The best upcoming TV shows for June 2026 and beyond

Cape Fear – Season 1 (Apple TV)

What the 1991 Martin Scorsese film did in two hours, this ten-episode Apple TV+ series has the room to do slowly, and the early word on Javier Bardem’s Max Cady is that he’s playing the role at a far lower temperature than either Robert Mitchum or Robert De Niro: less theatrical menace – more quiet, immovable certainty.

Amy Adams and Patrick Wilson play the targeted couple, who are married attorneys this time rather than the original’s lawyer and his wife, with Scorsese back as executive producer, presumably ensuring the thing doesn’t stray too far from the source material’s Southern Gothic nastiness. Whether a prestige streaming expansion of a stone-cold classic was strictly necessary is debatable, but we’ll be watching to find out if it was worth bringing back.

Release date: 5 June 2026

House of the Dragon – Season 3 (Sky Atlantic)

When it comes to House of the Dragon, there seems to be a general feeling among viewers that, while the first season was pretty great, the second was a real clunker, weighed down by long, drawn-out episodes and poor characterisation. People wanted gripping action and plotting – duelling dragons and nasty skullduggery – but instead they got long, boring chats in castles. It was a real slog to get through, quite frankly – and that’s some feat in a show with this large a budget and, well, dragons in it.

The near-universal praise for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, with its 30-minute episodes, tight plotting and sharply drawn characters, all delivered on a significantly lower budget, hasn’t helped HOTD’s reputation at all – so this third season has a lot to prove. With George R.R. Martin pushed out of the picture, this is now Ryan Condal’s show, for better or worse – and we’re hoping it gets back on track right from the off.

Release date: 21 June 2026

The Bear (Season 5 – Disney+)

The fifth and final season of Christopher Storer’s kitchen drama inherits a genuinely messy situation from where season four left things. Chef Carmen announced his retirement from the restaurant business entirely, signing away his stake and leaving his protege Sydney to run The Bear without him. She agreed to stay, on condition that Carmy’s cousin Richie be made a partner. For those of us familiar with show and its brilliant cast of characters, it doesn’t sound like a recipe for smooth operations.

Whether Carmy stays gone – or whether the show finds a way to pull him back into the kitchen – is the main question hanging over this final run. All eight episodes arrive at once on Disney+, so at least the wait between courses will be short. The question is whether The Bear’s writers can deliver a satisfying conclusion to one of the most stressful, and best loved, shows on TV.

Release date: 25 June 2026

Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness (Season 1 – HBO Max)

Post-Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry David seems to have found an entirely new arena in which to be publicly humiliated: 250 years of American history. This sketch comedy series – produced with Barack and Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground – drops David into key moments from the US’s past with predictably disastrous results. From what I’ve seen so far, it looks to be very much a continuation of the style of comedy he’s established in his previous shows.

As with Curb, you can expect plenty of familiar faces to pop up: Bill Hader and Kathryn Hahn as Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln, Jon Hamm and Sean Hayes as the Wright Brothers, Jerry Seinfeld and David as Lewis and Clark, and even an appearance from the former POTUS himself. The Obamas wanted to make something to respectfully mark the America’s 250th birthday, but Larry David luckily had other ideas.

Release date: 26 June 2026

Little House on the Prairie (Season 1 – Netflix)

The original series ran for nearly a decade before signing off in 1983, so Netflix’s reimagining has a long shadow to step out of. This version is described as part hopeful family drama, part epic survival tale, and part origin story of the American West, which suggests the show’s creators are aiming for something with a little more grit than Michael Landon’s broadly wholesome take on Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books.

Alice Halsey (Lessons in Chemistry) leads as Laura Ingalls, with Luke Bracey as her father Charles and Crosby Fitzgerald as Caroline. Notably, the cast also includes indigenous actors Alyssa Wapanatâhk and Meegwun Fairbrother, suggesting a more considered treatment of Native Americans that feature in Wilder’s original stories, in what would be a significant departure from the original series. The show has already renewed for a second season well ahead of its premiere, so Netflix’s confidence in it is clearly high.

Release date: 9 July 2026

Lucky – Season 1 (Apple TV)

Anya Taylor-Joy returns to TV after a six-year hiatus for this slick crime caper that’s basically “what if The Queen’s Gambit knew how to crack a safe?” Based on Marissa Stapley’s novel, the seven-parter sees Taylor-Joy’s eponymous grifter caught between a rock and several hard places when a major score implodes spectacularly; cue the FBI on one side and a seriously ticked-off crime boss on the other. Timothy Olyphant plays the father who schooled her in the dark arts of the long con, which should add some satisfying family texture to all the high-stakes running and scheming.

Release date: 15 July 2026

Ted Lasso (Season 4 – Apple TV)

Three years after a third season that was widely assumed to be the show’s finale, Ted Lasso is back and, in typical fashion, he’s taken on a challenge nobody asked him to. This time around, Jason Sudeikis’ relentlessly upbeat American coach is steering a second-division women’s football team towards the light, which should give the show plenty of fresh dramatic territory without abandoning the warmth that made it such a phenomenon in the first place. Hannah Waddingham, Brett Goldstein, Juno Temple and most of the old Richmond faithful are back.

Release date: 5 August 2026

Lanterns (Season 1 – HBO Max)

Lanterns appears to be a whole new breed of DC Universe superhero story. Despite featuring not one but two Green Lanterns – grizzled veteran Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) and raw recruit John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) – it’s apparently closer to True Detective than Titans, with the Lanterns rocking up in small town Nebraska to investigate a murder and butting heads not only with the local sheriff (Kelly Macdonald) but each other. This grounded, low-power approach feels refreshing – although it’s clear that good old-fashioned superpowers will be making an appearance somewhere in the eight episodes.

Release date: 17 August 2026

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Season 1 – HBO Max)

The announcement of this show raised many questions. Firstly, do we really need a new screen adaptation of the Harry Potter books when there’s a bunch of perfectly serviceable movies to stream? Secondly, are the characters and plotlines interesting enough to justify all that time and investment? And lastly, when the books’ author delights in using her fame and fortune to further a divisive agenda that millions of people find distressing, do we really want to be shining a spotlight on her?

Controversy aside, there’s clearly a market for this: the teaser clocked 277 million views in 48 hours. And, with Succession producer Francesca Gardiner and Game of Thrones director Mark Mylod running the show and a cast that includes bags of talent, there’s every sign it’ll be well made too. HBO has plans for a full seven seasons, so barring an absolute disaster, it looks like the Boy Wizard is here to stay.

Release date: Christmas 2026