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<\/p>\nTHR\u2019s TV critics celebrate their favorite small-screen turns of the year, including scene-stealing supporting work, seasoned players showing new shades of their talent, and a luminous newcomer.<\/p>\n
\tPublished on December 15, 2025\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n
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\t\t\t\t\tFrom left: Poorna Jagannathan in ‘Deli Boys,’ Nick Offerman in ‘Death by Lightning,’ Sarah Sherman as Matt Gaetz on ‘SNL.’<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJames Washington\/Disney; Larry Horricks\/Netflix; Will Heath\/NBC<\/p>\n
\n\tThere were no rules governing where the best TV performances of 2025 might come from. You could have as few credits as Owen Cooper, who won an Emmy at 15 for his first screen performance in Adolescence<\/a>, or as many credits as the late, great Graham Greene, who brought immeasurable gravity to a guest role on The Lowdown<\/a>. You could draw attention for a brief appearance in a comedy sketch or as the centerpiece of a prestige drama in which you were playing one of the last free-thinking people on Earth. You could be a decorated movie star dabbling on the small screen or a veteran of countless failed shows, finally grabbing the spotlight.<\/p>\n \n\tAs always, there were more great performances than we could possibly salute, which meant that we had to make rules.<\/p>\n \n\tThat\u2019s why, once again, we began the winnowing process by eliminating shows that already received end-of-year accolades in our respective Top 10 lists<\/a>. So Cooper (and his excellent\u00a0Adolescence\u00a0co-stars) didn\u2019t make the cut, nor did Rhea Seehorn, front and center as the star of Vince Gilligan\u2019s\u00a0Pluribus<\/a>. We determined that praises had been sufficiently sung for the likes of Diego Luna (Andor<\/a>), Noah Wyle (The Pitt<\/a>) and Seth Rogen (The Studio<\/a>), while some of our other favorite performances are sure to be mentioned when we celebrate 10 of our favorite episodes of the year later this week.<\/p>\n \n\tSo with those parameters in mind, we give you not necessarily the best TV performances of the year, but 10 \u2014 actually 11 \u2014 performances we love.<\/p>\n \tMalin Akerman,\u00a0The Hunting Wives<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tStarz-castoff-turned-Netflix-hit\u00a0The Hunting Wives<\/a>\u00a0may have been one of the most purely entertaining shows of the year, with its juicy combination of sex, violence and soap-opera silliness. And while Akerman\u2019s mischievous performance as Margo wasn\u2019t the\u00a0only\u00a0reason for its success, it\u2019s hard to deny she was the sun around which the rest of the series revolved. Akerman played the gun-toting, social-climbing seductress with a wink that let you know\u00a0Margo\u00a0is aware exactly how thick she\u2019s laying it on. But that never came across like Akerman herself felt embarrassed or self-conscious to be there \u2014 even when she was stripping down within moments of meeting Brittany Snow\u2019s Sophie, or practically purring while flirting with her under the guise of teaching her to shoot. Sure, Margo would turn out to be as toxic as they come, setting off a chain of events leading to multiple deaths. But with her beguiling mix of Texan warmth, straight-shooting snark and brazen sexuality, was it any wonder that we, like Sophie, found ourselves powerless under her spell? \u2014\u00a0ANGIE HAN<\/p>\n \tRobby Hoffman,\u00a0Hacks<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tIt\u2019s no shade to say that in its fourth season, HBO Max\u2019s hit comedy, while still very sharp, was no longer as surprising as it once was. What a joy, then, to be caught completely off guard by Randi, one of the most delightful oddballs the show has ever graced us with. Played by Hoffman with a stupefying combination of aggressive\u00a0cheeriness and completely unearned confidence,\u00a0the formerly Hasidic Randi doesn\u2019t let the fact that she\u2019d never even\u00a0seen\u00a0a movie until a few days ago stop her from making grand proclamations about \u201cthe industry\u201d \u2014 or, ultimately, from turning out to be a pretty good assistant to Paul W. Downs\u2019 Jimmy and Megan Stalter\u2019s Kayla. But Hoffman\u2019s Emmy-nominated turn on\u00a0Hacks\u00a0was just part of a very good year that also included a sexy guest spot on FX\u2019s\u00a0Dying for Sex<\/a>\u00a0and an IRL wedding to another beloved pop culture figure,\u00a0Traitors\u00a0breakout Gabby Windey. Seriously,\u00a0was\u00a0anyone\u00a0having a better time than Hoffman in 2025? \u2014\u00a0A.H.