Best Disney+ shows – originals and returning favourites

If you're faced with Disney+'s vast catalogue and don't know where to begin when it comes to choosing a new show to watch, let RT's experts help.

You could try recent arrival The Shards, executive-produced by Ryan Murphy and based on Bret Easton Ellis's bestselling novel. Set in 1980s Los Angeles, it follows privileged prep school seniors navigating identity, sex, and obsession as a serial killer stalks the city. The cast includes Igby Rigney, Homer Gere, Wes Bentley, Kaia Gerber, and Evan Rachel Wood.

Dying for Sex is a comedy drama inspired by the real-life story of Molly Kochan who, after a terminal cancer diagnosis, leaves her marriage and embarks on a journey of self-discovery and sexual liberation. Starring Michelle Williams and Jenny Slate, the acclaimed series balances humour, friendship and heartbreak with remarkable warmth.

If you're a fan of The Handmaid's Tale, you're sure to enjoy follow-up The Testaments. The series takes us back to Gilead, and a prestigious girls’ school that might just be an unlikely source of revolutionary fervour. One Battle after Another star Chase Infiniti features as a conflicted queen bee.

In comedy drama Alice and Steve, Nicola Walker and Jemaine Clement are feuding friends battling over an inappropriate romance, where career sabotage escalates to hospital visits, gunfire and houses in flames...

For a bit more tension, you could do little better than Paradise, the political thriller where a Secret Service agent (Sterling K Brown) investigates a president’s murder inside a seemingly perfect community hiding devastating secrets.

Meanwhile, crime thriller Furious might remind you of the 1987 movie Black Widow. Emmy Rossum and Lola Petticrew are an FBI agent and a serial killer who are locked in a battle of wits but who may not be all that different.

From suburban scandals to animated satire and modern family life, many TV classic have earned their place as Disney+ comfort-viewing staples. Whether you’re revisiting Desperate Housewives, The Simpsons or Modern Family, there’s plenty of wit, warmth and memorable characters to enjoy.

And for something a little different, documentary In Vogue: the 90s charts the decade that turned fashion into a global cultural force, through the eyes of Anna Wintour, Edward Enninful and Vogue insiders. An A-list line-up including Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss and Victoria Beckham revisits the era’s defining style moments.

If you need more inspiration, scroll on for more on these titles and many others, as we list the best shows on Disney+ to watch now.

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• A group of seniors at an elite prep school in 1980s Los Angeles chart a messy course through adolescence as a serial killer called The Trawler targets the city's teenagers

• Molly is diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer and abandons her husband to embark on a journey of sexual self-discovery. Drama starring Michelle Williams and Rob Delaney

• Documentary series about a decade of fashion and the surrounding industry, as seen through the eyes of Vogue editors Hamish Bowles, Edward Enninful, Tonne Goodman and Anna Wintour

• Thriller, based on Celeste Ng's bestseller, following the intertwined fates of the picture-perfect Richardson family and the enigmatic mother and daughter who upend their lives. The story explores the weight of secrets, the nature of art and identity, the ferocious pull of motherhood - and the danger in believing that following the rules can avert disaster. Starring Reese Witherspoon, Kerry Washington and Rosemarie DeWitt

• Drama about America's struggle with opioid addiction, starring Michael Keaton and Will Poulter. Richard Sackler launches a powerful new painkiller, a DEA agent learns of black market pills and federal prosecutors open a case into OxyContin. With Peter Sarsgaard, Michael Stuhlbarg, Rosario Dawson and John Hoogennakker

• Documentary chronicling the purchase and stewardship of Wrexham AFC, one of professional football's oldest clubs, by Hollywood actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney

• FBI agent Alice Black doggedly pursues a mysterious serial killer and the paths of hunter and hunted become inextricably intertwined

• Under the Bridge is based on acclaimed author Rebecca Godfrey's book about the 1997 true story of 14-year-old Reena Virk (Vritika Gupta) who went to join friends at a party and never returned home. Through the eyes of Godfrey (Riley Keough) and a local police officer (Lily Gladstone), the series takes us into the hidden world of the young girls accused of the murder - revealing startling truths about the unlikely killer.

• Kermit the Frog and his fellow Muppets put on a vaudeville show at their theatre, bringing in a famous celebrity to help out for each episode.

• Alice is devastated when her best friend Steve starts dating her 26-year-old daughter Izzy, and the two announce that they'd like to give things a go

• Early 17th-century Japan teeters on the brink of civil war in a 10-part adaptation of James Clavell's best-selling novel. In the year 1600, the Council of Regents unites against Lord Yoshii Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada), lighting the fuse on a devastating civil war that will definite the century in Japan. Bureaucrat Ishido Kazunari (Takehiro Hira) is Toranaga's fiercest rival and the Lord turns to his trusted general Toda Hiromatsu (Tokuma Nishioka) for advice as conflict looms. A mysterious European ship is found marooned in a nearby fishing village and pilot John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis) bears secrets that could benefit Toranaga. They unite with the help of translator and Christian noblewoman Toda Mariko (Anna Sawai), who intends to honour her late father and restore her family name in the shadow of her jealous husband Toda Hirokatsu (Shinnosuke Abe)

