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The 30 best biographies of all time.

Biographer Richard Holmes once wrote that his work was “a kind of pursuit… writing about the pursuit of that fleeting figure, in such a way as to bring them alive in the present.”

At the risk of sounding cliché, the best biographies do exactly this: bring their subjects to life. A great biography isn’t just a laundry list of events that happened to someone. Rather, it should weave a narrative and tell a story in almost the same way a novel does. In this way, biography differs from the rest of nonfiction .

All the biographies on this list are just as captivating as excellent novels , if not more so. With that, please enjoy the 30 best biographies of all time — some historical, some recent, but all remarkable, life-giving tributes to their subjects.

If you're feeling overwhelmed by the number of great biographies out there, you can also take our 30-second quiz below to narrow it down quickly and get a personalized biography recommendation  😉

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1. A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nasar

This biography of esteemed mathematician John Nash was both a finalist for the 1998 Pulitzer Prize and the basis for the award-winning film of the same name. Nasar thoroughly explores Nash’s prestigious career, from his beginnings at MIT to his work at the RAND Corporation — as well the internal battle he waged against schizophrenia, a disorder that nearly derailed his life.

2. Alan Turing: The Enigma: The Book That Inspired the Film The Imitation Game - Updated Edition by Andrew Hodges

Hodges’ 1983 biography of Alan Turing sheds light on the inner workings of this brilliant mathematician, cryptologist, and computer pioneer. Indeed, despite the title ( a nod to his work during WWII ), a great deal of the “enigmatic” Turing is laid out in this book. It covers his heroic code-breaking efforts during the war, his computer designs and contributions to mathematical biology in the years following, and of course, the vicious persecution that befell him in the 1950s — when homosexual acts were still a crime punishable by English law.

3. Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow

Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton is not only the inspiration for a hit Broadway musical, but also a work of creative genius itself. This massive undertaking of over 800 pages details every knowable moment of the youngest Founding Father’s life: from his role in the Revolutionary War and early American government to his sordid (and ultimately career-destroying) affair with Maria Reynolds. He may never have been president, but he was a fascinating and unique figure in American history — plus it’s fun to get the truth behind the songs.

Prefer to read about fascinating First Ladies rather than almost-presidents? Check out this awesome list of books about First Ladies over on The Archive.

4. Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo" by Zora Neale Hurston

A prolific essayist, short story writer, and novelist, Hurston turned her hand to biographical writing in 1927 with this incredible work, kept under lock and key until it was published 2018. It’s based on Hurston’s interviews with the last remaining survivor of the Middle Passage slave trade, a man named Cudjo Lewis. Rendered in searing detail and Lewis’ highly affecting African-American vernacular, this biography of the “last black cargo” will transport you back in time to an era that, chillingly, is not nearly as far away from us as it feels.

5. Churchill: A Life by Martin Gilbert

Though many a biography of him has been attempted, Gilbert’s is the final authority on Winston Churchill — considered by many to be Britain’s greatest prime minister ever. A dexterous balance of in-depth research and intimately drawn details makes this biography a perfect tribute to the mercurial man who led Britain through World War II.

Just what those circumstances are occupies much of Bodanis's book, which pays homage to Einstein and, just as important, to predecessors such as Maxwell, Faraday, and Lavoisier, who are not as well known as Einstein today. Balancing writerly energy and scholarly weight, Bodanis offers a primer in modern physics and cosmology, explaining that the universe today is an expression of mass that will, in some vastly distant future, one day slide back to the energy side of the equation, replacing the \'dominion of matter\' with \'a great stillness\'--a vision that is at once lovely and profoundly frightening.

Without sliding into easy psychobiography, Bodanis explores other circumstances as well; namely, Einstein's background and character, which combined with a sterling intelligence to afford him an idiosyncratic view of the way things work--a view that would change the world. --Gregory McNamee

6. E=mc²: A Biography of the World's Most Famous Equation by David Bodanis

This “biography of the world’s most famous equation” is a one-of-a-kind take on the genre: rather than being the story of Einstein, it really does follow the history of the equation itself. From the origins and development of its individual elements (energy, mass, and light) to their ramifications in the twentieth century, Bodanis turns what could be an extremely dry subject into engaging fare for readers of all stripes.

7. Enrique's Journey by Sonia Nazario

When Enrique was only five years old, his mother left Honduras for the United States, promising a quick return. Eleven years later, Enrique finally decided to take matters into his own hands in order to see her again: he would traverse Central and South America via railway, risking his life atop the “train of death” and at the hands of the immigration authorities, to reunite with his mother. This tale of Enrique’s perilous journey is not for the faint of heart, but it is an account of incredible devotion and sharp commentary on the pain of separation among immigrant families.

8. Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo by Hayden Herrera

Herrera’s 1983 biography of renowned painter Frida Kahlo, one of the most recognizable names in modern art, has since become the definitive account on her life. And while Kahlo no doubt endured a great deal of suffering (a horrific accident when she was eighteen, a husband who had constant affairs), the focal point of the book is not her pain. Instead, it’s her artistic brilliance and immense resolve to leave her mark on the world — a mark that will not soon be forgotten, in part thanks to Herrera’s dedicated work.

9. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

Perhaps the most impressive biographical feat of the twenty-first century, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is about a woman whose cells completely changed the trajectory of modern medicine. Rebecca Skloot skillfully commemorates the previously unknown life of a poor black woman whose cancer cells were taken, without her knowledge, for medical testing — and without whom we wouldn’t have many of the critical cures we depend upon today.

10. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

Christopher McCandless, aka Alexander Supertramp, hitchhiked to Alaska and disappeared into the Denali wilderness in April 1992. Five months later, McCandless was found emaciated and deceased in his shelter — but of what cause? Krakauer’s biography of McCandless retraces his steps back to the beginning of the trek, attempting to suss out what the young man was looking for on his journey, and whether he fully understood what dangers lay before him.

11. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: Three Tenant Families by James Agee

"Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers that begat us.” From this line derives the central issue of Agee and Evans’ work: who truly deserves our praise and recognition? According to this 1941 biography, it’s the barely-surviving sharecropper families who were severely impacted by the American “Dust Bowl” — hundreds of people entrenched in poverty, whose humanity Evans and Agee desperately implore their audience to see in their book.

12. The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann

Another mysterious explorer takes center stage in this gripping 2009 biography. Grann tells the story of Percy Fawcett, the archaeologist who vanished in the Amazon along with his son in 1925, supposedly in search of an ancient lost city. Parallel to this narrative, Grann describes his own travels in the Amazon 80 years later: discovering firsthand what threats Fawcett may have encountered, and coming to realize what the “Lost City of Z” really was.

13. Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang

Though many of us will be familiar with the name Mao Zedong, this prodigious biography sheds unprecedented light upon the power-hungry “Red Emperor.” Chang and Halliday begin with the shocking statistic that Mao was responsible for 70 million deaths during peacetime — more than any other twentieth-century world leader. From there, they unravel Mao’s complex ideologies, motivations, and missions, breaking down his long-propagated “hero” persona and thrusting forth a new, grislier image of one of China’s biggest revolutionaries.

14. Mad Girl's Love Song: Sylvia Plath and Life Before Ted by Andrew Wilson by Andrew Wilson

Titled after one of her most evocative poems, this shimmering bio of Sylvia Plath takes an unusual approach. Instead of focusing on her years of depression and tempestuous marriage to poet Ted Hughes, it chronicles her life before she ever came to Cambridge. Wilson closely examines her early family and relationships, feelings and experiences, with information taken from her meticulous diaries — setting a strong precedent for other Plath biographers to follow.

15. The Minds of Billy Milligan by Daniel Keyes

What if you had twenty-four different people living inside you, and you never knew which one was going to come out? Such was the life of Billy Milligan, the subject of this haunting biography by the author of Flowers for Algernon . Keyes recounts, in a refreshingly straightforward style, the events of Billy’s life and how his psyche came to be “split”... as well as how, with Keyes’ help, he attempted to put the fragments of himself back together.

16. Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World by Tracy Kidder

This gorgeously constructed biography follows Paul Farmer, a doctor who’s worked for decades to eradicate infectious diseases around the globe, particularly in underprivileged areas. Though Farmer’s humanitarian accomplishments are extraordinary in and of themselves, the true charm of this book comes from Kidder’s personal relationship with him — and the sense of fulfillment the reader sustains from reading about someone genuinely heroic, written by someone else who truly understands and admires what they do.

17. Napoleon: A Life by Andrew Roberts

Here’s another bio that will reshape your views of a famed historical tyrant, though this time in a surprisingly favorable light. Decorated scholar Andrew Roberts delves into the life of Napoleon Bonaparte, from his near-flawless military instincts to his complex and confusing relationship with his wife. But Roberts’ attitude toward his subject is what really makes this work shine: rather than ridiculing him ( as it would undoubtedly be easy to do ), he approaches the “petty tyrant” with a healthy amount of deference.

18. The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson IV by Robert A. Caro

Lyndon Johnson might not seem as intriguing or scandalous as figures like Kennedy, Nixon, or W. Bush. But in this expertly woven biography, Robert Caro lays out the long, winding road of his political career, and it’s full of twists you wouldn’t expect. Johnson himself was a surprisingly cunning figure, gradually maneuvering his way closer and closer to power. Finally, in 1963, he got his greatest wish — but at what cost? Fans of Adam McKay’s Vice , this is the book for you.

19. Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser

Anyone who grew up reading Little House on the Prairie will surely be fascinated by this tell-all biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Caroline Fraser draws upon never-before-published historical resources to create a lush study of the author’s life — not in the gently narrated manner of the Little House series, but in raw and startling truths about her upbringing, marriage, and volatile relationship with her daughter (and alleged ghostwriter) Rose Wilder Lane.

20. Prince: A Private View by Afshin Shahidi

Compiled just after the superstar’s untimely death in 2016, this intimate snapshot of Prince’s life is actually a largely visual work — Shahidi served as his private photographer from the early 2000s until his passing. And whatever they say about pictures being worth a thousand words, Shahidi’s are worth more still: Prince’s incredible vibrance, contagious excitement, and altogether singular personality come through in every shot.

21. Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout by Lauren Redniss

Could there be a more fitting title for a book about the husband-wife team who discovered radioactivity? What you may not know is that these nuclear pioneers also had a fascinating personal history. Marie Sklodowska met Pierre Curie when she came to work in his lab in 1891, and just a few years later they were married. Their passion for each other bled into their passion for their work, and vice-versa — and in almost no time at all, they were on their way to their first of their Nobel Prizes.

22. Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter by Kate Clifford Larson

She may not have been assassinated or killed in a mysterious plane crash, but Rosemary Kennedy’s fate is in many ways the worst of “the Kennedy Curse.” As if a botched lobotomy that left her almost completely incapacitated weren’t enough, her parents then hid her away from society, almost never to be seen again. Yet in this new biography, penned by devoted Kennedy scholar Kate Larson, the full truth of Rosemary’s post-lobotomy life is at last revealed.

23. Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford

This appropriately lyrical biography of brilliant Jazz Age poet and renowned feminist, Edna St. Vincent Millay, is indeed a perfect balance of savage and beautiful. While Millay’s poetic work was delicate and subtle, the woman herself was feisty and unpredictable, harboring unusual and occasionally destructive habits that Milford fervently explores.

24. Shelley: The Pursuit by Richard Holmes

Holmes’ famous philosophy of “biography as pursuit” is thoroughly proven here in his first full-length biographical work. Shelley: The Pursuit details an almost feverish tracking of Percy Shelley as a dark and cutting figure in the Romantic period — reforming many previous historical conceptions about him through Holmes’ compelling and resolute writing.

25. Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life by Ruth Franklin

Another Gothic figure has been made newly known through this work, detailing the life of prolific horror and mystery writer Shirley Jackson. Author Ruth Franklin digs deep into the existence of the reclusive and mysterious Jackson, drawing penetrating comparisons between the true events of her life and the dark nature of her fiction.

26. The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit by Michael Finkel

Fans of Into the Wild and The Lost City of Z will find their next adventure fix in this 2017 book about Christopher Knight, a man who lived by himself in the Maine woods for almost thirty years. The tale of this so-called “last true hermit” will captivate readers who have always fantasized about escaping society, with vivid descriptions of Knight’s rural setup, his carefully calculated moves and how he managed to survive the deadly cold of the Maine winters.

27. Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

The man, the myth, the legend: Steve Jobs, co-founder and CEO of Apple, is properly immortalized in Isaacson’s masterful biography. It divulges the details of Jobs’ little-known childhood and tracks his fateful path from garage engineer to leader of one of the largest tech companies in the world — not to mention his formative role in other legendary companies like Pixar, and indeed within the Silicon Valley ecosystem as a whole.

28. Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand

Olympic runner Louis Zamperini was just twenty-six when his US Army bomber crashed and burned in the Pacific, leaving him and two other men afloat on a raft for forty-seven days — only to be captured by the Japanese Navy and tortured as a POW for the next two and a half years. In this gripping biography, Laura Hillenbrand tracks Zamperini’s story from beginning to end… including how he embraced Christian evangelism as a means of recovery, and even came to forgive his tormentors in his later years.

29. Vera (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov) by Stacy Schiff

Everyone knows of Vladimir Nabokov — but what about his wife, Vera, whom he called “the best-humored woman I have ever known”? According to Schiff, she was a genius in her own right, supporting Vladimir not only as his partner, but also as his all-around editor and translator. And she kept up that trademark humor throughout it all, inspiring her husband’s work and injecting some of her own creative flair into it along the way.

30. Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt

William Shakespeare is a notoriously slippery historical figure — no one really knows when he was born, what he looked like, or how many plays he wrote. But that didn’t stop Stephen Greenblatt, who in 2004 turned out this magnificently detailed biography of the Bard: a series of imaginative reenactments of his writing process, and insights on how the social and political ideals of the time would have influenced him. Indeed, no one exists in a vacuum, not even Shakespeare — hence the conscious depiction of him in this book as a “will in the world,” rather than an isolated writer shut up in his own musty study.

If you're looking for more inspiring nonfiction, check out this list of 30 engaging self-help books , or this list of the last century's best memoirs !

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The Best Reviewed Memoirs and Biographies of 2022

Featuring buster keaton, jean rhys, bernardine evaristo, kate beaton, and more.

We’ve come to the end of another bountiful literary year, and for all of us review rabbits here at Book Marks, that can mean only one thing: basic math, and lots of it.

Yes, using reviews drawn from more than 150 publications, over the next two weeks we’ll be calculating and revealing the most critically-acclaimed books of 2022, in the categories of (deep breath): Fiction ; Nonfiction ; Memoir and Biography; Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror; Short Story Collections; Essay Collections; Poetry; Mystery and Crime; Graphic Literature ; and Literature in Translation .

Today’s installment: Memoir and Biography .

Brought to you by Book Marks , Lit Hub’s “Rotten Tomatoes for books.”

1. We Don’t Know Ourselves by Fintan O’Toole (Liveright) 17 Rave • 4 Positive • 1 Mixed • 1 Pan

“One of the many triumphs of Fintan O’Toole’s We Don’t Know Ourselves is that he manages to find a form that accommodates the spectacular changes that have occurred in Ireland over the past six decades, which happens to be his life span … it is not a memoir, nor is it an absolute history, nor is it entirely a personal reflection or a crepuscular credo. It is, in fact, all of these things helixed together: his life, his country, his thoughts, his misgivings, his anger, his pride, his doubt, all of them belonging, eventually, to us … O’Toole, an agile cultural commentator, considers himself to be a representative of the blank slate on which the experiment of change was undertaken, but it’s a tribute to him that he maintains his humility, his sharpness and his enlightened distrust …

O’Toole writes brilliantly and compellingly of the dark times, but he is graceful enough to know that there is humor and light in the cracks. There is a touch of Eduardo Galeano in the way he can settle on a telling phrase … But the real accomplishment of this book is that it achieves a conscious form of history-telling, a personal hybrid that feels distinctly honest and humble at the same time. O’Toole has not invented the form, but he comes close to perfecting it. He embraces the contradictions and the confusion. In the process, he weaves the flag rather than waving it.”

–Colum McCann ( The New York Times Book Review )

2. Thin Places: A Natural History of Healing and Home by Kerri Ní Dochartaigh (Milkweed)

12 Rave • 7 Positive • 2 Mixed

“Assured and affecting … A powerful and bracing memoir … This is a book that will make you see the world differently: it asks you to reconsider the animals and insects we often view as pests – the rat, for example, and the moth. It asks you to look at the sea and the sky and the trees anew; to wonder, when you are somewhere beautiful, whether you might be in a thin place, and what your responsibilities are to your location.It asks you to show compassion for people you think are difficult, to cultivate empathy, to try to understand the trauma that made them the way they are.”

–Lynn Enright ( The Irish Times )

3. Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton (Drawn & Quarterly)

14 Rave • 4 Positive

“It could hardly be more different in tone from [Beaton’s] popular larky strip Hark! A Vagrant … Yes, it’s funny at moments; Beaton’s low-key wryness is present and correct, and her drawings of people are as charming and as expressive as ever. But its mood overall is deeply melancholic. Her story, which runs to more than 400 pages, encompasses not only such thorny matters as social class and environmental destruction; it may be the best book I have ever read about sexual harassment …

There are some gorgeous drawings in Ducks of the snow and the starry sky at night. But the human terrain, in her hands, is never only black and white … And it’s this that gives her story not only its richness and depth, but also its astonishing grace. Life is complex, she tell us, quietly, and we are all in it together; each one of us is only trying to survive. What a difficult, gorgeous and abidingly humane book. It really does deserve to win all the prizes.”

–Rachel Cooke ( The Guardian )

4. Stay True by Hua Hsu (Doubleday)

14 Rave • 3 Positive

“… quietly wrenching … To say that this book is about grief or coming-of-age doesn’t quite do it justice; nor is it mainly about being Asian American, even though there are glimmers of that too. Hsu captures the past by conveying both its mood and specificity … This is a memoir that gathers power through accretion—all those moments and gestures that constitute experience, the bits and pieces that coalesce into a life … Hsu is a subtle writer, not a showy one; the joy of Stay True sneaks up on you, and the wry jokes are threaded seamlessly throughout.”

–Jennifer Szalai ( The New York Times )

5.  Manifesto: On Never Giving Up by Bernardine Evaristo (Grove)

13 Rave • 4 Positive

“Part coming-of-age story and part how-to manual, the book is, above all, one of the most down-to-earth and least self-aggrandizing works of self-reflection you could hope to read. Evaristo’s guilelessness is refreshing, even unsettling … With ribald humour and admirable candour, Evaristo takes us on a tour of her sexual history … Characterized by the resilience of its author, it is replete with stories about the communities and connections Evaristo has cultivated over forty years … Invigoratingly disruptive as an artist, Evaristo is a bridge-builder as a human being.”

–Emily Bernard ( The Times Literary Supplement )

1. Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne by Katherine Rundell (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

14 Rave • 4 Positive • 1 Mixed

“Rundell is right that Donne…must never be forgotten, and she is the ideal person to evangelise him for our age. She shares his linguistic dexterity, his pleasure in what TS Eliot called ‘felt thought’, his ability to bestow physicality on the abstract … It’s a biography filled with gaps and Rundell brings a zest for imaginative speculation to these. We know so little about Donne’s wife, but Rundell brings her alive as never before … Rundell confronts the difficult issue of Donne’s misogyny head-on … This is a determinedly deft book, and I would have liked it to billow a little more, making room for more extensive readings of the poems and larger arguments about the Renaissance. But if there is an overarching argument, then it’s about Donne as an ‘infinity merchant’ … To read Donne is to grapple with a vision of the eternal that is startlingly reinvented in the here and now, and Rundell captures this vision alive in all its power, eloquence and strangeness”

–Laura Feigel ( The Guardian )

2. The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World by Jonathan Freedland (Harper)

12 Rave • 3 Positive

“Compelling … We know about Auschwitz. We know what happened there. But Freedland, with his strong, clear prose and vivid details, makes us feel it, and the first half of this book is not an easy read. The chillingly efficient mass murder of thousands of people is harrowing enough, but Freedland tells us stories of individual evils as well that are almost harder to take … His matter-of-fact tone makes it bearable for us to continue to read … The Escape Artist is riveting history, eloquently written and scrupulously researched. Rosenberg’s brilliance, courage and fortitude are nothing short of amazing.”

–Laurie Hertzel ( The Star Tribune )

3. I Used to Live Here Once: The Haunted Life of Jean Rhys by Miranda Seymour (W. W. Norton & Company)

11 Rave • 4 Positive • 1 Pan

“…illuminating and meticulously researched … paints a deft portrait of a flawed, complex, yet endlessly fascinating woman who, though repeatedly bowed, refused to be broken … Following dismal reviews of her fourth novel, Rhys drifted into obscurity. Ms. Seymour’s book could have lost momentum here. Instead, it compellingly charts turbulent, drink-fueled years of wild moods and reckless acts before building to a cathartic climax with Rhys’s rescue, renewed lease on life and late-career triumph … is at its most powerful when Ms. Seymour, clear-eyed but also with empathy, elaborates on Rhys’s woes …

Ms. Seymour is less convincing with her bold claim that Rhys was ‘perhaps the finest English woman novelist of the twentieth century.’ However, she does expertly demonstrate that Rhys led a challenging yet remarkable life and that her slim but substantial novels about beleaguered women were ahead of their time … This insightful biography brilliantly shows how her many battles were lost and won.”

–Malcolm Forbes ( The Wall Street Journal )

4. The Facemaker: A Visionary Surgeon’s Battle to Mend the Disfigured Soldiers of World War I by Lindsey Fitzharris (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

9 Rave • 5 Positive • 1 Mixed

“Grisly yet inspiring … Fitzharris depicts her hero as irrepressibly dedicated and unfailingly likable. The suspense of her narrative comes not from any interpersonal drama but from the formidable challenges posed by the physical world … The Facemaker is mostly a story of medical progress and extraordinary achievement, but as Gillies himself well knew—grappling daily with the unbearable suffering that people willingly inflicted on one another—failure was never far behind.”

5. Buster Keaton: A Filmmaker’s Life by James Curtis (Knopf)

8 Rave • 6 Positive • 1 Mixed

“Keaton fans have often complained that nearly all biographies of him suffer from a questionable slant or a cursory treatment of key events. With Buster Keaton: A Filmmaker’s Life —at more than 800 pages dense with research and facts—Mr. Curtis rectifies that situation, and how. He digs deep into Keaton’s process and shows how something like the brilliant two-reeler Cops went from a storyline conceived from necessity—construction on the movie lot encouraged shooting outdoors—to a masterpiece … This will doubtless be the primary reference on Keaton’s life for a long time to come … the worse Keaton’s life gets, the more engrossing Mr. Curtis’s book becomes.”

–Farran Smith Nehme ( The Wall Street Journal )

Our System:

RAVE = 5 points • POSITIVE = 3 points • MIXED = 1 point • PAN = -5 points

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30 great biographies to bury yourself in.

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Jonathan Eig's "King: A Life," a biography of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., was ... [+] recognized as one of the best books of 2023.

Biographies offer a chance to explore the decision-making and circumstances around some of history’s most fascinating events. The best biography books offer fresh insights into familiar situations that you may have learned about in history class but never explored in-depth. You can learn the unexpected reasoning behind why a president went with option A instead of option B, or how a scientist’s early failures led to a groundbreaking discovery. Biographies often chronicle the lives of famous people, but sometimes they focus on people who never attained celebrity status despite doing extraordinary things. This list of the top biographies includes people of all backgrounds who can teach us things about life, passion, perseverance and more.

Top Biography Books

Biographies are different from autobiographies. A biography is an account of someone’s life written by someone else. An autobiography is an account of someone’s life that they write themselves. For instance, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin was written by the Founding Father. But more than two centuries later, Walter Isaacson wrote a biography of Benjamin Franklin.

Some of the most popular and well-known biographies include Isaacson’s recent book about Elon Musk, Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton , which inspired the musical about the former Secretary of the Treasury, and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, about a woman who changed the course of modern medicine. The biographies on this list were selected based on critical acclaim, sales and impact on popular culture.

Cincinnati Reds great Pete Rose is the subject of one of the best biographies, a new one called ... [+] "Charlie Hustle."

30. Charlie Hustle: The Rise and Fall of Pete Rose, and the Last Glory Days of Baseball by Keith O'Brien (2024)

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The newest book on the list, this New York Times bestseller chronicles the highs and lows of baseball’s all-time hits leader, who was banned from the Hall of Fame for betting on baseball. Keith O’Brien looks at FBI records and press coverage to build a comprehensive portrait of the former Cincinnati Reds star.

This book is best for sports fans who want to go beyond Xs and Os. Keith O’Brien’s Charlie Hustle is available from Penguin Random House .

29. The Woman They Could Not Silence by Kate Moore (2021)

Kate Moore ( Radium Girls ) uncovers the story of Elizabeth Packard, a woman confined to a mental asylum in the 19 th century for daring to have opinions and push back against social norms by giving a voice to other women like herself. It earned a GoodReads Choice nomination for Best History & Biography.

This book is best for history buffs looking for lesser-known stories. Kate Moore’s The Woman They Could Not Silence is available from Sourcebooks .

