Roll up, roll up, it’s Deadline’s annual guide to the best TV coming to a small screen near you next year. If you can’t get enough Italian gangster prequels, are dying to know where Lupin protagonist Assane Diop’s story goes next or need your fix of Disney+ bonkbuster, then you’ve come to the right place, as we walk you through 2026 in TV terms.
Gomorrah (Sky)
Sky
Now here’s a prequel the world can get on board with – or on the peddle bike if we’re using the above image as a reference. Already envisaged as running for at least three seasons, Gomorrah – The Origins takes audiences back to 1977 Naples, tracking the criminal coming-of-age of the young Pietro Savastano, a “tough city kid who grew up in the poorest parts of Secondigliano.” Produced by Sky Studios and Cattleya, the show will expand the world of one of Sky’s most popular foreign dramas, inspired by Roberto Saviano’s bestselling non-fiction novel. Across five seasons and more than 50 episodes, Gomorrah was a huge hit for the pay-TV giant, putting it on the map in Italy. Sky may not make an enormous amount of original content from the nation anymore, but if The Origins can attract the kind of ratings and awards buzz of its predecessor, that will go a long way to keeping its name relevant in the original content game. The prequel stars Luca Lubrano, Francesco Pellegrino and Flavio Furno.
Lupin (Netflix)
‘Lupin’
Netflix
When it lands in fall 2026, it will be three years since the previous instalment of Netflix’s slick French-language drama about master thief Assane Diop, played by the charismatic Omar Sy. That’s a long time to wait – and will no doubt raise the regular debate around wait times between seasons of streaming shows – but it’ll also mean anticipation reaches a crescendo and it’s bound to win over any frustrated fans. Based on the Arsène Lupin character Maurice Leblanc created in the early 1900s, the series initially followed Assane’s revenge mission against the Pellegrini family who wronged his father, before morphing into a search for his abducted son and then on to his mission to steal the Black Pearl. Viewers will know Part 3 ended with Assane finally in jail, but given his skills picking locks and disappearing from tight spaces, we can confidently say he won’t remain there for long. Ludivine Sagnier, Antoine Gouy and Soufiane Guerrab are among those returning, with the creative team of George Kay and François Uzan back, and Louis Leterrier and Sy himself the showrunners.
Rivals (Disney+)
Disney
The buzz is building for the second season of Disney+’s Rivals to the point where the actual Queen consort of the UK visited the set earlier this month. Queen Camilla was on set to pay tribute to the late Jilly Cooper, the Rivals author who passed away earlier this year, and the cast and creative team behind the bonkbuster have been doing the same as they ready a second run of the adaptation starring David Tennant, Nafessa Williams and Aidan Turner. Following a dramatic cliffhanger ending to Season 1, audiences can expect more drama, swagger and jaw-dropping romps in the second run as Rupert Everett and Hayley Atwell join the cast and the show continues to delve deep into the cutthroat world of 1980s British TV franchise bidding (it’s way more fun than it sounds, promise). This quintessentially British period drama may have seemed a bit leftfield when Disney+ first jumped aboard, but it is now firmly established as one of the streamer’s most prominent international originals.
Berlin and the Lady with an Ermine (Netflix)
Felipe Hernández/Netflix
The secret sauce behind the success of Álex Pina and Esther Martínez Lobato’s hit Money Heist franchise has been the ability to reinvent while retaining DNA. With that in mind, enter Berlin and the Lady with an Ermine, the second season of Money Heist spin-off Berlin that brings a name change and some new characters, but the same sense of fun that has cemented the franchise as one of the most successful non-English-language shows of all time. This time around, Berlin and Damián are bringing the gang together to pretend to steal Da Vinci’s ‘Lady with an Ermine’ portrait. But their real target is the Duke of Málaga and his wife, a couple who think they can blackmail Berlin. With his mix of deadly dark humor and a clearly tortured past, Pedro Alonso’s Berlin was always ripe for a spin-off, which has manifested in the show’s success on Netflix. The Lady with an Ermine will likely prove that Pina and Lobato continue to be one of the deadliest duos in the biz today.
The Night Manager (BBC, Prime Video)
The Ink Factory/BBC/Amazon/Des Willie
Tom Hiddleston’s Jonathan Pine is back after a decade. Now living as Alex Goodwin – a low-level MI6 officer running a quiet surveillance unit in London – his life is comfortingly uneventful. It won’t surprise audiences to find out that this won’t be the case for long. Starring Hiddleston, Olivia Colman, Elizabeth Debicki and Hugh Laurie, The Night Manager was one of 2016’s most popular dramas and it has been welcomed back into the fold, with a deluxe double-season order and a new co-pro partner in Prime Video. This season, which kicks off on New Year’s Day on the BBC and mid-Jan on PV, welcomes Daisy Jones & The Six star Camila Morrone, but what of Laurie’s Richard Roper? Last seen bundled into the back of a van, all eyes will be on Roper’s potential return. John le Carré adaptations have proven to be a rich well for the BBC to mine – it is also adapting The Spy Who Came in From the Cold and A Legacy of Spies starring Matthew Macfadyen with MGM+ – and this one could be a banker.
