The Best Comedy-Drama Series on Netflix

What are the best comedy-drama TV series on Netflix? The 14 titles below star and have been created by the likes of Rachel Bloom, Mae Martin, Will Sharpe, Richard Roxburgh, Natasha Lyonne, and Dhruv Sehgal. They feature actors such as Son Ye-jin, Logan Browning, Alex Lawther, Taylor Schilling, Laura Prepon, Uzo Aduba, Gina Rodriguez, and Gillian Anderson. And they also come from the minds of Justin Simien, Jenji Kohan, Charlie Covell, Jennie Snyder Urman, Lauren Iungerich, Laurie Nunn, Barry Sonnenfeld, and Amy Poehler. A “⭐” marks an editors' choice.

You might find more comedy-drama TV shows in our list of best TV series. If you're looking for more TV series on Netflix, we've recommendations for some select other genres as well that you should check out.

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Praised for its authenticity and humanising portrayal, a South Korean Chaebol heiress accidentally crash-lands in North Korea, where she falls in love with a Korean People's Army captain who hails from a powerful family.

A successful young female lawyer (Rachel Bloom, also co-creator) who suffers from depression and anxiety uproots her life in New York and moves to a suburb in California to find love and happiness in this romantic musical.

Set in a fictional predominantly white Ivy League college, Justin Simien turns his successful satirical film into a broader series about black students dealing with social injustice while figuring out who they are. A Netflix original.

Two teenage outsiders — a budding psychopath and a rebel hungry for adventure — embark on a road trip in search of the latter's real father and become involved in a series of increasingly violent events. Second and final season couldn't live up to the first. A Netflix original.

A recovering addict and Canadian stand-up comic (Mae Martin, also co-creator and a writer) based in London tries to get rid of her addictive behaviours and get a handle on her new relationship with a woman who's only dated men previously. Lisa Kudrow has a recurring role. A Netflix original.

Olivia Colman leads this short-lived black comedy that follows the titular, dysfunctional family: a music teacher (Colman), her depressed children's author husband, their adult twin children — an inventor and a musician — and the husband's senile mother.

Gina Rodriguez (Annihilation) stars as a devout Catholic and working young Latina virgin who becomes pregnant after an accidental artificial insemination in this rom-com satire. Loosely based on a Venezuelan telenovela, it parodies elements and tropes that are common in Latin American telenovelas.

Starring Mithila Palkar in the lead, this comedy-drama about a 20-something couple — creator Dhruv Sehgal is the other — living in Mumbai and dealing with life's ups and downs has consistently improved over its three-season run, having begun frivolously. A Netflix original.

Four American teens, of African, Latinx, and Mexican descent (Sierra Capri, Jason Genao, Brett Gray and Diego Tinoco), must deal with the evolving nature of their lifelong friendships as they start high school in the rough inner-city of South Los Angeles. A Netflix original.

The lives of incarcerated women at a minimum-security federal prison in upstate New York, including a normally law-abiding privileged woman who's sentenced for a decade-old crime. Peaked in season four, but managed to recover for the seventh and final one. From Jenji Kohan, a Netflix original.

A smart defence lawyer (Richard Roxburgh), addicted to cocaine, gambling, and women, takes up the most outrageous cases — involving everyone from cannibals to sex offenders — available in Sydney, Australia.

Co-created by Amy Poehler, Natasha Lyonne and Leslye Headland, a 36-year-old woman (Lyonne) keeps dying and reliving the night of her birthday party, and must figure out how to break the time loop. A Netflix original.

Lacking in lovemaking experience but full of advice thanks to his sex therapist mom (Gillian Anderson), a socially awkward British teenager (Asa Butterfield) agrees to start a school sex therapy clinic with a rebel (Emma Mackey) in need of money. A Netflix original.

Three resourceful orphans — an inventor, a reader, and a baby with sharp teeth — must outsmart an evil distant relative who's after their sizeable fortune, while trying to uncover the mystery behind a secret society that their parents were involved in. Based on Lemony Snicket's popular series of children's books. A Netflix original.