28. The Doctors Blackwell: How Two Pioneering Sisters Brought Medicine to Women and Women to Medicine by Janice P. Nimura (2021)

Elizabeth Blackwell became the first female physician in the United States in 1849—and perhaps more remarkably, her sister, Emily, soon became the second. This New York Times bestseller traces their journeys and the founding of the famed New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children, the first U.S. hospital run by women.

This book is best for anyone interested in medical history, science pioneers or sibling rivarly. Janice P. Nimura ’s The Doctors Blackwell is available from W.W. Norton .

27. Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin (2005)

There have been many biographies of the 16 th president, but this stands out for presenting his story based around his cabinet, which (as the title suggests) he stacked with his political enemies. Pulitzer Prize winner Doris Kearns Goodwin presents the story, which inspired Steven Spielberg ’s Oscar-winning movie Lincoln , like a fast-paced novel.

This book is best for those who enjoy the psychology of rivalries. Doris Kearns Goodwin ’s Team of Rivals is available from Simon & Schuster .

Author Doris Kearns Goodwin's Abraham Lincoln biography is one of the best reads about the 16th ... [+] president.

26. Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo by Hayden Herrera (2002)

Arguably the most famous Mexican woman of her (or any) generation, Frida Kahlo has inspired many with her art. This biography in turn explores her own inspirations and influences, adding greater depth to her well-known romance with Diego Rivera and other stories. The San Francisco Chronicle said the book made Kahlo “fully human.”

This book is best for those who appreciate art or want to learn more about Mexican history. Hayden Herrera ’s Frida is available from HarperCollins .

25. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (2001)

Young mother Henrietta Lacks died of cancer in 1951, but her “immortal cells” live on today, fueling countless medical advances. Yet her family didn’t learn of her contributions until two decades later and didn’t profit from them. Journalist Rebecca Skloot uncovers the racism and disturbing history of discrimination within medicine while telling a human story.

This book is best for anyone who watched the Oprah Winfrey film about Lacks on HBO and wants to learn more. Rebecca Skloot ’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is available from Penguin Random House .

A painting of Henrietta Lacks hangs in the entryway of the Henrietta Lacks Community Center at Lyon ... [+] Homes in the Turner Station neighborhood of Baltimore. She is the subject of "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks," one of the best biographies.

24. Becoming Dr. Seuss by Brian Jay Jones (2019)

Rhyming isn’t easy, but Dr. Seuss made it look breezy. In this comprehensive look at the former advertising man’s life, Brian Jay Jones traces Theodor Geisel’s career trajectory to political cartoonist and author, as well as discussing some of the views that have received criticism in recent years.

This book is best for anyone who ever read a Dr. Seuss book, which is everyone. Brian Jay Jones ’ Becoming Dr. Seuss is available from Penguin Random House .

23. Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson (2011)

From his extreme diets to his trademark black turtlenecks, Steve Jobs was a man like none other, for better or worse. Esteemed biographer Walter Isaacson captures the nuance of his personality and the genius that drove him to create companies that made things people feel passionately about. The bestselling book became a 2015 movie.

This book is best for anyone who loves or hates Apple products. Walter Isaacson ’s Steve Jobs is available from Simon & Schuster .

Late Apple CEO Steve Jobs is the subject of an acclaimed biography by Walter Isaacson.

22. All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days by Rebecca Donner (2021)

This National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography made the best books of the year list for Time , The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times . It pulls back the curtain on the women who led the largest resistance groups against the Nazis in Germany, including the author’s great-great aunt.

This book is best for those looking for a new perspective on World War II. Rebecca Donner ’s All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days is available from Little, Brown & Co .

21. Redbone: The True Story of a Native American Rock Band by Christian Staebler and Sonia Paoloni, illustrated by Thibault Balahy (2020)

At what price does commercial success come? That question haunted musicians Pat and Lolly Vegas, Native American brothers who influenced stars like Jimi Hendrix and the Doors, as they rose to fame with the Redbone hit “Come and Get Your Love.” But they later shifted their focus to the American Indian Movement.

This book is best for fans of the Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack and those looking for a different take on Native American history. Christian Staebler and Sonia Paoloni ’s Redbone is available from Penguin Random House .

20. The Vice President's Black Wife: The Untold Life of Julia Chinn by Amrita Chakrabarti Myers (2023)

Richard Mentor Johnson, vice president under Martin Van Buren, married enslaved Black woman Julia Ann Chinn. Though he refused to give her freedom, he did give her power on his estate. The relationship, which was likely not consensual, ultimately cost him his political career, and this book details how.

This book is best for fans of presidential history looking for untold stories. Amrita Chakrabarti Myers ’ The Vice President’s Black Wife is available from University of North Carolina Press .

19. Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff (2011)

Cleopatra may be the most famous woman in history, but her notoriety has overshadowed her incredible life and accomplishments. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Stacy Schiff adds depth to her story through a thoroughly researched history that also dispels misogynistic myths about the queen of Egypt.

This book is best for anyone curious about Egyptian history or who loves the classics . Stacy Schiff’s Cleopatra is available from Little, Brown & Co .

Stacy Schiff wrote an outstanding biography of Egyptian queen Cleopatra.

18. All That She Carried by Tiya Miles (2021)

This National Book Award winner and New York Times bestseller chronicles a bag passed down from an enslaved woman to future generations, which becomes the starting point for this poignant and well-researched book about the generational impact of slavery.

This book is best for everyone and should be required reading to humanize topics too often glossed over in political debates. Tiya Miles ’ All That She Carried is available from Simon & Schuster .

17. Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History by S. C. Gwynne (2011)

Quanah Parker, the biracial son of a pioneer woman who became the last Comanche chief, battled white settlers over land in the American West for decades. The book traces both his personal story (he was undefeated in battle) and the greater implications of the stealing of tribal lands.

This book is best for those looking for new stories about the Old West. S.C. Gwynne ’s Empire of the Summer Moon is available from Simon & Schuster .

16. Becoming Nicole: The inspiring story of transgender actor-activist Nicole Maines and her extraordinary family by Amy Ellis Nutt (2016)

Nicole Maines rose to fame when she became the first transgender woman to play a superhero on TV. Chronicling her journey from adoption to getting the job on Supergirl , this Amazon Editors Pick and New York Times bestseller also shows how her family changed their views on gender identity and the impact on their community.

This book is best for fans of comic books. Amy Ellis Nutt ’s Becoming Nicole is available from Penguin Random House .

Actress Nicole Maines speaks at a "Supergirl" presentation at Comic-Con International. She's the ... [+] subject of a heralded biography.

15. Victoria: The Queen: An Intimate Biography of the Woman Who Ruled an Empire by Julia Baird (2016)

The Victoria depicted in history books is way too dry. An Esquire and New York Times pick for best book of 2016, Victoria illuminates how the future monarch went from fifth in line for the crown to a teenage queen to a mother of nine who somehow survived eight attempts on her life.

This book is best for anyone who’s ever struggled with work-life balance. Julia Baird’s Victoria is available from Penguin Random House .

14. The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation by Anna Malaika Tubbs (2021)

This remarkable book draws a line between the mothers of three of the most important Black men in American history, celebrating Black motherhood and shining a light on how they resisted Jim Crow while bringing up their sons. It was named one of Amazon's Best Biographies and Memoirs of 2021.

This book is best for parents and anyone interested in civil rights. Anna Malaika Tubbs ’ The Three Mothers is available from Macmillan .

13. Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow (2004)

Lin-Manuel Miranda was so inspired by this Founding Father biography that he famously wrote some of the music for Hamilton on his honeymoon. Pulitzer Prize winner Ron Chernow follows Alexandar Hamilton from immigration to member of George Washington’s cabinet to death in a duel with his nemesis, Aaron Burr.

This book is best for fans of the Broadway show and presidential history. Ron Chernow ’s Alexander Hamilton is available from Penguin Random House .

"Hamilton" author Ron Chernow and the cast appear onstage at the opening night curtain call for ... [+] "Hamilton" at the Pantages Theatre on August 16, 2017 in Los Angeles.

12. The Crusades of Cesar Chavez: A Biography by Miriam Pawel (2014)

Pulitzer Prize winner Miriam Pawel tells the story of one of the most influential and revered U.S. labor leaders in this National Book Critics Circle Award finalist. She doesn't cover up his flaws, but she does illustrate why he was so successful while saluting his enduring humanity.

This book is best for those looking for deep dives on labor or Latine history. Miriam Pawel ’s The Crusades of Cesar Chavez is available from Macmillan .

11. Warhol by Blake Gopnik (2020)

Andy Warhol is so famous, you only need to mention his last name for instant recognition. Art critic Blake Gopnik blends understanding of Warhol’s medium with excellent research and conclusions to paint the most complete picture yet of one of the defining artists of the 20 th century.

This book is best for pop culture devotees and fans of art history. Blake Gopnik ’s Warhol is available from HarperCollins .

10. Billion Dollar Whale: The Man Who Fooled Wall Street, Hollywood, and the World by Bradley Hope and Tom Wright (2018)

The Financial Times and Fortune tabbed this one of the best books of 2018 for telling the unlikeliest of stories: How a Malaysian MBA used Goldman Sachs and other financial institutions to steal billions of dollars he used to pay for real estate, parties—and even the making of The Wolf of Wall Street .

This book is best for Hollywood and movie lovers. Bradley Hope and Tom Wright’s Billion Dollar Whale is available from Hachette Books .

9. The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks by Jeanne Theoharis (2013)

There’s so much more to Rosa Parks’ story than one day on a bus in Montgomery. Jeanne Theoharis takes a comprehensive look at her six decades of activism and why she wasn’t the “accidental catalyst” the history books have made her sound like, regaining Parks her agency.

This book is best for those who know how the Montgomery Bus Boycott began but don’t know about Parks’ earlier involvement in organizing. Jeanne Theoharis’ The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks is available from Penguin Random House .

8. American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin (2005)

The inspiration behind Christopher Nolan ’s summer’s blockbuster film Oppenheimer won the Pulitzer Prize and hit No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list. It tells J. Robert Oppenheimer’s life story, with a particular focus on the bomb and how it played into the Cold War.

This book is best for anyone who saw the movie and wants to know more. Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin’s American Prometheus is available from Penguin Random House .

"Oppenheimer" cast members Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Cillian Murphy and Florence Pugh. The movie is ... [+] based on the prize-winning biography.

7. Self Made: The Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker by A'Lelia Bundles (2002)

Madam C.J. Walker, her enslaved parents’ first freeborn child, became one of the wealthiest women of her time. Entirely self-made, she used wealth gained from her cosmetics empire caring for Black hair to help uplift other women and connect with civil rights leaders. The author is Walker’s great-great granddaughter.

This book is best for people obsessed with the Forbes billionaire lists. A’Lelia Bundles ’ Self Made (originally titled On Her Own Ground) is available from Simon & Schuster .

6. Three Ordinary Girls: The Remarkable Story of Three Dutch Teenagers Who Became Spies, Saboteurs, Nazi Assassins—and WWII Heroes by Tim Brady (2021)

World War II is a hugely popular literary period, and here’s another worthy biography from that era, following the Nazi resistance efforts of Dutch teens Hannie Schaft and sisters Truus and Freddie Oversteegen. They saved countless children and Jews from concentration camps and even assassinated German soldiers.

This book is best for World War II aficionados and fans of hidden history. Tim Brady’s Three Ordinary Girls is available from Kensington Books .

5. Bruce Lee: A Life by Matthew Polly (2018)

This highly rated (4.8/5 stars on Amazon) book incorporates information gleaned from more than 100 interviews, which helped Polly piece together scenes from Lee’s childhood in Hong Kong and the challenges he faced from racism in Hollywood. It also investigates his shocking and still mysterious death.

This book is best for fans of martial arts or who want to know what it was like to be Asian in Hollywood decades ago. Matthew Polly ’s Bruce Lee is available from Simon & Schuster .

Bruce Lee from the 1972 film "The Way of the Dragon." He is the subject of Matthew Polly's ... [+] biography.

4. Orwell's Roses by Rebecca Solnit (2021)

This finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award explores author George Orwell’s career from a unique angle: looking at his passion for gardening. Rebecca Solnit ties his devotion to his plants to his work as a writer and an antifascist. It presents him in a different light than past biographies.

This book is best for gardeners and those who’ve read 1984 . Rebecca Solnit ’s Orwell’s Roses is available from Penguin Random House .

3. Billie Holiday: The Musician and the Myth by John Szwed (2015)

Billie Holiday’s story is too often simplified to a rags-to-riches tale focusing on her struggles pre- and post-fame. But her influence, accomplishments and enduring power are far too grand to tokenize. This biography focuses on her music, allowing jazz scholar John Szwed to illustrate what made her so spectacular.

This book is best for jazz and music fans. John Szwed ’s Billie Holiday is available from Penguin Random House .

2. Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe (2023)

The Sacklers were once revered for their philanthropy, but the opioid epidemic unmasked how they sold and marketed a painkiller that catalyzed the crisis. This New York Times bestseller traces three generations of the family and their insistence on downplaying the addictiveness of opioids. It asks and answers how they avoided accountability.

This book is best for fans of Hulu’s Dopesick and anyone looking for more information about the opioid crisis. Patrick Radden Keefe ’s Empire of Pain is available from Penguin Random House .

Tufts employee Gabe Ryan removes letters from signage featuring the Sackler family name at the Tufts ... [+] building. The biography "Empire of Pain" details what led to the Sacklers' fall from grace.

1. King: A Life by Jonathan Eig (2023)

Hailed by the New Yorker , Washington Post , Time and Chicago Tribune as one of the best books of 2023, King is a definitive biography of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. It’s also the first to rely on recently declassified FBI files, giving greater depth to the narrative and this unique American story.

This book is best for those who want to go beyond the “I Have a Dream” speech. Jonathan Eig ’s King is available from Macmillan .

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What are the most entertaining biographies.

The most entertaining biographies will teach lessons and impart wisdom while also keeping you on the edge of your seat, anticipating the next development in a storied life. Famed pop culture figures and entertainers make great subjects. 

For an in-depth and fast-paced look at one of our most celebrated jurists, check out 2018’s  Ruth Bader Ginsburg: A Life by Jane Sherron de Hart. If you want laughs and a behind-the-scenes peek at a seminal variety show, try David Bianculli’s 2010 book The Uncensored Story of 'The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour . And to lose yourself in a dishy, reads-like-a-novel bio of the ultimate girlboss, try Marisa Meltzer’s 2023 Glossy: Ambition, Beauty, and the Inside Story of Emily Weiss's Glossier .

What Are The Best Professional Biographies?

The best professional biographies make connections between the habits and hopes of dreamers and their eventual success. They often provide a blueprint for success that readers can adopt for their own lives. 

To learn how to build a truly impressive empire, read Neal Gabler’s 2006  Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination . Another American legend is the subject of T.J. Stiles’ 2010 National Book Award winner The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt , which is as much about capitalism as Vanderbilt. And in 2016’s Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race , Margot Lee Shetterly shows how Black women professionals were discriminated against at NASA—but still helped land a man on the moon. 

What Are The Best Presidential Biographies?

The best presidential biographies reveal never-before-known details about famous leaders’ lives. It can be challenging to dig up something new but so rewarding because it helps our understanding of how these men governed and led. 

Arguably the best presidential biography is Robert Caro’s portrait of Lyndon B. Johnson, starting with 1990’s  The Path to Power , which traces LBJ’s journey from early childhood to the start of his political career. An enduring book is Edmund Morris’ acclaimed 1979 The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt , which paints a full picture of a complicated man. And 2017’s  The Unexpected President: The Life and Times of Chester A. Arthur by Scott S. Greenberger shows that even a long-forgotten president still has influence and value. 

Bottom Line

Biographies offer an escape into someone else’s story, giving you the chance to see why they made their decisions and second-guess them if you like. Whether you prefer biographies focused on history, pop culture or science, you can find a book you’ll love on this list.

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The Best New Biographies and Memoirs to Read in 2024

This year sees some riveting and remarkable lives—from artist ai weiwei to singer-songwriter joni mitchell—captured on the page..

A life story can be read for escapist pleasure. But at other times, reading a memoir or biography can be an expansive exercise, opening us up to broader truths about our world. Often, it’s an edifying experience that reminds us of our universal human vulnerability and the common quest for purpose in life.

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Biographies and memoirs charting remarkable lives—whether because of fame, fortune or simply fascination—have the power to inspire us for their depth, curiosity or challenges. This year sees a bumper calendar of personal histories enter bookshops, grappling with enigmatic public figures like singer Joni Mitchell and writer Ian Fleming , to nuanced analysis of how motherhood or sociopathy shape our lives—for better and for worse.

SEE ALSO: The Best Addiction Memoirs for the Sober Curious

Here we compile some of the most rewarding biographies and memoirs out in 2024. There are stories of trauma and recovery, art as politics and politics as art, and sentences as single life lessons spread across books that will make you rethink much about personal life stories. After all, understanding the triumphs and trials of others can help us see how we can change our own lives to create something different or even better.

Zodiac: A Graphic Memoir by Ai Weiwei and illustrated by Gianluca Costantini

Ai Weiwei , the iconoclastic artist and fierce critic of his homeland China, mixes fairy tales with moral lessons to evocatively retrace the story of his life in graphic form. Illustrations are by Italian artist Gianluca Costantini . “Any artist who isn’t an activist is a dead artist,” Weiwei writes in Zodiac , as he embraces everything from animals found in the Chinese zodiac to mystical folklore tales with anamorphic animals to argue the necessity of art as politics incarnate. The meditative exercise uses pithy anecdotes alongside striking visuals to sketch out a remarkable life story marked by struggle. It’s one weaving political manifesto, philosophy and personal memoir to engage readers on the necessity of art and agitation against authority in a world where we sometimes must resist and fight back.

Alphabetical Diaries by Sheila Heti

Already well-known for her experimental writings, Sheila Heti takes a decade of diary entries and maps sentences against the alphabet, from A to Z. The project is a subversive rethink of our relationship to introspection—which often asks for order and clarity, like in diary writing—that maps new patterns and themes in its disjointed form. Heti plays with both her confessionals and her sometimes formulaic writing style (like knowingly using “Of course” in entries) to retrace the changes made (and unmade) across ten years of her life. Alphabetical Diaries is a sometimes demanding book given the incoherence of its entries, but remains an illuminating project in thinking about efforts at self-documentation.

Splinters: Another Kind of Love Story by Leslie Jamison

Unlike her previous work The Empathy Exams , which examined how we relate to one another and on human suffering, writer Leslie Jamison wrestles today with her own failed marriage and the grief of surviving single parenting. After the birth of her daughter, Jamison divorces her partner “C,” traverses the trials and tribulations of rebound relationships (including with “an ex-philosopher”) and confronts unresolved emotional pains born of her own life living under the divorce of her parents. In her intimate retelling—paired with her superb prose—Jamison charts a personal history that acknowledges the unending divide mothers (and others) face dividing themselves between partners, children and their own lives.

Radiant: The Life and Line of Keith Haring by Brad Gooch

Whether dancing figures or a “radiant baby,” the recognizable cartoonish symbols in Keith Haring ’s art endure today as shorthand signs representing both his playfulness and politicking. Haring (1958-1990) is the subject of writer Brad Gooch ’s deft biography, Radiant , a book that mines new material from the archive along with interviews with contemporaries to reappraise the influential quasi-celebrity artist. From rough beginnings tagging graffiti on New York City walls to cavorting with Andy Warhol and Madonna on art pieces, Haring battled everything from claims of selling out to over-simplicity. But he persisted with work that leveraged catchy quotes and colorful imagery to advance unsavory political messages—from AIDS to crack cocaine. A life tragically cut short at 31 is one powerfully celebrated in this new noble portrait.

The House of Hidden Meanings by RuPaul Charles

In The House of Hidden Meaning , celebrated drag queen, RuPaul , reckons with a murky inner world that has shaped—and hindered—a lifetime of gender-bending theatricality. The figurative house at the center of the story is his “ego,” a plaguing barrier that apparently long inhibited the performer from realizing dreams of greatness. Now as the world’s most recognizable drag queen—having popularized the art form for mainstream audiences with the TV show RuPaul’s Drag Race —RuPaul reflects on the power that drag and self-love have long offered across his difficult, and sometimes tortured, life. Readers expecting dishy stories may be disappointed, but the psychological self-assessment in the pages of this memoir is far more edifying than Hollywood gossip could ever be.

Sociopath: A Memoir by Patric Gagne

Patric Gagne is an unlikely subject for a memoir on sociopaths. Especially since she is a former therapist with a doctorate in clinical psychology. Still, Gagne makes the case that after a troubled childhood of antisocial behavior (like stealing trinkets and cursing teachers) and a difficult adulthood (now stealing credit cards and fighting authority figures), she receives a diagnosis of sociopathy. Her memoir recounts many episodes of bad behavior—deeds often marked by a lack of empathy, guilt or even common decency—where her great antipathy mars any ability for her to connect with others. Sociopath is a rewarding personal exposé that demystifies one vilified psychological condition so often seen as entirely untreatable or irreparable. Only now there’s a familiar face and a real story linked to the prognosis.

Ian Fleming: The Complete Man by Nicholas Shakespeare

Nicholas Shakespeare is an acclaimed novelist and an astute biographer, delivering tales that wield a discerning eye to subjects and embrace a robust attention to detail. Ian Fleming (1908-1964), the legendary creator of James Bond, is the latest to receive Shakespeare’s treatment. With access to new family materials from the Fleming estate, the seemingly contradictory Fleming is seen anew as a totally “different person” from his popular image. Taking cues from Fleming’s life story—from a refined upbringing spent in expensive private schools to working for Reuters as a journalist in the Soviet Union—Shakespeare reveals how these experiences shaped the elusive world of espionage and intrigue created in Fleming’s novels. Other insights include how Bond was likely informed by Fleming’s cavalier father, a major who fought in WWI. A martini (shaken, not stirred) is best enjoyed with this bio.

Knife: Meditations after an Attempted Murder by Salman Rushdie

Salman Rushdie , while giving a rare public lecture in New York in August 2022, was violently stabbed by an assailant brandishing a knife . The attack saw Rushdie lose his left hand and his sight in one eye. Speaking to The New Yorker a year later , he confirmed a memoir was in the works that would confront this harrowing existential experience: “When somebody sticks a knife into you, that’s a first-person story. That’s an ‘I’ story.” Knife: Meditations after an Attempted Murder is promised to be his raw, revelatory and deeply psychological confrontation with the violent incident. Like the sword of Damocles, brutality has long stalked Rushdie ever since the 1989 fatwa issued against the author, following the publication of his controversial novel, The Satanic Verses . The answer to such barbarity, Rushdie is poised to argue, is by finding the strength to stand up again.

The Art of Dying: Writings, 2019–2022 by Peter Schjeldahl (Release: May 14)

Peter Schjeldahl (1942-2022), longstanding art critic of The New Yorker , confronted his mortality when he was diagnosed with incurable lung cancer in 2019. The resulting essay collection he then penned, The Art of Dying , is a masterful meditation on one life preoccupied entirely with aesthetics and criticism. It’s a discursive tactic for a memoir that avoids discussing Schjeldahl’s coming demise while equally confirming its impending visit by avoiding it. Acknowledging that he finds himself “thinking about death less than I used to,” Schjeldahl spends most of the pages revisiting familiar art subjects—from Edward Hopper ’s output to Peter Saul ’s Pop Art—as vehicles to re-examine his own remarkable life. With a life that began in the humble Midwest, Schjeldahl says his birthplace was one that ultimately availed him to write so plainly and cogently on art throughout his career. Such posthumous musings prove illuminating lessons on the potency of American art, with whispered asides on the tragedy of death that will come for all of us.

Traveling: On the Path of Joni Mitchell by Ann Powers (Release: June 11)

Joni Mitchell has enjoyed a remarkable revival recently, even already being one of the most acclaimed and enduring singer/songwriters. After retiring from public appearances for health reasons in the 2010s, Mitchell, 80, has returned to the spotlight with a 2021 Kennedy Centers honor , an appearance accepting the 2023 Gershwin Prize and even a live performance at this year’s Grammy Awards . It’s against this backdrop of public celebration of Mitchell that NPR music critic Ann Powers retraces the life story and musical (re)evolution of the singer, from folk to jazz genres and rock to soul music, across five decades for the American songbook. “What you are about to read is not a standard account of the life and work of Joni Mitchell,” she writes in the introduction. Instead, Powers’ project is one showing how Mitchell’s many journeys—from literal road trips inspiring tracks like “All I Want” to inner probings of Mitchell’s psyche, such as the song “Both Sides Now”—have always inspired Mitchell’s enduring, emotive and palpable output. These travels hold the key, Powers says, to understanding an enigmatic artist.

• SEE ALSO : Will Keen On Playing Vladimir Putin On Broadway in ‘Patriots’

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The 21 most captivating biographies of all time

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• Biographies illuminate pivotal times and people in history. 
• The biography books on this list are heavily researched and fascinating stories.
• Want more books? Check out the best classics , historical fiction books , and new releases.

