The best British TV of 2025

Dramas often steal the spotlight on these lists, but this year when we put the call out to BFI curators for their TV of the year, recommendations for non-fiction programmes came flooding in. Seeking justice and truth have been big themes in 2025, and it seems audiences are craving authenticity more than ever. 

Bibaa & Nicole: Murder in the Park (Sky) and Caroline Flack: Search for the Truth (Disney+) were vital examples of TV documentary series unravelling the circumstances behind real-life tragedies. ITV’s The Hack dived deep into the murky world of tabloid phone-hacking. Institutional failings were highlighted in Grenfell: Uncovered (Netflix), which coincided with the public inquiry into the 2017 tragedy. BBC’s Panorama: Undercover in the Police held the Metropolitan Police Service to account by revealing evidence of a continuing culture of racism, misogyny and Islamophobia at Charing Cross police station. Questions around trust with broadcasters surfaced this year too. Gaza: Doctors Under Attack (Channel 4) was initially commissioned by the BBC and then dropped when another documentary, Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone, ignited a storm of controversy over neutrality.

Of course, it hasn’t all been heavy. There’s been plenty of room for fun, too. Take Celebrity Traitors (BBC), one of the biggest shows of the year, which proved that people still love the thrill of watching shows as they air live. Meanwhile, Amazon Prime Video’s psychological thriller The Girlfriend had us gripped trying to figure out who to side with. All in all, it’s been a year bursting with creativity and fresh ideas, with plenty of shows becoming both huge hits and essential conversation starters. 

– Chantelle Lavel Boyea 

Creators: Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham

It was near impossible to miss Netflix’s groundbreaking psychological crime drama Adolescence. Written by Stephen Graham and Jack Thorne, the series follows the Miller family, whose lives are turned upside down when 13-year-old schoolboy Jamie (Owen Cooper) is arrested for killing his female classmate. The show explores themes of toxic masculinity and online misogyny, which have remained key topics in global discourse throughout the year. Each episode of this four-part series is filmed in one continuous take – an incredible technical feat and an absorbing formal strategy to engage the viewer with very difficult subject matter.

Among the show’s many achievements is the discovery of actor Owen Cooper, who made history as the youngest person to win an Emmy in his breakout role as Jamie. Elsewhere in the cast, Ashley Walters is superb as DI Luke Bascombe, Stephen Graham takes us on an incredibly emotive journey as Jamie’s father Eddie Miller, and Christine Tremarco is powerfully cathartic as Jamie’s mum, in despair at the tragic impact on their lives.  

– Chantelle Lavel Boyea 

Creators: Alex Thomas and Lindsay Konieczny

Sisters Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman were last seen celebrating Bibaa’s birthday in a London park, taking photographs as they laughed and danced into the early hours of the morning. When neither was heard from the following day, family and friends repeatedly called the police, urging them to take their concerns seriously, only for Nicole’s boyfriend to discover their bodies in the park 36 hours later. These shocking murders exposed a litany of police failures, highlighting the impact of institutional racism and violence against women in our society.  

The story is powerfully recounted through intimate interviews with family, friends and the police officers who worked on the case. The documentary makers had access to vital evidence, including numerous harrowing phone calls made to 999. Details relating to two officers who posed with the sisters’ bodies and shared the images with colleagues are particularly difficult to witness. Despite campaigning against these institutional failures, mother Mina Smallman humbles the viewer when she reflects on the detectives in charge of her daughters’ case, saying: “Nothing about that team made me think they didn’t have our backs.” 

– Nidhi Shukal

Creators: Benjamin Zand

Macroscopic images of Gaza City (intact in 2023, now razed and ruined) bookend a programme that’s mostly more microscopic: sharing claims by IDF soldiers, interviewed by producers Zandland (specialists in testimony-driven journalism), of having witnessed multiple unprovoked war crimes committed with impunity. 

News coverage of Gaza provokes considerable debate, but this year a smaller number of long-form journalistic documentaries rose to controversial prominence. For example, the BBC had sat on the equally disturbing Gaza: Doctors Under Attack before eventually returning it to its producers who licensed it to Channel 4 for UK broadcast, and to US-based Zeteo for worldwide online distribution. Breaking Ranks, besides sitting on ITV’s proprietary platforms, is also freely available on YouTube. This memorable film, while principally narrating deadly events, also suggests their effects on the troubled men recalling them: “I keep thinking we can make things right. But you can’t bring them back.” 

