The 15 Best Comedy Shows On Netflix Right Now

In times like these, we all need a good laugh every now and then. And while the Netflix catalog may be lacking in some areas (people do know that movies existed before 1980, right?), the service is an absolute powerhouse in the comedy department. Not only does it have the streaming rights to some of the funniest shows that originally aired on network and cable television, but it has also established a fairly robust line-up of original comedies. 

There's an impressive variety, too. When you log in to Netflix, you have an entire buffet to choose from, whether you're looking for golden oldies, modern classics, or genre-bending shows that are part comedy and part science fiction, horror, or even true crime. The only thing you really have to worry about is the inevitable day when the contracts run out and your beloved comfort show is no longer available on Netflix, leaving you bereft in its wake.

Before "Fleabag," there was "Crashing," a short-lived British sitcom starring Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Damian Molony about a group of young adults who live in an abandoned hospital, serving as ambivalent caretakers in exchange for cheap rent. Anthony (Molony) is on the verge of marrying his long-time live-in girlfriend when his oldest friend Lulu (Waller-Bridge) turns up out of the blue. The two have undeniable chemistry, and are perpetually dancing around a relationship in a way that is both obvious and deeply infuriating to everyone around them. 

"Crashing" only lasted a paltry single season comprised of six episodes, but the character development displayed over that short run is staggering — there are shows that last for 100 episodes that forge less of an emotional connection with audiences. "Crashing" is a delightful harbinger of things to come from Waller-Bridge, who also wrote the show, and a perfect binge watch that you can wrap up in a single weekend.

Who doesn't love an action-packed dramedy based on the true story of an all-female '80s wrestling promotion? "GLOW" — which stands for Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling — is a chaotic, eccentric show about an out-of-work actress (Alison Brie) who finds her calling as part of a ragtag group of misfits poised to become the stars of a new wrestling program exclusively featuring women. They're all a bunch of amateurs who are learning the rules of wrestling as they go, and they approach the quasi-sport with a spirit of enthusiasm and inventiveness that is contagious. 

The best part of "GLOW" is the dynamic between all of the wrestlers, and the sense of camaraderie as they force their way into a field that, up to this point, has traditionally not been the most welcoming towards women. Each character brings so much creativity to developing her in-ring persona, and you get the feeling that this is a valuable outlet through which the women can express themselves in bold and exciting ways that might otherwise be denied them.

There's an ambiguous quality to "Sex Education" that is immediately compelling. When does it take place? Where does it take place? As we explore the life of Otis (Asa Butterfield), the sexually repressed son of a sex therapist (Gillian Anderson) who ends up starting a sex clinic of his own at school, it's hard to tell if we're looking at something in England or America, or in the 2020s or the 1970s. 

"Sex Education," it would seem, exists in all places at all times at once. For a show as unapologetically raunchy as this, "Sex Education" has a surprisingly massive heart, and feels like the kind of story that might actually be helpful for teens embarking on their own journeys of sexual discovery. It features some top-tier ships, with a special shout out to Eric (Ncuti Gatwa) and Adam (Connor Swindells), two sweet and pure little angels who deserve to walk off into the sunset together.

The question we should all be asking ourselves is, in a world packed full of mediocre true crime dramas, why are there not more true crime parodies? "American Vandal" stands out as the cream of the crop in an admittedly small subgenre, following a pair of high school documentarians who play detective in an attempt to find justice for what they believe to be the wrongly-accused purveyors of immature pranks. 

In the 1st season, the teen sleuths try to clear the name of a graffiti artist who allegedly painted genitalia on a bunch of cars in the faculty parking lot. In the 2nd season, they seek out the identity of the infamous Turd Burglar. So, "American Vandal" is sort of like a cross between "Making a Murderer" and "The Olsen and Olsen Mystery Agency." The inherently absurd aspects of the crimes the kids investigate are played 100% straight, with an earnest and completely serious voiceover narration. "American Vandal" feels entirely unique, and we would happily watch another five seasons of these teens solving puerile and extremely gross high school crimes.

Somewhere along the line, everyone collectively decided to ignore what total and complete perverts kids going through puberty are. "Big Mouth" says, "No longer." It explores the increasingly complicated lives of Andrew (John Mulaney), Nick (Nick Kroll), and Jessi (Jessi Klein), three middle-schoolers on the cusp of adolescence, and their various mishaps with girls, boys, periods, masturbation, and an entire busload of taboo subjects. Pretty much nothing is off limits on this show. 