For centuries, books have allowed readers to be whisked away to magical lands, romantic beaches, and historical events. Biographies take readers through time to a single, remarkable life memorialized in gripping, dramatic, or emotional stories. They give us the rare opportunity to understand our heroes — or even just someone we would never otherwise know. 

To create this list, I chose biographies that were highly researched, entertainingly written, and offer a fully encompassing lens of a person whose story is important to know in 2021. 

The 21 best biographies of all time:

The biography of a beloved supreme court justice.

"Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg" by Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $16.25

Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a Supreme Court Justice and feminist icon who spent her life fighting for gender equality and civil rights in the legal system. This is an inspirational biography that follows her triumphs and struggles, dissents, and quotes, packaged with chapters titled after Notorious B.I.G. tracks — a nod to the many memes memorializing Ginsburg as an iconic dissident. 

The startlingly true biography of a previously unknown woman

"The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $8.06

Henrietta was a poor tobacco farmer, whose "immortal" cells have been used to develop the polio vaccine, study cancer, and even test the effects of an atomic bomb — despite being taken from her without her knowledge or consent. This biography traverses the unethical experiments on African Americans, the devastation of Henrietta Lacks' family, and the multimillion-dollar industry launched by the cells of a woman who lies somewhere in an unmarked grave.

The poignant biography of an atomic bomb survivor

"A Song for Nagasaki: The Story of Takashi Nagai: Scientist, Convert, and Survivor of the Atomic Bomb" by Paul Glynn, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $16.51

Takashi Nagai was a survivor of the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki in 1945. A renowned scientist and spiritual man, Nagai continued to live in his ruined city after the attack, suffering from leukemia while physically and spiritually helping his community heal. Takashi Nagai's life was dedicated to selfless service and his story is a deeply moving one of suffering, forgiveness, and survival.

The highly researched biography of Malcolm X

"The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X" by Les Payne and Tamara Payne, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $18.99

Written by the investigative journalist Les Payne and finished by his daughter after his passing, Malcolm X's biography "The Dead are Arising" was written and researched over 30 years. This National Book Award and Pulitzer-winning biography uses vignettes to create an accurate, detailed, and gripping portrayal of the revolutionary minister and famous human rights activist. 

The remarkable biography of an Indigenous war leader

"The Journey of Crazy Horse: A Lakota History" by Joseph M. Marshall III, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $14.99 

Crazy Horse was a legendary Lakota war leader, most famous for his role in the Battle of the Little Bighorn where Indigenous people defeated Custer's cavalry. A descendant of Crazy Horse's community, Joseph M. Marshall III drew from research and oral traditions that have rarely been shared but offer a powerful and culturally rich story of this acclaimed Lakota hero.

The captivating biography about the cofounder of Apple

"Steve Jobs" by Walter Isaacson, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $16.75

Steve Jobs is a cofounder of Apple whose inventiveness reimagined technology and creativity in the 21st century. Water Issacson draws from 40 interviews with Steve Jobs, as well as interviews with over 100 of his family members and friends to create an encompassing and fascinating portrait of such an influential man.

The shocking biography of a woman committed to an insane asylum

"The Woman They Could Not Silence: One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and the Men Who Tried to Make Her Disappear" by Kate Moore, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $22.49

This biography is about Elizabeth Packard, a woman who was committed to an asylum in 1860 by her husband for being an outspoken woman and wife. Her story illuminates the conditions inside the hospital and the sinister ways of caretakers, an unfortunately true history that reflects the abuses suffered by many women of the time.

The defining biography of a formerly enslaved man

"Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo" by Zora Neale Hurston, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $12.79

50 years after the Atlantic slave trade was outlawed in the United States, Cudjo Lewis was captured, enslaved, and transported to the US. In 1931, the author spent three months with Cudjo learning the details of his life beginning in Africa, crossing the Middle Passage, and his years enslaved before the Civil War. This biography offers a first-hand account of this unspoken piece of painful history.

The biography of a famous Mexican painter

"Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo" by Hayden Herrera, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $24.89

Filled with a wealth of her life experiences, this biography of Frida Kahlo conveys her intelligence, strength, and artistry in a cohesive timeline. The book spans her childhood during the Mexican Revolution, the terrible accident that changed her life, and her passionate relationships, all while intertwining her paintings and their histories through her story.

The exciting biography of Susan Sontag

"Sontag: Her Life and Work" by Benjamin Moser, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $20.24

Susan Sontag was a 20th-century writer, essayist, and cultural icon with a dark reputation. Drawing on hundreds of interviews, archived works, and photographs, this biography extends across Sontag's entire life while reading like an emotional and exciting literary drama.

The biography that inspired a hit musical

"Alexander Hamilton" by Ron Chernow, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $11.04

The inspiration for the similarly titled Broadway musical, this comprehensive biography of Founding Father Alexander Hamilton aims to tell the story of his decisions, sacrifice, and patriotism that led to many political and economic effects we still see today. In this history, readers encounter Hamilton's childhood friends, his highly public affair, and his dreams of American prosperity. 

The award-winning biography of an artistically influential man

"The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke" by Jeffrey C Stewart, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $25.71

Alain Locke was a writer, artist, and theorist who is known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance. Outlining his personal and private life, Alain Locke's biography is a blooming image of his art, his influences, and the far-reaching ways he promoted African American artistic and literary creations.

The remarkable biography of Ida B. Wells

"Ida: A Sword Among Lions" by Paula J. Giddings, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $15.99

This award-winning biography of Ida B. Wells is adored for its ability to celebrate Ida's crusade of activism and simultaneously highlight the racially driven abuses legally suffered by Black women in America during her lifetime. Ida traveled the country, exposing and opposing lynchings by reporting on the horrific acts and telling the stories of victims' communities and families. 

The tumultuous biography that radiates queer hope

"The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk" by Randy Shilts, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $11.80

Harvey Milk was the first openly gay elected official in California who was assassinated after 11 months in office. Harvey's inspirational biography is set against the rise of LGBTQIA+ activism in the 1970s, telling not only Harvey Milk's story but that of hope and perseverance in the queer community. 

The biography of a determined young woman

"Obachan: A Young Girl's Struggle for Freedom in Twentieth-Century Japan" by Tani Hanes, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $9.99

Written by her granddaughter, this biography of Mitsuko Hanamura is an amazing journey of an extraordinary and strong young woman. In 1929, Mitsuko was sent away to live with relatives at 13 and, at 15, forced into labor to help her family pay their debts. Determined to gain an education as well as her independence, Mitsuko's story is inspirational and emotional as she perseveres against abuse. 

The biography of an undocumented mother

"The Death and Life of Aida Hernandez: A Border Story" by Aaron Bobrow-Strain, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $18.40

Born in Mexico and growing up undocumented in Arizona, Aida Hernandez was a teen mother who dreamed of moving to New York. After being deported and separated from her child, Aida found herself back in Mexico, fighting to return to the United States and reunite with her son. This suspenseful biography follows Aida through immigration courts and detention centers on her determined journey that illuminates the flaws of the United States' immigration and justice systems.

The astounding biography of an inspiring woman

"The Black Rose: The Dramatic Story of Madam C.J. Walker, America's First Black Female Millionaire" by Tananarive Due, available on Amazon for $19

Madam C.J. Walker is most well-known as the first Black female millionaire, though she was also a philanthropist, entrepreneur, and born to former slaves in Louisiana. Researched and outlined by famous writer Alex Haley before his death, the book was written by author Tananarive Due, who brings Haley's work to life in this fascinating biography of an outstanding American pioneer.

A biography of the long-buried memories of a Hiroshima survivor

"Surviving Hiroshima: A Young Woman's Story" by Anthony Drago and Douglas Wellman, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $15.59

When Kaleria Palichikoff was a child, her family fled Russia for the safety of Japan until the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima when she was 22 years old. Struggling to survive in the wake of unimaginable devastation, Kaleria set out to help victims and treat the effects of radiation. As one of the few English-speaking survivors, Kaleria was interviewed extensively by the US Army and was finally able to make a new life for herself in America after the war.

A shocking biography of survival during World War II

"Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival" by Laura Hillenbrand, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $8.69

During World War II, Louis Zamperini was a lieutenant bombardier who crashed into the Pacific Ocean in 1943. Struggling to stay alive, Zamperini pulled himself to a life raft where he would face great trials of starvation, sharks, and enemy aircraft. This biography creates an image of Louis from boyhood to his military service and depicts a historical account of atrocities during World War II.  

The comprehensive biography of an infamous leader

"Mao: The Unknown Story" by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $15.39

Mao was a Chinese leader, a founder of the People's Republic of China, and a nearly 30-year chairman of the Chinese Communist Party until his death in 1976. Known as a highly controversial figure who would stop at very little in his plight to rule the world, the author spent nearly 10 years painstakingly researching and uncovering the painful truths surrounding his political rule.

The emotional biography of a Syrian refugee

"A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea: One Refugee's Incredible Story of Love, Loss, and Survival" by Melissa Fleming, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $15.33

When Syrian refugee Doaa met Bassem, they decided to flee Egypt for Europe, becoming two of thousands seeking refuge and making the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean. After four days at sea, their ship was attacked and sank, leaving Doaa struggling to survive with two small children clinging to her and only a small inflation device around her wrist. This is an emotional biography about Doaa's strength and her dangerous and deadly journey towards freedom.

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Nonfiction Books » Best Biographies

The best biographies of 2023: the national book critics circle shortlist, recommended by elizabeth taylor.

Winner of the 2023 NBCC biography prize

G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century by Beverly Gage

Talented biographers examine the interplay between individual qualities and greater social forces, explains Elizabeth Taylor —chair of the judges for the 2023 National Book Critics Circle award for biography. Here, she offers us an overview of their five-book shortlist, including a garlanded account of the life of J. Edgar Hoover and a group biography of post-war female philosophers.

Interview by Cal Flyn , Deputy Editor

The Grimkés: The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family by Kerri K. Greenidge

Mr. B: George Balanchine’s Twentieth Century by Jennifer Homans

Metaphysical Animals: How Four Women Brought Philosophy Back to Life by Clare Mac Cumhaill & Rachael Wiseman

Up from the Depths: Herman Melville, Lewis Mumford, and Rediscovery in Dark Times by Aaron Sachs

1 G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century by Beverly Gage

2 the grimkés: the legacy of slavery in an american family by kerri k. greenidge, 3 mr. b: george balanchine’s twentieth century by jennifer homans, 4 metaphysical animals: how four women brought philosophy back to life by clare mac cumhaill & rachael wiseman, 5 up from the depths: herman melville, lewis mumford, and rediscovery in dark times by aaron sachs.

I t’s a pleasure to have you back , Elizabeth—this time to discuss the National Book Critics Circle’s 2023 biography shortlist. You’ve been chair of the judging panel for a while, so you’re in a great position to tell us whether it has been a good year for biography.

That comes through in the shortlist, I think. There’s a real range here. I think any reader is bound to find something to appeal to their tastes.

Shaping a shortlist seems quite like arranging a bouquet. A clutch of peony, begonia, or orchid stems…each may be lovely, an exemplar in its own way. We aspire to assemble a glorious arrangement—a quintet of blooms that reflect the wildly varied human experiences represented in the verdant garden of biography.

Let’s talk about G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century first, then, shall we? It is your 2023 winner of the NBCC’s prize for best biography; it also won a Pulitzer Prize . It’s also, and correct me if I’m wrong, the most traditional of the biographies that made the list.

G-Man is traditional in as much as Beverly Gage captures the full sweep of Hoover’s life, cradle to grave: 1895 to 1972. In that way, structurally G-Man sits aside the epics of David McCullough ( Truman , John Adams ) and Ron Chernow ( Grant , Alexander Hamilton ).

Unlike those valorized national leaders, Hoover answered to no voters. The quintessential ‘Government Man,’ a counselor and advisor to eight U.S. presidents , of both political parties, he was one of the most powerful, unelected government officials in history. He reigned over the Federal Bureau of Investigations from 1924 to 1972. Hoover began as a young reformer and—as he accrued power—was simultaneously loathed and admired. Through Hoover, Gage skilfully guides readers through the full arc of 20th-century America, and contends: “We cannot know our own story without understanding his.”

In G-Man , Yale University professor Gage untangles the contradictions in Hoover’s aspirations and cruelty, and locates the paradoxical American story of tensions and anxieties over security, masculinity, and race.

“This year, many biographies were deeply rooted in American soil that required years of research to till”

Hoover lived his entire life in Washington D.C., and Gage entwines his story in the city’s evolution into a global power center and delves deeply into the dark childhood that led him to remain there for college. Critical to understanding Hoover, Gage demonstrates, was his embrace of the Kappa Alpha fraternity; its worldview was informed by Robert E. Lee and the ‘Lost Cause’ of the South , in which racial equality was unacceptable. He shaped the F.B.I. in his image and recruited Kappa Alpha men to the Bureau.

For Hoover, Gage writes, Kappa Alpha was a way to measure character, political sympathies, and, of course, loyalty. One of those men was Clyde Tolson, and Gage documents their trips to nightclubs, the racetrack, vacations, and White House receptions. Hoover did not acknowledge that he and Tolson were a couple, but in the end their separate burial plots were a few yards from one another.

While Hoover feels very much alive on the page, Gage captures the full sweep of American history, chronicling events from the hyper-nationalism of the early part of the century, moving into the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., making use of newly unclassified documents. When Hoover’s F.B.I. targeted Nazis and gangsters, there was clarity about good guys and bad guys. But by the mid-century, as the nation began to fracture, he regarded calls for peace and justice as threats to national security. Among the abuses of power committed by Hoover’s F.B.I., for instance, was the wiretapping and harassment of King.

Beyond Hoover’s malfeasance, Gage emphasizes that Hoover was no maverick. He tapped into a dark part of the national psyche and had public opinion on his side. Through Hoover, Americans could see themselves, and, as Gage argues, “what we valued and refused to see.”

A biography like this does make you realize how deeply world events might be impacted or even partially predicted by the family background or the personalities of a small number of key individuals.

We should step through the rest of the books on your 2023 biography shortlist. Let’s start with Kerri K. Greenidge’s The Grimkés: The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family , which is the story not only of the Grimké Sisters Sarah and Angelina, two well-known abolitionists, but Black members of their family as well.

I was eager to read The Grimkés as I had admired Greenidge’s earlier biography, Black Radical , about Boston civil rights leader and abolitionist newspaper editor William Monroe Trotter. Greenidge, a professor at Tufts University, brings her unique, perceptive eye to African American civil rights in the North.

Now Greenidge’s The Grimkés sits on my bookshelf next to The Hemingses of Monticello , the Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Annette Gordon-Reed who exposed the contradictions of one of the most venerated figures in American history, Thomas Jefferson. In the Grimke family, Greenidge has found a gnarled family tree, deeply rooted in generations of trauma.

Sisters Sarah and Angelina Grimke have been exalted as brave heroines who defied antebellum Southern piety and headed northward to embrace abolition. Greenridge makes the powerful case that, in clinging to this mythology, a more troubling story is obscured. In the North, as the Grimké sisters lived comfortably and agitated for change, they enjoyed the financial benefits of their slaveholding family in South Carolina.

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After the Civil War, they learned that their brute of a brother had fathered at least two sons with a woman whom he had enslaved. The sisters provided some financial assistance in the education of these two young men, one attended Harvard Law School and the other Princeton Divinity School—and did not let their nephews forget it.

Not only does Greenidge provide a revisionist history of the Grimke sisters, but she also takes account of the full Grimké family and extends their story beyond the 19th century. She delves into the dynamics of racial subordination and how free white men who conceive children — whether from rape or a relationship spanning decades with enslaved women—destroy families. Generations of children are haunted by this history.  Poignantly, Greenidge evokes the life and work of the sisters’ grandniece Angelina (‘Nana’) Weld Grimké , a talented—and troubled—queer playwright and poet, who carried the heavy weight of the generational trauma she inherited.

This sounds like a family saga of the kind you might be more likely to find in fiction.

Let’s turn to Mr B . : George Balanchine’s 20th Century by Jennifer Homans, the story of the noted choreographer. Why did this make your shortlist of the best biographies of 2023?

The perfect match of biographer and subject! A dancer who trained with Balanchine’s School of American Ballet in New York and is now dance critic for The New Yorker, Homans has written a biography of the man known as ‘the Shakespeare of Dance.’ In felicitous prose, Homans channels the dancer’s experience onto the page, from the body movements that can produce such beauty to the aching tendons and ligaments. Training is transformation, Homan writes, and working with Balanchine was a kind of metamorphosis tangled with pain. She evokes the dances so vividly that one can almost hear the music.

“At the heart of biography is the quest to understand the interplay between individual and social forces”

Homans captures Balanchine in a constant state of reinvention, tracing his life from Czarist Russia to Weimar Berlin , finally making his way to post-war New York where he revitalized the world of ballet by embracing modernish, founding New York City Ballet in 1948. Balanchine was genius whose personal history shape-shifted over the years. Homans grounds Mr. B in more than a hundred interviews, and draws from archives around the world.

Homans captures Balanchine’s charisma and cultural importance, but Mr. B. is no hagiography. Homans grasps the knot of sex and power over women used in his work. He married four times, always to dancers. They were all the same kind of swan-necked, long-waisted, long-limbed women, and although Homans does not write this, his company often sounds more like a cult than art.

And, of course, there is the matter of weight, which Homans dealt with directly, as did Balanchine. He posted a sign: ‘BEFORE YOU GET YOUR PAY—YOU MUST WEIGH.’

I don’t think I’ve ever considered reading a ballet biography before, but it sounds fascinating.

The next book on the NBCC’s 2023 biography shortlist brings us to Oxford, England. This is Metaphysical Animals: How Four Women Brought Philosophy Back to Life by Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman.

At the outset of World War II , a quartet of young women, Oxford students—Elizabeth Anscombe, Iris Murdoch, Philippa Foot, and Mary Midgley—were “bored of listening to men talk about books by men about men,” as Mac Cumhaill, a Durham University professor, and Wiseman, a lecturer at the University of Liverpool, write. In their marvelous group biography, MacCumhaill and Wiseman vivify how the friendships of these women congealed to bring “philosophy back to life.”

As their male counterparts departed for the front lines, this brilliant group of women came together in their dining halls and shared lodging quarters to challenge the thinking of their male colleagues. In the shadows of the Holocaust and Hiroshima, these friends rejected the logical positivists who favoured empirical scientific questions. They didn’t really create a distinct philosophical approach as much as they shared an interest in the metaphysics of morals.

Brilliant. A book that is ostensibly ‘improving’ but which turns out to be absolutely chock-full of gossip sounds perfect to me. Let’s move on to the fourth book on the NBCC’s 2023 biography shortlist, which is Up from the Depths: Herman Melville, Lewis Mumford, and Rediscovery in Dark Times by Aaron Sachs.

A biography about writing biography ! Very meta, and very much in the interdisciplinary tradition of American Studies. In his gorgeous braid of cultural history, Cornell University professor Sachs   entwines the lives and work of poet and fiction writer Herman Melville (1819-1891) and the philosopher and literary critic Lewis Mumford (1895-1990), illuminating their coextending concerns about their worlds in crisis.

While Melville is now firmly ensconced in the American canon, most appreciation and respect for him was posthumous. The 20th-century Melville revival was largely sparked by a now overlooked Mumford, once so prominent that he appeared on a 1936 Time  magazine cover.

Sachs brilliantly provides the connective tissue between Melville and his biographer Mumford so that these writers seem to be in conversation with one another, both deeply affected by their dark times.

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As Mumford grappled with tragedies wrought by World War I, the 1918 flu pandemic and urban decay, Melville had dealt with the bloody Civil War , slavery , and industrialization. In a certain way, this book is about the art of biography itself, two writers wrestling with modernity in a bleak world. In delving into Melville’s angst, Mumford was thrust into great turmoil. Sachs evokes so clearly and painfully this bond that almost did Mumford in, and writes that “Melville, it turns out, was Mumford’s white whale.”

There’s a real sense of range in this shortlist. But do you get a sense of there being certain trends in biography as a genre in 2023?

In many ways, this is a golden era for biography. There are fewer dull but worthy books, more capacious and improvisational ones. More series of short biographies that pack a big punch. We see more group biographies and illustrated biographies. But just as figures and groups once considered marginal are being centered, records that document those lives are vanishing.

The crisis in local news and the homogenization of national and international news will soon be a crisis for biographers and historians. Where would historians be without the ‘slave narratives’ from the Federal Writers Project , or the Federal Theatre Project ? Reconstruction of public events—federal elections, national tragedies, and so on—may be possible, but we lose that wide spectrum of human experience. We need to preserve these artifacts and responses to events as they happen. Biographies are time-consuming labors of love and passion, and are often expensive to produce. We need to ensure that we are generating and saving the emails, the records, the to-do lists of ordinary life.

The affluent among us will always be able to commission histories of their companies or families, but are those the only ones that will endure?

June 30, 2023

Five Books aims to keep its book recommendations and interviews up to date. If you are the interviewee and would like to update your choice of books (or even just what you say about them) please email us at [email protected]

Elizabeth Taylor

Elizabeth Taylor is a co-author of American Pharaoh: Mayor Richard J. Daley; His Battle for Chicago and the Nation with Adam Cohen, with whom she also cofounded The National Book Review. She has chaired four Pulitzer Prize juries, served as president of the National Book Critics Circle, and presided over the Harold Washington Literary Award selection committee three times. Former Time magazine correspondent in New York and Chicago and long-time literary editor of the Chicago Tribune, she is working on a biography of women in the Civil War and Reconstruction eras for Liveright/W.W. Norton.

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50 Must-Read Biographies

Rebecca Hussey

Rebecca holds a PhD in English and is a professor at Norwalk Community College in Connecticut. She teaches courses in composition, literature, and the arts. When she’s not reading or grading papers, she’s hanging out with her husband and son and/or riding her bike and/or buying books. She can't get enough of reading and writing about books, so she writes the bookish newsletter "Reading Indie," focusing on small press books and translations. Newsletter: Reading Indie Twitter: @ofbooksandbikes

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The best biographies give us a satisfying glimpse into a great person’s life, while also teaching us about the context in which that person lived. Through biography, we can also learn history, psychology, sociology, politics, philosophy, and more. Reading a great biography is both fun and educational. What’s not to love?

Below I’ve listed 50 of the best biographies out there. You will find a mix of subjects, including important figures in literature, science, politics, history, art, and more. I’ve tried to keep this list focused on biography only, so there is little in the way of memoir or autobiography. In a couple cases, authors have written about their family members, but for the most part, these are books where the focus is on the biographical subject, not the author.

The first handful are group biographies, and after that, I’ve arranged them alphabetically by subject. Book descriptions come from Goodreads.

Take a look and let me know about your favorite biography in the comments!

All We Know: Three Lives by Lisa Cohen

“In  All We Know , Lisa Cohen describes their [Esther Murphy, Mercedes de Acosta, and Madge Garland’s] glamorous choices, complicated failures, and controversial personal lives with lyricism and empathy. At once a series of intimate portraits and a startling investigation into style, celebrity, sexuality, and the genre of biography itself,  All We Know  explores a hidden history of modernism and pays tribute to three compelling lives.”

Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly

“Set amid the civil rights movement, the never-before-told true story of NASA’s African-American female mathematicians who played a crucial role in America’s space program. Before Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of professionals worked as ‘Human Computers,’ calculating the flight paths that would enable these historic achievements. Among these were a coterie of bright, talented African-American women.”

The Life You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage by Paul Elie

“In the mid-twentieth century four American Catholics came to believe that the best way to explore the questions of religious faith was to write about them – in works that readers of all kinds could admire.  The Life You Save May Be Your Own  is their story – a vivid and enthralling account of great writers and their power over us.”

The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester

“As definitions were collected, the overseeing committee, led by Professor James Murray, discovered that one man, Dr. W. C. Minor, had submitted more than ten thousand. When the committee insisted on honoring him, a shocking truth came to light: Dr. Minor, an American Civil War veteran, was also an inmate at an asylum for the criminally insane.”

The Wives of Henry VIII by Antonia Fraser

“In a sweeping narrative, Fraser traces the cultural, familial and political roots of each of Henry’s queens, pushes aside the stereotypes that have long defined them, and illuminates the complex character of each.”

John Adams by David McCullough

“In this powerful, epic biography, David McCullough unfolds the adventurous life-journey of John Adams, the brilliant, fiercely independent, often irascible, always honest Yankee patriot — ‘the colossus of independence,’ as Thomas Jefferson called him.”

A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea: One Refugee’s Incredible Story of Love, Loss, and Survival by Melissa Fleming

“Emotionally riveting and eye-opening,  A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea  is the incredible story of a young woman, an international crisis, and the triumph of the human spirit. Melissa Fleming shares the harrowing journey of Doaa Al Zamel, a young Syrian refugee in search of a better life.”

At Her Majesty’s Request: An African Princess in Victorian England by Walter Dean Myers

“One terrifying night in 1848, a young African princess’s village is raided by warriors. The invaders kill her mother and father, the King and Queen, and take her captive. Two years later, a British naval captain rescues her and takes her to England where she is presented to Queen Victoria, and becomes a loved and respected member of the royal court.”