– Patrick Russell 

Creator: Aschlin Ditta

“I just wanted a new kitchen!” So says busy lawyer Emma (Jill Halfpenny) halfway through 5’s absurdly enjoyable crime thriller, which centres on one woman’s quest to thwart a street-full of curtain twitchers and build an extension to her house. Turns out the house is not the only thing semi-detached in Emma’s life: her marriage to unemployed John (Rupert Penry-Jones) is on the outs, a disgruntled police officer (Jamie-Lee O’Donnell) has made a complaint against her, and her dodgy dealing dad (Larry Lamb) has pulled some strings to get her planning permission and is now calling in the favour. Oh, and her next-door neighbours won’t move their tree… is it because their missing son is buried underneath? 

The sheer number of entanglements between these neighbours is worthy of a crime scene investigation board. The show is filled with blackmail, extramarital affairs, kidnapping and murder, yet most compelling of all is the mystery of who cancelled the planning permission? If you’ve yet to consume this heady cocktail of cowboy builders, boundary disputes and rolled steel joists I urge you to do so; it’s the campest thing you could watch this Christmas. 

– Elinor Groom

Creator: Marlon James

Booker Prize-winning novelist Marlon James made his screenwriting debut with this virtuosic Greek tragedy masked as a crime noir. Tamara Lawrance plays the eponymous Millie, a former Met police detective who returns to her childhood home in Kingston and joins the Jamaican police force. The crimes she unravels scale from local street gangs to police corruption to international human trafficking, preoccuppying the traumatised but resolutely moral Black who seeks redemption (or maybe punishment?) in her work. 

Running parallel is the story of Millie’s sister Hibiscus (an astonishing breakthrough performance by Chyna McQueen), who finds refuge from the transphobic abuse she receives daily with the homeless Gully Queens living in Kingston’s storm drains. The dialogue between the sisters is electric, loaded with layers of shared suffering that cut through the gulf between their different life experiences. When Joe Dempsie appears as a star detective from Scotland Yard, the narrative threatens to turn toward a more generic chalk-and-cheese crime drama, but all that is upended by shocking and unsettling twists midway through the series. Get Millie Black is compelling and stylish in its execution, but its greatest strength is the force of emotion expressed by its complex characters. 

– Elinor Groom 

Creators: Gabbie Asher and Naomi Sheldon

Amazon Prime Video’s gripping thriller The Girlfriend is centred around wealthy gallery owner Laura (Robin Wright) and her son’s new girlfriend, estate agent Cherry (Olivia Cooke). Laura is convinced that Cherry has something to hide and is concerned about her intentions towards her son, but her protective mother instincts are tested as she goes on a mission to uncover Cherry’s mysterious past. The show flips between each of their points of view, sometimes revisiting a scene and forcing the viewer to figure out who is the more unhinged of the duo.  

The dynamic between the two is what makes the show so entertaining. It’s difficult to decide who or what to trust. Just as you think you’ve learned enough to side with one person, an event seen from the other’s perspective will have you doubting again. The Girlfriend plays with our expectations, building the suspenseful foundations for an excellent plot twist. 

– Chantelle Lavel Boyea 

Creator: Olaide Sadiq

Coinciding with the Grenfell Tower Inquiry, this powerful and deeply affecting documentary sheds new light on one of the UK’s most devastating modern tragedies – the fire in a London tower block in June 2017 that killed 72 people. With compelling new evidence and analysis, the film presents harrowing first-hand accounts from firefighters, journalists and bereaved family members, offering a sobering reminder of the human cost of systemic failure. What sets this documentary apart is its meticulous investigation into not only the events of the night itself but the decisions and conditions that led to them. It exposes a web of institutional failings, regulatory oversights and cost-cutting measures by public authorities and industry stakeholders. Despite the scale of the disaster, accountability remains elusive. 

Television continues to play a vital role in amplifying stories of injustice. Just last year, ITV’s Mr Bates vs the Post Office reignited scrutiny of one of the UK’s most notorious scandals. In a similar vein, Grenfell: Uncovered harnesses the global reach of Netflix to ensure this story resonates far beyond national borders. The cladding used on Grenfell Tower was manufactured by Arconic, a US company with international distribution, underlining that this is not just a British tragedy but a global one. The documentary serves as both a memorial and a call to action that demands transparency, justice and a vital change in housing regulation. 