But weirdly, "Big Mouth" addresses some of the chaos and trauma of growing up in a genuinely healthy manner. Like, some episodes of "Big Mouth" should probably be shown to middle schoolers in health class. The way the show personifies lust, anxiety, and depression makes it easier to understand how these feelings actually affect people. And of course, "Big Mouth" features a top-notch vocal cast — you only need to hear Maya Rudolph as the Hormone Monstress say the word "bubble bath" to know that you're dealing with something special.

On the long list of scenarios that would make for a funny sitcom, a man contracting a sexually transmitted illness and having to inform each of his former partners is perhaps not an obvious one. And at first, it was a hard sell for Netflix — when the streaming service bought the show from Channel 4 in the UK and commissioned a second season, it changed its name from "Scrotal Recall" to a much more palatable "Lovesick." 

"Lovesick" stars a pre-"Emma" Johnny Flynn as Dylan, a man forced to go down a very uncomfortable memory lane after being diagnosed with chlamydia. Each episode is dedicated to a different unfortunate name on his list, and we are treated to flashbacks exploring their respective relationships with Dylan. The main trio of actors (Flynn, Antonia Thomas fresh off her run on "Misfits", and Daniel Inges) have incredible chemistry with one another, and go a long way towards giving depth to what could otherwise be a one-joke sitcom.

"The End of the F***ing World" is not a traditional comedy. It's about a teen who is convinced that he is a psychopath, and who devotes a tremendous amount of time to planning the perfect murder. It's pretty much as pitch black as they come. Based on a graphic novel by Charles Forsman, "The End of the F***ing World" stars Alex Lawther as James, a 17-year-old who doesn't seem to experience emotions the way that other people do. When he meets Alyssa (Jessica Barden), a rebellious female classmate, he immediately decides that she's the perfect candidate for his first human victim. 

But after the two run away from home, they develop a strong bond, one that leads James to question not only whether he wants to kill Alyssa, but whether he actually wants to kill anyone. The story sounds like it could be glorifying the teen male violence that has been plaguing society for decades, but "The End of the F***ing World" is actually a very sweet, empathetic, and darkly hilarious story about two outsiders whose connection allows each to process the emotions they've been suppressing for ages.

Look, millions of fathers around the world can't be wrong, can they? "Monty Python's Flying Circus" is perhaps the purest incarnation of classic dad humor, but when it originally came out, it was groundbreaking stuff. The Monty Python troupe's irreverent style would define sketch comedy for a generation, and there are dozens of iconic moments from the show's original run. We're talking the dead parrot sketch, the Lumberjack Song, the Spanish Inquisition, and many more. Each member of Monty Python brought their own distinct personality to the show, and they would quickly become known for different aspects of their performances. 

The success of "Monty Python's Flying Circus" would lead the Pythons to create a series of films, none perhaps more famous than "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" and "Life of Brian" (both also available on Netflix). It's genuinely surprising just how much of the original show holds up — it's just a shame that John Cleese, one of the most beloved members of Monty Python, has aged into the kind of upper-class twit that the show so gleefully skewered decades ago.

Everyone needs to shut up and let Timothy Olyphant do more comedy. Sure, he's great in all the gruff, quasi-western roles he takes, but give him something light and quirky like "Santa Clarita Diet" and it's like the clouds are parting. Drew Barrymore stars as Sheila, a typical suburban mom in California who works as a real estate agent with her husband Joel (played by Olyphant). Their lives are pretty ordinary, at least until Sheila ends up as an unexpected member of the undead with a craving for human flesh. 

"Santa Clarita Diet" has an appealingly surreal tone, as Sheila and Joel treat this ghoulish transformation as just another marital hurdle to overcome. Joel loves Sheila, and so he is going to help her through this, even if it means hunting down objectively bad people so that the couple don't have to feel so bad about murdering them and packing their dismembered body parts into the freezer. "Santa Clarita Diet" was unjustly cancelled by Netflix, but it still got a respectable three-season run that's perfect for viewers who like their situational comedy with a side of Nathan Fillion's disembodied head.

"New Girl" belongs to a very specific class of early-'10s single-camera sitcoms that were all over the main cable networks, but rarely with more charm than we see here. After breaking up with her long-term boyfriend, the human embodiment of a manic pixie dream girl (played by Zooey Deschanel, obviously) moves into a Los Angeles loft with three very quirky dudes. Their relationship is initially fraught with conflict, since the menfolk don't appreciate Jess' cupcakes and sparkles invading their bro space, but they quickly settle into a friendship that would become one of the most pure and wholesome on television. 