John Brown by W.E.B. Du Bois

“ John Brown is W. E. B. Du Bois’s groundbreaking political biography that paved the way for his transition from academia to a lifelong career in social activism. This biography is unlike Du Bois’s earlier work; it is intended as a work of consciousness-raising on the politics of race.”

Invisible: The Forgotten Story of the Black Woman Lawyer Who Took Down America’s Most Powerful Mobster by Stephen L. Carter

“[Eunice Hunton Carter] was black and a woman and a prosecutor, a graduate of Smith College and the granddaughter of slaves, as dazzlingly unlikely a combination as one could imagine in New York of the 1930s ― and without the strategy she devised, Lucky Luciano, the most powerful Mafia boss in history, would never have been convicted.”

Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang

“An engrossing record of Mao’s impact on China, an unusual window on the female experience in the modern world, and an inspiring tale of courage and love, Jung Chang describes the extraordinary lives and experiences of her family members.”

Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff

“Her palace shimmered with onyx, garnet, and gold, but was richer still in political and sexual intrigue. Above all else, Cleopatra was a shrewd strategist and an ingenious negotiator. Though her life spanned fewer than forty years, it reshaped the contours of the ancient world.”

Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson

“Einstein was a rebel and nonconformist from boyhood days, and these character traits drove both his life and his science. In this narrative, Walter Isaacson explains how his mind worked and the mysteries of the universe that he discovered.”

Enrique’s Journey: The Story of a Boy’s Dangerous Odyssey to Reunite with His Mother by Sonia Nazario

“In this astonishing true story, award-winning journalist Sonia Nazario recounts the unforgettable odyssey of a Honduran boy who braves unimaginable hardship and peril to reach his mother in the United States.”

The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann

“After stumbling upon a hidden trove of diaries, New Yorker writer David Grann set out to solve ‘the greatest exploration mystery of the 20th century’: What happened to the British explorer Percy Fawcett & his quest for the Lost City of Z?”

Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire by Amanda Foreman

“Amanda Foreman draws on a wealth of fresh research and writes colorfully and penetratingly about the fascinating Georgiana, whose struggle against her own weaknesses, whose great beauty and flamboyance, and whose determination to play a part in the affairs of the world make her a vibrant, astonishingly contemporary figure.”

Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik Ping Zhu

“Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg never asked for fame she was just trying to make the world a little better and a little freer. But along the way, the feminist pioneer’s searing dissents and steely strength have inspired millions. [This book], created by the young lawyer who began the Internet sensation and an award-winning journalist, takes you behind the myth for an intimate, irreverent look at the justice’s life and work.”

Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston by Valerie Boyd

“A woman of enormous talent and remarkable drive, Zora Neale Hurston published seven books, many short stories, and several articles and plays over a career that spanned more than thirty years. Today, nearly every black woman writer of significance—including Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, and Alice Walker—acknowledges Hurston as a literary foremother.”

Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life by Ruth Franklin

“ Shirley Jackson  reveals the tumultuous life and inner darkness of the literary genius behind such classics as ‘The Lottery’ and  The Haunting of Hill House .”

The Path to Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert A. Caro

“This is the story of the rise to national power of a desperately poor young man from the Texas Hill Country. The Path to Power reveals in extraordinary detail the genesis of the almost superhuman drive, energy, and ambition that set LBJ apart.”

The Life of Samuel Johnson   by James Boswell

“Poet, lexicographer, critic, moralist and Great Cham, Dr. Johnson had in his friend Boswell the ideal biographer. Notoriously and self-confessedly intemperate, Boswell shared with Johnson a huge appetite for life and threw equal energy into recording its every aspect in minute but telling detail.”

Barbara Jordan: American Hero by Mary Beth Rogers

“Barbara Jordan was the first African American to serve in the Texas Senate since Reconstruction, the first black woman elected to Congress from the South, and the first to deliver the keynote address at a national party convention. Yet Jordan herself remained a mystery.”

Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo by Hayden Herrera

“This engrossing biography of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo reveals a woman of extreme magnetism and originality, an artist whose sensual vibrancy came straight from her own experiences: her childhood near Mexico City during the Mexican Revolution; a devastating accident at age eighteen that left her crippled and unable to bear children.”

Florynce “Flo” Kennedy: The Life of a Black Feminist Radical by Sherie M. Randolph

“Often photographed in a cowboy hat with her middle finger held defiantly in the air, Florynce ‘Flo’ Kennedy (1916–2000) left a vibrant legacy as a leader of the Black Power and feminist movements. In the first biography of Kennedy, Sherie M. Randolph traces the life and political influence of this strikingly bold and controversial radical activist.”

The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit by Michael Finkel

“In 1986, a shy and intelligent twenty-year-old named Christopher Knight left his home in Massachusetts, drove to Maine, and disappeared into the forest. He would not have a conversation with another human being until nearly three decades later, when he was arrested for stealing food.”

The Lady and the Peacock: The Life of Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma by Peter Popham

“Peter Popham … draws upon previously untapped testimony and fresh revelations to tell the story of a woman whose bravery and determination have captivated people around the globe. Celebrated today as one of the world’s greatest exponents of non-violent political defiance since Mahatma Gandhi, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize only four years after her first experience of politics.”

Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo”   by Zora Neale Hurston

“In 1927, Zora Neale Hurston went to Plateau, Alabama, just outside Mobile, to interview eighty-six-year-old Cudjo Lewis. Of the millions of men, women, and children transported from Africa to America as slaves, Cudjo was then the only person alive to tell the story of this integral part of the nation’s history.”

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

“Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells—taken without her knowledge—became one of the most important tools in medicine.”

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin

“Acclaimed historian Doris Kearns Goodwin illuminates Lincoln’s political genius in this highly original work, as the one-term congressman and prairie lawyer rises from obscurity to prevail over three gifted rivals of national reputation to become president.”

The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke by Jeffrey C. Stewart

“A tiny, fastidiously dressed man emerged from Black Philadelphia around the turn of the century to mentor a generation of young artists including Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and Jacob Lawrence and call them the New Negro — the creative African Americans whose art, literature, music, and drama would inspire Black people to greatness.”

Warrior Poet: A Biography of Audre Lorde by Alexis De Veaux

“Drawing from the private archives of the poet’s estate and numerous interviews, Alexis De Veaux demystifies Lorde’s iconic status, charting her conservative childhood in Harlem; her early marriage to a white, gay man with whom she had two children; her emergence as an outspoken black feminist lesbian; and her canonization as a seminal poet of American literature.”

Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary by Juan Williams

“Thurgood Marshall stands today as the great architect of American race relations, having expanded the foundation of individual rights for all Americans. His victory in the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954, the landmark Supreme Court case outlawing school segregation, would have him a historic figure even if he had not gone on to become the first African-American appointed to the Supreme Court.”

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

“In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself.”

The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk by Randy Shilts

“ The Mayor of Castro Street  is Shilts’s acclaimed story of Harvey Milk, the man whose personal life, public career, and tragic assassination mirrored the dramatic and unprecedented emergence of the gay community in America during the 1970s.”

Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford

“The most famous poet of the Jazz Age, Millay captivated the nation: She smoked in public, took many lovers (men and women, single and married), flouted convention sensationally, and became the embodiment of the New Woman.”

How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at An Answer by Sarah Bakewell

This book is “a vivid portrait of Montaigne, showing how his ideas gave birth to our modern sense of our inner selves, from Shakespeare’s plays to the dilemmas we face today.”

The Silent Woman: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes by Janet Malcolm

“From the moment it was first published in The New Yorker, this brilliant work of literary criticism aroused great attention. Janet Malcolm brings her shrewd intelligence to bear on the legend of Sylvia Plath and the wildly productive industry of Plath biographies.”

Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley   by Peter Guralnick

“Based on hundreds of interviews and nearly a decade of research, [this book] traces the evolution not just of the man but of the music and of the culture he left utterly transformed, creating a completely fresh portrait of Elvis and his world.

Mrs. Robinson’s Disgrace: The Private Diary of a Victorian Lady by Kate Summerscale

“Kate Summerscale brilliantly recreates the Victorian world, chronicling in exquisite and compelling detail the life of Isabella Robinson, wherein the longings of a frustrated wife collided with a society clinging to rigid ideas about sanity, the boundaries of privacy, the institution of marriage, and female sexuality.”

Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt

“A young man from a small provincial town moves to London in the late 1580s and, in a remarkably short time, becomes the greatest playwright not of his age alone but of all time. How is an achievement of this magnitude to be explained?”

The Invisible Woman: The Story of Charles Dickens and Nelly Ternan by Claire Tomalin

“When Charles Dickens and Nelly Ternan met in 1857, she was 18: a professional actress performing in his production of  The Frozen Deep . He was 45: a literary legend, a national treasure, married with ten children. This meeting sparked a love affair that lasted over a decade, destroying Dickens’s marriage and ending with Nelly’s near-disappearance from the public record.”

Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol by Nell Irvin Painter

“Slowly, but surely, Sojourner climbed from beneath the weight of slavery, secured respect for herself, and utilized the distinction of her race to become not only a symbol for black women, but for the feminist movement as a whole.”

The Black Rose by Tananarive Due

“Born to former slaves on a Louisiana plantation in 1867, Madam C.J. Walker rose from poverty and indignity to become America’s first black female millionaire, the head of a hugely successful beauty company, and a leading philanthropist in African American causes.”

Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow

“With a breadth and depth matched by no other one-volume life, [Chernow] carries the reader through Washington’s troubled boyhood, his precocious feats in the French and Indian Wars, his creation of Mount Vernon, his heroic exploits with the Continental Army, his presiding over the Constitutional Convention and his magnificent performance as America’s first president.”

Ida: A Sword Among Lions by Paula J. Giddings

“ Ida: A Sword Among Lions  is a sweeping narrative about a country and a crusader embroiled in the struggle against lynching: a practice that imperiled not only the lives of black men and women, but also a nation based on law and riven by race.”

Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser

“But the true saga of [Wilder’s] life has never been fully told. Now, drawing on unpublished manuscripts, letters, diaries, and land and financial records, Caroline Fraser—the editor of the Library of America edition of the Little House series—masterfully fills in the gaps in Wilder’s biography.”

Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Her Daughter Mary Shelley by Charlotte Gordon

“Although mother and daughter, these two brilliant women never knew one another – Wollstonecraft died of an infection in 1797 at the age of thirty-eight, a week after giving birth. Nevertheless their lives were so closely intertwined, their choices, dreams and tragedies so eerily similar, it seems impossible to consider one without the other.”

Virginia Woolf by Hermione Lee

“Subscribing to Virginia Woolf’s own belief in the fluidity and elusiveness of identity, Lee comes at her subject from a multitude of perspectives, producing a richly layered portrait of the writer and the woman that leaves all of her complexities and contradictions intact.”

Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable

“Of the great figures in twentieth-century American history perhaps none is more complex and controversial than Malcolm X. Constantly rewriting his own story, he became a criminal, a minister, a leader, and an icon, all before being felled by assassins’ bullets at age thirty-nine.”

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand

“On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared. It was that of a young lieutenant, the plane’s bombardier, who was struggling to a life raft and pulling himself aboard. So began one of the most extraordinary odysseys of the Second World War.”

Want to read more about great biographies? Check out this post on presidential biographies , this list of biographies and memoirs about remarkable women , and this list of 100 must-read musician biographies and memoirs .

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Books Fall Preview: Biographies

5 New Biographies to Read This Season

The first major study of Oscar Wilde in decades, the conclusion of a “magisterial” series on Pablo Picasso, and more.

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By Joumana Khatib

‘ Oscar Wilde: A Life ,’ by Matthew Sturgis

It’s been over 30 years since the last major biography of Wilde, and Sturgis draws on new material and research (including a full transcript of his catastrophic libel trial). “The established persona of Oscar Wilde — the unflappable, epigrammatic Aesthete — is so compelling that it is hard not to be seduced by it,” Sturgis writes, as he sets out to restore Wilde to his era and the facts of his life.

Knopf, Oct. 12

‘ Burning Boy: The Life and Work of Stephen Crane ,’ by Paul Auster

Crane, a journalist and writer best remembered for his novel “The Red Badge of Courage,” died in 1900 at 28 — before he could drive an automobile or listen to a radio. And yet, Auster says, “he can now be regarded as the first American modernist, the man most responsible for changing the way we see the world through the lens of the written word.” Auster, who is upfront about his admiration for his subject, sets out to recover Crane from scholars and introduce him to a broader swath of new readers.

Henry Holt, Oct. 26 | Read our review

Tell us: Whose biography are you most excited to read this fall?

‘ the young h.g. wells: changing the world, ’ by claire tomalin.

Tomalin, a noted literary biographer whose previous subjects have included Jane Austen , Mary Wollstonecraft and Charles Dickens , turns to the early years of Wells, who is perhaps best remembered for such works of science fiction as “The War of the Worlds” and “The Invisible Man.” She traces his early challenges — poverty, his efforts to get an education and poor health — and explores the sudden success he enjoyed in 1895 with his first novel, “ The Time Machine .”

Penguin Press, Nov. 2

‘ Scientist: E.O. Wilson: A Life in Nature ,’ by Richard Rhodes

Long considered Darwin’s successor, the Pulitzer Prize-winning naturalist Wilson started his career studying the social lives of ants before his groundbreaking study of human behavior, “Sociobiology.” Wilson, now 92, agreed to participate in this biography, and Rhodes was able to interview his colleagues, too. It’s an impressive account of one of the 20th century’s most prominent biologists, for whom the natural world is “a sanctuary and a realm of boundless adventure; the fewer the people in it, the better.”

Doubleday, Nov. 9

‘ A Life of Picasso: The Minotaur Years 1933-1943 ,’ by John Richardson

This book concludes Richardson’s four-volume biography of Picasso , and comes two years after Richardson’s death . He drew on his intimate knowledge of Picasso along with impressive amounts of research to illustrate the artist’s work and life — and the centrality of Picasso to his era. (Our critic praised one installment as “magisterial and definitive.”) This volume, set during the Spanish Civil War and the early years of World War II, follows Picasso as he completed some of his most enduring works: portraits of Marie Thérèse and Dora Maar, and his masterpiece “Guernica.”

Knopf, Nov. 16

The 50 Best Biographies of All Time

Think you know the full and complete story about George Washington, Steve Jobs, or Joan of Arc? Think again.

Every product was carefully curated by an Esquire editor. We may earn a commission from these links.

Biographies have always been controversial. On his deathbed, the novelist Henry James told his nephew that his “sole wish” was to “frustrate as utterly as possible the postmortem exploiter” by destroying his personal letters and journals. And one of our greatest living writers, Hermione Lee, once compared biographies to autopsies that add “a new terror to death”—the potential muddying of someone’s legacy when their life is held up to the scrutiny of investigation.

Why do we read so many books about the lives and deaths of strangers, as told by second-hand and third-hand sources? Is it merely our love for gossip, or are we trying to understand ourselves through the triumphs and failures of others?

To keep this list from blossoming into hundreds of titles, we only included books currently in print and translated into English. We also limited it to one book per author, and one book per subject. In ranked order, here are the best biographies of all time.

Crown The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo, by Tom Reiss

You’re probably familiar with The Count of Monte Cristo , the 1844 revenge novel by Alexandre Dumas. But did you know it was based on the life of Dumas’s father, the mixed-race General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, son of a French nobleman and a Haitian slave? Thanks to Reiss’s masterful pacing and plotting, this rip-roaring biography of Thomas-Alexandre reads more like an adventure novel than a work of nonfiction. The Black Count won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 2013, and it’s only a matter of time before a filmmaker turns it into a big-screen blockbuster.

Farrar, Straus and Giroux Ninety-Nine Glimpses of Princess Margaret, by Craig Brown

Few biographies are as genuinely fun to read as this barnburner from the irreverent English critic Craig Brown. Princess Margaret may have been everyone’s favorite character from Netflix’s The Crown , but Brown’s eye for ostentatious details and revelatory insights will help you see why everyone in the 1950s—from Pablo Picasso and Gore Vidal to Peter Sellers and Andy Warhol—was obsessed with her. When book critic Parul Sehgal says that she “ripped through the book with the avidity of Margaret attacking her morning vodka and orange juice,” you know you’re in for a treat.

Inventor of the Future: The Visionary Life of Buckminster Fuller, by Alec Nevala-Lee

If you want to feel optimistic about the future again, look no further than this brilliant biography of Buckminster Fuller, the “modern Leonardo da Vinci” of the 1960s and 1970s who came up with the idea of a “Spaceship Earth” and inspired Silicon Valley’s belief that technology could be a global force for good (while earning plenty of critics who found his ideas impractical). Alec Nevala-Lee’s writing is as serene and precise as one of Fuller’s geodesic domes, and his research into never-before-seen documents makes this a genuinely groundbreaking book full of surprises.

Free Press Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original, by Robin D.G. Kelley

The late American jazz composer and pianist Thelonious Monk has been so heavily mythologized that it can be hard to separate fact from fiction. But Robin D. G. Kelley’s biography is an essential book for jazz fans looking to understand the man behind the myths. Monk’s family provided Kelley with full access to their archives, resulting in chapter after chapter of fascinating details, from his birth in small-town North Carolina to his death across the Hudson from Manhattan.

University of Chicago Press Frank Lloyd Wright: A Biography, by Meryle Secrest

There are dozens of books about America’s most celebrated architect, but Secrest’s 1998 biography is still the most fun to read. For one, she doesn’t shy away from the fact that Wright could be an absolute monster, even to his own friends and family. Secondly, her research into more than 100,000 letters, as well as interviews with nearly every surviving person who knew Wright, makes this book a one-of-a-kind look at how Wright’s personal life influenced his architecture.

Ralph Ellison: A Biography, by Arnold Rampersad

Ralph Ellison’s landmark novel, Invisible Man , is about a Black man who faced systemic racism in the Deep South during his youth, then migrated to New York, only to find oppression of a slightly different kind. What makes Arnold Rampersand’s honest and insightful biography of Ellison so compelling is how he connects the dots between Invisible Man and Ellison’s own journey from small-town Oklahoma to New York’s literary scene during the Harlem Renaissance.

Oscar Wilde: A Life, by Matthew Sturgis

Now remembered for his 1891 novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde was one of the most fascinating men of the fin-de-siècle thanks to his poems, plays, and some of the earliest reported “celebrity trials.” Sturgis’s scintillating biography is the most encyclopedic chronicle of Wilde’s life to date, thanks to new research into his personal notebooks and a full transcript of his libel trial.

Beacon Press A Surprised Queenhood in the New Black Sun: The Life & Legacy of Gwendolyn Brooks, by Angela Jackson

The poet Gwendolyn Brooks was the first African American to win a Pulitzer Prize in 1950, but because she spent most of her life in Chicago instead of New York, she hasn’t been studied or celebrated as often as her peers in the Harlem Renaissance. Luckily, Angela Jackson’s biography is full of new details about Brooks’s personal life, and how it influenced her poetry across five decades.

Atria Books Camera Man: Buster Keaton, the Dawn of Cinema, and the Invention of the Twentieth Century, by Dana Stevens

Was Buster Keaton the most influential filmmaker of the first half of the twentieth century? Dana Stevens makes a compelling case in this dazzling mix of biography, essays, and cultural history. Much like Keaton’s filmography, Stevens playfully jumps from genre to genre in an endlessly entertaining way, while illuminating how Keaton’s influence on film and television continues to this day.

Algonquin Books Empire of Deception: The Incredible Story of a Master Swindler Who Seduced a City and Captivated the Nation, by Dean Jobb

Dean Jobb is a master of narrative nonfiction on par with Erik Larsen, author of The Devil in the White City . Jobb’s biography of Leo Koretz, the Bernie Madoff of the Jazz Age, is among the few great biographies that read like a thriller. Set in Chicago during the 1880s through the 1920s, it’s also filled with sumptuous period details, from lakeside mansions to streets choked with Model Ts.

Vintage Penelope Fitzgerald: A Life, by Hermione Lee

Hermione Lee’s biographies of Virginia Woolf and Edith Wharton could easily have made this list. But her book about a less famous person—Penelope Fitzgerald, the English novelist who wrote The Bookshop, The Blue Flower , and The Beginning of Spring —might be her best yet. At just over 500 pages, it’s considerably shorter than those other biographies, partially because Fitzgerald’s life wasn’t nearly as well documented. But Lee’s conciseness is exactly what makes this book a more enjoyable read, along with the thrilling feeling that she’s uncovering a new story literary historians haven’t already explored.

Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath, by Heather Clark

Many biographers have written about Sylvia Plath, often drawing parallels between her poetry and her death by suicide at the age of thirty. But in this startling book, Plath isn’t wholly defined by her tragedy, and Heather Clark’s craftsmanship as a writer makes it a joy to read. It’s also the most comprehensive account of Plath’s final year yet put to paper, with new information that will change the way you think of her life, poetry, and death.

Pontius Pilate, by Ann Wroe

Compared to most biography subjects, there isn’t much surviving documentation about the life of Pontius Pilate, the Judaean governor who ordered the execution of the historical Jesus in the first century AD. But Ann Wroe leans into all that uncertainty in her groundbreaking book, making for a fascinating mix of research and informed speculation that often feels like reading a really good historical novel.

Brand: History Book Club Bolívar: American Liberator, by Marie Arana

In the early nineteenth century, Simón Bolívar led six modern countries—Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Peru, and Venezuela—to independence from the Spanish Empire. In this rousing work of biography and geopolitical history, Marie Arana deftly chronicles his epic life with propulsive prose, including a killer first sentence: “They heard him before they saw him: the sound of hooves striking the earth, steady as a heartbeat, urgent as a revolution.”

Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and His Rendezvous with American History, by Yunte Huang

Ever read a biography of a fictional character? In the 1930s and 1940s, Charlie Chan came to popularity as a Chinese American police detective in Earl Derr Biggers’s mystery novels and their big-screen adaptations. In writing this book, Yunte Huang became something of a detective himself to track down the real-life inspiration for the character, a Hawaiian cop named Chang Apana born shortly after the Civil War. The result is an astute blend between biography and cultural criticism as Huang analyzes how Chan served as a crucial counterpoint to stereotypical Chinese villains in early Hollywood.

Random House Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay, by Nancy Milford

Edna St. Vincent Millay was one of the most fascinating women of the twentieth century—an openly bisexual poet, playwright, and feminist icon who helped make Greenwich Village a cultural bohemia in the 1920s. With a knack for torrid details and creative insights, Nancy Milford successfully captures what made Millay so irresistible—right down to her voice, “an instrument of seduction” that captivated men and women alike.

Simon & Schuster Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson

Few people have the luxury of choosing their own biographers, but that’s exactly what the late co-founder of Apple did when he tapped Walter Isaacson, the Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer of Albert Einstein and Benjamin Franklin. Adapted for the big screen by Aaron Sorkin in 2015, Steve Jobs is full of plot twists and suspense thanks to a mind-blowing amount of research on the part of Isaacson, who interviewed Jobs more than forty times and spoke with just about everyone who’d ever come into contact with him.

Brand: Random House Véra (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov), by Stacy Schiff

The Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov once said, “Without my wife, I wouldn’t have written a single novel.” And while Stacy Schiff’s biography of Cleopatra could also easily make this list, her telling of Véra Nabokova’s life in Russia, Europe, and the United States is revolutionary for finally bringing Véra out of her husband’s shadow. It’s also one of the most romantic biographies you’ll ever read, with some truly unforgettable images, like Vera’s habit of carrying a handgun to protect Vladimir on butterfly-hunting excursions.

Greenblatt, Stephen Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare, by Stephen Greenblatt

We know what you’re thinking. Who needs another book about Shakespeare?! But Greenblatt’s masterful biography is like traveling back in time to see firsthand how a small-town Englishman became the greatest writer of all time. Like Wroe’s biography of Pontius Pilate, there’s plenty of speculation here, as there are very few surviving records of Shakespeare’s daily life, but Greenblatt’s best trick is the way he pulls details from Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets to construct a compelling narrative.

Crown Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own, by Eddie S. Glaude Jr.

When Kiese Laymon calls a book a “literary miracle,” you pay attention. James Baldwin’s legacy has enjoyed something of a revival over the last few years thanks to films like I Am Not Your Negro and If Beale Street Could Talk , as well as books like Glaude’s new biography. It’s genuinely a bit of a miracle how he manages to combine the story of Baldwin’s life with interpretations of Baldwin’s work—as well as Glaude’s own story of discovering, resisting, and rediscovering Baldwin’s books throughout his life.

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Best Biographies

Discover the lives of remarkable individuals through the best biographies, chosen from a wide array of reputable literary sources and biography enthusiasts. these compelling reads offer intimate portraits and have earned accolades across numerous literary discussions..

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10 Super Inspiring Biographies Worth Reading Right Now

Sometimes, we feel alone and hopeless . Well, maybe more than just sometimes.

The world is a big place, and there are billions of people, but somehow we still end up believing that no one understands what we’re going through.

It’s in these moments that connecting with other people on a deeper level allows us to regain hope and optimism for the future. And reading is one of the best ways to accomplish this.

Immersing ourselves in inspiring stories and personal accounts of adversity-turned-into-greatness reminds us that what we’re going through is universal and that there’s a way for us to overcome challenges and maybe, just maybe, to realize greatness ourselves as well.

