The 10 Best TV Shows to Stream This Month (May 2026)

While streaming may be the future of television, the medium itself—much like its big-screen counterpart—often leans on familiar properties, prequels, and reboots to keep things moving along. (Which explains why Yellowstone has morphed into a full-on franchise, with four current spinoffs and more on the way.)

Why does this matter to you? Because May’s best shows to stream are full of familiar titles, from Battlestar Galactica to The Duffer Brothers’ newest project… which sounds a bit like their most famous project.

Here are our picks for the 10 best shows to watch this month.

Battlestar Galactica

More than a year before Russell T. Davies rebooted Doctor Who for a whole new generation, Ronald D. Moore breathed new life into Battlestar Galactica—Glen A. Larson’s highly anticipated, but ultimately short-lived, sci-fi show from 1978. The revived series, in which what remains of humanity attempts to stave off extinction at the hands of a race of sentient AI beings known as Cylons, has since become one of the most critically acclaimed and influential sci-fi franchises of all time.

Now, after a year of being MIA, Paramount+ is bringing the entire franchise—which was profoundly ahead of its time with its exploration of AI, politics, identity, and what it means to be human—to its streaming platform. In addition to the three-hour miniseries that served as the de facto pilot, all four official seasons of the series, starring Oscar nominees Edward James Olmos and Mary McDonnell, plus Katee Sackhoff in her breakout role, are now streaming. As are the Olmos-directed feature film, The Plan, and the 2010 prequel series, Caprica. It’s all here for the bingeing.

Worst Ex Ever

Think your former partner was the worst person that ever lived? Give Netflix’s true crime docuseries a watch, and then maybe reassess. Using a mix of standard talking head interviews with authorities and survivors, plus animated recreations of the violent actions and crimes being described, the show—which dropped its second season on May 6—explores the many ways romantic relationships can turn toxic, sometimes with fatal results.

At the same time, and without calling it out specifically, each four-episode season highlights the ways in which technology has made it easier for perpetrators to terrorize their significant others, from using dating apps to target their would-be victims to using social media to track and harass them.

Rivals

Over-the-top wealth, toxic masculinity, ruthless ambition, and the particularities of the British class system are on full display in this soapy, 1980s-set British dramedy. Rupert Campbell-Black (Alex Hassell), a notorious womanizer and Conservative politician, finds himself regularly butting heads—both personally and professionally—with cutthroat television executive Lord Tony Baddingham (David Tennant).

The two battle it out for control of the popular Corinium Television network at a time when the (very real) independent television boom was enveloping much of America, England, and Western Europe. Their feud pulls friends, lovers, spouses, and colleagues into an increasingly chaotic web of betrayals and power plays that turns the upper crust of Margaret Thatcher’s England into a gloriously messy affair. Rivals, which is based on the second book in author Jilly Cooper’s long-running Rutshire Chronicles series, just returned for a second season on May 15.

The Punisher: One Last Kill

OK, so technically this is not a series. It’s a 50-minute standalone “special presentation” intended to serve as a bridge between Disney+’s Daredevil: Born Again and Frank Castle’s upcoming appearance in July’s Spider-Man: Brand New Day. But we say it counts!

Jon Bernthal reprises his role as Castle, a US Marine-turned-vigilante known as the Punisher, who is suffering the psychological effects of years spent exacting revenge on the gangsters who killed his wife and children. But when a bounty is placed on his head, Castle finds himself dragged back into the criminal world he so desperately wants to escape, but which also gives him a purpose. For those who abide by canon, One Last Kill is officially part of the MCU’s Phase Six, which kicked off last year with The Fantastic Four: First Steps and will conclude with 2027’s Avengers: Secret Wars.

Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed

Tatiana Maslany won a well-deserved Emmy for playing con artist Sarah Manning—and her 16 clones, each one with its very own distinct personality—in the cult-favorite Orphan Black. Now the one-time She-Hulk is bringing her distinct talent for balancing emotional vulnerability with manic unpredictability to Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed.

