File not found
Web-Series

From Shogun To Spent: The Best English Web Series Of 2024

1. Shogun

Where to Watch: (Disney+)

Number of Episodes: 10

Shōgun

The similarities to Game of Thrones are unavoidable, as it is a dramatic chess match between strong warrior factions vying for dominion over a feudal country. However, Shōgun lives up to the graphic possibilities hinted at in its first episode, which features betrayals, beheadings, and even boiling to death. James Clavell's 1975 worldwide best-selling novel, Shōgun, served as the inspiration for the TV miniseries adaptation in 1980.

Inspired on actual historical events that occurred at the height of Japan's "Warring States" period (around 1600), it is powerful due to its tight narrative, exquisite production design, and nuanced performances by actors who are all deserving of Emmys: Hiroyuki Sanada, Tadanobu Asano, Anna Sawai, and Cosmo Jarvis. It's a compelling, emotionally taxing historical drama that makes it one of the best English web series you'll watch this year.

2. Baby Reindeer

Where to Watch: Netflix

Number of Episodes: 7

Baby Reindeer

The creator of this darkly humorous drama by Richard Gadd describes how he was pursued and sexually attacked when he was in his twenties. However, as Gadd demonstrates via his writing, acting, and brutal honesty: Baby Reindeer is not your typical, retrograde Hollywood fantasy of female predation from the 1980s.

The way semi-fictionalized Gadd, as wannabe stand-up Donny, implicates himself in his own suffering and brings to light his mismanagement of Jessica Gunning's severely distressed Martha is what makes it such a mind-blowing event. The show poses a risk of having its own agonizing epilogue, as internet detectives attempt to find the "real" Martha, often with depressingly predictable results. Watch Baby Reindeer, one of the best English web series of 2024.

3. One Day

Where to Watch: Netflix

Number of Episodes: 14

One Day

Is this the final iteration of the contemporary yet timeless love tale? As Emma and Dexter, two students who kind of meet on July 15, 1988 (St. Swithin's Day) and whom we re-interview on the same day over the next two decades, Ambika Mod and Leo Woodall (The White Lotus) are ideal. A love tale that is simultaneously hilarious and heartbreaking is given drama and ambiguity by the temporal leaps that give David Nicholls' novel its distinctive quality.

Along with all the Blur-fueled party nights and awful noughties fashion choices, this film also has tremendous substance, tackling mortality, drug abuse, betrayal, and class differences head-on. This makes One Day one of the best English web series that you can watch in 2024.

4. Ripley

Where to Watch: Netflix

Number of Episodes: 8

Ripley

In The Talented Mr. Ripley, Matt Damon played a preppy and manipulative character, while in Plein Soleil, Alain Delon was slick and alluring. Now that Andrew Scott has given us a sly, enigmatic Tom Ripley, we have the most nuanced interpretation of Patricia Highsmith's legendary intruder to date.

Naturally, Steven Zaillian, writer of Schindler's List and showrunner, has the luxury of eight episodes to tell Highsmith's tale of a homicidal conman and the gullible Americans he preys on overseas, along with innumerable breathtaking locales in Italy. But with Robert Elswit's crisp, high-contrast monochrome photography, it's a very compelling blend of high fashion and questionable morality. The conclusion is also superb, which makes it one of the best English web series to watch.

5. The Boys season 4

Where to Watch: Prime Video

Number of Episodes: 8

The Boys season 4

Following three graphic, drastically inappropriate, and profane seasons, The Boys eventually let go of the shocks and matured. No, not at all. Showrunner Eric Kripke manages to pull off even more tricks in a fourth season that has flying super goats, octopus romance, ultra-topical culture war riffs, menacing super maneuvering at Vought, and one incredibly grim homecoming for Homelander.

Additionally, Urban's fellow New Zealander Antony Starr, who has taken Logan Roy's place as TV's latest antagonist, is in prime Emmy-worthy form as the conceited, thin-skinned monster who is now cosplaying as a father. Enjoy, one of the best English web series, as Karl Urban's endearing antihero Butcher would say! 

Also Read: Trending TV shows On Jio Cinema

6. Masters of the Air

Where to Watch: Apple TV+

Number of Episodes: 9

Masters of the Air

As viscerally detailed in Band of Brothers and The Pacific, life during World War II was not enjoyable at all. In this compelling third installment of the Hanks and Spielberg miniseries, something seems much more repulsive in the skies above Europe.

With its captivating group of flyboys (Austin Butler, Callum Turner, and Nate Mann) enduring hypoxia, frostbite, flak, and Luftwaffe fighters in order to drop bombs on the Third Reich, the film flies through nine incidents of aerial mayhem. The characters are accurate to historian Donald L. Miller's original material—brave twentysomethings fighting to survive while performing their jobs—and the battle scenes are horrifying. It is one of the best English web series as the period information is impeccable.

7. Mr & Mrs Smith

Where to Watch: Prime Video

Number of Episodes: 8

Mr & Mrs Smith

How can you blend comedy, espionage action, and the kind of marital fireworks you get in dramas that win awards together? Engage Donald Glover in the solution. The eight-part spoof on the mediocre Doug Liman action-comedy (and lesser-known Scott Bakula/Maria Bello TV series) stars and co-creates Pen15's Maya Erskine as two agents going undercover as a married couple.

The wit of the show is sardonic but not smirky. The chemistry is ridiculous, the action is sleek, and the settings are worthy of Gourmet Traveler which makes it one of the best English web series. Anticipate a legendary John Turturro cameo as well.

8. Hacks season 3

Where to Watch: Max

Number of Episodes: 9

Hacks season 3

Put aside comedians from real life complaining about being "cancelled." Instead, invest your emotions in the rabble-rousing third season of Hacks, which focuses on the world of late-night chat shows.

The characters of Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder, who fight against ageism, homophobia, and YouTube videos that have the potential to destroy their careers, are the imposingly terrifying (but rapidly softening) Deborah Vance and her prickly but tough co-writer Ava. It's one of the best English web series because of its fast-paced, throwback humor. 

9. The Bear season 3

Where to Watch: FX

Number of Episodes: 10

 The Bear season 3

Season 3 of The Bear is not the time to fall behind ('Behind!') so ignore the critics. Chef Sydney (Ayo Edebiri), who works for Jeremy Allen White, fears they are in over their heads as Carmy, the chef, tries to improve the restaurant owned by his late brother.

Though the fight to keep afloat is arguably more relevant than the pursuit of a Michelin star, the characters nevertheless sing, and the opener, which features a ton of cameos, is bold and delicious.

10. Spent

Where to Watch: BBC

Number of Episodes: 6

Spent

The six-part semi-autobiographical series by Michelle de Swarte defies reason—we defy you not to get thoroughly engrossed in it. After a successful modeling career in New York, Mia, who is mouthy and aggressively self-obsessed, returns home to Brixton to discover that she has, well, practically nothing left: no money, no house, and diminishing opportunities.

Spent is on the verge of becoming extraordinary at points—we'll point you toward the unintentional dogging sequence as an example of how hilarious it can get—and heartbreakingly powerful at other times, particularly when it comes to Mia's tense connection with her mentally ill parents.

Also Read: Stranger Things Season 5: Netflix Series To Watch