I read everything, but generally more fact than fiction -- especially autobiographies and biographies. – Richard Branson

Stories of such greatness can be found about every type of person in every field. Whatever it is that you hope to achieve, there’s a real-life story out there to inspire you.

RELATED:  16 Inspirational Movies on Netflix Worth Watching Right Now

Here are 10 of the most inspiring biographies worth reading right now:

1. A Life in Parts by Bryan Cranston

Before Bryan Cranston rose to superstardom as Walter White in Breaking Bad , he played countless offhand roles including Malcolm’s father Hal in Malcolm in the Middle .

A Life in Parts details Cranston’s unlikely rise to stardom and the long journey he had to take to get there, making for an inspiring story with a surprise twist.

Get A Life in Parts here

2. Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time by Howard Schultz

Pour Your Heart Into It is the story of a small Seattle coffee shop, a man with a vision for something more, and the rise of an international mega-chain.

Like several of the books on this list, Pour Your Heart Into It is more than just a biography. In it, Starbucks founder and executive chairman Howard Schultz  shares the critical principles that helped build Starbucks into what it is today.

Get Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time here

3. Eleanor Roosevelt (Volume One and Two) by Blanche Wiesen Cook

Eleanor Roosevelt changed what it meant to be First Lady. She accomplished more within her 12 (yes, 12) years as First Lady than most people accomplish in their entire life.

Eleanor Roosevelt , which is split into two parts, breaks down the incredible life story of the woman who set a standard for all First Ladies after her.

Get Eleanor Roosevelt here

4. On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King

Easily one of my favorite biographies on the list, On Writing is just as much a guide to becoming a master storyteller as it is a memoir of legendary author Stephen King ’s life.

Within the pages of On Writing , King spills some of the most valuable lessons on doing work that matters.

Get On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King here

5. Losing My Virginity: How I Survived, Had Fun, and Made a Fortune Doing Business My Way by Richard Branson

Richard Branson is a brand in himself, having carved a path doing business his way, as the title of his autobiography suggests. This is more than just a story of business success, it's a tale about daring to be yourself.

Losing My Virginity (never thought I’d write those words in succession) is the story of how Branson turned Virgin from a record label into one of the biggest brands in the world, making it an ideal read for entrepreneurs looking to up their game.

Get Losing My Virginity: How I Survived, Had Fun, and Made a Fortune Doing Business My Way here

6. Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela

Long Walk to Freedom tells the important story of anti-apartheid activist and political leader Nelson Mandela and the now-famous events that unfolded during his prison sentence, the apartheid revolution and his eventual rise to victory as the first black president of South Africa.

The book recounts Mandela’s struggles and the wisdom he uncovered along the way, and serves as one of the most inspirational personal stories of victory in the face of injustice ever told.

Get Long Walk to Freedom here

7. Shark Tales: How I Turned $1000 into a Billion Dollar Business by Barbara Corcoran

Shark Tank’s Barbara Corcoran is known for her business acumen, and this is the incredible story of how she became one of the most well-known women in American business.

At the age of 23, Corcoran had 22 jobs on her resume. As the story goes, she borrowed $1,000 from her then-boyfriend to start a real estate company in New York City. The book details how she took that $1,000 and turned it into a $6 billion-dollar business.

You also learn how that same persistence helped her nab her seat on ABC’s Shark Tank years later.

Get Shark Tales: How I Turned $1000 into a Billion Dollar Business here

8. Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

Steve Jobs is the inspiring story of the Apple cofounder who would go on to become the idol of many Silicon Valley founders, designers, and entrepreneurs alike.

It’s based on a collection of interviews over a three-year period in which Isaacson followed Jobs and interviewed virtually everyone in his inner circle to piece together the most complete insight into Jobs’ life ever seen.

Jobs’ unlikely rise to becoming Apple's CEO and the journey that led him to get fired from the very company he co-founded makes this one of the most inspirational comeback stories around.

Get Steve Jobs here

9. Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life by Steve Martin

Born Standing Up follows legendary comedian Steve Martin’s life from his childhood in Texas and later California to being a Disneyland employee and, finally, a Hollywood star. It’s a story about sacrifice, persistence, and the virtue of hard work.

If you’re a comedian or performer of any kind, you will find this to be a powerful read.

Get Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life by Steve Martin here

10. The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley by Malcolm X

The Autobiography of Malcolm X : As Told to Alex Haley was named one of the 10 most important nonfiction books of the 20th century by TIME magazine.

The story of one of the most important and well-known activists in American history is one of a fighter who championed racial equality and stood up for what is right against all odds.

Get The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley here

Hot Stories

Struggling woman agrees to clean ​house for $2 - doesn't realize it’s hers, pregnant woman delivers her own baby in her car - then, hears a knock on the window, teen is asked a question at his graduation - turns around to an epic surprise, cop gets call from frantic mom at 3 am - goes above and beyond to "serve", staff shocked to see a familiar face dining at the restaurant - slips her a note, elderly​ crossing guard retires after 47 years - so students plan a surprise, mom moves away and leaves teen with down syndrome behind - so his best friend adopts him.

Teen Adopts High School Best Friend With Down Syndrome

When a teen with Down syndrome was faced without a home, his best friend stepped in with an unexpected but beautiful offer.

Best Friends Forever

Jay found his family with Lucy and Dawn

YouTube/Made With Love

Jay and Lucy became friends in high school. According to them, Jay sat down next to Lucy one day in gym class and told her he loved her. From then on, they struck up a fast friendship and hung out twice a week in gym class.

Soon, school hangouts turned into Jay coming over after school and for dinner. Eventually, he would come over on the weekends, and at one point, he started staying for multiple days at a time.

As Lucy prepped to go to college, something unexpected happened. Jay’s mother revealed she was moving away and could no longer take care of her son, who has Down syndrome. Lucy went straight to her mom, Dawn.

“[We had] the conversation along the lines of, ‘Can Jay come live with us?’” Lucy recalled to Made With Love . “Without hesitation, my mom said sure.”

According to Dawn, Lucy initially planned to adopt Jay and take him to college. However, Dawn had another idea.

“I said, ‘I love the idea that you want to do that, but he’s going to stay right here with us,’” she recalled. And he did.

A New Family

Jay moved in, and from the beginning, he was an immediate part of the family . He’d already spent so much time there that it was a natural transition, and the bonds grew from there.

“I am not Lucy; I am Jay’s sister,” Lucy explained. “I can’t imagine my life without Jay; I don’t think any of us could.”

Eventually, Jay began calling Dawn “Mama Dawn” and proclaimed himself her Mini-Me. He even dressed like her one Halloween.

“He makes every one of us a better person. Every one of us,” Dawn added.

As for Jay, he knows he’s found the place he truly belongs.

“I’d do anything to be like [Dawn] because she has pure love and light through her heart and body,” he said. “Hanging with Lucy is love and happy and always bright… my Nanny always said to shine my light, find my moment. But she also said love the people you love the most.”

Finding Your Tribe

Families come in all shapes and sizes, and not all families work well as a unit. Sometimes, family members cannot be there for one another financially or emotionally, which can lead to unhealthy situations. It’s important to remember that chosen families are also possible, particularly for those who don’t have a blood family to fall back on.

This powerful story reminds us that sometimes, the people we choose to surround ourselves with become our families instead. By taking Jay in, Dawn and Lucy completed their family as much as Jay found his.

It’s a hopeful reminder for anyone struggling with their current circumstances that things can improve. Find your tribe, and love them most. After all, they’re the ones who are going to love you most, too.

Great-Grandma Says She Doesn't "Feel Pretty Anymore" - One Woman Has the Best Response

Elderly kroger cashier is forced to sleep on the floor - so strangers raise $85,000, 5-year-old misses kindergarten graduation - so an entire flight celebrates him, her wedding was cancelled - 2 years later, she discovers the reason why, snoop dogg wouldn't choose sides, tupac called him out, why paul walker left his only daughter with vin diesel, leonardo dicaprio told kate winslet to “let the fat girl thing go”, pamela anderson opens up about her 9 disastrous weddings, subscribe to our newsletter, nicola coughlan has brilliant response to fan calling her bridgerton scenes "very brave", the untold story of michael and janet jackson's complex relationship, the disturbing and beautiful story behind danny trejo's salma hayek tattoo, the 11 best bridgerton quotes to make you feel powerful, romantic and wise, kid gets bullied at school - so students devise a plan that leaves him in tears.

Classmates Plan Heartwarming Surprise For Kid After Bullying

High school is a tough time for many kids as they figure out who they are while dealing with changing social dynamics, bodies, emotions , and more. Adding to those pressures with something like bullying can be devastating. Fortunately, after one kid experienced bullying at his former school, his classmates rallied around him in a beautiful way.

Feeling Down

A ninth-grade student in Tennessee named Azrael Robinson was having a tough time with bullies at his old school, so he switched to LaVergne High School instead. He no longer had to face bullying there, but his classmates noticed that he seemed down lately.

So, they hatched a plan to help.

According to the kids’ biology teacher, Sonji Newman, two students approached her about doing something nice for Robinson. The kids banded together and got the 15-year-old a new pair of shoes, new clothes, and some money. Then, they hid everything in the supply closet and waited to surprise him.

“They just wanted to give to him to make him feel better about himself,” Newman told Today .

A Memorable Surprise

On the planned day, two students named Kerolos Girgis and Dylan Norton presented Robinson with the haul. “We got you some stuff because of how generous you are and everything you do,” they said in a video shared on social media .

Robinson was confused, surprised, and grateful as he opened the gifts. He fought back tears as his classmates applauded him. According to Newman, the moment was very deserved.

“If they don’t understand something, he’s the first one to help,” Newman added to the publication. "If anything is dropped in the classroom, he’s the first one to pick it up. If a student is down, he’s the first one to say everything is going to be okay.”

Robinson wasn’t the only one who was surprised by the kind gesture. The boy’s mom was also touched. According to Traci Robinson, she was concerned when her son started crying in the car that day, knowing his history with bullies. Instead, she was met with tears of happiness.

“Even just knowing that this had happened, I bawled all the way home,” she said.

A Little Kindness Goes a Long Way

These kids prove yet again that a little kindness can go a long way in someone else’s life. We never really know what anyone else is going through, what they might be dealing with, or what their history is. But by leading with kindness, we can make a huge difference.

If these high school kids can come together to uplift a classmate, then others can, too. This story is inspiring because it reminds us that little gestures can mean a lot if only we think about making them.

So the next time you see someone struggling, consider grabbing them a coffee, some flowers, or a card. If a neighbor has been down, cut their lawn or shovel some snow. Perhaps a new plant or an unexpected batch of cookies will brighten their day. Or perhaps you just want to do something kind for someone who might not be feeling down but who you think deserves a little treat.

However you spread kindness, remember that it makes a difference. And kindness is the one thing we can never have too much of.

Copyright © 2024 Goalcast

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What's the best Biography you've read? Why?

Not favorite, but the best you've read. My favorite, for example, is Shaquille O'Neal's. He's hilarious and objective in it, but the best hands down has to be David W. Blight's Frederick Douglass: A Prophet of Freedom. It really humanizes him and brings a lot of context towards his own autobiographies, and I'm a sucker for new information coming to light that isn't even mentioned in most docs etc etc.

edit: Yes Autobiographies as well (Shaq's is an auto and tbh you don't even need to like basketball.).

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• What to Watch

The best movies new to streaming this July

Brace yourself — here are the must-see films to watch this month

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July is finally here, and the release calendar for summer movies is really heating up! We’ve got Longlegs , Twisters , and Deadpool & Wolverine to look forward to, not to mention all the exciting recent releases coming to streaming and VOD this month, like Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes , The Bikeriders , Thelma , and more! If you’re looking for some great flicks to watch from the comfort of your own home in between this month’s biggest releases, though, we’ve got you. We’ve pulled together the best movies new to Netflix, Hulu, Max, and more this July for you to stream.

This month, we’ve got a stone-cold Steven Soderbergh classic starring George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez, the new animated fantasy from Studio Ghibli successor Studio Ponoc, a sci-fi manga adaptation about a doe-eyed cyborg from Robert Rodriguez, and a whole lot more.

Here are the movies new to streaming services you should watch this month.

Editor’s pick: Out of Sight

Where to watch: Criterion Channel Genre: Crime comedy Director: Steven Soderbergh

Jennifer Lopez has attempted a bit of a movie star comeback over the past few years. After her critically acclaimed turn as resident den mother Ramona Vega in Hustlers , Lopez has starred in bad rom-coms ( Marry Me , Shotgun Wedding ), bad action movies ( The Mother , Atlas ), and bad bizarre vanity projects ( This Is Me... Now: A Love Story ). We have to go back to when Lopez was a legitimate movie star. We have to go back to Out of Sight .

Undoubtedly the sexiest movie in Steven Soderbergh’s oeuvre, Out of Sight adapts an excellent Elmore Leonard novel (as if there is any other kind) about Jack Foley, a career bank robber (George Clooney), and U.S. Marshal Karen Sisco (Lopez). After Foley breaks out of jail, the two share a moment and an instant connection, and the rest of the movie follows their cat-and-mouse game as she chases him for work and they chase each other for pleasure.

Clooney and Lopez’s chemistry is absolutely scintillating, and it’s a master class in putting two extremely attractive, charismatic people on screen and letting them do their thing. Out of Sight also has great supporting players for them, too — Ving Rhames, Don Cheadle, Steve Zahn, Luis Guzmán, Nancy Allen, Viola Davis, and even cameos from Michael Keaton and Samuel L. Jackson. This was the first of many collaborations between Clooney and Soderbergh, and a high point in Lopez’s film career that has yet to be matched. — Pete Volk

New on Netflix

The imaginary.

Genre: Fantasy Director: Yoshiyuki Momose Cast: Kokoro Terada, Rio Suzuki, Sakura Ando

Studio Ponoc, the Japanese anime production company formed by Studio Ghibli veteran Yoshiaki Nishimura (producer of When Marnie Was There and The Tale of the Princess Kaguya ), returns to full-length feature filmmaking for the first time since 2017 with the fantasy adventure The Imaginary . It’s the third major film this year about imaginary friends , and easily the best of them. Its lyrical playtime sequences loosely tap into Calvin & Hobbes energy, as imaginary friend Rudger and his creator, a young girl named Amanda, go soaring through her imagination.

But it also has a bit of a Toy Story 2 / Inside Out vibe, as Rudger gets angsty over what happens to him when Amanda grows up and forgets him — and then winds up having to navigate existence without her earlier than he expected. It’s filmmaking in the Ghibli mode, with one major exception — a villain with a real sense of menace to go with his sunny smirking disposition. More for kids than adults, but a great one for generations to watch together, and worth noting for fans of expansive anime visual showcases. —Tasha Robinson

New on Hulu

Alita: battle angel.

Genre: Sci-fi action Director: Robert Rodriguez Cast: Rosa Salazar, Christoph Waltz, Jennifer Connelly

I know Alita: Battle Angel became a bit of a meme, but I’m here to tell you it unironically rules and is an absolute joy to watch. The Robert Rodriguez-directed adaptation of the hit manga takes place in the year 2563, in the run-down, crime-ridden slums of the last known city on Earth. Meanwhile, the social elite live safe and pampered in a floating city that hovers above the surface of the planet, separating them from the less fortunate citizens below. The movie follows an amnesiac cyborg named Alita who has incredible powers, and fights to defy the underlings of the fascist government that prey on the people trapped on Earth.

But beyond all that plot, Alita ’s just a terrifically enjoyable movie. There are killer action set-pieces, weird vibey CGI that makes it look like a unique hybrid of live action and cartoon, and a super dangerous in-universe sport that’s basically Rollerball. It’s a bizarre, messy combination that doesn’t really make the most of its source material, but does make for a fascinating action blockbuster that’s weirder than any big-budget movie released since, and it’s well worth your time. —Austen Goslin

Genre: Disaster thriller Director: Jan de Bont Cast: Helen Hunt, Bill Paxton, Jami Gertz

There’s no easier way to date a film than by making cutting-edge special effects its primary selling point, but sometimes it works out. Upon its 1996 release, Twister ’s dedication to realistically rendering one of the most terrifying weather events on the planet was all anyone talked about, to the point that a few years later Universal Studios opened a “ride” meant to impress upon guests how well nature’s fury can be replicated.

To its credit: Twister still looks great . But it feels great too. Director Jan de Bont spent much of the late ’90s swapping scripts with Steven Spielberg, and while Twister lacks the sort of richness Spielberg is known for, there’s still plenty of heart. Yeah, the main attraction is a bunch of computer-generated tornadoes, but the film’s ragtag group of weirdo storm chasers is what keeps you, and the emotional spine of former partners (played by Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton) realizing they do not want to go through with their divorce gives the spectacle just enough heart, too. A sequel is around the corner , so now’s a great time to catch up with a ’90s classic. —Joshua Rivera

New on Prime Video

Evil dead rise.

Genre: Supernatural horror Director: Lee Cronin Cast: Lily Sullivan, Alyssa Sutherland, Morgan Davies

Did you enjoy The Last of Us Part 2 ? If your answer is anything close to “yes,” I got another question: Did you “enjoy” the boss fight with the Rat King Infected in the Seattle hospital basement? If you did, then I have some good news for you: The climax of Lee Cronin’s stand-alone sequel to Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead franchise has a confrontation on par with that one that’s just as intense, gnarly, and utterly horrifying. For anyone else, Evil Dead Rise is still a wickedly gory and satisfying horror film worth experiencing.

The film centers on Beth, the estranged sister of a struggling mother of three, who is forced to defend her nieces’ and nephew’s lives from her sister after she’s possessed by a malevolent spirit. Evil Dead Rise drips with as much atmosphere and tension as it does blood and bile, with gripping camera work and sickening practical special effects that’ll stick with you long after the credits roll. —Toussaint Egan

New on Kanopy

Anatomy of a fall.

Genre: Legal drama Director: Justine Triet Cast: Sandra Hüller, Swann Arlaud, Milo Machado-Graner

One of 2023’s most-discussed movies didn’t make a huge splash at the box office, but it lingered in theaters for months, quietly building a reputation on word of mouth alone, while racking up awards and placements on year-end Best of 2023 lists . Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall starts with what seems like a straightforward thriller premise — a famous author (Sandra Hüller) loses her husband when he falls from a window, and is later accused of murdering him. But the film winds up being a complicated window into the nuances of relationships, with plenty of juicy ambiguities and reveals worth discussing. It’s been widely compared to a Hitchcock thriller, but it’s both slower and more thoughtful than his work, adding layer after layer to the story as Triet gives viewers plenty to argue about. —Tasha Robinson

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The 14 best electric cars right now, according to Consumer Reports

From Hyundai, Kia, BMW and more, these are the best electric cars you can buy in 2024

It wasn’t too long ago that there were only a few electric vehicles on the market. Considering how much has happened in the meantime, can you believe the Tesla Model S was only introduced twelve years ago? Ever since Tesla changed the game with the most important car of the 21st century, more and more automakers have been getting into the EV game . Understandably, that can make things confusing for car shoppers who want to go electric but don’t have an exhaustive knowledge of the industry.

If you’re one of those folks, don’t worry. Our friends at Consumer Reports recently went through every single EV they’ve tested and picked the 14 best ones across a variety of categories. Whether you’re looking for a mainstream sedan or a three-row family SUV, consider this your personal EV-buying cheat sheet. Now let’s see what all made the list.

Hyundai Ioniq 6

We’re big fans of the Ioniq 6, and so is Consumer Reports. The styling is like nothing else on the road, which may not be a pro for everyone, but even if you’re not a fan you might still want to give it a chance. It’s comfortable, quiet, fun to drive and offers up to 361 miles of range.

Kia Niro EV

The Kia Niro EV doesn’t get nearly as much attention in the media as many of the other electric cars on this list, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a great choice. If you’re looking for a practical, relatively affordable EV to get around town, you’ll definitely want to check out the Niro. It’s peppy, and while its 253-mile range won’t set any records, it should be plenty for daily driving. Just make sure you can charge at home, because it can’t be fast-charged nearly as quickly as some of the others.

Do you like the idea of the BMW 3 Series but wish it was electric? Well, that’s basically what you get with the i4. And while sharing a platform with a gas-powered car can result in a less-than-desirable EV, the i4 doesn’t suffer that same fate. It’s just a darn good sport sedan that happens to be electric.

Porsche Taycan

According to the EPA, the best you can expect from the pre-facelift Taycan is 242 miles of range, but the good news is that many owners have reported seeing much higher results in real life. Still, it’s the Porsche of EVs and basically drives like a four-door sports car. Also, did we mention that you can get it as a wagon? You can get it as a wagon.

The Kia EV6 and its platform-mate the Hyundai Ioniq 5 are both outstanding options, but Consumer Reports likes the EV6 just a little bit better. The base model only comes with 232 miles of range, but if you spring for a bigger battery, that figure climbs as high as 310 miles.

Tesla Model Y

The Model Y takes everything people like about the Model 3 and adds a more spacious interior and the practicality of a hatchback. It also offers up to 330 miles of range.

Nissan Ariya

Like the Kia Niro, the Nissan Ariya doesn’t seem to be on many people’s radar, and if you only look at the range on Ariyas with the base battery, we can see why. The version with the lowest range only has an EPA rating of 205 miles. Jump up to the big battery, though, and you get up to 310 miles of range in a car Consumer Reports calls “quick, quiet, and roomy.” The bigger problem is that it’s slow to charge.

Ford Mustang Mach-E

The Mach-E may have upset some purists over its Mustang badging, but who cares? It’s a good EV that’s quick and sporty while still offering solid range figures. Plus, you can add Ford’s excellent BlueCruise driver-assistance system that should make highway driving a lot more relaxing. As for the 15.5-inch center touchscreen, you’ll have to decide for yourself if that’s a pro or a con.

In a sense you can think of the Kia EV9 as an electric Telluride, but because it’s electric Kia was able to stretch the wheelbase, making it even roomier inside. If you’ve been looking for a non-Tesla with room for the whole family, the EV9 is one of the only games in town, at least for now. And if you really want a range figure that begins with a three, there’s a rear-wheel-drive long-range version that gets 304 miles according to the EPA.

Many people find the BMW iX horrifically ugly, but if you take one for a test drive, you may find yourself not caring about how it looks. The cabin is incredibly well-finished, the ride is comfortable, it’s quiet, and it’s surprisingly quick considering the EPA says it can go 324 miles on a charge. With everything else working in its favor, maybe it’s acceptably ugly?

Genesis GV60

While the Kia EV6 and the Hyundai Ioniq 5 offer mainstream takes on the same electric platform, the Genesis GV60 goes full luxury. So while you get a more premium interior and a gorgeous design, you also get several neat features such as a crystal ball-shaped retractable shift knob, facial recognition that allows you to enter the car without a key and a fingerprint reader that lets you start the car. Range, meanwhile, tops out at 294 miles according to the EPA.

The RZ is the Lexus of electric crossovers, making it far more enjoyable to spend time in than the Toyota bZ4X it shares a platform with. It has a better suspension, a much more luxurious interior, extra power and even includes all-wheel drive standard. Unfortunately, despite one version offering 266 miles of range, the RZ 450e on 20-inch wheels can only go 196 miles. Add the 20s to the base RZ 300e and it isn’t quite that bad, but 224 miles still isn’t much.

Audi Q4 E-Tron

While the Volkswagen ID 4 that the Q4 E-Tron shares its platform with is fine, the Q4 is a big step up. Whether we’re talking road noise or interior quality, Consumer Reports insists it feels like an Audi throughout. It also praised the easy-to-use controls with the exception of the capacitive-touch controls on the steering wheel.

Audi Q8 E-Tron

If you initially passed on the Q8 E-Tron because of its 220-mile range, we have great news. The 2024 refresh added an extra 65 miles of range, bringing the new total up to a much more useful 285 miles. You also get nearly 50 more horsepower — bringing the total up to 402 hp — to go with the Q8's impressively smooth and comfortable ride. It may not be as nimble as the BMW iX, but if you want a luxury crossover with an emphasis on luxury, get the Q8 instead.

A version of this article originally appeared on Jalopnik.

The 73 Best Shows on Amazon Prime Video Right Now (July 2024)

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There are hundreds of good shows on Prime Video, from original content to classic favorites. That can make sifting through the platform difficult, especially when you don't quite know what you want to watch. To help you find the show that's going to hit the spot, we've compiled a list of the best shows on Prime Video so you can spend less time aimlessly scrolling and more time binging. Happy watching!

For more streaming recommendations, check out the Best TV Shows on Netflix Right Now and Best Movies on Prime Video Right Now .

Editor's note: This article was updated July 2024 to include The Boys Presents: Diabolical.

'The Boys Presents: Diabolical' (2022)

Rotten tomatoes: 97% | imdb: 6.9/10.

The Boys Presents: Diabolical

This animated spin-off of one of Prime’s biggest-ever shows features a collection of short stories, each inspired by the original comic series. Thanks to the series’ format and medium, The Boys Presents: Diabolical features an impressive array of guest voice stars, from Michael Cera to Giancarlo Esposito . Excitingly, Simon Pegg , who plays Hughie’s father in the Prime series, finally gets to voice Hughie in Diabolical , with the iconic British comic actually the original inspiration for the character. Not for those who want a canonical addition to The Boys universe, Diabolical is simply spades of fun for lovers of the world this franchise is based in. - Jake Hodges

Watch on Prime Video

'My Lady Jane' (2024)

Rotten tomatoes: 80%.