<\/p>\n \tPoorna Jagannathan,\u00a0Deli Boys<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tJagannathan, a Tunisian-born Indian-American actress with an impressively international upbringing, long ago moved past the stage of her career when casting directors saw her primarily as \u201cBackground Indian Doctor With No First Name\u201d (see: standout roles in shows like\u00a0Never Have I Ever\u00a0and\u00a0The Night Of). As good as she\u2019s been in so many things, you don\u2019t need to imagine the elation Jagannathan felt when Abdullah Saeed\u2019s\u00a0Deli Boys<\/a>\u00a0landed at her feet. That joy is evident in every frame of the Hulu comedy, in which Jagannathan plays \u201cLucky,\u201d former consigliere to a Pakistani-American crime boss, now forced to deal with his bumbling sons (Asif Ali and Saagar Shaikh). Lucky is funny, but we\u2019ve seen Jagannathan be funny before. She\u2019s also vicious, violent and generally badass, and Jagannathan seems thoroughly liberated, bringing a dangerous and hilarious swagger to every scene-stealing appearance in this clever exploration of identity and the dark side of the American Dream. \u2014\u00a0DANIEL FIENBERG<\/p>\n \tJessica Matten,\u00a0Dark Winds<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tThis would normally be the place where I would remind you that Zahn McClarnon is giving one of the small screen\u2019s best star performances in\u00a0Dark Winds<\/a>, repeating for the thousandth time that it\u2019s shameful that awards voters remain oblivious. But let\u2019s extend the laurels for AMC\u2019s Tony Hillerman adaptation, which got darker and weirder in its third season.\u00a0Dark Winds\u00a0was able to open up its world in large part thanks to the confidence that Matten brought to a mostly standalone storyline, with her Bernadette Manuelito leaving the Navajo Tribal Police for a position with Border Patrol. This allowed Matten to successfully anchor thriller and romance threads, as she held her own opposite the likes of Bruce Greenwood and Tony Serpico. In the moments that found her reintegrated into the series\u2019 main drama, I warmed to the relationship between Manuelito and Kiowa Gordon\u2019s Jim Chee for the first time. \u2014\u00a0D.F.<\/p>\n \tNick Offerman,\u00a0Death by Lightning<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tIf\u00a0Netflix\u2019s historical drama about the rise and assassination of James Garfield (Michael Shannon) had treated Chester A. Arthur exclusively as a drunken buffoon, that would have been enough for Offerman to turn the tonsorially distinctive future president into a scenery-chewing delight. Calling on the broadly comic instincts that transformed several inebriated Ron Swanson scenes from\u00a0Parks and Recreation\u00a0into venerable memes, Offerman slurs and dances and wears funny hats and makes Arthur the life of the 1880 party. But Death by Lightning <\/a>has bigger ideas about Arthur, whose unlikely path led him from Collector of the Port of New York to vice president to president. Offerman and series writer Mike Makowsky find the soft-spoken potential in Arthur; he\u2019s both a drunken buffoon\u00a0and\u00a0an underestimated pawn who realizes, for the first time in his life, that he might have more to offer. Offerman makes Arthur a comic figure, but a tragically relatable one. \u2014\u00a0D.F<\/p>\n \tMichael Sheen and Sharon Horgan,\u00a0Best Interests<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tBest Interests, which premiered on BBC One in 2023 and on BritBox this year, is a tough sell, focusing on the legal battle between two parents (Sheen and Horgan) forced to decide whether or not to continue treatment for their daughter with muscular dystrophy. It\u2019s often unbearably sad, but viewers who chose not to look away were treated to two of the very best performances of the year. The limited series, written by\u00a0Adolescence\u00a0scribe Jack Thorne,\u00a0is impressively non-judgmental, and the performances from Sheen and Horgan give viewers two characters who are flawed and tormented and each fully convinced that they\u2019re doing the right thing. At different points in the series, both Horgan and Sheen will absolutely break your heart and change your perspective on what, exactly, that \u201cright thing\u201d is. \u2014\u00a0D.F.