help a family-owned hot sauce brand with their annual company retreat. But he's in for a dramatic treat, unaware that cameras are hidden everywhere. The season was just as strong, the show managing to find a star who was just as endearing and sweet, that Jury Duty is coming back for a third season. If you want a show that will restore your faith in humanity, Jury Duty is it, a Prime Video show that's perfect for a weekend binge.

8 'Ted' (2024–2026)

Image via Peacock

A stoner sitcom set in the '90s, Ted serves as a prequel to the movies Ted and Ted 2, which stars Mark Wahlberg as John Bennett and Seth MacFarlane as the voice of his anthropomorphic, sentient teddy bear best friend. Max Burkholder plays a 16-year-old John who is now coming-of-age in high school, Ted as his only friend, and also a pretty bad influence.

Absurd, vulgar, and wildly inappropriate, Ted is also deeply funny. Alanna Ubach is a standout as John's caring but gullible mother Susan and Scott Grimes as Matty, his temperamental, dedicated Republican father. Ted isn't for kids, thanks to its raunchy, adult humor. The period sitcom is a perfect watch for those who grew up in the '90s and can relate to some of the pop culture references. If you loved the movies, Ted is worth your time, coming to a satisfying end after its two-season run.

7 'St. Denis Medical' (2024–Present)

Image via NBC

Joining a list of medical sitcoms that have graced the small screen over the decades, St. Denis Medical stands out for its mockumentary style and talented cast. The setting is an underfunded hospital in Oregon where we follow the eclectic mix of doctors, nurses, and other staff members trying to do their jobs while being overworked and underappreciated.

The group is led by the eccentric executive director Joyce Henderson (Wendi McLendon-Covey) with personalities that are all wildly different, which makes for interesting interactions (and conflict) among them. Renewed for a third season, which is coming November 2, 2026, St. Denis Medical is the perfect primetime weekday comedy and a great sitcom you'll wish you watched sooner.

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

6 'Running Point' (2025–Present)

Image via Netflix

Sports sitcoms are a growing genre, though they have existed way back to the days of Coach. In Running Point, Isla Gordon (Kate Hudson) has to hang up her party girl shoes and show she can get things done when she is suddenly left in charge of her family's professional basketball team.

The series follows Isla's journey as she manages the business and personal aspects of the team, and all the clashing personalities and drama that comes with the position. Also starring Brenda Song, Chet Hanks, and Justin Theroux, Running Point has become a surprise hit for Netflix. With two seasons under its belt, the sports comedy is coming back for a third.

5 'Our Flag Means Death' (2022–2023)

Image via HBO Max

There was an outcry when Our Flag Means Death was canceled after just two seasons. The period romantic comedy has been dubbed one of the best LGBTQ+ shows, becoming a sleeper hit and a cult classic since it ended. It's set during the Golden Age of Piracy when pirate Stede Bonnet (Rhys Darby) travels the seas with his crew on the Revenge ship. Along their journey, they come upon the infamous Blackbeard (Taika Waititi).

The series, one of the best sitcoms of the 2020s so far, is loosely based on the real Bonnet and centers around his ineptitude for the position as well as the dysfunction within his crew. Filled with laughs, historical references, and fun characters, Our Flag Means Death is one sitcom from the 2020s that could do with being revived.

4 Leanne (2025–Present)

Image via Netflix

One of the best and newest sitcoms on the list, the endearing comedian Leanne Morgan stars as the title character in Leanne, a woman trying to cope with becoming single during middle age after her husband decides to up and leave her. It's a premise that has been done before in other shows like Reba and The New Adventures of Old Christine. But Leanne has a modern 2020s slant to it and feels more current to the times.

Earning high marks for Morgan's likability, smart writing, and a tone that's reminiscent of classic sitcoms, Leanne is the show you want to sit down with your family and watch after dinner. It'll remind you of sitcoms you used to watch as a child while also offering a 21st century spin.

3 'Scrubs' (2026–Present)

Image via ABC

Scrubs isn't technically a new show, but rather a continuation of the original sitcom of the same name that aired during the 2000s. It's a new dynamic with a new set of doctors and the original cast back to serve in leadership roles. But it has the same tone and throwback to the 2000s that will appeal to fans of the original, combined with a modern take that new fans will love.

You'll enjoy the same level of absurd humor and the "bro" dynamic between Dr. John "J.D." Dorian (Zach Braff) and Dr. Chris Turk (Donald Faison). Their real-life friendship shines through in the roles. This is complemented by other returning characters like Sarah Chalke, John C. McGinley, and Judy Reyes, alongside a fresh, young cast that brings their own comedic sensibilities to the hilarious group of medical professionals.

2 'Abbott Elementary' (2021–Present)

Shining a light on the challenges of the underfunded public school system from the perspective of the teaching staff, Abbott Elementary features a wonderful ensemble cast with great chemistry. The teachers want to do their best for the kids, but it doesn't help when they are met with pushback or incompetent leadership. They're often forced to do more with less and lack necessities to do their jobs. Yet they always prevail because, in the end, it's all about the kids.

The mockumentary-style sitcom, one of the best sitcoms of the last five years, has running jokes and quirky characters who are reflective of authentic, real-life teachers. There's no glossing over topics: It's a raw and real look at what goes on in the teacher's lunchroom and the sometimes unbelievable challenges they face. The show will make you a little more understanding the next time you want to complain about a teacher asking you to send tissues and pencil crayons to contribute to the classroom. It'll also remind you that teachers, they're just like us.

1 'Shrinking' (2023–Present)

Image via Apple TV

In 2020, Bill Lawrence brought us Ted Lasso, and in 2023, he delivered a worthy follow-up with Shrinking. While it's more a comedy drama than it is a sitcom, Shrinking has a sitcom feel with its mixed bag of characters, witty dialogue, and serious moments interspersed between the humor. It starts on a somber note with Jimmy Laird (Jason Segel) struggling to deal with the tragic loss of his wife. Through his job as a therapist and his friends and family, he slowly comes out of a funk and finds a new perspective on life. This sometimes, however, comes to the detriment of his job and his handling of patients.

Every character goes on their own journey through the three seasons of the show to date, and fans are excited about the upcoming fourth. The killer cast combined with the topical story (who hasn't dealt with loss of some kind in their life?), and the therapy masked by humor (just like Ted Lasso), Shrinking is one of the best new comedies of the last five years by a mile.

Shrinking

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