My Lady Jane (2024)

Created by Emma Burgess , this new Prime series offers a spin on history, reframing the long-perceived notion that women were damsels in distress and showcasing their power and independence instead. The story follows a young Lady Jane Grey ( Emily Bader ) as her mother gives her away to the highest bidder. Not one to have her agency stolen by a backward societal concept, Jane takes matters into her own hands — and must also save the entire kingdom for good measure. Heartwarming, fierce, and energetic, My Lady Jane is a refreshing spin on an oft-told story, with the tale of Lady Jane Grey having been reproduced on many a media occasion. This time, liberties have been taken to create a unique, forward-thinking update on the story, with Bader’s central performance the perfect display of her burgeoning talent. - Jake Hodges

'Gen V' (2023 - Present)

Rotten tomatoes: 97% | imdb: 7.7/10.

A spin-off of Prime’s hugely successful The Boys , Gen V follows a group of young superheroes who enter training, each with the knowledge that their abilities are not God-given and are injected via Compound V. With their superhuman talents put to the test on a daily basis, will the group be able to find their identity despite knowing of their unnatural backstory? With so much expectation surrounding this franchise, Gen V had the job of being both refreshing and similar to its predecessor, with the show’s creators achieving this marvelously. Packed full of shocking thrills and entertaining action, many have praised the show’s ability to take a mature IP and sprinkle in the anxieties and frustrations of coming-of-age, using the superhero metaphor to accurately depict the trials and tribulations of teenage life. - Jake Hodges

'Chuck' (2007 - 2012)

Rotten tomatoes: 90% | imdb: 8.2/10.

This iconic action-comedy series follows the titular Chuck ( Zachary Levi ), an ordinary geek whose life is accidentally changed forever. After having all the public and private information of the government uploaded to his mind, Chuck soon becomes the most valuable asset to both the CIA and NSA. Adored by millions of fans, Chuck ’s unique brand of comedy and penchant for action leaves a sense of spontaneity brewing in every episode. Just as much as it is about Chuck, the series is also about Yvonne Strahovski ’s Sarah Walker, with the actress excelling as both a warm-hearted romantic partner and a thrilling highly trained operative. The highlight of this show’s success came in the Primetime Emmys, where it took home two awards across its five seasons. - Jake Hodges

'The Originals' (2013 - 2018)

Rotten tomatoes: 84% | imdb: 8.3/10.

The Originals

A series that ran for five successful seasons, The Originals follows the Mikaelsons, a set of siblings who are the world’s first vampires. The original builders of New Orleans, the city is now in the hands of other powers, leaving the Mikaelsons to fight to the death for the rights to their city. A spin-off of the hugely popular The Vampire Diaries , The Originals takes many of the aspects that pushed that series into pop culture immortality and enhances them for a story bathed in lore and history. Featuring many an iconic character and endlessly quotable moments, the series’ critical highlight came in 2014 with a Primetime Emmy nomination, with many decreeing that the show deserved many more than just one. - Jake Hodges

'Maxton Hall' The World Between Us' (2024 - Present)

Rotten tomatoes: 67% | imdb: 7.6/10.

Maxton Hall: The World Between Us (2024)

Based on the Mona Kasten book Save Me , Maxton Hall: The World Between Us is a German-language series that has taken Prime by storm. The story follows young Ruby ( Harriet Herbig-Matten ), a student who witnesses a dark secret that is buried within her school. Determined to keep her quiet, James ( Damian Hardung ), the son of a millionaire, dedicates his time to confirming her silence — but gets more than he bargained for when a romantic spark ignites between them. If you’re looking for the next great teen romance, look no further. Maxton Hall is an indulgent drama with an edge of comedy that perfectly encapsulates the wonder and angst of being a teenager. Both of the central pair have brilliant chemistry, thanks in no small part to a set of charismatic scripts. Simply put, there’s a reason behind Maxton Hall ’s hype. - Jake Hodges

'Clarkson's Farm' (2021 - Present)

Rotten tomatoes: 100% | imdb: 9.0/10.

Clarkson's Farm

Clarkson’s Farm is a British reality docuseries about Top Gear and The Grand Tour presenter Jeremy Clarkson and his farm in the Cotswolds. Directed by Gavin Whitehead , the series follows Clarkson running a farm near Chipping Norton, and it’s received great praise for raising public awareness of the British farming industry. An entertaining work of reality television with a delightful sense of humor, Clarkson’s Farm premiered in 2021 and became an instant hit with critics and audiences. The show is an unexpectedly grounded turn for its star, who takes a back seat to knowledgeable and funny locals who really steal the show. Popular both globally and locally in the United Kingdom, the docuseries’ second season premiered in 2023 and became Prime Video’s most-watched original series in the UK. Part 1 of Clarkson’s Farm Season 3 premiered on Prime Video on May 3, 2024, followed by Part 2 on May 10, and a fourth season is already in the works.

'Interview with the Vampire' (2022 - Present)

Rotten tomatoes: 98% | imdb: 7.2/10.

Interview with the Vampire

Anne Rice 's The Vampire Chronicles , Interview with the Vampire is a gothic horror series that follows the recollections of vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac ( Jacob Anderson ), who tells a reporter about his long, undying life and the complicated relationship he shares with his maker and lover, Lestat de Lioncourt ( Sam Reid ). Created by Rolin Jones for AMC, the show is the first series set in AMC’s Immortal Universe, which also includes the show Mayfair Witches . Interview with the Vampire received largely positive reviews from critics, with special praise for the way the show incorporates the queer elements of Rice’s work that have only ever been implied in previous adaptations. A period drama, the series boasts excellent costumes and production value, which further propels this well-written and well-acted horror drama to greater heights. Anchored by the chemistry between its leads, Interview with the Vampire is a seductive piece of gothic fiction that unspools a full-blooded story of romance and damnation.

'Dinner with the Parents' (2024)

Rotten tomatoes: 83% | imdb: 5.0/10.

Dinner with the Parents

A single-camera comedy series adapted from the British sitcom Friday Night Dinner , Dinner with the Parents follows siblings who have dinner at their parents' house every week, where hilarity and dysfunction predictably ensue. Created by Jon Beckerman , the show stars Michaela Watkins , Dan Bakkedahl , Carol Kane , Henry Hall , Daniel Thrasher , and Jon Glaser . While the series doesn’t quite capture the magic of the original British show, Dinner with the Parents still has some laughs to offer. The show has a bit of a rocky start, but it picks up steam after the first episode. From that point forward, it’s a light and funny show that makes for some easy entertainment. The cast delivers great performances even when the plot is lacking, and Carol Kane, in particular, is an absolute delight to watch. If you’re on the lookout for a cringe comedy show that embarrasses and amuses in equal measure, then this is the show for you.

'Them: The Scare' (2021 - Present)

Rotten tomatoes: 94% | imdb: 7.4/10.

Them (2021)

The second season of the horror anthology series, Them: The Scare stars Deborah Ayorinde , Pam Grier , and Luke James , among others. The eight-episode season is set in 1953 and follows a Black family who moves from North Carolina to Los Angeles, where they find themselves targeted by evil forces. The Them series was created by Little Marvin , and while the show’s first season performed somewhat poorly with critics, Them: The Scare has received near-universal acclaim. Ayorinde, who also played a different character in Season 1, has received special praise from critics for her performance in the newest season. Though the series may not be quite as scary as it could be, what it lacks in usual horror fare, it makes up for with the horrors of systemic racism and generational trauma. It’s a gripping series that’s thoroughly engrossing from start to finish, with some great character moments along the way.

'Weeds' (2005 - 2012)

Rotten tomatoes: 70% | imdb: 7.9/10.

Created by Jenji Kohan , Weeds is a dark comedy crime drama that stars Mary-Louise Parker as a recently widowed mother of two who supports her family by becoming the go-to pot dealer of her suburban neighborhood. The series also stars Hunter Parrish , Alexander Gould , Justin Kirk , Kevin Nealon , Elizabeth Perkins , Andy Milder , Allie Grant , Tonye Patano , and Romany Malco . Hilarious and dramatic in equal measure, Weeds was Showtime’s highest-rated show when it debuted in 2005. Although the show ended in 2012, its arrival on streaming services has led to a resurgence in interest. The series has received critical acclaim and won numerous awards, including two Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe. Though the show does get a bit uneven in later seasons, the first three seasons of Weeds make an excellent binge-watch, thoroughly engaging from start to finish. A sequel series has been in development at Starz since 2019, with Parker and Perkins set to return.

'Fallout' (2024 - Present)

Rotten tomatoes: 93% | imdb: 8.7/10.

Prime Video’s Fallout is a post-apocalyptic drama series that expands on Tim Cain ’s beloved video game franchise of the same name. Created by Graham Wagner and Geneva Robertson-Dworet , the show is set in a far-future nuclear wasteland more than 200 years after the apocalypse and follows a young woman who ventures beyond her home in a fallout shelter in search of her father. The series stars Ella Purnell , Aaron Moten , Walton Goggins , and many more. Fallout premiered on April 10, 2024, to massive critical acclaim. A large part of that praise foes to Purnell, Moten, and Goggins, whose brilliant performances are a sight to behold. Add some impressive visual effects and meticulous production design, and you get one of the best video game adaptations we’ve ever seen. Unlike The Last of Us or Halo , Fallout isn’t just an adaptation of its source material — it expands on it by exploring an original narrative. In the process, the series manages to strike a delicate balance between honoring the game and creating a show that’s accessible for newcomers to the franchise.

'American Rust: Broken Justice' (2021 - 2024)

Rotten tomatoes: 77% | imdb: 7.3/10.

American Rust

American Rust: Broken Justice is Amazon’s revival of Showtime’s American Rust , released as a second season of the show. Created by Dan Futterman and based on Philipp Meyer ’s eponymous novel, the series follows a police chief in a Rust Belt town, exploring the failure of the American dream in the context of a criminal investigation. The show features a talented cast that includes Maura Tierney , David Alvarez , Alex Neustaedter , Mark Pellegrino , and more, led by Jeff Daniels as Chief Del Harris. The first season received mixed to negative reviews from critics, who found the plotting and narrative depressing and lacking in clarity. However, the show’s cast received praise even then, and they’re even better in Broken Justice , with Jeff Daniels, in particular, delivering an engaging, must-watch performance. The revival makes some changes to the characterizations and mood without sacrificing the grittiness of its first season. The result is a show that’s far more interesting, keeping you thoroughly absorbed in this dark world throughout its 10 episodes.

'Bosch' (2014 - 2021)

Rotten tomatoes: 97% | imdb: 8.5/10.

Based on Michael Connelly ’s Harry Bosch novels, Bosch is a police procedural series starring Titus Welliver as the titular LAPD detective. Developed by Eric Overmyer ( Law & Order ), the series also features Jamie Hector , Lance Reddick , and Annie Wersching . The series ran for seven seasons and spawned two spinoffs, including Bosch: Legacy , which effectively continues the parent show’s story. With a dedicated fanbase and great reviews, Bosch is an acclaimed show that’s proved popular with audiences and critics thanks to its gritty storytelling, solid acting, and old-school narrative. Titus Welliver’s performance as Harry Bosch is the biggest draw of the series, with the actor channeling the aura and personality of classic noir detectives. While largely a collection of pulpy detective stories, Bosch does get progressively better with each season, going from a somewhat uneven Season 1 to a near-perfect Season 7. If what you’re in the mood for is a gripping crime series that draws on the legacy of 2000s cop shows and 70s film noir, you can’t go wrong with Bosch .

'Mr. & Mrs. Smith' (2024 - Present)

Rotten tomatoes: 90% | imdb: 7.0/10.

Mr. & Mrs. Smith

Read Our Review Inspired by the 2005 Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie starrer of the same name, Prime Video’s Mr. and Mrs. Smith series was created by Francesca Sloane and Donald Glover , with Glover also co-starring alongside Maya Erskine . A spy procedural show, the series follows two strangers who must go undercover as a married couple at the orders of a mysterious organization. Each episode follows the Smiths on a different mission, as they navigate the worlds of espionage and relationships. Besides its two stars, the show also boasts an impressive guest cast that includes the likes of Alexander Skarsgård , Eiza González , Paul Dano , John Turturro , Wagner Moura , and more

Mr. and Mrs. Smith premiered on Prime Video on February 2, 2024, with one of the streamer’s most-watched series debuts ever. It has also received positive reviews from critics. The show has significant differences from the movie and it is effectively a separate entity in itself. What it does capture from the original is the explosive action and the relationship drama. Glover and Erskine have excellent chemistry and their performances are the heart and soul of the show. The gorgeous visuals are a bonus.

'Hazbin Hotel' (2019 - Present)

Rotten tomatoes: 86% | imdb: 7.7/10.

Hazbin Hotel

Read Our Review

Blending crude language, eye-catching aesthetics, and Broadway-level musical talent, Hazbin Hotel is a captivating adult animated series from internet sensation Vivienne "VivziePop" Medrano. A dark musical comedy, Hazbin Hotel centers on a place in hell that hopes rehabilitate occupants with the intention of relocating them to heaven. Built on an amusing premise, the series dazzles with star power, featuring the voices of Stephanie Beatriz ( Encanto ), Alex Brightman , and Keith David .

On its face, Hazbin Hote l is incomparable and should not work, yet the humor is outrageously ridiculous, the visuals are gory and lewd, and the toe-tapping numbers are unforgettable. Hazbin Hotel makes shows like Archer and Rick and Morty feel like child's play. - Yael Tygiel

'Expats' (2024)

Rotten tomatoes: 80% | imdb: 6.0/10.

Adapted for the screen by Lulu Wang , Expats is a drama series inspired by Janice Y. K. Lee ’s novel The Expatriates . Expats stars Nicole Kidman , Sarayu Blue , and Ji-young Yoo as three American women whose lives converge in Hong Kong. As their stories intertwine, their friendships both grow tighter and rip apart as the bonds of friendships, marriages, and societal expectations are explored.

Set against the backdrop of Hong Kong’s 2014 Umbrella Movement, though it's been criticized by some for dated depictions of the country, Expats ’ core message about human connection stays grounded due to the outstanding performances of the impeccable cast. - Yael Tygiel

'Small Axe' (2020)

Rotten tomatoes: 97% | imdb: 7.9/10.

Directed by Steve McQueen ( 12 Years A Slave ), Small Axe tells the story of the West Indian community in London between 1969 and 1982. An anthology series, the show jumps through time to tell powerful stories of the experiences of the individuals it follows. The show covers many controversial topics that the West Indian immigrants faced upon their arrival in England. These topics include the first judicial acknowledgment of a hate crime, police violence, and school segregation.

Produced by BBC and distributed by Amazon Prime Video , Small Axe had a single season in 2020, starring Naomi Ackie ( Lady Macbeth ), Gary Beadle ( In the Heart of the Sea ), Khali Best ( EastEnders ), and Jade Anouka ( His Dark Materials ), among others. The miniseries won a Golden Globe Award for "Best Performance By An Actor in a Television Supporting Role," a BAFTA Award for "Supporting Actor," and was nominated for an Emmy Award. It was well received by critics and continues to be a popular watch for Amazon Prime audiences. - Emily Cappello

'Lorena' (2019)

Rotten tomatoes: 83% | imdb: 7.3/10.

Writer, actor, and Academy Award -winning director Jordan Peele ( Get Out ) has given us a lot of great material to watch, and his executive-produced miniseries Lorena is no exception. The multi-part documentary dives deeper into the story of Lorena Bobbitt , the woman who, in 1993, cut off her husband’s genitals while he was asleep. While Bobbitt claimed it was in retaliation for years of physical and emotional abuse, the media marked her as a woman undone.

Produced by Amazon Studios and directed by Joshua Rofé ( Sasquatch ), the subject matter is an important one to re-evaluate over thirty years from the date it occurred, as Lorena was largely criticized for her actions, and her abusive husband became a celebrity in the aftermath of the events. The miniseries includes exclusive interviews with Lorena as well as John as they separately tell their sides of what happened throughout the course of the marriage and whether or not they believe what happened that infamous night was warranted. - Emily Cappello

'A Very British Scandal' (2021)

Rotten tomatoes: 89% | imdb: 7.0/10.

A Very British Scandal

So. Much. Drama. A Very British Scandal is a historical mini-series drama that premiered in 2021 on Prime Video . The series stars Claire Foy ( The Crown ) and Paul Bettany ( WandaVision ) as the Duchess of Argyll and the Duke of Argyll, respectively, with the story taking place over the course of three episodes. The show chronicles a dramatized version of the marriage between the two and the media frenzy that encompassed them during that time. The legal case that surrounded their divorce was infamous and is also displayed in the show.

Some of the drama of the couple included the Duchess spreading rumors about the Duke's children being illegitimate, as well as accusations of adultery, domestic violence, drug usage, bribery, and forgery. Created by Sarah Phelps ( Dublin Murders ), the show also stars Olwen May ( Life on Mars ), Albertine Kotting McMillan ( Sundown ), Julia Davis ( Love Actually ), Richard McCabe ( The Constant Gardener ), and Amanda Drew ( Wednesday ). - Emily Cappello

'Patriot' (2015 - 2018)

Rotten tomatoes: 91% | imdb: 8.2/10.

Call it a comedy-drama, a black comedy, a political drama, or a spy drama — Prime Video 's Patriot fits into a lot of genres. Premiering in 2015, the show follows John, an intelligence officer who has been assigned to prevent Iran from going nuclear. Undercover as a businessman, he's got a European cop following him, suspicious of who John really is. John attempts to navigate his undercover life, as well as PTSD, suspicious colleagues, and the world around him. Created by Steve Conrad ( The Secret Life of Walter Mitty ), the show ran for two seasons, ending in 2018.

Nominated for Best Comedy Series by the Critics Choice Awards, the show attempted to find the balance between dark and funny throughout its two seasons. The role of John was played by Micheal Dorman ( Daybreakers ), with Kurtwood Smith ( RoboCop ), Michael Chernus ( Severance ), Kathleen Munroe ( Strangers ), Aliette Opheim ( The Dark Heart ), Chris Conrad ( Perpetual Grace ), and Terry O'Quinn ( Lost ) rounding out the main cast. - Emily Cappello

'Vikings' (2013 - 2020)

Imdb: 8.5/10.

You may need to turn the brightness on your screen up for this show because this one is dark. Vikings tells the story of Ragnar Lothbrok and his band of Viking brothers. Lothbrok is considered a legend in the Viking world, and the show takes inspiration from the Norse oral tradition that tells the legends of his exploits. A historical drama, the show premiered in 2013 and ran for six seasons on Prime Video , ending in 2020. Created by Michael Hirst ( The Tudors ), Vikings was produced in Ireland and Canada.

When it premiered, Vikings scored very high with audiences, drawing in six million viewers for its first episode. While the show was met with criticism from critics who disagreed with the way the historical period was being portrayed, it was popular enough to stick around for nearly 100 episodes. The show stars Gustak Skasrsgård ( Oppenheimer ), Katheryn Winnick ( Big Sky ), Alexander Ludwig ( The Hunger Games ), Georgia Hirst ( Five Dates ), Alex Høgh Anderson ( The Bombardment ), and Jordan Patrick Smith ( Lovecraft Country ). - Emily Cappello

'One Mississippi' (2015 - 2017)

Rotten tomatoes: 96% | imdb: 7.6/10.

One Mississippi

Tig Notaro fans, this one's for you. One Mississippi stars Notaro as Tig, a fictionalized version of herself as she deals with the ups and downs of life. In the show, Tig is a radio host who has just learned of the death of her mother, Caroline. She then moves in with her brother and her stepfather while also recovering from a double mastectomy. Through caring for her family after her mother dies, Tig learns to see the place she used to live through different eyes. Needless to say, Tig is dealing with a lot.

Created by Notaro alongside Diablo Cody ( Juno ), the series had two seasons, which ran from 2015 to 2017 on Prime Video . Categorized as a dark comedy, the show was nominated for two GLAAD Awards , as well as a Writer's Guild of America (WGA) award for the writing of its pilot episode. The show also starred Noah Harpster ( A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood ), John Rothman ( Prime ), and Stephanie Allynne ( In A World... ).

'Undone' (2019 - 2022)

Rotten tomatoes: 97% | imdb: 8.2/10.

After she very narrowly survives a serious car accident, a woman discovers that she has a new relationship with time.

Undone is an adult animated show following Alma ( Rosa Salazar ) as she has a near-death experience and realizes she has a new relationship with time. She uses this ability in an attempt to track down what happened to her father and how he died. The show ran for two seasons on Prime Video and starred Salazar ( Alita: Battle Angel ) as well as Angelique Cabral ( Life in Pieces ) and Constance Marie ( George Lopez ). Some big names attached to the show in recurring roles were Bob Odenkirk ( Better Call Saul ) as Alma's father and Daveed Diggs ( Hamilton ) as her boss.

The show was a first for Prime , as they'd never had an adult animated series before. Additionally, its unique style of animation was a draw for audiences as well, as it looked very close to a live-action recording. The show was created by Raphael Bob-Waksberg and Kate Purdy , two BoJack Horseman alums.

'Billions' (2016 - 2023)

Rotten tomatoes: 87% | imdb: 8.3/10.

Based in New York City, Billions follows the strategic pursuits of Chuck Rhoades ( Paul Giamatti ), a cunning U.S. attorney entangled in a high-stakes clash of predator versus prey with Bobby Axelrod ( Damian Lewis ), an ambitious and formidable hedge-fund magnate. Until now, Rhoades has maintained an unblemished record in insider trading cases. However, upon discovering criminal evidence against Axelrod, he proceeds with caution while constructing the case. Complicating matters, Axelrod has Rhoades' wife, Wendy ( Maggie Siff ), on his payroll as a performance coach for his company.

Rich in dark comedy and brimming with delightful twists, Billions is a luscious melodrama that takes pleasure in satirizing the extravagant lifestyles of the wealthy and famous. It also offers a nuanced exploration of power dynamics within the world of finance and law, providing a captivating look into the strategic maneuvers and conflicts that arise. Additionally, the characters, led by Giamatti and Lewis, are multi-dimensional and driven by complex motivations , making viewers want to invest their time in knowing them. Billions also delve into moral dilemmas and ethical questions, prompting viewers to consider the consequences of choices made by characters navigating the fine line between right and wrong. - Jessie Nguyen

'Tales from the Loop' (2020)

Rotten tomatoes: 86% | imdb: 7.4/10.

Tales From the Loop

Inspired by the concept artwork of Swedish artist Simon Stalenhag and developed by Nathaniel Halpern , Tales from the Loop is set in the fictional town of Mercer, Ohio, which is situated above "The Loop," a machine built to unlock and explore the mysteries of the universe. The Loop is a research facility that creates strange and surreal occurrences, often defying the laws of physics and reality. Each episode tells a standalone story, but the characters and setting remain consistent throughout, creating a unique and interconnected narrative.

Tales From the Loop serves as a captivating exploration of our humanity and the interconnections that bind us, set against the backdrop of a world infused with technological marvels. While the plot might evoke comparisons to Stranger Things or the recent Devs , rest assured that Tales from the Loop stands on its own, showcasing its unique identity despite surface similarities. Moreover, the show is highly praised for its visually arresting scenes and cinematography, crafting a distinctive and immersive viewing journey. For those viewers who appreciate a sophisticated, cinematic-like experience where the emotional weight is carried by the interplay of music and visuals, Tales from the Loop should be at the top of their list. - Jessie Nguyen

'Deadloch' (2023 - Present)

Rotten tomatoes: 100% | imdb: 7.4/10.

Deadloch (2023)

Read Our Review This biting noir comedy from the minds of Kate McCartney and Kate McLennan begins, like the BBC hit Broadchurch , when a body turns up on a beach in the unsuspecting coastal town of Deadloch . Assigned to the case are senior sergeant Dulcie Collins ( Kate Box ), a woman who was once a detective but demoted herself on the wishes of her wife, and the reckless detective Eddie Redcliffe ( Madeleine Sami ). The two struggle to get on, with Eddie’s impressive but all-too-obnoxious style certainly grating on the much more steadfast approach of Dulcie, but their differences must soon be put aside when they realize there are many more disturbing and intimidating factors at play.

Quirky, dark, and full of devilishly funny comedic beats, Deadloch is one of many Australian comedy/dramas to have made a worldwide splash in recent years — and perhaps it is the best. Both Kate Box and Madeleine Sami are perfect at toeing the line between gritty emotion and a cheeky wink, with both hilarious comedy and intense drama never far away in any given scene. With its gorgeous cinematography and gripping crime-thriller plot, Deadloch is perfect binge-watching material. - Jake Hodges

'The Good Wife' (2009 - 2016)

Rotten tomatoes: 93% | imdb: 8.4/10.

The Good Wife

Alicia Florrick has been a good wife to her husband, a former state's attorney. After a very humiliating sex and corruption scandal, he is behind bars. She must now provide for her family and returns to work as a litigator in a law firm.