The new Apple TV series, which will drop its first two of 10 episodes on May 20, features Maslany as Paula, a suburban mom and recent divorcée who copes with her status by entering into an online relationship with a camboy, Trevor (Brandon Flynn), only to witness him be violently assaulted during one of their video calls. As she attempts to play detective to uncover what happened, she’s pulled further into a dangerous digital world she doesn’t fully understand—and that could threaten everything she holds dear. Of course, in Maslany’s hands, even the most genuinely tense mysteries seem to come with a bit of absurdist humor, and few actors do it better.

The Boroughs

Stranger Things may have officially come to an end after nearly a decade on New Year’s Eve 2025, but The Duffer Brothers aren’t sitting on their hands waiting for the next great idea to strike them. In the past five months alone, they have had a creative hand in the launch of three new Netflix series: Stranger Things: Tales from '85, an animated spinoff that brings us more from the kids of Hawkins, Indiana; Haley Z. Boston’s terrifying ode to marriage in Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen; and the star-packed sci-fi drama-fantasy The Boroughs, which arrives on May 21.

Like all things Duffer, specific details about the new series, which features Alfred Molina, Geena Davis, Alfre Woodard, and Bill Pullman, have been scant. What we do know makes it sound like a septuagenarian Stranger Things, with its official synopsis reading: “In a seemingly picturesque retirement community, a group of unlikely heroes must band together to stop an otherworldly threat from stealing the one thing they don't have … time.”

Rick and Morty

For more than a dozen years, Dan Harmon has been putting the adult in “adult animation” with the Emmy-winning Rick and Morty. The series follows the adventures of mad scientist/raging alcoholic Rick Sanchez and his 14-year-old grandson Morty as they travel through a series of new and bizarre worlds with the use of Rick’s portal gun, which fires wormholes at the touch of a button. While it often functions as a satire of tired sci-fi tropes, the series’ clever writing, absurdist humor, and inventive storytelling also help to ground it in the real-world issues that we all face, from dysfunctional family dynamics to existential dread. The show’s ninth season premieres on May 24, with the creators in early talks for a possible feature film.

Spider-Noir

For as long as Nicolas Cage has been acting, Nicolas Cage has wanted to play Superman. And while he briefly got the chance in DC’s The Flash, he has had better luck with plum roles in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. After voicing Spider-Man Noir, Peter Parker’s gritty, Depression-era superhero, in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, the Oscar winner is now getting a standalone project for the character, which he’s taking to the streaming world.

In this 1930s-set, live-action Prime Video series, Cage reprises the role of the superhero-turned-private investigator. And when a new case is dropped into his lap, the aging PI is dragged back into the life he left behind—whether he wants to revisit that time or not. Though it doesn’t officially drop until May 27, the series is already generating lots of positive buzz for Cage’s breathtaking performance.

A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder

Seven years after Holly Jackson’s YA crime series made its publication debut, A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder is still picking up new fans thanks to this BBC-commissioned adaptation. When plucky teen Pip Fitz-Amobi (Emma Myers) decides to look into the details surrounding a tragic murder-suicide that has haunted her town for years as part of a school project, she gets more than she bargained for.

She also realizes she’s got a real knack for this detective thing, especially as she begins to unravel the truth about what really happened—and who has been complicit in hiding the facts. With the help of her trusty smartphone, and the digital footprints the couple in question left behind, Pip uncovers the truth about what really happened. Pip is back for an all-new second season on May 27.

Star City

Two months after the arrival of a new season of For All Mankind, Ronald D. Moore’s version of what the world might look like had the Space Race Never ended, the Battlestar Galactica creator—plus cocreators Ben Nedivi and Matt Wolpert—have brought another piece of speculative sci-fi to space fans. In the instance of Star City, the Soviets beat the US to the Moon, and take the bragging rights that go with that. Thus, the series is told from the perspective of the cosmonauts and the scientists who work with them, as they work feverishly to beat NASA’s best efforts. Star City arrives on May 29.