Best TV shows to watch on NOW (September 2026)

Discover NOW's standout shows with Radio Times's curated list that highlights the platform's best series, helping you find your next bingeworthy obsession.

Saturday Night Live UK brings America's legendary sketch show across the pond. Broadcast live from London, it pairs a different celebrity host (such as Jeff Goldblum, Jamie Dornan and Hannah Waddingham) and musical guest each week with topical sketches and a British take on Weekend Update, created by a home-grown ensemble cast that includes Hammed Animashaun, Celeste Dring, Ania Magliano and Paddy Young. Series two is airing now, so there's no better time to dip in.

If you like Doc Martin, why not try Best Medicine, a US comedy drama based on Martin Clunes hit. It follows a brilliant but socially awkward surgeon (played by Josh Charles) who leaves Boston to become a GP in a small Maine fishing town, where his blunt manner clashes with the quirky locals.

Mark Gatiss writes and stars in cosy post-war crime drama Bookish as Gabriel Book, a London bookseller with a talent for solving mysteries. With the second season having recently landed, there are even more baffling cases, hidden secrets and literary clues to uncover.

In costume drama Mary & George, Julianne Moore is Mary Villiers, a tremendous mum from hell in a rollicking historical drama telling the true-ish story of King James I and his particular peccadillos. Nicholas Galitzine plays her son, George, for whom she has great plans…

No-one can leave — that's the horror at the heart of sci-fi thriller From, which stars Lost's Harold Perrineau. Set in a nightmarish American town that traps everyone who enters, unwilling residents fight to survive terrifying nocturnal creatures from the surrounding forest while searching for hidden secrets and a way out.

NOW hosts acclaimed series such as It: Welcome to Derry and The Chair Company, widely discussed dramas The Last of Us and The Day of the Jackal, plus highly decorated comedy Hacks, with gritty crime thriller Gangs of London among the British originals to choose from. It's also where you can find celebrated classics such as Chernobyl, The Wire, Boardwalk Empire and The Sopranos.

All of this means it's the perfect place to head to if you're looking for an evening's entertainment. Scroll on for Radio Times's top picks, spanning recent releases and all-time greats.

Showing 1 to 24 of 62 results

• Comedy sketch and variety show based on the long-running US programme, featuring guest hosts and live music

• A brilliant surgeon abruptly leaves his career in Boston to become the general practitioner in a quaint East Coast fishing village where he spent summers as a child. Comedy drama based on ITV series Doc Martin, starring Josh Charles

• Inspired by George RR Martin's novels, the epic saga of interconnected clans, including the Lannisters and Targaryens, all fighting for control of the Iron Throne.

• Detective drama starring Mark Gatiss as crime-solving bookshop owner Gabriel Book.

• Drama series. Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini), an Italian-American mafia head based in New Jersey, struggles to manage his family and criminal life and confides to his psychiatrist.

• Comedy drama about a woman who escaped childhood infamy to lead a quiet life into adulthood working as an office manager. Starring Ella Purnell, Calam Lynch and Nicole Lecky

• Oscar winner Olivia Colman and David Thewlis play a seemingly ordinary married couple with murderous intentions in a disturbing four-part drama based on a true story.

• Fact-based historical drama about the scheming of Mary Villiers, who helped her son George to seduce James I and become his all-powerful lover. Historical drama, starring Julianne Moore, Nicholas Galitzine and Tony Curran

• Fantasy drama based on Deborah Harkness's novel, starring Teresa Palmer and Matthew Goode. It centres on a historian who discovers a manuscript that sends her into a world of magic.

• The gritty prequel to acclaimed Italian crime drama Gomorra charts the rise of young Pietro Savastano (Luca Lubrano) in 1977 Naples. He grows up in the poorest areas of Secondigliano and accepts the hard knocks that life sends his way. Riding around the town with his friends on mopeds and committing petty crimes, Pietro dreams of emulating the success of neighbourhood kingpin Angelo A Sirena (Francesco Pellegrino). The young pretender ingratiates himself to Angelo and is introduced to a dark and violent life that tests his moral boundaries. Pietro openly questions his future and wonders if romance with Imma (Tullia Venezia) might save him

• A man investigates a conspiracy after an embarrassing incident at work. Comedy, starring Tim Robinson

• A nightmarish town in middle America traps everyone who enters, with the unwilling residents striving to stay alive and search for a way out. Sci-fi horror, starring Harold Perrineau and Catalina Sandino Moreno

• A food blogger tries to combat loss by recreating a luxury break with her friends on Nantucket. Drama, starring Jennifer Garner, Chloë Sevigny, Regina Hall, D'Arcy Carden, Gemma Chan and Timothy Olyphant

• Supernatural horror prequel to Stephen King's novel It, starring Jovan Adepo, Chris Chalk, Taylour Paige, James Remar, Stephen Rider and Bill Skarsgård

• Drama based on the novels by Edward St Aubyn, following the life of witty and wealthy aristocrat Patrick Melrose as he attempts to recover from a severe drug addiction he developed as a way to deal with memories of a deeply traumatic childhood. Starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Jennifer Jason Leigh

• A self-destructive woman who has a spiritual awakening becomes determined to live an enlightened life, which creates havoc at home and work.

• The story of the House Targaryen, set 300 years before the events of George RR Martin's blood-soaked fantasy adventure Game of Thrones

• Drama series centring on the Roy family, the owners of a global media empire who are fighting for control of the company amidst uncertainty about the health of the family's patriarch.

• A dark coming-of-age drama exploring love, addiction, friendship and identity in a world full of temptation and uncertainty.

• Fact-based Holocaust drama adapted from the best-selling novel by Heather Morris about a couple who met while prisoners in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Starring Jonah Hauer-King and Anna Prochniak

• Task

  2025

  Crime/detective

  Drama

  15

  An FBI agent heads up a task force to tackle a string of drug-house robberies in the working-class suburbs of Philadelphia. Crime drama, starring Mark Ruffalo

• Sci-fi prequel focusing on the origins of the exclusive and powerful sisterhood Bene Gesserit, who undergo intense physical training and mental conditioning to obtain superhuman powers. Starring Emily Watson, Olivia Williams, Travis Fimmel and Mark Strong

• Jared Harris, Emily Watson and Stellan Skarsgård star in a five-part dramatisation of the story of one of the worst man-made catastrophes in history.

• A Utah polygamist who owns home improvement stores in the Salt Lake City area juggles relationships with three wives while trying to keep his complex family life from becoming a public scandal.