Do you like laughing? Hey, so do I! I’ve also got great news for you: 2026 has been blessed with a whole host of great comedies on the small screen.
It’s “funny,” though (pun obviously intended), that, with many of the entries on this list and many of the year’s most acclaimed TV comedies, we’ve all started interrogating what a “comedy” really “is.” Sure, “Only Murders in the Building” is a pretty broad comedy led by two of the medium’s funniest guys, Steve Martin and Martin Short, but it’s not on this list because, well, it’s getting a little tired as it keeps going. “The Bear,” on the other hand, is significantly less funny in any traditional sense or metric you can imagine, but it keeps getting classified as a “comedy” because of its shorter run time. Meanwhile, “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,” the best of HBO’s “Game of Thrones” spin-offs thus far, is classified as a drama despite being extremely funny. Hell, I’ll die on the hill that “Succession” is the best TV comedy in years. You see what I’m saying, right? Categorizing comedies these days is weirdly fraught, and I think that’s probably because so many of TV’s best comedies are pushing their own boundaries.
That’s certainly true of the shows on this list, which make up the best of TV comedy in 2026 thus far (and we’ll keep updating it if and when we feel something merits an inclusion). One of these is scary, at least one of these will make you cry, and one involves a bitter custody dispute … but they’re all really funny. With all of that said, here are the best TV comedies of 2026.
Hacks Season 5
The fifth and final season of “Hacks” is unbelievably bittersweet. On the one hand, it’s incredible. From the first to last episode, the final season of “Hacks” (the HBO Max comedy series that was created by Paul W. Downs, Lucia Aniello, and Jen Statsky and began in 2021) is a perfect farewell to the tumultuous and loving relationship between superstar comedienne Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) and her Zillennial head writer Ava Daniels (Hannah Einbinder). On the other hand, I’ve never in my life cried this much while watching a comedy show.
Still, I swear on my life that “Hacks” Season 5 belongs on this list because it’s really, really, really funny. Not only are Smart and Einbinder at the very top of their game as usual, but supporting scene-stealers like Lauren Weedman (as Las Vegas’ erratic mayor Jo Pezzimenti), Kaitlin Olson (as Deborah’s petulant daughter Deborah Jr./”D.J.”), and Laurie Metcalf (as Weed, a mercurial tour manager who tells Ava and Deborah about a wild night where she woke up “holding an Apple TV remote” though the room she was in “only had a Roku”) are guaranteed to make you laugh whenever they show up. There are even a few jokes in this season that required me to pause the episode so I could wheeze laughing, especially when Deborah reveals, to Ava, that her big comeback show at Madison Square Garden is slated to take place on 9/11. Downs and Meg Stalter also provide plenty of laughs as management team Jimmy Lusaque Jr. and Kayla Schafer, but ultimately, “Hacks” belongs to Einbinder and Smart.
Good comedy is clever and innovative, and that’s precisely what “Hacks” is. Yes, you’ll cry, but you’ll laugh through your tears as well … and that makes it one of 2026’s best TV comedies.
Widow’s Bay
Before I started watching “Widow’s Bay,” which drew me in thanks to star Matthew Rhys, director Hiro Murai, and showrunner and creator Katie Dippold (the genius responsible for one of the best social media posts in Internet history), nobody warned me that this show is really scary. In the second-ever episode, Rhys’ protagonist — Widow’s Bay mayor Tom Loftis, who’s hellbent on turning the titular island into a tourist destination like Martha’s Vineyard despite the fact that the whole place is pretty obviously haunted — is stalked through a crawl space by an evil clown (played by “The Righteous Gemstones” standout Tim Baltz, of course) in a scene that had me hiding behind my hands. It’s a testament, then, to how good Dippold is as a showrunner and writer that “Widow’s Bay” isn’t simply a spooky show with some jokes, it’s easily one of the best comedies of the year.
As Tom goes to increasingly desperate lengths to figure out whatever curse or haunting is plaguing Widow’s Bay and keeping tourists at, well, bay, he’s flanked by town oddball Wyck Crawford (the always welcome Stephen Root), Tom’s offbeat assistant Patricia Moyer (the unbelievably talented Kate O’Flynn), and the deadpan mayor’s office employees Rosemary (Dale Dickey) and Dale (Jeff Hillier), just to name a few. To add to his troubles, Tom is also responsible for raising his teenage son Evan (Kingston Rumi Southwick), who’s desperate to escape the island … if he can. From Patricia’s “sunset cocktail” party to the “Our History” episode starring Hamish Linklater and Betty Gilpin as two of the founders of the island (with Gilpin having since won an Emmy for her turn), “Widow’s Bay” is a consistent delight. Just prepare for jump scares.