This iconic legal drama follows Julianna Margulies ’s Alicia Florrick, the doting wife of state attorney Peter ( Chris Noth ). However, when a chastening sex and corruption scandal is made public, Peter’s time as an attorney and as a husband is up as he heads to prison, leaving Alicia to pick up the pieces. How will she cope with both looking after a family who desperately needs her and a law firm that values her services as a litigator?

The winner of five Primetime Emmys, as well as many other awards, The Good Wife sees a wonderful blend of gripping drama and thought-provoking dialogue in the hands of actors on the top of their game. Each of the episodes contains a wild and scandalous plot that never uproots itself from reality, making for both highly entertaining and harshly relatable viewing. A psychological thriller disguised as a legal drama, The Good Wife manages to creep under your skin in more ways than one as it becomes both the series you want to savor and the show you can’t stop thinking about. - Jake Hodges

'The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart' (2023)

Rotten tomatoes: 82% | imdb: 7.8/10.

The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart

Read Our Review This drama starring the iconic Sigourney Weaver sees the Alien actress play June, grandmother to nine-year-old Alice, who comes to live with her following the tragic death of her parents in a fire. Over the course of several decades, Alice’s journey from childhood trauma to adulthood is portrayed as she learns of familial secrets, battles with grief, and finds love and loss as an adult.

A beautiful time-spanning drama that looks the perils of life directly in the eye and says, "Let's go," The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart is an ode to the spectrum of human experience told through the lens of one heartbreakingly relatable girl. Shot against a gorgeous Australian backdrop that plays host to the wildlife so poetically referred to in the show’s title, each episode feels packed with an enormous amount of heart, endearing and fragile enough to make its inevitable breaking a visceral experience. The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart is a patient, touching story that will live long in your memory. - Jake Hodges

'The Horror of Dolores Roach' (2023)

Rotten tomatoes: 80% | imdb: 7.1/10.

The Horror of Dolores Roach

When Dolores Roach is released after an unjust prison sentence, she reunites with an old friend who lets her work as a masseuse. When the promise of her newfound stability is threatened, Dolores is driven to shocking extremes to survive.

Read Our Review Based on a podcast series of the same name, The Horror of Dolores Roach follows Justina Machado as the titular Dolores, a woman who, after being released from a 16-year stint in prison, returns to her hometown to find that the place has been gentrified. With almost everyone she once held dear now gone, including her own family, Dolores turns to the only friend she has let: stoner Luis ( Alejandro Hernandez ). Luis gives her a place to stay in exchange for work as a masseuse. However, this work soon turns sinister, which then opens up a whole host of horrifying secrets that Luis struggles to keep hidden.

The podcast was an enormous success thanks to the care given to each emotional and dramatic story beat, which makes the triumph of this screen adaptation so much more impressive, as the loyal fans of the source material have welcomed this version with open arms. The Horror of Dolores Roach is a gripping, psychologically testing tale that has its roots firmly in social analysis. Each twisting, dark episode is brimming with both drama and comedy, with Justina Machado’s lead performance simply iconic. Unique and important, this series is a must-watch. - Jake Hodges

'I’m a Virgo' (2023)

Rotten tomatoes: 96% | imdb: 7.1/10.

I'm a Virgo

A coming-of-age joyride about Cootie, a 13ft tall young Black man in Oakland, CA. Having grown up hidden away, Cootie soon experiences the beauty and contradictions of the world for the first time. He forms friendships, finds love, navigates awkward situations, and encounters his idol, a real life superhero named The Hero.

Read Our Review Created by Boots Riley , this coming-of-age series follows Jharrel Jerome as Cootie, a boy who grows up shielded from the outside world by his worried aunt and uncle. Why are they worried? Because Cootie is 13 feet tall. However, one fateful day, the now 19-year-old Cootie is accidentally spotted by a group of teenage political activists, and his life is changed forever.

A fascinating tale of identity and discovery, I’m a Virgo is artistically effective at delivering its message without falling into the ever-turning mill of similar shows. Aesthetically unique and fantastically acted, the show moves along at the perfect pace to catch you off guard as the series finale suddenly appears and you ponder over how good a show must be to make you forget time is passing. Always ready to subvert your expectations both in its theming and its narrative, I’m a Virgo is a show that needs to be experienced, not just read about. - Jake Hodges

'Shiny Happy People' (2023)

Rotten tomatoes: 100% | imdb: 7.5/10.

Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets

This docuseries focuses on the Duggar family, famous mostly for their appearance on the TLC show 19 Kids and Counting . As each episode continues, horrific truths about the family are unearthed, with specific references to both the child sexual exploitation conviction of eldest brother Josh and the family’s ties to the Institute in Basic Life Principles, an independent fundamentalist Christian organization.

With Shiny Happy People , directors Olivia Crist and Julia Willoughby Nason pull no punches in going as deep as possible into this awful story, offering a detailed analysis of just how easily brainwashed children can be by those around them in authority, such as parents and religion. Sickening to the core, the story is eye-opening and raw, with this series likely to change your life in some way. However, it must be said that Shiny Happy People should contain a massive trigger warning and could be particularly traumatic for survivors of abuse. - Jake Hodges

'Schitt’s Creek' (2015 - 2020)

Rotten tomatoes: 93% | imdb: 8.5/10.

Schitt's Creek

After being a victim of fraud, Johnny Rose and his family go from extremely wealthy to penniless overnight. The only asset left to them is a small, unsophisticated town: Schitt's Creek. They relocate there. Culture shock ensues.

A comedy beloved by millions, Schitt’s Creek is set in the titular sleepy rural town bought by the wealthy Rose family on a joking whim. With more money than sense, the patriarch of the family, Johnny ( Eugene Levy ), ends up suddenly embroiled in a cruel set of circumstances that leaves him and his family penniless from fraud, with their only choice to pack up and move to the one asset they have left: Schitt’s Creek .

Packed full of iconic comedy characters perfectly brought to life by the likes of Catherine O’Hara and real-life father and son Eugene and Dan Levy , Schitt’s Creek is never far from a moment that will leave you rolling on the floor laughing. Brimming with biting satire and a heart of gold, the show neatly weaves between moments of surrealism and grounded social commentary, with the entire structure of the series based on a thought-provoking review of the modern class system. Wonderfully witty, the show has rightfully earned itself nine Primetime Emmys. - Jake Hodges

'Jury Duty' (2023 - Present)

Rotten tomatoes: 81% | imdb: 8.3/10.

Read Our Review Receiver of four Primetime Emmy nominations, Jury Duty follows a civil trial in Los Angeles and the jurors who sit on it. However, there is a shocking twist: only juror Ronald Gladden is actually real, with the rest of the courtroom, from the judge to the plaintiff and even his fellow jurors, paid actors.

A thought-provoking look at the inner workings of human decision-making amplified by a Truman Show -like environment, Jury Duty is a breath of fresh air. Co-created by The Office producers Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg , the series benefits from the dramatic irony experienced by the audience, with many of what would normally be mundane moments for Ronald actually unfolding as genius moments of TV gold. Fun from start to finish, there is arguably nothing else like Jury Duty available at the moment. - Jake Hodges

'Dead Ringers' (2023)

Rotten tomatoes: 85% | imdb: 6.5/10.

Dead Ringers

Twin gynecologists take full advantage of the fact that nobody can tell them apart, until their relationship begins to deteriorate over a woman.

Read Our Review A television remake of the classic David Cronenberg movie of the same name, Dead Ringers follows the Mantle twins, Elliot and Beverley, both played with detailed precision by Rachel Weisz , as they begin their mission of changing the way the world gives birth. However, the two are vastly different in their approaches to this task despite their shared success in the field of gynecology, with the pair butting heads on many occasions as they search for funding for their own independent birthing center.

Packed full of stylish horror set pieces and a magnificently tense atmosphere, aspects perfectly adapted from the source material, Dead Ringers is a unique viewing experience that both pays homage to its predecessor and breathes new life into the story. Adapting from film to TV is never easy, but this series never misses an emotional beat and manages, through clever pacing, to stay true to the brooding aura made famous in the original. Rachel Weisz is a casting stroke of genius, with her ability to find the emotional and physical nuances in both the similarities and differences of Elliot and Beverley no easy feat. - Jake Hodges

'Swarm' (2023)

Rotten tomatoes: 87% | imdb: 7.2/10.

Read Our Review Nominated for three Primetime Emmys, Swarm stars Dominique Fishback as Dre, an obsessive superfan of popstar Ni’Jah ( Nirine S. Brown ). After endearingly calling her fans the Swarm, this cute homage to her supporters will soon turn to something much more sinister in the form of Dre, as her once-healthy fandom becomes an unhealthy and ultimately murderous obsession.

A tight set of scripts oozing tension lay the groundwork for Swarm , a prime example of how to create a gripping atmosphere without breaking the bank. With viewers holding tightly to the edge of their seats, the twists and turns keep coming as the story paces by, with the show’s own status as fiction even being brought into question. With one eye on the horrors of the modern-day music industry and another clearly on the genius of Misery , this is a once-in-a-lifetime viewing experience that cannot be more highly recommended by those who have already indulged. - Jake Hodges

'Daisy Jones and the Six' (2023)

Rotten tomatoes: 70% | imdb: 8.1/10.

Daisy Jones & The Six

Read Our Review This double Emmy-winning series based on the New York Times best-selling novel of the same name follows the rise of rock band Daisy Jones and The Six throughout the LA music scene of the 1970s. Fronted by Daisy Jones ( Riley Keough ) and Billy Dunne ( Sam Claflin ), the two butt heads over all-manner of creative differences, with their wild and dysfunctional relationship catapulting the band into legendary status. After finally deciding to hang up the plectrum and put down the microphone for one last time, the band reflects on what made them such a success.

Heartwarming, dramatic, and packed full of entertainment, Daisy Jones and the Six is a wild ride of a series that thrusts you into the highs and lows of the iconic 1970s music industry amidst a period of change for those within it. Both Sam Claflin and Riley Keough put on career-best performances, creating a chemistry between them befitting the groundbreaking highs and fiendish lows of this rollercoaster story. Brimming with tender character moments and life-affirming humor, the series has a killer soundtrack, too — one that propels it into the iconic status it deserves. - Jake Hodges

'Columbo' (1971 - 2003)

Imdb: 8.3/10.

Beloved by critics and the public alike, Columbo follows Peter Falk as the iconic LAPD detective: comically rough on the outside and critically astute on the inside. When high-profile crimes are at play, Columbo is the man to call, with his fiendish intelligence and unparalleled Los Angeles street smarts making him the guy to take down any crook.

Over nine seasons, Columbo cemented his name as one of television’s most beloved detectives, with Peter Falk consistently producing some of the crime genre’s finest small-screen performances. Each of the many episodes has a gripping mystery at its core, with the darting twists and turns seeming, by today’s standards, to be rather formulaic. But that’s because Columbo was one of the many innovators when it came to the very formula we now hold dear. Simply timeless, thank heavens Columbo is still available to stream. - Jake Hodges

'Invincible' (2021 - Present)

Rotten tomatoes: 99% | imdb: 8.7/10.

Read Our Review This modern-day animated classic follows the story of Mark Grayson ( Steven Yeun ), son of Nolan Grayson ( J.K. Simmons ), otherwise known as Omni-Man. Mark has always felt drowned by his father’s intimidating superhero shadow; however, his newfound invincibility has given him the opportunity to forge his own legacy. With the task of being Earth’s next great defender at his fingertips, can Mark succeed?

Animated like its comic book source material, Invincible is both a treat for the eyes and the mind, with a whole host of genuinely gripping superhero stories. Its animated style should certainly not deceive potential viewers, as this series is definitely not for children, which propels its dedication to producing intricate dramatic narrative into something greater without the restraints of age rating. Full of fun and fury, the series is also backed by an eye-popping voice cast that includes the likes of Sandra Oh . - Jake Hodges

'Riches' (2022)

Rotten tomatoes: 100% | imdb: 7.2/10.

Read Our Review From the mind of Abby Ajayi , Riches follows the story of Stephen Richards ( Hugh Quarshie ), a man who built a cosmetics empire from the ground up with his bare hands, proving along the way to be a titan of business. However, after suffering an awful heart attack, it soon becomes clear that control of his conglomerate will have to be delegated elsewhere, with many a suitor, each with many a motive, stepping forward. What unravels is a set of secrets that many, possibly no one, could have seen coming.

A perfect binge-watching series, Riches contains so many twists and turns it makes it nigh-on impossible to ever switch off, with each episode coming packed full of irresistible revelations. The main cast are all excellent, with fans of Ted Lasso likely to be surprised by just how narcissistic Sarah Niles is as Claudia Richards, perhaps the show's most captivating performance. A gripping tale of psychological drama ready to delight the senses, Riches is an underrated show well worth your time. - Jake Hodges

'Sneaky Pete' (2015 - 2019)

Rotten tomatoes: 96% | imdb: 8.1/10.

sneaky pete

Read Our Review This crime drama, co-created by Bryan Cranston , follows Giovanni Ribisi ’s Marius, a convicted con man who serves his time and is finally released from prison. However, perhaps the world inside is better than out, as, after leaving, Marius becomes the target of the dangerous gangster he once robbed. With no better ideas and with his life on the line, Marius chooses to assume the identity of his former cellmate, Pete, although this leads him to (re)uniting with Pete’s family, who all have no reason to assume he isn’t their loved one.

Originally passed on by CBS, Amazon picked up Sneaky Pete following the appearance of Bryan Cranston in a cameo role in the pilot. This, plus the Breaking Bad star's authorial stamp over the story, were major factors in this show’s green-lighting and, later, its public and critical success. Each main character gets a nuanced development throughout the series’s many episodes, although it is Giovanni Ribisi who shines above all, with a detailed performance that neatly straddles the devilishly intelligent and the frustratingly unforgivable. Tense and stylish, Sneaky Pete is a rollercoaster ride from start to finish. - Jake Hodges

'High School' (2022 - Present)

Rotten tomatoes: 100% | imdb: 7.7/10.

High School

Set in the 1990s, High School follows twin sisters Tegan ( Railey Gilliland ) and Sara Quin ( Seazynn Gilliland ), who, beyond their family and lives, share a burning passion for music. As grunge and rave music begin to sweep a nation of easily influenced teenagers, Tegan and Sara begin to find their identities in a world that seems to fight against them, as High School documents the most pivotal formative years of their blossoming lives.

Based on the New York Times bestselling autobiography of the same name, High School is a perfectly realized amalgamation of many a young person’s experience growing up in the 90s. With one finger on the pulse of its day and another on the themes that are so relevant to adolescent life in 2024, High School feels like a trip down memory lane befitting of all generations, with its discussion of identity and anxiety perpetually relatable. Beautifully inclusive but not shy about showing the heavier side of adolescence, High School will stay with you for a long time. - Jake Hodges

'Bewitched' (1964 - 1972)

Imdb: 7.6/10.

This iconic 1960s family/fantasy series stars Elizabeth Montgomery and Dick York as Darrin and Samantha Stephens, an average suburban married couple from America…or so Darrin thinks. In fact, after their wedding night, Samantha admits her biggest secret: she is a witch. Feeling deceived, Darrin agrees to continue their relationship on the condition that Samantha hides her powers, meaning she must stop using witchcraft as the pair hunt for a normal mortal life together. The question remains, however — can Samantha stick to her promise when witchcraft can make their lives so much easier?

A legendary series with an enormous fanbase that eventually turned into a big-budget 2005 feature film, Bewitched has earned the title of timeless classic for many, many reasons. Firstly, both Elizabeth Montgomery and Dick York provide endearing, relatable performances with boundless chemistry that make them always worth rooting for. Secondly, despite its age, many of the themes discussed in the series still feel relatable to a modern audience. And finally, Bewitched understands the perfect formula for family-friendly, easy-to-watch television, providing the sort of series that can be enjoyed at literally any time of day. - Jake Hodges

'Sprung' (2022 - Present)

Rotten tomatoes: 82% | imdb: 8.3/10.

This crime/comedy created by Greg Garcia follows the loveable Jack ( Garret Dillahunt ), a man incarcerated for 30 years for selling weed, who, after coronavirus mandates are put in place, is released from prison in 2020 alongside his cellmate, Rooster ( Phillip Garcia ). Suddenly released into a world that has moved far beyond the one he left behind all those years ago, Jack must rapidly sort his life out, with getting a place to stay first on the agenda. Luckily, Rooster is there to save the day, as he offers to take Jack in — although, unluckily, Jack must promise to join Rooster’s criminal enterprise if he wants a roof over his head.

Backed by an incredible ensemble cast, Martha Plimpton steals the show as Barb, Rooster’s mom and the woman who takes the pair in. Always laugh-out-loud funny in every scene she is in, Barb is just one example of the many wacky characters that make Sprung the unique, hilarious experience it is. Never far from the next side-splitting gag, each scene feels like it could go down any path, with that sense of spontaneity translating into unmissable television. - Jake Hodges

'I Love Dick' (2016 - 2017)

Rotten tomatoes: 87% | imdb: 6.3/10.

I Love Dick

Read Our Review An adaptation of the beloved feminist novel, I Love Dick follows the marriage of Chris ( Kathryn Hahn ) and Sylvere ( Griffin Dunne ) as they struggle to stay as in love with each other as they once were. However, one day, a spark is relit inside of Chris — although not about her husband but instead his friend, the enigmatic Professor Dick ( Kevin Bacon ). In awe of him, Chris begins an art project in his honor, a series of letters that all begin with “Dear Dick."

Full of intrigue and nuance, I Love Dick is a thought-provoking drama with all the quirky eccentricities to keep you coming back for more. Kevin Bacon, Kathryn Hahn, and Griffin Dunne are all in fine form and manage to find a detailed balance between good and bad, right and wrong — the sort of duality of humanity that feels so hard to find in modern television. Full of captivating characters and a winding, attention-holding story, I Love Dick is well worth your time. - Jake Hodges

'Harlem' (2021 - Present)

Read Our Review Set in the titular New York neighborhood, Harlem follows four women, Camille ( Meagan Good ), Quinn ( Grace Byers ), Angie ( Shoniqua Shandai ), and Tye ( Jerrie Johnson ), who all graduated from New York City University and are now in their 30s. With the adult world now well within their grasp, the friends struggle to hold onto the wild memories of their past as well as adjust to a fast-moving society that demands they be financially, socially, and mentally stable.

Often likened to Sex and the City , Harlem is a wonderful character study and, beyond that, a precise study of long-lasting friendships amongst the pressures of a modern world. A series made by women for women, Harlem is bold and unapologetic in its delivery, providing a breath of fresh air in a current TV landscape that has long called out for this story. Real and full of life, Harlem is a fun feminist watch. - Jake Hodges

'Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power' (2022 - Present)

Rotten tomatoes: 83% | imdb: 7.0/10.

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power

Epic drama set thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien's 'The Hobbit' and 'The Lord of the Rings' follows an ensemble cast of characters, both familiar and new, as they confront the long-feared re-emergence of evil to Middle-earth.

Read Our Review A prequel set thousands of years before The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings , The Rings of Power is set in a peaceful, thriving Middle Earth. However, trouble is brewing as a terrible darkness threatens to consume the land. Friends old and new soon become charged with defending their territory as nothing and no one, it appears, is safe.

As a prequel to one of the most successful franchises of all time, The Rings of Power certainly had an intense fandom to please, but please they definitely did, ending in the series being nominated for six Primetime Emmys. As is the case for the original trilogy, The Rings of Power does an incredible job at realizing the fantastical Middle Earth in all its glory, with the swooping aerial shots of lush forests and intimidating mountains making the series worth a watch on its own. Vast, magical, and a dramatic triumph, The Rings of Power is the perfect watch for the many millions of Lord of the Rings fans. - Jake Hodges

'A League of Their Own' (2022)

Rotten tomatoes: 95% | imdb: 7.6/10.

A League Of Their Own

Read Our Review Based on the legendary movie of the same name starring Tom Hanks , this hope-filled series depicts the birth of an All-American women’s baseball team, the Rockford Peaches, in 1943. With each of the founding members dreaming of some sort of glory, and with each of them having a differing but emotionally resonant driving force behind them, the girls fight to the very top of their game, all culminating in the final match of the Championship Series.

Backed by a stellar cast that includes the likes of D'Arcy Carden , Chanté Adams , and Abbi Jacobson , A League of Their Own takes all the guts and underdog spirit of the original and adapts it for a modern audience. Not just a tale of sporting glory, this series is also about the triumph of fair representation, with the LGBTQIA+ community, in particular, being championed in a way that seems so poignant to a 2024 audience. Entertaining and full of heart, A League of Their Own is the perfect blend of terrific storytelling and powerful messaging. - Jake Hodges

'The Outlaws' (2021 - Present)

Rotten tomatoes: 80% | imdb: 7.7/10.

The Outlaws

A diverse group of seven individuals, each with their own troubled pasts, are forced to complete community service together in Bristol. Their lives take an unexpected turn when they stumble upon a hidden stash of money, drawing them into a web of crime and danger.

Co-created by Elgin James and Stephen Merchant , The Outlaws stars the latter alongside a plethora of other talented actors who all play convicted petty criminals coming together after being given community service. However, after one of the group gets into some hot water with a drug gang, other group members get their hands on an eye-popping amount of money — only they don’t realize it’s dirty. What ensues is a cat-and-mouse chase between a nationwide criminal organization and a ragtag bunch of Bristol misfits.

Laugh-out-loud funny and never far from an impressive action set piece, The Outlaws is a gripping blend of wacky character comedy and breathless drama. Episode one begins like any other Stephen Merchant-penned comedy, but the rug is pulled from beneath the audience’s feet come the final sequences, as it soon becomes clear we are in for a no-holds-barred action experience instead. Alongside an impressive central cast that strangely but excitingly includes Christopher Walken , Rhianne Barreto and Gamba Cole ’s will-they/won’t-they relationship acts as the backbone for a story that will keep you fully gripped to the edge of your seat. - Jake Hodges

'Paper Girls' (2022)

Rotten tomatoes: 87% | imdb: 7.3/10.

Paper Girls

Read Our Review Based on the comic book series of the same name, Paper Girls follows the everyday lives of four 12-year-old friends as they go about their paper routes in a fictional suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. However, on one fateful Hell Day in 1988, the girls are inexplicably transported into the future and find themselves lost in the hustle and bustle of 2019. Searching for a way home, the girls soon realize that they aren’t the only ones to have time jumped and, alongside their future selves, must fight amongst warring time travel factions to survive.

Visually akin to Stranger Things but with a much more family-friendly appeal, Paper Girls is a coming-of-age tale told through a unique lens, where the coming-of-age literally happens in front of our very eyes through time travel. The main cast of young performers are all impressive, with this series likely to be a springboard that could see the likes of Camryn Jones and Sofia Rosinsky become mainstays on our screens in years to come. Fast, frantic, and one hell of a good time, Paper Girls is a gripping tale fit for (almost) the whole family. - Jake Hodges

'Downton Abbey' (2010 - 2015)

Rotten tomatoes: 87% | imdb: 8.7/10.

Downton Abbey (2010)

Read Our Review Now considered a British institution, Downton Abbey sets itself amidst some of the early 20th century’s most important world-altering events, beginning with the sinking of the Titanic and discussing the likes of World War I and the Spanish Influenza Pandemic. As the world changes around them, the series focuses on the titular Downton Abbey , a grand country home owned by the Earl of Grantham, Lord Robert Cowley ( Hugh Bonneville ). Living amongst a politically divided upper class and a socially frustrated working class, the intricate dramas of all their lives are detailed against the backdrop of the aforementioned historical events.

Perhaps the quintessential British show this century, Downton Abbey has earned itself a worldwide fanbase thanks to its dedication to historical documentation and nuanced drama. Each of the main cast of characters is subjected to a whirlwind of trying circumstances — the sort that leaves the audience on the edge of their seat and clutching their pearls. Beautifully produced and with an eye for stunning cinematography, Downton Abbey is perhaps the greatest exponent of the ‘British stately home’ sub-genre we all so lovingly adore. - Jake Hodges

'The Summer I Turned Pretty' (2022 - Present)

Rotten tomatoes: 74% | imdb: 7.3/10.

The Summer I Turned Pretty

A love triangle between one girl and two brothers. A story about first love, first heartbreak, and the magic of that one perfect summer.

Read Our Review Based on Jenny Han ’s beloved set of novels, The Summer I Turned Pretty is a coming-of-age tale told from the point of view of Lola Tung ’s Belly. As her family and another come together for the summer, it is time for Belly to finally change her life, as she's grown sick of the 'loser' reputation that has followed her. Intent on becoming an adult before her time, Belly discovers the highs and lows of adolescence through love, loss, fighting, laughter, and — most importantly —plenty of time at the beach.

Perfectly capturing the exact tone one would want from a teen drama of this nature, The Summer I Turned Pretty is quite simply the sort of series you can’t turn off. From the gripping love triangle at the center to the tender friendship between two of the adults, the show offers an emotionally resonant analysis of modern relationships — the sort of which is unusually, but wonderfully, nuanced for this style of series. Often heartbreaking but always ready to make you smile, The Summer I Turned Pretty is both comforting and dreamy, like a warm wave of ocean water. - Jake Hodges

'With Love' (2021 - 2023)

Created by Gloria Calderón Kellett , this rom-com series stars Emeraude Toubia as Lily Diaz and Mark Indelicato as her brother Jorge. Stuck in a wacky family with no partner to call their own, the siblings vow to find their one true love. On the hunt for romance, each finds a potential suitor during the holidays. However, perhaps the people they meet have more in common with each other than once thought.