• English Teacher centres on Evan Marquez, a teacher in Austin, Texas who often finds himself at the intersection of the personal, professional and political aspects of working at a high school. Evan wants to be a principled person but often runs into trouble because of it. By Evan's side is his friendship group of other teachers, including best friend Gwen Sanders, the eager and optimistic history teacher who tends to see the best in people. When the principal informs Evan about being placed under investigation for a long-dormant incident where he and his boyfriend kissed in front of students, Evan suddenly feels that he's under a microscope and is being targeted for his sexuality. He's left with one rule to abide by: no relationships with faculty... only to meet a charming new teacher who seems to be interested in him. This forces Evan to navigate his relationships, his students and his fellow faculty while trying to answer the question: can you really be your full self at your job? Comedy starring Brian Jordan Alvarez

• Return to the totalitarian republic of Gilead for a 10-part coming-of-age story adapted from Margaret Atwood's book sequel to The Handmaid's Tale. Fifteen years have passed and headmistress Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd) continues to mould the daughters of Gilead's senior leadership into obedient future wives at her school. Teenager Agnes MacKenzie (Chase Infiniti) is poised for a glittering future in a society that she doesn't fully understand until new girl Daisy (Lucy Halliday) arrives and turns the perceived order upside down. In the face of brutality, Agnes and Daisy forge an unbreakable bond that opens their eyes to the possibility of a different, brighter future than the one Gilead imposes upon them.

• Lord Baddingham goes to desperate lengths to retain his Corinium TV franchise and fend off bad boy rival Rupert Campbell-Black. Drama set in the cutthroat world of 1980s TV starring David Tennant and Alex Hassell

• American comedy drama following the domestic struggles and dramatic lives of a group of women who reside in Wisteria Lane, a street in the fictional town of Fairview.

• The Force is strong is a new 10-part series from LucasFilm Animation based on characters created by George Lucas, which is set after the events of Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Darth Maul (voiced by Sam Witwer) plots to rebuild his criminal syndicate on a planet that has escaped the Empire's vicelike grip. Far from insidious outside influences, Maul encounters a young Padawan, Devon Izara (Gideon Adlon). She is disillusioned with the Jedis and could be a perfect apprentice for Maul to shape into a weapon to exact overdue revenge.

• In space, everyone can still hear you scream through an eight-part sci-fi thriller created by Noah Hawley, set in 2120, two years before the events of the original Alien film directed by Ridley Scott. Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin), CEO of the Prodigy Corporation, announces the birth of humanoid robots paired with human consciousness, so-called hybrids, which mark a step up from the cyborgs and synthetics of rival companies Weyland-Yutani, Dynamic, Lynch and Threshold. The first hybrid Wendy (Sydney Chandler) is stationed on Earth in Prodigy City, living in harmony with humans. Weyland-Yutani's research vessel USCSS Maginot crash-lands on Earth and unleashes the most terrifying life forms in the universe. Wendy and a group of a tactical soldiers are embroiled in a fierce battle for survival against acid-blooded predators that could overrun Earth's defences.

• A deeply divided society teeters on the verge of radical violence in Northern Ireland during The Troubles in a nine-part historical drama based on the best-selling book by Patrick Radden Keefe. Created by Josh Zetumer, Say Nothing spans four decades and begins in 1972 with the disappearance of single mother of 10, Jean McConville (Judith Roddy), from her home. She is never seen alive again. The event has a profound effect on members of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and people who stray into their orbit including sisters Dolours (Lola Petticrew) and Marian Price (Hazel Doupe), military strategist Brendan Hughes (Anthony Boyle) and Gerry Adams (Josh Finan)

• The street urchin from Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist is now a surgeon in 1850s Australia but he cannot outrun his predilection for crime. Drama starring Thomas Brodie-Sangster, David Thewlis, Maia Mitchell and Damon Herriman

• A man with super strength tries to rebuild his life, though is soon pulled out of the shadows and forced to battle against various nefarious forces. Action drama, with Mike Colter

• Former Jedi apprentice Ahsoka Tano investigates an emerging threat to a vulnerable galaxy in a sci-fi adventure set in the Star Wars universe. Starring Rosario Dawson.

• Couples recollect their courting-to-marriage rituals in the age before Internet dating and text flirting, relating tales of blossoming romance in the dancehalls and an era when expectations were more innocent

• Physical perfection comes at a sickening price in a stylish adaptation of the comic book series written by Jeremy Haun and Jason A Hurley and illustrated by Ema Lupacchino. In a dystopian, image-obsessed future, billionaire Byron Forst (Ashton Kutcher) markets a wonder drug which guarantees physical beauty with a single injection. He neglects to fully disclose unfortunate side effects - recipients have a fever and slowly combust from the inside - and the drug mutates in the wild to become a sexually transmitted virus. FBI agents Cooper Madsen (Evan Peters) and Jordan Bennett (Rebecca Hall) investigate Forst and the Machiavellian CEO hires an enforcer (Anthony Ramos) to erase evidence of corporate malfeasance

• Best friends Hezekiah and Alec fight for survival in Victorian London after they arrive from Jamaica and clash with experienced bare-knuckle boxer Sugar Goodson. Starring Stephen Graham, Malachi Kirby, Erin Doherty and James Nelson-Joyce