The 10 Best Shows to Watch This Fall

The leaves are browning, the sun leaves us sooner, and we're bringing over-the-knee boots out from the back of the closet. Summer 2026 is officially a not-so-distant memory, and fall is here. And as we wind down chilly evenings with a lush Malbec and a chenille blanket, we have the very best season of TV to accompany us.

The small screen brings returns of the shows we haven't stopped talking about, biopics of Black legends, and fresh new takes on our coming-of-age stories.

Ever your personal concierge on arts and culture, we exhaustively sorted through Hollywood's fall TV offerings for a meticulous collection of shows worth your time—ranked, with can't-miss moments almost certain to command conversations on Threads and in the scrolls of our private DMs.

Mindful of the extreme headwinds the entertainment industry is braving and the real dearth of Black-led TV programming, our selections consider the urgency of supporting shows starring, co-starring, or created by Black talent.

The Screener, the new home of Black TV and film news and criticism, presents the ten best shows to watch this fall.

1. American Horror Story Season 13

Starring: Angela Bassett, Jessica Lange, Sarah Paulson, and Gabourey Sidibe

When it airs: Thursday, September 24, at 9 p.m. ET on FX and streaming the next day on Hulu. The first three episodes will drop on premiere day.

For 15 years, American Horror Story, Ryan Murphy's Emmy-winning FX series, has brought audiences inside extreme grotesque and glamour. Coven, the anthology's third installment, is arguably the most striking, introducing religion and bitchcraft to its canon of horror.

The series starred Jessica Lange and Sarah Paulson as mother-daughter heads of a coven of generational white witches in New Orleans. But it was Angela Bassett and Gabourey Sidibe who brought Black ancestral spiritualism, blending Hoodoo, Santería, Voodoo, and Christianity. Bassett plays Marie Laveau, the early 18th century Voodoo priestess in Louisiana who leveraged her practice to enact revenge on racist whites of the era. Bassett's Laveau comes back from the Antebellum period to a modern day New Orleans to face-off with the white witches,

After over a decade since the original installment, the witches are back with a sequel, continuing the Coven universe of badass witchery. Consider AHS 13 worth your time for its disciplined accuracy on African traditional religious (ATR) practices and its surefire blend of scalping shade, high fashion, and drama.

2. The Gilded Age

Starring: Christine Baranski, Cynthia Nixon, Denée Benton, Audra McDonald, Phylicia Rashad, and Jordan Donica

Where to watch: On HBO and Max, Sunday, November 1, at 9 p.m. ET.

Flanked between the wars of the old versus the new guard, our girl Peggy Scott (Denée Benton) emerged a bride with dignity last season. Season three's finale delivered some of the most moving cinematography of late 19th-century on themes exploring love, race and class we've seen on TV.

Season four picks up with tensions continuing between the guards as Bertha's (Carrie Coon) ambitions swell, Agnes (Christine Baranski) deals with being the less wealthy sister, and Peggy verbally spars with Dr. Kirkland's mother—an oathkeeper of respectability politics played by the legendary Phylicia Rashad.

The series is co-directed by Salli Richardson-Whitfield, who at a recent Emmy ceremony became the first Black woman nominated for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series. New to The Gilded Age?

Episodes arrive at the top of November, so you have enough time to catch up on previous seasons.

3. The Greatest

Starring: Jaalen Best, Giovanni Ribisi, Omari Hardwick, and Michael Ealy

Where to watch: On Prime Video, Wednesday, November 4.

Pioneering boxing legend Muhammad Ali's life has received screen treatment before. The 2001 biopic Ali landed Will Smith an Academy Award nomination for his transformation, and scores of documentaries and portrayals on screen followed, exploring Ali's journey from a kid named Cassius in Louisville, Kentucky, to a global sports icon who defied the war in Vietnam and front-lined Black sportsmen in the 1960s who became deliberately Black race men.

Now, in an Ali estate-approved drama series, The Greatest brings Ali's story to Prime Video, led by a stellar crew of behind-the-scenes players rivaling the talent on screen. Michael B. Jordan's Outlier Society production company joins Jay-Z's Roc Nation as producers.

Jaalen Best, a 20-something newcomer, stars as Ali, with Omari Hardwick playing his father and Michael Ealy starring as Ali's close friend Malcolm X. Giovanni Ribisi, whom we remember playing the endearing Daniel in The Other Sister, rounds out the starring cast as Ali's boxing trainer, Angelo Dundee.

TV bio treatments allow for more expansive storytelling, and we'll be ready for what we're billing the official TV cultural event of the fall season.

4. The Diplomat

Starring: Keri Russell, Rufus Sewell, David Gyasi, Allison Janney, and Ato Essandoh

Where to watch: Netflix, on Thursday, October 15.

The Diplomat easily earns a spot in our top 10 for skillfully nailing nearly every ingredient that makes a great American political thriller. For the past three seasons, the Netflix series has taken us inside the life of a married couple whose relationship dynamic is just as twisted as the goings-on inside 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Outside of Kate and Hal's bedroom (Keri Russell and Rufus Sewell), we're transported into the sinister world of Washington and global politics at its most covert levels.

What pulls you into this series are the twists that have us nearly falling off our sofas. If you haven't seen the explosive conclusion of season three, do yourself a favor: be thoroughly entertained, and then ready yourself for season four.

5. Lupin

Starring: Omar Sy, Ludivine Sagnier, and Antoine Gouy

Where to watch: On Netflix, Friday, October 23.

What happens when a France-based series blends The Thomas Crown Affair-level heists with generational family justice? One hell of a show. Inspired by the early 20th-century French novel Arsène Lupin, Gentleman Burglar by Maurice Leblanc, Netflix's Lupin has delivered three parts since 2021.

Now, the critically acclaimed series is back, bringing viewers to an action-packed revenge plot involving Assane Diop (Omar Sy), the only son of a Senegalese immigrant, who stages a sophisticated plot against the ultra-wealthy Pellegrini family for framing his father for the theft of a rare and expensive diamond necklace. With new episodes arriving on October 23, Lupin finds one Lupin incarcerated and another on the loose, causing havoc from scaling the Eiffel Tower to riding a black horse.

A suspenseful feast of the unexpected, Lupin is worth brushing up on your French before your next trip to Cannes.