10 best fantasy and science fiction shows of 2023

1. The Last of Us

The Last of Us was the first big genre television hit of 2023, and sitting here at the end of the year, it’s still the best. It feels weird to think of The Last of Us as an underdog, but back when it first came out it had a lot to prove. We’d never seen an HBO-quality adaptation of a video game done well before. On the other hand, there’s a long history of video game adaptations going wrong.

Fortunately, The Last of Us took already brilliant source material — Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us games — and reinvented it for the small screen, making the most of the transition between mediums. At the heart of the show is Joel (Pedro Pascal), a hardened smuggler who needs to escort a teenaged girl named Ellie (Bella Ramsey) across a post-apocalyptic United States infested with fungal zombies and violent marauders. Early on in the season premiere, we see that Joel lost his daughter on the day the apocalypse started; as he travels with Ellie, he rediscovers a part of himself that he’d thought was lost. At the same time, Ellie learns what it’s like to have a parental figure who sticks by her through thick and thin.

The Last of Us is just as much about the deep, personal stories of connection between people at the end of the world as it is about the grand, sweeping tale of survival. It’s not only one of the best genre shows of 2023, it’s one of the best shows of 2023 period. I’m hard pressed to think of another series that could pull off a moving, decades-long queer love story in one episode and then deliver a pulse-pounding zombie showdown with devastating consequences only a couple episodes later. The Last of Us was A+ television, through and through.

That brings us to the top of the list. But there are some honorable mentions we need to touch on as well before we say adieu to 2023…