NPR Critics Pick Their Favorite TV From A Strange 2020
It has been a momentous year for everything we consider TV.
A pandemic, civil rights reckoning, streaming war and presidential election shook up the industry in a dozen different ways. It blurred lines between genres, platforms and story forms, while also encouraging us to develop our own, deep rabbit holes of favorite media. So when our team of four critics sat down to figure out what we liked most onscreen this year, we each had a lot of stuff on our lists no one else did.
That's why our list crosses a lot of boundaries, including projects technically released as feature films. It's a powerful example of how much quality entertainment was available this year, even after Coronavirus lockdowns shut down productions and upended release schedules.
In alphabetical order, here's our best of 2020 — and we know it's a long list, so you can use these alphabetical links to skip around: B, C, D, F, G, H, I, J, L, M, N, O, P, Q, T, W.
Better Call Saul, Season 5 (FX and FX on Hulu)
This outstanding FX series long ago rendered pointless any comparisons to Breaking Bad, of which it is technically a prequel. The story it's telling is so very much its own — by turns gritty and funny, melancholic and viciously violent. In its penultimate season, the transformation of Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk) into Saul Goodman — a criminal lawyer's who actually a criminal lawyer — is just about complete. We finally saw the series' two disparate plot threads — Jimmy's and Mike's (Jonathan Banks) — come together, a richly satisfying consummation for those viewers who've complained about the series' pacing, and who've longed for those two characters to share the screen. The fact that it's all set against the very real, and immensely worrying, potential downfall of the show's beating heart — Rhea Seehorn's astonishing performance as Jimmy's girlfriend Kim — invests us that much deeply in the show's dangerous and duplicitous world. — Glen Weldon, Aisha Harris, Eric Deggans
Black Is King (Disney+)/Between the World and Me (HBO and HBO Max)
In a year that saw lots of reflection on systemic racism and police brutality, these two films offered emotional, effective meditations on Black joy and pain in is Beyonce's "visual album," loosely inspired by story, using arresting images and banging tunes to portray the peoples of the African diaspora rediscovering their heritage as leaders and royalty. is a different kind of tone poem, centered on passages read by performers like Oprah Winfrey from Ta-Nehisi Coates' book, which was written as a letter to his teen son. It explores the dangers Black people face from police brutality and the joy which comes from Black love and achievement, perfectly presenting the duality of African American life. —