– Chantelle Lavel Boyea 

Creator: Jack Thorne

Writer Jack Thorne’s most ambitious project this year combined an exploration of the phone hacking scandal with the unsolved murder of private investigator Daniel Morgan. The Hack weaves together these two complex investigations to make a challenging and involving series, the title evoking the hacking of voicemails and the sleazy journos who undertook it, as well as the violent method of Morgan’s killing. 

Thorne skilfully varies tone and pace across the seven episodes, interspersing dense dialogue scenes with rapidly edited montages of image and sound, playful cameos and animation. David Tennant deftly portrays journalist Nick Davies, who drives – and at times subverts or interrupts – the narrative, breaking the fourth wall to give clarification at moments of potential confusion. In contrast, Robert Carlyle, as the beleaguered DCS Dave Cook, plays it straight, giving a performance of painful honesty. Both men battle personal demons and dark forces, and the series doesn’t shy away from equating the dodgy practices of tabloid journalism with gangsterism and police corruption.  

– Josephine Botting 

Creator: David Attenborough

In the year when we reached the first global climate tipping point, at which warm water coral reefs face mass die off, there is no film or programme more urgent for the future than Ocean with David Attenborough. Released in cinemas ahead of World Oceans Day, it is as beautiful and awe-inspiring as any of our most beloved broadcaster’s series and will hopefully reach wide audiences through streaming on Disney+.

As Attenborough observes, “We have seen more of other planets that we have of the ocean,” and here the most gorgeous underwater paradises are contrasted with the ruins left after the destructive violence of bottom trawling. Watching natural history programmes now feels more like bearing witness to loss and waste than enjoying beauty, but we must not look away. And from plankton to whales, there is so much to enthral and amaze – and to remind us of what is worth saving.

– Lisa Kerrigan

Creator: Steve Thompson

Apple TV’s action-packed thriller Prime Target follows clever Cambridge maths student Edward Brooks (Leo Woodall), who is on the verge of a breakthrough when a mysterious enemy tries to stop him. Fighting for answers (and his life too), Ed teams up with a government agent, Taylah (Quintessa Swindell), to unravel a high-stakes conspiracy.  

Written by Steve Thompson, the narrative is a perfect blend of silliness and escapism, taking us on a journey full of twists and turns at every run. High-end, big-budget TV productions like this require a lot of investment, typically from the coffers of big streaming companies and involving co-production between multiple different countries. This one is very entertaining to watch, not least because it is beautifully shot across a range of UK and US locations. 

– Chantelle Lavel Boyea 

Creator: Sally Wainwright

Happy Valley (2014 to 2023) writer and director Sally Wainwright returns to West Yorkshire for a biting portrayal of a group of menopausal women who decide to form a rock band to enter a talent show. If Wainwright has a signature, it could be described as a daring blend of trauma, comedy and commentary on the deep structural misogyny of society. Sounds like a riot? It is. 

At the heart of the programme are Joanna Scanlan’s Beth and Rosalie Craig’s Kitty, two luminous portrayals of women finding friendship through the deepest moments of despair. Parent and child relationships also take centre stage, with storylines showing the indifference and accidental cruelty of young people towards their mothers, and the deep heartbreak that comes with caring for a parent with dementia. Along with Bridget Christie’s The Change, Riot Women is a moving and at times hilarious portrayal of women bleeding, crying, laughing and singing their way through life. According to The Spectator, it “sums up everything wrong with the BBC”. Rock on. 

– Lisa Kerrigan

Creator: Adam Curtis

Anyone familiar with the work of Adam Curtis will not be surprised by his latest five-part documentary, which came to BBC iPlayer in June. Here, the familiar devices are all present: obscure archive, ironic use of pop music, a portentous sense that all is not right. This time, however, as with his BAFTA-winning 2022 film Russia 1985-1999: TraumaZone, there’s no narration from Curtis. The footage is (largely) left to speak for itself.  

The series argues that economic forces unleashed on Britain in the 1980s have irreversibly shaped our culture – a theme harking back to some of Curtis’s best work, including The Mayfair Set (1999) and The Century of the Self (2002). The disjointed, seemingly random selection does jar at times, and the device of simplistic, rather reductive captions gives further ammunition to critics of this most singular of filmmakers. But, as always, the footage is mesmerising, and there are some remarkable, heart-rending sequences. 

– Chris Hall