"New Girl" is one of those sitcoms that really benefits from sticking around long enough to get to know all of the characters intimately, as they develop from caricatures into flesh-and-blood people who you can't help but fall in love with. Because once you start to catch feelings for them, God help you; you're already in too deep. Also, Jessica Day and Nick Miller are one of the greatest on-screen pairings of the 20th century. No, that's not up for discussion.

"Arrested Development" may be one of the most rewatchable comedy shows in television history, and that is largely due to how intricately layered its punchlines are, with frequent callbacks that the audience may only catch on a second or third viewing. There's always more to discover in "Arrested Development." 

Michael Bluth (Jason Bateman) is the self-proclaimed "normal one" in a wealthy but wildly out-of-touch real estate family. Each character is a character. There's Michael's older brother Gob (Will Arnett), an aspiring magician with a massive inferiority complex; Lindsay (Portia De Rossi), Michael's wannabe socialite twin sister; Tobias (David Cross), Lindsay's husband, a disgraced therapist-turned-fledgling-actor; and baby Buster (Tony Hale), an amateur cartographer and professional mamma's boy. The series may not be consistent all the way through, but the 1st and 2nd seasons are just about perfect television comedy.

It's an unfair fact of life that happy people just aren't funny — all great comedy is tinged with a little bit of sadness. And in the case of "BoJack Horseman," it's considerably more than just a bit. BoJack (Will Arnett) is an official has-been in Hollywood (or Hollywoo, as it's called on the show): He had a hit sitcom in the early '90s about a horse who adopted a trio of human orphans, but his career never really went anywhere after that, thanks to a combination of depression, alcoholism, crippling self-loathing, apathy, and old-fashioned bad luck. 

Now, BoJack lives in a state of arrested development, doing the same terrible things to the people around him and feeling bad about it, but not caring enough to change his behavior. Despite being animated and starring a cast of anthropomorphized animals, "BoJack Horseman" is one of the darkest television shows around, really luxuriating in a black hole of self-destruction that's interrupted by the occasional bright spark of enlightenment. But, you know, it's also really funny.

Northern Ireland in the early '90s, smack dab in the middle of the Troubles that saw conflict rage between unionists and republicans, is perhaps not the most natural setting for a sitcom, but hey, sometimes dark times make for great comedy. "Derry Girls" revolves around a group of Catholic school girls who grow up amidst the repressive standards of their religious education, the perpetual threat of violence, and their own ever-increasing libidos. Their hijinks escalate from the awkward to the comically exaggerated to the near sublime, and each one of the lead actors brings their own unique brand of humor to their character.

"Derry Girls," however broad the comedy may be, always feels intensely personal, and generates laughs not merely because the scrapes the girls (and James) get themselves into are inherently funny, but because we've come to know each character so well that every line and reaction shot becomes even more hilarious.

"The Good Place" is not just one of the funniest shows on 21st century network television, it also manages to harness philosophy and positivity in a way that is genuinely moving. Look, "The Good Place" walked so that "Ted Lasso" could run. You don't go from decades of cynical, sarcastic sitcoms to the sheer cotton candy of Jason Sudeikis' football coach without something to bridge the gap. 

When Eleanor (Kristen Bell) wakes up to learn that she's in Heaven, she should be thrilled. But there's just one problem: Eleanor was a garbage human, and it's clear that somewhere along the line, mistakes were made. She probably doesn't deserve to be in the Good Place. Luckily, Eleanor has surprisingly ripped philosophy professor Chidi (William Jackson Harper) to teach her and her fellow miscreants how to be better people. The show takes an accessible but nuanced approach to ethics, and somehow manages to stumble upon perhaps the most comforting vision of an afterlife imaginable. The fact that it's also hilarious seems kind of unfair.

Considering how brutal the Rose family is at the very beginning of "Schitt's Creek," it is surprising that the series ended up being one of the most heartwarming shows on television. Almost everyone who watches it becomes borderline obsessed with it, as evinced by its unprecedented sweep at the 2020 Emmys. 

When the Roses unceremoniously lose everything they own thanks to a business manager's tax fraud, they are left with one remaining asset: a small town called Schitt's Creek that family patriarch Johnny Rose (Eugene Levy) purchased in the early '90s as a joke. Reluctantly, the newly destitute Roses take up residence in a rundown motel, learning how to exist outside an ultra-elite bubble. 

The character development in "Schitt's Creek" is a thing of utter beauty, as each member of the family grows and evolves as they adapt to their new surroundings, finding fulfillment in things that would have horrified them a few short years earlier. Underneath the veneer of snobbishness and open hostility, these are actual human beings. And although it might take a few episodes to get to know the Roses, if you aren't hooked by the time that Patrick turns up, you might just straight up not have a heart.