Fun, chucklesome, and full of positive vibes, With Love is simply an adorable tale of the search for love — the sort we can all relate to. Starring an incredible Latinx cast, the show goes out of its way to introduce some cultural elements that do well to provide representation and education about a group of people sadly underrepresented in modern media — especially in the rom-com genre. Packed full of heartwarming sentiments, With Love feels like a love letter to the modern world of relationships, warts and all. - Jake Hodges Watch on Prime Video

'The Legend of Vox Machina' (2022 - Present)

Rotten tomatoes: 100% | imdb: 8.4/10.

The Legend of Vox Machina

Read Our Review This animated action adventure follows the titular Vox Machina, a group of misfits who have turned to the world of private mercenaries to earn a quick buck. However, their simple hunt for an easy payday soon turns into a battle for the ages, as they are tasked with protecting their kingdom from evil forces. But can they change their selfish attitudes in time to complete their mission?

Based on the first campaign of the Dungeons & Dragons web series Critical Role , The Legend of Vox Machina takes a franchise with a die-hard fanbase and delivers on all its promises, made even more impressive when one learns that this series began life as a Kickstarter campaign. There is clear passion and love in the animation style, with the time taken to impressively capture the raw emotion on many of the characters' faces as they go through what is a high-octane set of circumstances. Fun, fast, and packed with plenty of heart, The Legend of Vox Machina is an underrated gem of an animated tale. - Jake Hodges

'Reacher' (2022 - Present)

Rotten tomatoes: 92% | imdb: 8.1/10.

Read Our Review Based on Lee Child ’s acclaimed set of novels, Reacher follows Alan Ritchson as the titular former military policeman turned vigilante. Set in Margrave, Georgia, Reacher is convicted of a murder he didn’t commit and sentenced, only to soon find out that this is less about a case of mistaken identity and more about a conspiracy that leads right back to the top. With seemingly everything and everyone against him, can Reacher find justice?

In terms of total viewers, Reacher was Amazon Prime’s number one most-watched series of 2023 — and for good reason. Packed full of high-octane set pieces and enough testosterone to fuel an engine, Reacher commits to its genre with full force, bringing an action-packed adventure full of double-crosses and explosions. Alan Ritchson, a man known for his work in franchises, truly makes this role his own, taking the character birthed so brilliantly by Lee Child and turning him into a modern-day on-screen action icon. Also never far from a cheeky laugh, Reacher will grab you by the scruff of your neck and thrust you into an unforgettable thrill ride. - Jake Hodges

'The Wheel of Time' (2021 - Present)

Rotten tomatoes: 83% | imdb: 7.1/10.

The Wheel of Time

Set in a high fantasy world where magic exists, but only some can access it, a woman named Moiraine crosses paths with five young men and women. This sparks a dangerous, world-spanning journey. Based on the book series by Robert Jordan.

Read Our Review Based on the beloved book series by Robert Jordan , The Wheel of Time follows Rosamund Pike ’s Moiraine, a woman capable of harnessing the power of magic in a world where only a few can do so. A member of a powerful all-woman group known as the Aes Sedai, an evil force destroys their village, leaving the community fearing for the return of the world’s most dangerous being. Backed by the will to do the right thing and a prophecy declaring it so, Moiraine makes it her mission to take revenge and stop the world from succumbing to the dastardly powers of a creature known only as the Dark One.

Just like its source material, this screen adaptation cuts no corners in creating an absorbing fantasy world that feels straight out of a dream. Excelling thanks to a wonderful cast and a stunning set of visuals, The Wheel of Time is a magical tale of fighting for justice that will spark a fire within everyone who watches it. A masterpiece in CGI and costuming, The Wheel of Time is a perfect example of just how far the television industry has come, with this series certainly rivaling some of Hollywood’s biggest films both visually and narratively. - Jake Hodges

'The Underground Railroad' (2021)

Rotten tomatoes: 94% | imdb: 7.5/10.

The Underground Railroad

Winner of the Golden Globe for Best Miniseries or Television Film, The Underground Railroad follows Cora Randall ( Thuso Mbedu ), an enslaved woman from Georgia who plans to escape to freedom. After hearing of an underground railroad that offers a journey to solace, Cora embarks on her mission with barely enough to survive, simply hoping that the dream itself will carry her along. Chased by evil forces who want to keep her enslaved and joined by newcomer Caeser ( Aaron Pierre ), can they survive and ultimately succeed?

Gripping, tense, and emotionally powerful, The Underground Railroad is a thought-provoking piece of media that speaks to the human in us all. The story itself is bathed in the history of Black culture, an important educational message that will come as no surprise to fans of the show’s creator, Barry Jenkins . Nominated for seven Primetime Emmys, this series will go down in history as one of the most poignant of its kind. - Jake Hodges

'The Wilds' (2020 - 2022)

Rotten tomatoes: 89% | imdb: 7.3/10.

Read Our Review This mystery from the mind of Sarah Streicher takes place in the aftermath of a terrifying plane crash that leaves a group of teenage girls stranded on a desert island, having to fend for themselves. As they begin to work together to survive, little do the girls know that this plane crash was no accident and that all of them are, in fact, a part of an elaborate social experiment headed by Gretchen Klein ( Rachel Griffiths ).

A fierce feminist tale of the will to survive, The Wilds is a rollercoaster ride of a mystery that wholeheartedly delivers on its fascinating premise. The central ensemble of young actors is all perfectly cast, and their will to work as a team despite their waning hope to escape neatly captures the contrasting human spirit. The cinematography is as gorgeous as it is desolate, with the glimmering sun poignantly juxtaposed by the desperate wasteland that is their hope to survive. - Jake Hodges

'House, M.D.' (2004 - 2012)

Rotten tomatoes: 90% | imdb: 8.7/10.

Using a crack team of doctors and his wits, an antisocial maverick doctor specializing in diagnostic medicine does whatever it takes to solve puzzling cases that come his way.

Read Our Review Arguably Hugh Laurie ’s greatest-ever role, House MD follows the social and professional life of medical doctor Gregory House (Laurie), a self-centered, borderline narcissist who has an addiction to painkillers and a deafening nihilism. Despite his clear hatred of the world around him, he and his team of experts are tasked with solving some of modern medicine’s most baffling cases and saving the lives of those once thought unsavable.

Witty, endlessly quotable, and always with an eye for a subversive plot thread or two, House MD is an iconic series for many reasons, not least Hugh Laurie’s legendary turn as the central character. Despite all his social fallibilities, House is an extraordinary doctor who is bitter because of a previous failure to save his leg, making his grudge-bearing attitude all the more resonant and relatable. Fast-paced and always with a mystery to solve, House MD is medical drama done right. - Jake Hodges

'Upload' (2020 - Present)

Rotten tomatoes: 92% | imdb: 7.9/10.

A man is able to choose his own afterlife after his untimely death by having his consciousness uploaded into a virtual world. As he gets used to his new life and befriends his angel (real world handler), questions about his death arise.

Read Our Review Created by The Office showrunner Greg Daniels , Upload , set in 2033, follows the life, or rather the afterlife, of computer programmer Nathan Brown ( Robbie Amell ). In this current society, humans are able to upload themselves into a virtual realm upon death, with Nathan choosing to do just that. However, he soon realizes he is under the tight control of his still-living girlfriend, Ingrid ( Allegra Edwards ), and starts to fall for another woman named Nora ( Andy Allo ). With the afterlife difficult to adjust to, Nathan’s struggles are made tenfold as he begins to learn that his death may have been anything but an accident.

Wacky, charismatic, and dedicated to its characters’ development, Upload is a shining example of the genius of Greg Daniels and those he surrounds himself with. Although often light-hearted, the show isn’t afraid of dealing with a couple of terrifying topics head-on, such as the concepts of grief and legacy. Packed full of brilliant one-liners and hilarious set pieces, both Andy Allo and Robbie Amell have captivating chemistry that only adds to the many reasons this show is impossible to stop watching. - Jake Hodges

'The Expanse' (2015 - 2022)

Rotten tomatoes: 95% | imdb: 8.5/10.

The Expanse

The disappearance of a rich-girl-turned-political-activist links the lives of Ceres detective, accidental ship captain and U.N. politician. Amidst political tension between Earth, Mars and the Belt, they unravel the greatest conspiracy.

Read Our Review This mysterious sci-fi adventure is set 200 years in the future among a fully colonized solar system. The story follows police detective Josephus Miller ( Thomas Jane ), a cynical man charged with uncovering the mystery behind a woman’s disappearance. As this investigation continues, a seemingly unprovoked attack takes place that throws the already unstable political relationship between the planets onto the brink of explosion.

A wonderful, soaring sci-fi story with one eye on a devilish political allegory, The Expanse is a gorgeous astronomical adventure that feels tonally close to home. Packed full of twists and turns, the fast-paced episodes crash into orbit at the speed of a comet, swooping up the audience on their way. A wild ride from start to finish, there is still always a moment to take in the stunning views of space crafted brilliantly by the show’s camera and effects teams. - Jake Hodges

'The Boys' (2019 - Present)

A group of vigilantes set out to take down corrupt superheroes who abuse their superpowers.

Read Our Review This public and critical hit is set in a world that idolizes superheroes like celebrities. However, much like many of the celebrities we idolize, these superheroes are, in fact, products of a global conglomerate, each with the intent of being a money-spinning brand and nothing more. On one fateful day, Jack Quaid ’s Hughie Campbell sadly witnesses the death of his girlfriend at the accidental hands of one of the superheroes, setting off an investigation into this lack of justice. This investigation leads him to a group of vigilantes (the titular Boys ), who are on a mission to take down the superheroes. What ensues is a power struggle for justice between the revolting working class and the untouchable elite.

Packed full of scintillating action, The Boys is a modern-day masterpiece for many reasons, especially because its story of a working-class hero fighting for justice feels oh-so-relevant today. The Boys is as close to a documentary as a superhero action series can get, with the driving themes throughout the show painfully resonant. Beyond its messaging, the show is enormous fun, with a cast of characters that all play their role perfectly, from the comic relief to the plucky underdog and even a seedy, sickening villain that poses as everyone’s hero. Fun and furious, The Boys was always going to be a hit as soon as the pilot aired, with that episode in particular considered by many to be one of the greatest pilots of all time. - Jake Hodges

'Fleabag' (2016 - 2019)

Rotten tomatoes: 100% | imdb: 8.7/10.

Series adapted from the award-winning play about a young woman trying to cope with life in London whilst coming to terms with a recent tragedy.

Read Our Review Originally a one-woman stage show, Phoebe Waller-Bridge ’s Fleabag follows the actress as the titular character who goes about her everyday life on the hunt to be a better feminist. As she gets into all sorts of awkward scrapes and accidental relationships, Fleabag self-deprecatingly reminds us of her misfortunes through quippy one-liners to the camera — something the series is famed for. However, as Fleabag’s story unravels, it seems there may be more than meets the eye to this quaint modern tale, and Fleabag herself may not be as honest as we once thought.

Widely considered one of the greatest TV shows of all time, Fleabag , throughout both its gripping seasons, reminds us of the harsh realities of 21st-century life in its candid and always hilarious way. As the episodes continue, the show’s whimsical side soon becomes replaced by a dark undercurrent, as a brooding sense of unease seemingly can’t be shaken off by either us or Fleabag herself. Phoebe Waller-Bridge creates a relatable central character who is admirable yet sometimes egregious, self-deprecating yet fragile, and witty yet always on the back foot — traits so keenly associated with many in her audience. Poignant, laugh-out-loud funny, and gutwrenchingly emotional, Fleabag is simply a masterpiece. - Jake Hodges Watch on Prime Video

'The Night Manager' (2016)

Rotten tomatoes: 91% | imdb: 8.0/10.

The Night Manager (2016)

Read Our Review Created by David Farr , this double Primetime Emmy-winning series follows Cairo hotel night manager Jonathan Pine ( Tom Hiddleston ). After entering into a steamy affair with a local woman, it soon turns out she is the girlfriend of a mobster and has serious intelligence that links her boyfriend with famed English philanthropist Richard Roper ( Hugh Laurie ). After the woman is found dead in suspicious circumstances, Pine flees and lays low in a Swiss hotel… until one day, Roper turns up and a game of deceit begins.

Thrilling from minute one, The Night Manager is a masterpiece in how to reveal information to an audience, with each revelation seemingly having the weight of a thousand. Both Tom Hiddleston and Hugh Laurie have a wonderfully sinister chemistry together, both providing a nuanced performance that leaves it impossible to guess who might come out on top. Backed by a killer score, The Night Manager will leave you breathless after every episode but dying to find out more. - Jake Hodges Watch on Prime Video

'Good Omens' (2019 - Present)

Rotten tomatoes: 85% | imdb: 8.0/10.

Now exiled from Heaven and Hell, Aziraphale and Crowley must team up once again after the mysterious arrival of a familiar face.

Read Our Review This high-budget, high-concept series stars David Tennant as demon Crowley and Michael Sheen as angel Aziraphale. Both friends since the dawn of time but sworn professional enemies thanks to their differing religious sides, they now must work together in secret after the antichrist is placed on Earth, which commences the countdown to Armageddon. Intent on not letting the apocalypse happen, and despite the better word of their superiors, can they manage to track down the boy and save the day in time?

Given this series was created by the genius mind of Neil Gaiman , many may not be surprised to learn of the deep, detailed fantasy elements that ooze out of every frame of Good Omens , marking it as one of the genre’s finest exponents in recent years. Both Michael Sheen and David Tennant have remarkable chemistry, surely helped by their being best friends in real life, which makes for explosively witty and always entertaining scenes between the two. Aesthetically gorgeous and with a story full of twists and turns, Good Omens is one of the best Prime Video original series of all time. - Jake Hodges

'Bones' (2005 - 2017)

Rotten tomatoes: 90% | imdb: 7.8/10.

F.B.I. Special Agent Seeley Booth teams up with the Jeffersonian's top anthropologist, Dr. Temperance Brennan, to investigate cases where all that's left of the victims are their bones.

Nominated for two Primetime Emmys, this long-running series follows forensic anthropologist Dr. Temperence Brennan ( Emily Deschanel ) after she is recruited by the FBI to help with cases of human remains far too aged for their normal forensic team. Assigned to her first case, Brennan is placed alongside the suave Special Agent Seeley Booth ( David Boreanaz ), and despite their fractious relationship, the two are extraordinarily successful. With Brennan a woman of fact and Booth a man of feeling, can they continue to triumph despite their differences?

Over the course of 12 seasons and 245 episodes, Bones endeared itself to a widespread fanbase thanks to an eye for drama and a central pair with unrivaled chemistry. Each episode is brimming with mystery and a bite of comedy, with the dedication of the writing team to real-world forensic science helping the dialogue feel much more immersive. Among a sea of crime dramas of this nature, Bones still stands out today as one of the best, almost 20 years since it debuted. - Jake Hodges

'The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel' (2017 - 2023)

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

After her husband leaves her, young mother of two Miriam "Midge" Maisel discovers that she has a talent for stand-up comedy. Could this be her calling?

Read Our Review Created by Amy Sherman-Palladino , the mind behind Gilmore Girls , The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel , set in 1950s Manhattan, follows the titular character, played by Rachel Brosnahan , as she goes about her almost-perfect everyday life. With adorable children, a perfect marriage, and a successful social life, Midge really seems to have it all… until one day, her husband leaves her for another woman, and the snowball begins to form and fall. Feeling like her life is spiraling out of control, a chance encounter with a stand-up comedy stage opens up a world of opportunity as she begins to find her voice once again.

Poignant, brilliantly witty, and never far from a tearjerking moment, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel really is everything an Amy Sherman-Palladino fan could want. With sharp scripts and a cast brimming with fine performers, it is no surprise that the series has won a staggering 22 Primetime Emmys across just five seasons. Not just a masterpiece in storytelling, each element of the production, from the setting to the cinematography, is intricate, with this series truly standing out thanks to the clear dedication of everyone on board. - Jake Hodges

'American Horror Story' (2011 - Present)

Rotten tomatoes: 76% | imdb: 8.0/10.

American Horror Story

An anthology series centering on different characters and locations, showcasing different aspects of horror.

Read Our Review Seen by many as the highlight of the so-called ‘Murphy-verse,' Ryan Murphy ’s American Horror Story is an anthology series that unapologetically discusses an all-manner of horrific stories ready to shake you to your core. From a psychologically terrifying family’s arrival at a farmhouse to the final survivors following the apocalypse and even more traditional horror tales like the scheming of a coven of witches, American Horror Story leaves no gravestone unturned.

Beloved by millions thanks to its dedication to crafting near-perfect scares at any given opportunity, American Horror Story has become a staple of horror fans viewing across its now 13-year run. Not just famous for frightening the living daylights out of audiences, the show is also now known for its wildly impressive run of guest stars, including the likes of Lady Gaga , Macaulay Culkin , and even Kim Kardashian . Spooky, surprising, and always ready to subvert expectations, there really is nothing else like American Horror Story . - Jake Hodges

'The Man in the High Castle' (2015 - 2019)

Rotten tomatoes: 84% | imdb: 7.9/10.

The Man in the High Castle

Read Our Review The winner of two Primetime Emmys, The Man in the High Castle is set in a world that poses one simple question: What if the Allied Powers had lost World War II? In a frightening future ruled by Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany, one woman ( Alexa Davalos ) suddenly discovers newsreels that show both Germany and Japan losing the war, with the titular man behind the footage now the subject of a mass hunt.

Based on Philip K. Dick ’s 1962 novel of the same name, The Man in the High Castle takes the paranoid drama of the original tale and translates it seamlessly to the screen, creating a viewing experience unlike many others. Despite this version of reality obviously not existing, the team behind the series masterfully crafts the world in such a way that it feels like it could be on the other side of our own curtains, which only lends to heightened tension and an eerie atmosphere that oozes throughout each episode. - Jake Hodges

'Mr. Robot' (2015 - 2019)

Rotten tomatoes: 94% | imdb: 8.5/10.

Read Our Review This modern masterpiece created by Sam Esmail stars Academy Award-winner Rami Malek as Elliot, a smart, young cybersecurity engineer working for financial conglomerate E-Corp. Unbeknownst to his employers, not only does Elliot hate his job, but by night, he is an innovative vigilante hacker and also struggles to keep his schizophrenia-like mental troubles under control. On one unassuming day, Elliot’s life changes when he is approached by the mysterious Mr. Robot ( Christian Slater ) and the daring Darlene ( Carly Chaikin ) with the chance to take his vigilantism to the next level and take down the very company he works for.

An awards darling, Mr. Robot stands to this day as one of the 21st century’s most loved shows. Each episode is bursting at the seams with captivating drama and swerving twists that will leave you clinging to the edge of your seat, with certain episodes (for example, Season 4, Episode 7) considered by many to be one of the greatest episodes of television of all time. Backed by a stellar ensemble cast, Rami Malek puts in arguably the strongest performance in his illustrious on-screen career as Elliot, perfectly capturing the nuance between his somewhat sadistic drive to win and his introverted analytical mind. - Jake Hodges

'Mozart in the Jungle' (2014 - 2018)

Rotten tomatoes: 94% | imdb: 8.1/10.

Mozart in the Jungle

Read Our Review This fast-paced comedy stars Gael Garcia Bernal as Rodrigo, an enigmatic young maestro who dreams of becoming the next great musical mind. First, he must tackle the New York Symphony, a prestigious group that takes some molding, although Rodrigo’s innovative methods soon showcase his extraordinary talents. Meanwhile, oboist Hailey ( Lola Kirke ) looks to get her big break, but will the two be able to combine forces to find greatness?

Funny and full of fire, Mozart in the Jungle certainly feels grounded in reality, which makes sense when one considers it is inspired by New York oboist Blair Tindall ’s 2005 memoir Mozart in the Jungle: Sex, Drugs, and Classical Music . For a series about the heights of art in one of the most vibrant cities in the world, Mozart in the Jungle exceeds expectations with its eye for aesthetic detail and flair, with the show also benefiting from a superb musical soundtrack. Brash, bold, and enormous fun, Mozart in the Jungle certainly dances to its own rhythm… and we’re all dancing, too. - Jake Hodges

'Catastrophe' (2015 - 2019)

Rotten tomatoes: 98% | imdb: 8.2/10.

Catastrophe

Read Our Review Created by the genius Sharon Horgan , Catastrophe begins with a hook-up romance between American Rob ( Rob Delaney ) and primary school teacher Sharon (Sharon Horgan), which sees them finding extreme sexual chemistry during his brief business trip to London. However, Sharon soon finds out she’s pregnant with Rob’s child, and Rob, subverting expectations, moves to the UK in an attempt to be a proper father. What ensues are the highs, lows, and in-betweens of a modern dysfunctional relationship and all the frustrating family members that come with it.

Bolstered by Horgan’s unique brand of relatable and wickedly dark comedy, Catastrophe moves at the rhythm of everyday life with the flair of fine poetry. Backed by a superb supporting cast, highlighted by the hilariously serious Mark Bonnar as Chris, both Delaney and Horgan feel perfectly cast as a broken couple who can’t quite keep their hands off one another, with their on-screen chemistry neatly finding the balance between cringey bickering and love-fueled rekindling. A series with something we can all relate to, Catastrophe is a pure delight from start to finish. - Jake Hodges

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The Best REIT to Invest $1,000 in Right Now

• Realty Income pays a high yield and looks historically cheap.
• The REIT's valuation is being squeezed by high interest rates.
• It’s a safer place to park $1,000 or more in this volatile market.
• Motley Fool Issues Rare “All In” Buy Alert

Realty Income

Realty Income is still one of the top plays in this out-of-favor sector.

Real estate investment trusts (REITs) are usually popular investments for income investors. They purchase a lot of properties, rent them out, and split the rental income with their investors. They also need to pay out at least 90% of their taxable earnings as dividends to maintain a favorable tax rate.

Unfortunately, many REITs slumped over the past two years as rising interest rates made it more expensive to buy properties, curbed the growth of their business tenants, and made fixed income investments like CDs and T-bills more appealing. But as Warren Buffett said, investors should be "greedy when others are fearful" -- and it might be smart to get greedy with REITs before interest rates decline again.

Image source: Getty Images.

However, with nearly 1,000 REITs on the market today, it can be hard to pick the right one as a long-term dividend play. So, if you're wondering where to put $1,000 in the sector right now, I'd suggest Realty Income ( O 1.22% ) for four simple reasons.

1. It's one of the largest and most diversified REITs

Realty Income is a net lease REIT, so its tenants need to cover most of their own property management expenses -- including maintenance costs, property taxes, and insurance fees. It maintains about 15,450 properties around the world.

Its top tenants include recession-resistant retailers like Walgreens , 7-Eleven , Dollar General , Dollar Tree , and Walmart . Some of those retailers have been struggling with store closures in recent years, but none of its top tenants account for more than 4% of its annualized rent. It's also kept its occupancy rate above 96% over the past three decades, so it can likely replace its weaker tenants with stronger ones.

2. It pays a high monthly dividend

Realty Income has paid consecutive monthly dividends ever since its founding in 1969, and it's raised its payout 125 times since its initial public offering                                     in 1994. It can maintain that streak since its dividends only consumed 75% of its free cash flow ( FCF ) over the past 12 months.

Today, it pays a forward yield of nearly 6% -- which would net you almost $60 in extra dividend income per year from a $1,000 investment -- versus the 10-year Treasury bond's 4.3% yield. If you had invested $1,000 in Realty Income 20 years ago and reinvested your dividends, your stake would be worth about $7,430 today and would pay over $440 in annual dividends.

3. It generates consistent growth

We usually gauge a REIT's bottom-line growth through its adjusted funds from operations ( FFO ) per share instead of its earnings per share ( EPS ). From 2010 to 2023, Realty Income grew its adjusted FFO per share at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6%, even as it endured several economic downturns and a global pandemic.

The company also grew inorganically by merging with its peers VEREIT in 2021 and Spirit Realty this year. That expansion should further widen its moat and diversify its business.

4. It's historically cheap

At $53 per share, Realty Income trades at just 13 times last year's adjusted FFO. That's a historically low valuation, which is in line with its industry peers. Vici Properties (NYSE: VICI) , another reliable REIT that mainly focuses on the casino gaming and entertainment sectors, also trades at about 13 times last year's adjusted FFO.

Realty Income's low valuation should set a floor under its stock for now. As interest rates stabilize and decline over the next few quarters, its valuations should rise as more income investors rotate from fixed-income investments to REITs again.

Just don't expect millionaire-making gains

Realty Income should be a safe place to park $1,000 right now, but investors shouldn't expect it to generate millionaire-making gains over the next few decades. As its name suggests, it's a great way to generate extra monthly income -- but it's probably better suited for older investors who value stable returns over aggressive long-term gains.

Leo Sun has positions in Realty Income and Vici Properties. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Realty Income, Vici Properties, and Walmart. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy .

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