From an electrifying action thriller with Keira Knightley to Ted Danson’s latest sitcom and a brutal Japanese period epic, we pick the year’s greatest programmes to stream right now.

The third season of this show set in the intense word of high finance pushed its morally ambiguous characters to their limits, brought in timely issues including sexual abuse and climate change, and finally exploded its own premise, with spectacular results. Marisa Abela and Harry Lawtey added layers to Yasmin and Robert. She dealt with not-unreasonable guilt over her father’s death, which left her a poor little princess. More than ever, Robert seemed adrift, a sad professional failure at Pierpoint, the investment bank they work for. Kit Harington was a dynamic addition to the cast as a charming, manipulative aristocrat and founder of a green startup company, who unsettles both of them. The season ended (spoiler here) with the demise of Pierpoint and such an extreme severing of ties among its players that it felt like a series finale – but not so fast. Another season is in the works, which will mean rebuilding the characters’ lives. In this instance, blowing things up to start over is the mark of a great, confident show. (CJ)

Available on Max in the US and BBC iPlayer in the UK

This may be the gentlest show on the list, but that doesn’t make it any less powerful. The latest sitcom from The Good Place creator Michael Schur reunites with him star Ted Danson, who plays a retired architect, struggling from the loss of his wife, who finds a new lease of life when he gets hired by a private investigator to go into a retirement home as a mole and help investigate a jewellery theft. What Schur does so expertly is balance sitcom sweetness with a moving and occasionally quietly devastating study of the trials and tribulations of old age, from loneliness and mental deterioration to the loss of one’s peers and friends. Which isn’t to say it’s bleak either, though: the home’s residents, as played by a whole host of stellar Hollywood veterans including Sally Struthers, Stephen McKinley Henderson and John Getz, are full of verve. In our youth-obsessed world, you only hope A Man on the Inside’s success is a reminder to producers and executives that there’s an appetite to see more shows anchored by senior talent. (HM)

Available on Netflix internationally

There are plenty of spy shows out there, but only Black Doves has Keira Knightley and Ben Whishaw, who give this savvy action thriller an electrifying boost. The plot is unlikely but absorbing. Helen (Knightley) is married to the British Minister of Defence and for a decade has been spying on him for a mercenary company called the Black Doves. When her lover is murdered, her old colleague Sam (Whishaw) is called in to protect her. The series weaves in their harrowing backstories and establishes a touching friendship between them, never losing sight of the intrigue, which seems to place an assassin around every corner. Sarah Lancashire adds a sinister note as their Black Doves handler. Working for the Black Doves makes Helen and Sam sellouts to the highest bidder, but remarkably, the show builds sympathy for them, especially for Sam and his broken relationship with his former partner, Michael. And like all good spy stories, this one is about more than suspense, taking on love, loyalty, fake identities and global politics. (CJ)

Available on Netfilix internationally

This is the second consecutive year this Australian rom-com has appeared on our “best of” list – and arguably it has only got better. After all the “will they, won’t they?” of the first season, Sydney-ites Ashley and Gordon are now an established item – and that’s where the angst really kicks in. The joy of this show is how exquisitely true-to-life it is in dissecting the trials and tribulations of a relationship, from negotiating your other half’s family to feelings of sexual rejection, with situations that feel only mildly exaggerated for humorous effect. Plus, alongside the both charming and sometimes poignant performances of real-life couple Harriet Dyer and Patrick Brammall, the supporting cast of characters is inspired, among them Helen Thomson as Lynelle, Ashley’s brilliantly self-involved mother, who has become a kind of anti- #MeToo activist to Genevieve Hegney as Chiara, Gordon’s mid-life-crisis-beset business partner. And, of course, Zak and Buster Feddersen as the titular Colin, the stoic border terrier on wheels who acts as the show’s weary, all-seeing witness. Give them an Emmy – or a chewbone – forthwith. (HM)

Available on Peacock in the US and BBC iPlayer in the UK

This extraordinary and fearless series, based on Patrick Radden Keefe’s rigorously reported 2018 book, refuses to play things safe. The fictionalised drama dares to take us inside the minds of the highest ranking IRA members in 1970s Northern Ireland as they justify terror and murder as political weapons. At its centre is Dolours Price, who along with her sister Marian served a prison sentence for their part in a London car bombing. (Marian Price has announced that she plans to sue Disney+ because the show also depicts her shooting Jean McConville, a mother of 10 who was abducted and disappeared, which Price has always denied doing. Dolours died in 2013.) The actors bring the characters to life with passion. Lola Petticrew captures the earnest conviction of the young Dolours, and Maxine Peake is especially stirring as the older Dolours, who regrets some of her past actions and wonders what she actually accomplished. Along with its tense drama, the series is intimate and infused with thoughtfulness. (CJ)

Available on Hulu in the US and Disney+ in the UK

This year, Apple continued to throw a lot of money at glamorous A-lister-led shows that hardly seemed to make a ripple in the cultural conversation, but it was this trusty, self-deprecating British espionage comedy-drama, based on Mick Herron’s books about a group of MI5 rejects, that continued to represent the channel at its best. Now in its fourth series, the mixture of wry British humour and high-stakes action is more perfectly-calibrated than ever, while the cast keeps accumulating excellent new recruits, from Ruth Bradley as straight-talking MI5 security “dog” Emma Flyte to Hugo Weaving as the villainous Frank Harkness. Indeed, while Gary Oldman’s dishevelled spy chief Jackson Lamb and Jack Lowden’s gung-ho River Cartwright are the lynchpins, the glory of Slow Horses is just what an ensemble piece it truly is. And in a streaming world where few shows get more than a couple of seasons, the good news is that it has already been renewed for a fifth and sixth. These underdogs are really having their day. (HM)