<\/p>\n \tSarah Sherman,\u00a0Saturday Night Live<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tWhen the Long Island-born, Chicago-trained comic<\/a> was first added to the\u00a0Saturday Night Live\u00a0cast, fans of her aggressive alt-comedy roots \u2014 think David Cronenberg by way of Pee-wee Herman \u2014 wondered how she\u2019d assimilate into the venerable NBC institution. The answer almost immediately, and increasingly, has been \u201cexceptionally well.\u201d It isn\u2019t a surprise when Sherman drops by the \u201cWeekend Update\u201d desk to taunt and torment Colin Jost, nor when she embodies outlandish characters like a horny, drunk raccoon or Matt Gaetz (not all that different from a horny, drunk raccoon, I suppose). But the delight has been seeing how well she\u2019s been able to adapt her persona to play a variety of more conventional, yet still bizarrely funny, characters. It\u2019s that capacity to even be the straight-woman that has made her such an essential part of the cast. And lest you think Sherman has left her wild alter ego behind, she capped the year with HBO\u2019s\u00a0Sarah Squirm: Live + In the Flesh, a celebration of bodily fluids and other grotesquerie that proves conclusively that she has not been tamed. \u2014\u00a0D.F.<\/p>\n \tLovie Simone,\u00a0Forever<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tNetflix\u2019s adaptation<\/a> of Judy Blume\u2019s YA classic lived or died by your ability to believe that the young couple at its center felt such an immediate and intense connection that they had no choice but to weather all the ups and downs of teen romance. Thankfully, its leads, played by Lovie Simone and Michael Cooper Jr., shared that sort of chemistry and then some. Simone, in particular, brought us into every complicated emotion boiling just underneath the surface, from giddy attraction to nerve-jangling anxiety to utter heartbreak, even as Keisha fought to keep her head high through a sex tape scandal and make herself into the high-achieving golden girl her mother (an excellent Xosha Roquemore) raised her to be. Her luminous performance rendered it impossible not to get swept up in the whirlwind right along with Keisha \u2014 no matter if you were young enough to relate to her as a peer, or old enough to hope you\u2019d know better.\u00a0\u2014 A.H.<\/p>\n \tTramell Tillman,\u00a0Severance<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tIn the first season of Apple TV\u2019s dystopian workplace dramedy, Tillman\u2019s Mr. Milchick cut a menacing but mysterious figure, a secondary villain for Lumon\u2019s innies to rebel against. It wasn\u2019t until season two<\/a> that\u00a0Severance\u00a0really cracked him open, squishing him between the proverbial rock of unhappy upper management and the proverbial hard place of an increasingly restless MDR team. As the newly promoted boss was forced to swallow one humiliation after another, Tillman planted simmering resentment and growing disillusionment under Milchick\u2019s previously unshakeable composure, then set them off like bombs in scenes like the marching-band-soundtracked finale battle or (perhaps even more menacingly) in the \u201cGrow up\u201d growl he gives himself in the mirror. Milchick may still be a bad guy for now \u2014 or at least is working for them \u2014 but Tillman made sure we understood him to be as complicatedly and tragically human a figure as any of the severed souls he spends his day managing.\u00a0\u2014 A.H.<\/p>\n \tAimee Lou Wood,\u00a0The White Lotus<\/p>\n \t\t\t![\"Malin](\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-hollywoodreporter-2021\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Courtesy of Netflix\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Courtesy of Max\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: James Washington\/Disney\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Michael Moriatis\/AMC\/Courtesy Everett Collection\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Larry Horricks\/Netflix\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Samuel Dore\/BBC\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Nora Rockwell\/NBC\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Elizabeth Morris\/Netflix\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Apple TV+\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Fabio Lovino\/HBO\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n