Margo’s Got Money Troubles
Two shows prominently featured OnlyFans storylines in 2026. One was “Euphoria,” which failed miserably at representing the sex work community and simply gave showrunner Sam Levinson multiple opportunities to humiliate his star Sydney Sweeney. The other was “Margo’s Got Money Troubles,” which handles this topic with so much sensitivity and care that it simply blows “Euphoria” out of the water. Adapted from Rufi Thorpe’s best-selling novel of the same name by showrunner David E. Kelley, the Apple TV original “Margo’s Got Money Troubles” introduces us to Elle Fanning’s Margo Millet shortly after she has an affair with her community college English professor Mark Gable (Michael Angarano) that results in an unplanned pregnancy. Margo, who’s only 20, impulsively decides to go ahead with the pregnancy, but she receives no help from Mark … despite interest from his overbearing and wealthy mother Elizabeth (Marcia Gay Harden).
After Margo’s roommates bail on her over her newborn son Bodhi (save for Thaddea Graham’s eternally supportive Susie), she finds herself struggling to make ends meet, even when her estranged ex-wrestler father James “Jinx” Millet (a wonderful Nick Offerman) moves in with her and Susie. That’s when she turns to OnlyFans, much to the chagrin of her former Hooters waitress mother Shyanne (Michelle Pfeiffer) and Shyanne’s minister fiancé Kenny (Greg Kinnear). The work Margo does on the platform, though, is daring, experimental, and yes, hot — and the overall show is funny, warm, and fulfilling. You’ll want to move into Margo’s apartment as well by the time you finish this series’ excellent first season.
The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins
I’ll watch basically anything starring Daniel Radcliffe (one of my favorite “weird little guys”), and I’ll watch anything at all produced by my Upper Darby queen Tina Fey. (Go birds, Tina.) That’s why I was so incandescently happy when a show premiered on NBC in 2026 that seemed like it was made for me in a lab … and, what’s more, happens to be one of the year’s best TV comedies by a long shot. Created by Fey’s frequent collaborator Robert Carlock and Sam Means, “The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins” stars Radcliffe as Arthur Tobin, an Oscar-winning documentarian who’s fallen from grace after a tantrum on the set of a Marvel movie. He then teams up with disgraced football star Reggie Dinkins (comedy powerhouse Tracy Morgan), who was banned from the NFL years prior for sports betting. (To be “fair” to Reggie, he was, hilariously, only betting on himself so that he’d get a mental boost and play better.)
Together, Arthur and Reggie set out to rehabilitate Reggie’s image with a revealing documentary that Reggie hopes might get him a spot in the National Football League Hall of Fame, though that feels like a long shot. Still, Reggie and Arthur remain undaunted and are supported by Reggie’s ex-wife and current manager Monica (Erika Alexander), Reggie’s too-young but adoring fiancée Brina (Precious Way, who sings the show’s snappy little theme song as well), Erika and Reggie’s teenage son Carmelo (Jalyn Hall), and Reggie’s best friend and former teammate Rusty (a perfectly deployed Bobby Moynihan). “Reggie Dinkins” is laugh-out-loud funny (there’s an Epstein’s island joke that has to be heard and seen to be believed), but you’ll also fall in love with every character as you settle into the fictional Dinkins household.
Rooster
Steve Carell is one of our most reliable comedic performers, and thanks to Bill Lawrence (the guy behind “Scrubs,” “Ted Lasso,” and “Shrinking”), he’s back on our TV screens in the winning HBO comedy series “Rooster.” I had my doubts about this show, because it looked like pretty familiar territory … and then I popped on the first few episodes and was glued to my screen watching Carell play Greg Russo, a pulp fiction writer whose nove series about a private eye named “Rooster” is a huge commercial hit but doesn’t earn him much critical acclaim. When his professor daughter Katie (Charly Clive) begins a messy divorce process from her fellow professor Archie Bates (“Ted Lasso” alum Phil Dunster) after the news breaks that Archie had an affair with graduate student Sunny (Lauren Tsai), Greg heads to the pastoral, fictional Ludlow College in New England to give Katie his support. While there, though, Greg gets roped into being a writer-in-residence for the semester by the school’s odd but enthusiastic dean Walter Mann (Lawrence regular John C. McGinley).
“Rooster” doesn’t necessarily break any wild new ground as far as comedies go, but it’s just really good and extremely funny to boot. (Any scene involving Walter’s weird deadpan assistant Crisle, played by Annie Mumolo, is a real highlight.) As Greg gets to basically live out his college days all over again and Katie tries to figure out if she wants to fix her relationship with Archie, you’ll find yourself happily along for the ride, and you won’t want the story to end as the credits roll on the sweet, funny Season 1 finale.