How To Get to Heaven From Belfast (Netflix)
Christopher Barr/Netflix
Ever since Derry Girls wrapped in 2022, all eyes have been trained on where next for the stupendous comic talent of Lisa McGee. McGee’s next project may also have a Northern Irish city in the title, but the vibe has shifted, as has the commissioner, following a sign-of-the-times moment that saw Netflix swoop in and pick up the show from Channel 4 when the latter simply couldn’t afford it. How to Get to Heaven From Belfast is described by McGee as a “mash up of two different genres, mystery and comedy,” following Saoirse, Robyn and Dara as they head out on a weird and wild adventure “full of twists, turns, and arguments about eyelash extensions.” Expect some trademark McGee wit with perhaps a bit more bite and a few more weighty plot points than Derry Girls. Viewers are in for a treat.
4 Blocks Zero will one of the big draws for HBO Max as it rolls out in more major European territories next year, especially in Germany, the country from where the prequel to the critically-acclaimed 4 Blocks hails. While the original series, made for Warner-owned German network TNT Serie between 2017-2019, focused on how Ali ‘Toni’ Hamadi, the leader of a Berlin-Neukölln crime family, attempted to leave the gangster’s life behind, the prequel details how the Hamadi family became the most influential Arabic underworld clan in the city. Quirin Berg and Max Wiedemann are back to exec produce, with Bernd Lange leading a writing team. No detail yet on the cast, but this is certain to be one of 2026’s biggest European drama launches. The original 4 Blocks won major domestic prizes such as the Grimme-Preis for lead actor Kida Khodr Ramadan Ramadan, co-star Veysel Gelin, and director Marvin Kren, along with six German Television Awards, including Best Drama Series. 4 Blocks Zero will have similarly lofty ambitions.
El Homenaje (SkyShowtime)
This crime family thriller, whose English-language title is The Tribute, feels like it could be described as SkyShowtime’s answer to Succession. Shot in Spain, it tells the story of Adolfo Novak (Eusebio Poncela), patriarch of one of the most powerful families in the country, who gathers his family and close friends to celebrate his 80th birthday. As the evening unfolds, a dark truth gets revealed that has the potential to destroy everything. It quietly filmed last year, with the cast and production team primarily hailing from SkyShowtime’s well-received drama series Matices (Shades). Along with Poncela, who plays the steely lead, Miriam Giovanelli, Juana Acosta, Enrique Arce, Raúl Prieto, Luis Tosar, Luisa Mayol and Elsa Pataky all return in new roles, having appeared in Matices. Secuoya Studios, which has been attaching itself to several eye-catching Spanish-language dramas, is producing alongside Stellarmedia. Prime Video is attached for second window rights – another sign that the Spanish-language project has been well received in Spain and could be set for further travel.
Vaka (Prime Video)
Deadline first told you about this dystopian thriller out of Sweden back in March. Aliette Opheim and Jonas Karlsson star in Vaka, which follows the spread of a deadly insomnia epidemic in Stockholm through the eyes of people in very different circumstances – for example, a disgraced minister has to balance addressing the crisis and caring for his son, while an ambulance nurse goes to great lengths to save her lover and a teenage girl protects a neighbor’s son after his family succumbs. Their stories slowly intertwine and the living nightmare fuels growing panic. Skybound Entertainment, no stranger to end-of-times narratives thanks to its work on The Walking Dead, controls the rights and struck a deal with Prime Video Nordics to local rights, while shopping it elsewhere. Amazon MGM Studios, Unlimited Stories and Sagafilm, the latter of which was acquired by Skybound and 5th Planet Games last year, are also attached, with Nordic soft money also involved. In a post-pandemic world where a collective trauma has been felt worldwide, the six-part series will have a greater significance for many viewers. Prime Video now also has rights in Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Poland and the Netherlands, and will launch the show on January 30, 2026.
DR Sales
Oscar-nominated writer-director Martin Zandvliet’s latest TV series is rather fantastically billed by its distributor, DR Sales, as “Succession with tractors and tradition.” The eight-episode show stars the likes of Katrine Greis-Rosenthal, Elliott Crosset Hove, Lars Brygmann, Charlotte Fich, Simon Bennebjerg and Joachim Fjelstrup in a drama set in rural Denmark, where in-fighting breaks out over the future of a family farm. When the patriarch names his youngest daughter as his successor, the family is torn apart as her brother, a resentful nephew and others vie for control. The family are further forced into the spotlight by a shocking scare involving two missing children. European commissioning club New8 is behind the show, which Danish pubcaster DR had initially ordered in 2024. International delivery is expected in Q4 2026, with a festival release expected before that, around the second quarter of next year. Maybe this is one for Canneseries? Fans of Zandvliet’s Academy Award-nominated Land of Mine will be ploughing the fields in anticipation for this one.